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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: COM-COR |
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CONSCIENCE, HENDRIK (1812-1883) , Flemish writer, was born at Antwerp on the 3rd of December 1812. Although he invariably signed his name Hendrik, his baptismal name was Henri. He was the son of a Frenchman, Pierre Conscience, from Besancon, who had been chef de timonerie in the navy of Napoleon, and who was appointed under-harbourmaster at Antwerp in 1811, when that city formed part of France. Hendrik's mother was a Fleming, Cornelia Balieu. When, in 1815, the French abandoned Antwerp after the Congress of Vienna, they left Pierre Conscience behind them. He was a very eccentric person, and he took up the business of buying and breaking-up worn-out vessels, of which the port of Antwerp was full after the peace. The child grew up in an old shop stocked with marine stores, to which the father afterwards added a collection of unsaleable books; among them were old romances which inflamed the fancy of the child. His mother died in 182o, and the boy and his younger brother had no other companion than their grim and somewhat sinister father. In 1826 Pierre Conscience married again, this time a widow much younger than himself, Anna Catherina Bogaerts. Hendrik had long before this developed an insatiable passion for reading, and revelled all day long among the ancient, torn and dusty tomes which passed through the garret of " The Green Corner " on their way to destruction. Soon after his second marriage Pierre took a violent dislike to the town, sold the shop, and retired to that Kempen or Campine which Hendrik Conscience so of ten describes in his booksthe desolate flat land that stretches between Antwerp and Venloo. Here Pierre bought a little farm, with a great garden round it, and here, while their father was buying ships in distant havens, the boys would spend weeks, and even months, with no companion but their stepmother. At the age of seventeen Hendrik left the paternal house
an idiom which was then considered too vulgar to be spoken, and much less written in, by educated Belgians. Although, close by, across the Scheldt, the Dutch possessed a rich and honoured literature, many centuries old, written in a language scarcely to be distinguished from Flemish, a foolish prejudice denied recognition to the language of the Flemish provinces of Belgium. As a matter of fact, nothing had been written in it for many years, when the separation in 1831 served to make the chasm between the nations and the languages one which could never be bridged over. It was therefore with the foresight of a prophet that Conscience wrote, in 183o itself, "I do not know how it is, but I confess I find in the real Flemish something indescribably romantic, mysterious, profound, energetic, even savage. If I ever gain the power to write, I shall throw myself head over ears into Flemish composition." His poems, however, written while he was a soldier, were all in French. He received no pension when he was discharged, and going back idle to his father's house
Guicciardini
series of scenes in the War of Dutch Independence which lives in Belgian literature under the title of In't Wonderjaar 1566; this was published in Ghent
Leopold I. that Conscience published his second work, Fantasy, in the same year, 1837. A small appointment in the provincial archives relieved him from the actual pressure of want, and in 1838 he made his first great success with the historical romance called The Lion of Flanders, which still holds its place as one of his masterpieces. To this followed How to become a Painter (1843), What a Mother can Suffer (1843), Siska van Roosemaei (1844), Lambrecht Hensmans (1847), Jacob van Artevelde (1849), and The Conscript (185o). During these years he lived a variegated existence, for some thirteen months actually as an under-gardener in a country house, but finally as secretary to the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. It was long before the sale of his books, greatly praised but seldom bought, made him in any degree independent. His ideas, however, began to be generally accepted. At a Flemish congress which met at Ghent
Leopold . To write in Flemish had now ceased to be regarded as a proof of vulgarity; on the contrary, the tongue of the common people became almost fashionable, and Flemish literature began to live. In 1845 Conscience published a History of Belgium, but he was well advised to return to those exquisite pictures of Flemish home-life which must always form the most valuable portion of his repertory. He was now at the height of his genius, and Blind Rosa (185o), Rikketikketak (1851), The Decayed Gentle-man (1851), and The Miser (1853) rank among the most important of the long list
The portraits of Conscience present to us a countenance rather French than Flemish in type, with long smooth hair, contemplative dark eyes under heavy brows, a pointed nose, and a humorous broad mouth; in late
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