Page 45 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

Chapter 5
VAN DEN POEL AND RYKEN

fN i834, BRucrs, wrrH A populATroN on 20,000, ranked
f as the chief city of West Flanders but commercially
its glory lay in the past. Until silting sands had clogged
the tidal river that gave it access to the North Sea it
had been the great seaport of northern Europe, but for
several centuries since its medieval heyday Bruges had
been afiectionately dubbed "The Sleeping Princess."
To Father Van den Poel Bruges was "home." He had
been ordained there and for several years prior to his
departure for the American "mission," he had been in
charge of the Sunday Schools in the city proper and its
environs. Ife was well known.
Recent political changes had made Bruges and all of
West Flanders the ideal place to recruit members for
the new foundation. On July 21, 1831, Belgium had
crowned its own king, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
The Dutch had tried to unseat this so-called "upstart"
but had given up when the Great Powers threatened
to intervene. The new king had signed a Concordar
with the Holy See, and one of the first places to feel
the efiect was Bruges which had been suppressed as an
episcopal see in Napoleon's day. On ]uly 23, 1834, when
the see had been canonically erected Rt. Rev. Francis
Boussen had been installed as bishop. Van den PoeI
and Ryken had arrived in Bruges the following Sep-
tember.
For months the two Founders marked time. It was
Ryken's belief that Father Van den Poel did not know
lvhere to begin, what to do, or even what he planned to