DESTRUCTION OF THE PALACE OF THE NATION.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1131, 28 December 1883, Page 2

DESTRUCTION OF THE PALACE OF THE NATION.

The Parliament Houses at Brussels—locally known as the Palace of the Nation —which have just been destroj’ed by fire, formed the central portion of a large block of buildings in which is transacted all the administrative business of the Government, each member of the Ministry having his bureau and his official staff there. This block covers an area of 300 yards wide and nearly 100 yards deep, and is completely isolated by the Rue Royale, the Rue de la Loi, the Rue Dncale, and the Rue de Louvain. The southern facade of the two chambers faced the central avenue of the park, at each other extremity of which, at a distance of 500 yards, stands the Royal Palace. As all this part of Brussels occupies a plateau, overlooking the older portions of the city, the fire must have been visible from a great distance ; and it is to be feared that the calamity has involved the destruction of a number of statues—among others, one of Leopold the First, by W. Geifs ; as also of a fine collection of historical portraits, including fifteen from the pencil of Galliat ; and one by Starck representing the present King of the Belgians swearing to maintain the Constitution in 1865. There was nothing remarkable, from an architectural point of view, in the houses themselves, which were completed just a century ago, from a design by Guimard, under instructions from the Empress Maria Theresa, and were rather heavy in appearance. The old Council of Brabant used to hold their assemblies in them at the time the -Austrian Netherlands were governed by the archdukes of the Empire ; and the States General also sat there from 1817 to 1836. Since that time the two Chambers of the Belgian Kingdom have conducted their deliberations under the roof of the Palace of the Nation, and the voices of the worthiest of the statesmen who have helped to consolidate the independence of the country and to advance its prosperity, have echoed in what is now a heap of smoking ruins.