Ludovic and Gertrude Author:Hendrik Conscience The scene of this romance is laid in Antwerp, during the period when Flanders was under the dominion of Spain, and when the terrible Duke of Alva, as representative of Philip II, ruled the country with an iron rod. The Flemings had banded themselves together under the name of Gueux, and swore to free their native land from the hated yoke of the... more » foreigner, or die in its defense. Hendrik Conscience won his place in the literature of the world, which he held to the end of his busy career; the titles of his books mount up to a hundred. But while he was hailed as a great author by all Europe, the deeper and more enduring value of his work, which is the rehabilitation of a language and the founding of a literature, was understood only in Belgium itself and in Holland.« less