The old square upon which this tower was placed was quite in keeping with it. There were rows of gabled stone houses of great antiquity, still inhabited, stretching away in an array of façades, gables, and most fantastic roofs, all of mellow toned tile, brick and stone.
Thierry Moertens, who was a renowned master printer of the Netherlands, was born here, and is said to have established in Alost the "very first printing house in Flanders." From this press issued a translation of the Holy Bible, which was preserved in the Museum of Brussels, together with other fine specimens of his skill. A very good statue in bronze to this master printer was in the center of the market place, and on the occasion of my last visit, there was a sort of carnival in the town, with a great gathering of farmers and merchants and their families from the surrounding country all gathered about the square, which was filled with wagons, horses, booths, and merry-go-rounds, above which the statue of the old master printer appeared in great dignity. There was a great consumption of beer and waffles at the small _estaminets_, and the chimes in the belfry played popular songs at intervals to the delight of these simple happy people, all unaware of the great catastrophe of the war into which they were about to be plunged.
A disastrous conflagration destroyed most of Alost in 1360, and thereafter history deals with the fury of the religious wars conducted by the Spanish against Alost, a most strongly fortified town. The story of the uniting of these Spanish troops under the leadership of Juan de Navarese is well known. Burning and sacking and murder were the sad lot of Alost and its unfortunate citizens, who had hardly recovered, ere the Duke d'Alençon arrived before the walls with his troops, bent upon mischief. The few people remaining after his onslaught died like flies during the plague which broke out the following year, and the town bid fair to vanish forever.
Rubens painted a large and important picture based upon the destruction of Alost, and this work was hanging in the old church of St. Martin just before the outbreak of the war in 1914. Its fate is problematical, for St. Martin's Church was razed to the ground in the bombardment in 1914-15, the charge being the usual one that the tower was used for military purposes by the French.