Among the many items relating to Gerard Ceunis that his great niece Elsie De Cuyper kindly shared with me (see the previous post) is a two-page handwritten account by the artist, in English, of his family’s connection with Charles Beelaert, a wealthy Ghent resident and benefactor. I’m still struggling to reconcile this story with the printed family history that Elsie also sent me, but for now I’ll simply present Ceunis’ narrative as I found it. I assume that the family legend of his grandmother marrying an adventurer and deserter from the French royalist army, not to mention the suggestion of aristocratic connections and a lost family fortune, would have appealed strongly to Gerard Ceunis’ romantic imagination.
The opening paragraph of Ceunis’ handwritten narrative
Charles Beelaert by Gerard Ceunis
Along the Coupure (1), Ghent, the Hospital, a large building, bearing an inscription and the name of Charles Beelaert. He was my great-uncle, my grandmother’s brother. They lived at Afsnee, 5 or 6 miles from Ghent in the Kasteel van Afsnee (2). There was also a second sister, who was known by my parents as Meetje – being my brother’s godmother. They were wealthy. They had the lone fishing rights on the Lys for many miles. The knowledge of this fact gave me much satisfaction when I went fishing in that river as a boy, even though I never caught anything.
The youngest Beelaert sister, who was to become my grandmother, fell in love with a certain Ceunis, a kind of adventurer whom the family thought to have been a deserter from the followers of the French King when he stayed at Ghent during the Napoleonic Disturbances (3). The romance was not looked upon with favour by the Kasteel, and the couple eloped. There was a usual sequel – a baby, a girl. The event softened Beelaert’s heart. The lovers married and were allowed to return to Afsnee and to live in the Kasteel. They stayed there happily for many years during which four more children were born, all boys. My father was the eldest.
The Beelaert family’s ‘kasteel’ or manor house at Afsnee (via https://ontdekdrongen.org/)
Alas, Ceunis died. His wife, my grandmother, still youngish, soon married another man, and left the Kasteel. The five children however were brought up by Beelaert and his sister. All was very well till one day, the two eldest boys, home from college, behaved as though they were ‘fils a papa’ (4) and strutted about in the village with top hats, walking sticks and so forth. Charles Beelaert did not stand for that. There were frequent quarrels and at last a final rupture. The Ceunis children were sent away from the Kasteel. By then, the eldest, born away, had already married. She became the wife of Van Assche, a well-known and rich notaire from Ghent. I always thought that his house in the Nederkouter (near the famous Verloren Brood Straatje) was one of the nicest Renaissance residences of the town (5). I hope it is still there, intact. The four brothers had to look out for jobs, and there was much poverty in the land. Anyhow what did it matter. They were the only heirs to the Beelaerts’ fortune, and ‘Meetje’ was extremely kind to them. There was no complete enmity either. I heard many tales of functions and family reunions, which my parents had to attend and where they met many of Beelaert’s rich friends, especially Roman Catholic bishops and similar high-placed clericals.
Alas again, ‘Meetje’ died before her brother. No more help. When Beelaert himself passed [from] this life, the event was soon known by my parents’ neighbours, and they streamed to the house to express their congratulations. The Ceunisses were rich. At least they thought so for a few days. When the will was read – a bombshell! The entire fortune was left to the Hospice for the purpose of erecting a Hospital at Ghent (probably much needed).
Oh yes. There was a court case. The findings were not satisfactory, a small percentage was allotted to the heirs. Divided into five parts, it did not come to much. I know that most of this went into town shares, which eventually all dwindled down to nothing –
Perhaps, for a time it helped to [sic] our education.
That is the reason why the Hospital building bears the name of Charles Beelaert. [6]
At his funeral each mourner (and there were many) carried a candle which held a golden coin in the wax.
- In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Coupure was a busy commercial canal connecting Ghent with Bruges, lined with expensive town houses.
- Afsnee is a village on the Lys river to the south-west of Ghent. ‘Kasteel’ is Dutch/Flemish for a castle or manor house. The village was famously home to the Belgian Luminist painter Anna De Weert (1867 – 1950).
- Louis XVIII of France fled to Ghent in May 1815 after Napoleon’s return from Elba and the defection of Marshal Ney.
- A French phrase meaning ‘little big man’, or alternatively ‘spoilt brat’.
- Nederkouter is a long street in the centre of Ghent, while Verloren Brood Straatje literally means ‘lost bread street’.
- Interestingly, I’ve come across a similar story of a lost fortune in my own family history, recounted in her autobiography by my distant relative, the New Zealand crime novelist Ngaio Marsh. Perhaps every family has a story of this kind. See this blog post: https://mprobb.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/the-seager-family-a-new-discovery/
The Quest for Ceunis 