Down The Belliard Steps: Discovering the Brontes in Brussels

’A craze blown across the Channel from Britain to Brussels - people who meet to talk about the works of the Brontë sisters.’ (From a Brussels press article about the newly-formed Brussels Brontë Group)

In 1842 Charlotte and Emily Brontë arrived in Brussels to study French at the Pensionnat Heger boarding school at the bottom of the ’Belliard steps’. Their stay in the Belgian capital is the least-known episode of their lives, despite the importance of Charlotte’s years in Belgium for her life and work; two of her novels (’Villette’ and ’The Professor’) were inspired by her time in Brussels and her love for her teacher, Constantin Heger. ’Down the Belliard Steps’ tells the story of a group of enthusiasts coming together in Brussels to explore the sisters’ time in the city.

Beginning with her personal experience as a newcomer to ’the capital of Europe’ in 2004, Helen MacEwan tells of her journey of discovery into the history of a vanished quarter of Brussels and her quest to seek out fellow Brontë enthusiasts - a quest that leads to the formation of a literary society, the Brussels Brontë Group. ’Down the Belliard Steps’ describes the people she encounters and the adventures she has along the way. We meet an Heger descendant, learn about the re-discovery of a lost Brontë ’devoir’ (one of the Brontës’ 40 extant French essays written under Heger’s direction) and search in Brussels cemeteries for the tomb of a friend of the Brontës who died in a Brussels school. We meet researchers and people inspired creatively by the Brontës. We delve into what it is that draws so many people, from all walks of life, to feel an affinity with members of the world’s most famous literary family.

Today, the Brussels Brontë Group is a flourishing, multinational literary community, promoting interest in the Brontës through talks, guided walks and reading groups. ’Down the Belliard Steps’, crammed with information and anecdotes about Charlotte and Emily’s time in the Belgian capital, is a light-hearted but intensely personal and romantic account of the Group’s genesis and flowering.

The book is a ’must-read’ for literary enthusiasts and if any encouragement were needed to visit the Brontës’ Brussels, it would be difficult to find anything more seductive than this enchanting narrative.