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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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illumination when I was in Belgium. I had always presumed that the Walloons were Pootestant. They are irreligious. The few Protestant churches that originated, that sprang up at the time of the Reformation among the Walloons were largely Calvinist rather than Lutheran, although there were some Lutherans among them. They did spring up. You remember Van Gogh's parents were Protestant Walloons, and I think his father was a pastor, wasn't he? I said this to M. Troclet, “Why, we've always been taught that the Walloons were Protestant.”

“Oh,” he said, “There were some. There used to be some churches in the Walloon area. Oh, but that was a hundred years ago--the last of them.”

Interviewer:

You say “irreligious” meaning no church at all?

Perkins:

No church at all, and I think --as near as I could make out, and I met a let of them-- they are, I wouldn't say athiests because they're not aggressive enough for that, but they're agnostic. Now, the Walloons--they do not believe, and they see no reason for it. If you press them, they say, “Well, I don't know. There's no way of knowing about those things.”

There's no issue--except that they hate the Flemings, and they hate the Catholics with a bitter and suspicious hate. That's what the king business is all about, you see. It's the clash of the two. The clash was going on in first-rate





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