1. Laken – spelled Laeken in French – is a suburb to the north of Brussels. Van Gogh boarded with the family of Pieter Jacobus Plugge who lived at 6 Chemin de Halage (Trekweg in Dutch). Plugge was a member of the church council of the church at Kathelijneplaats (place Sainte-Catherine), where the training college was then located. See Lutjeharms 1978, pp. 83, 105. Pieter Jozef Chrispeels, one of Van Gogh’s fellow students, recalled the strict regimen Vincent imposed on himself: in his lodgings at the Plugges’ he refused to use the bed, preferring to sleep on the floor, on the carpet next to his bed. See Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 1, pp. 180-182, and cf. Plan guide de Bruxelles & de ses faubourgs, novembre 1869 (SAB, Plan 102).

2. Probably ‘a couple of days’ before 15 November (see Date). After his work for Goupil at the World Exhibition in Paris, Theo returned to the Netherlands, stopping off to see Vincent on his way to Etten.

3. This path ran alongside the Willebroek Canal, ending in boulevard d’Anvers. Barges laden with coal moored at the Steenkoolkaai and the Koolmijnenkaai, which lay at the end of Trekweg. The gasworks beside the Willebroek Canal used coke to produce gas, and employed numerous coal-porters to carry the sacks of coal.

4. Cf. Acts 13:2.

5. John 9:4.

6. Cf. John 5:17.

7. The 16-page brochure Entreprise de la ferme des boues. Cahier des charges (adopté en séance du conseil communal, le 10 novembre 1866) gives a detailed description of the sanitation services performed by this firm. The first article reports: ‘L’Entreprise de la ferme des boues’ (sludge works) has as its purpose the cleaning and spraying of the public highways, the emptying of cesspools and, in general, everything concerned with municipal sanitation’ (SAB 2903 83). It was located at the quai de la Voirie, near the Willebroek Canal (SAB 6217-6224).

8. This most likely refers to the last print in the series La vie d’un cheval (The life of a horse), titled Montfaucon, after Hippolyte Lecomte. It is mentioned in the Catalogue du fonds Goupil et Vibert (c. 1848), but has not been traced. Van Gogh showed an interest in this motif: he later drew Old nag (F 1032 / JH 368 ) and spoke of the Flat-bottomed fishing boat on the beach by Anton Mauve and the Old white horse by Herman J. van der Weele.

9. The source of this statement has not been found.

10. Biblical; cf., for instance, Matt. 22:31.

11. It is a matter of some dispute as to who uttered these heroic words: General Pierre Jacques Etienne Cambronne or General Claude Etienne Michel. This remark – famous in France – which was made at Waterloo, is treated in detail in Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du xixe siècle. Paris 1867, vol. 3, pp. 203-204.

12. Three versions are known of Charles Degroux’s The paupers’ pew: a painting of 1854 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, acquired in 1930). Ill. 134 . In 1869, Uncle Vincent van Gogh bought the watercolour The paupers’ pew (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). A third version was exhibited in 1849 and 1850 (present whereabouts unknown). See exhib. cat. Ypres 1995, pp. 117-118, cat. nos. 143-145. Antoine Marie Eusèbe Voncken made a lithograph, published by B. Vanderkolck (Brussels, Prentenkabinet of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek). Ill. 1880 .

13. Ps. 121:5.

14. The Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Musée des Beaux-Arts) in Brussels.

15. The works exhibited by Charles Degroux were Franciscus Junius secretly preaching the Reformation at Antwerp (1860); The drunkard (c. 1853); The pilgrimage of Saint Guido at Anderlecht (c. 1856-1857); Saying grace (c. 1860); The conscript’s departure (c. 1869-1870) and Head of an old woman (presumably lost or destroyed). See cat. Brussels 1984, pp. 255-258.

16. The works by Henri Leys on display were Rich and poor (1837); The reinstatement of worship in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk at Antwerp (1845); The thirty-day Mass for Berthal de Haze (1854); Archduke Charles of Austria, the later Emperor Charles v, taking the oath at the triumphal entry in 1514 (1863) and The studio of Frans Floris (1868). See cat. Brussels 1984, pp. 374-380.

17. As far as is known, Joseph Coosemans’s The artists’ path at Barbizon, 1878 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts) was not purchased until 1889, so the brothers might have seen this landscape elsewhere – at Goupil’s, for example.

18. The three windmills (1772) by Balthasar Anton Duncker and Jean Philippe Le Bas after Jan Brueghel the Elder (H7) (Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet). Ill. 654 .

19. Pieter Bruegel the Elder was known as Peasant Bruegel, and Jan Brueghel the Elder as Velvet Brueghel. Below the print is written ‘Peint par Breugels de Velours’ (painted by the Velvet Brueghel).

20. The small drawing Café Au charbonnage (F Juv. XXXI/ JH Juv. 9).On the verso appear exercises in Greek pronouns, which Van Gogh probably did back in Amsterdam. See cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 66-68, cat. no. 11.

21. Uncle Vincent and Aunt Cornelie lived in Princenhage.

22. See letter 85, in which Van Gogh wrote that one had to be 24 years old to be an evangelist ‘among the workers and the poor’ in London.

a. For ‘wortelwaarheid’ (root-truth), see the word ‘wortelstelling’ (proposition) in letter 190.

23. Acts 26:18.

24. The province of Hainaut, the capital of which is Bergen (Mons).

25. The first line of this quotation seems to have been taken from Emmanuel Soudan, Petite description géographique du globe, au point de vue belge, Ghent 1854, p. 28. Most of the fragment was copied almost literally from Adolphe Siret, Récits historiques Belges, Brussels 1855, pp. 217-218. See Bart Moens, ‘Van Gogh in Brussels: a little-known but decisive stage in his early development as an artist’, in exhib. cat. Mons 2015, p. 117, n. 11 and 12. It was also cited in A. Anthelme Fritz, Esquisse d’une nouvelle Géographie de la Belgique..., Deuxième édition, Brussels 1860, pp. 45, 49-50; and in A. Anthelme Fritz, La Belgique physique, politique, industrielle et commerciale..., Brussels 1864, pp. 45, 49-50. With thanks to Dominique Guillet.

26. Lessines is in the Flemish Ardennes on the River Dendre, some 30 km south-west of Brussels.

27. Little is known of these three months in Brussels. On 12 September 1878, Mr van Gogh informed Theo: ‘Also a good letter from Vincent. He is working hard, attending classes at the training college from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, and sometimes until 8 o’clock at night. Last Sunday he was in Mechelen and Lier and held a Bible class there in the afternoon, and he has been invited back for two following Sundays.

(FR b2437).

28. See Gal. 1:17-18.

29. This analogy is also expressed in Juweeltjes uit de gedachten van C.H. Spurgeon: ‘The preaching of Paul must also be the preaching of the evangelist today’ (6th ed. Rotterdam n.d., p. 37). Görlitz, Van Gogh’s roommate in Dordrecht, said that he often saw Van Gogh reading Juweeltjes (cf. letter 104, n. 2).

30. Cf. Jas. 4:15.

31. Saint-Gilles is a district in the south-west part of Brussels, south of Bruxelles Midi (Brussels South) railway station. ‘Ancien barrière’ likely refers to the Barrière Ancien Porte de Hal. At that time there was also a ‘Barrière’ at the fork of the Chaussée de Waterloo and the Chaussée d’Alsemberg – a map of Brussels in 1870 shows various toll-gates, including one near St Antoine. The cemetery of Saint-Gilles was (and still is) located behind the Chaussée d’Alsemberg. The ‘road to Mont Saint Jean’ is the road to Waterloo.

32. Johannes Bosboom made a number of dune landscapes, mostly in watercolour. Cf. Marius and Martin 1917, pp. 146-147.

33. François Antoine Verkissen, registered as a ‘mustard merchant’, lived at Chaussée de Waterloo 117 in Saint-Gillis. (GASG).

b. ‘Gedoente’ means the house and everything around it.

34. This refers to the Chemin de Vossegat, which leads to the 12th-century ‘Kapel van Stalle’ (Notre-Dame de Bon Secours). It is now in Stallestraat, Ukkel.

35. Albrecht Dürer, Ritter, Tod und Teufel (Knight, Death and the Devil), 1513 (H74) (Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet). Ill. 1882 .

36. Van Gogh probably saw a photograph or photogravure after the painting by Carlo Dolci, Christ in the Garden of Olives, c. 1643 (Genua, Palazzo Bianco, acquired in 1874). Ill. 780 . A painting formerly attributed to Dolci, Christ in the Garden of Olives (Florence, Galleria Palatina), is now described as ‘Scuola fiorentina’. See Francesca Baldassari, Carlo Dolci. Torino 1995, pp. 77-78, cat. no. 42.

37. Rembrandt, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, c. 1657 (B75) (Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet). Ill. 1883 .

38. For Rembrandt’s Reading the Bible, see letter 37, n. 4.

39. On Corot’s Christ on the Mount of Olives , which Van Gogh had seen in May 1875, see letter 34, nn. 1 and 2. Corot was also called ‘le père Corot’. See Blanc 1876, p. 377.

40. Cf. 2 Cor. 6:10.

41. The head of the training college at this time was Dirk Rochus Bokma of Friesland. In his capacity as director, he was responsible for the curriculum and the supervision of the students. Enrolled at the same time as Van Gogh were Pieter Jozef Chrispeels, Pieter Jozef Wauters, Willem vander Haeghen and Andries van Trijffel. Felix Chrispeels attended classes part-time in 1878. See Lutjeharms 1978 and Fagel, ‘Van Gogh in Brussel’, pp. 23-27.

42. Having failed to receive a study grant, Van Gogh now left to take up a six-month position as an evangelist in the Borinage, the mining district of Belgium.

43. Rhy. ps. 42:7.