"...Son français exquis reposait l'oreille de la bouillie flamande.
La conversation touchait à tout, sauf aux matières de la foi, mais c'était surtout.....
Fort lié avec quelques seigneurs qui s'efforçaient de lutter contre la tyrannie de l'étranger, il les approuvait,
tout en redoutant pour la nation belgique un bain de sang..." (p.201,202).
In English :
His wonderful French made his ear quiet after that flemish gibberish.
(...) he feared a slaughter for the Belgian nation..."
Marguerite Yourcenar does not hesitate to insult the Flemish language
and make a historical falsification :
In the sixteenth century, the time of her novel, a Belgian nation did not exist at all.
What is now Belgium and the Netherlands
were at that time together and known as the "17 Provinces"
under which including the countship of Flanders,
the duchy of Brabant, the countship of Holland and 14 others.
Those 17 provinces had the form of a Lion and sometimes called the "Leo Belgicus".
"La nation belgique" is for her what is now Belgium.