Tournai

As part of his public offensive, Versluys has given journalists tours of his warehouse on the outskirts of the provincial town of Tournai.

Rudy Opsomer, the president of the Friends of the Tournai Cathedral, said the garments were usually kept in the church's chambers, far from the public eye.

So, he said they were lucky to have the permission of Tournai's Bishop Guy Harpigny to hold the show.

Paul-Olivier Delannois, the mayor of Tournai in southern Belgium, through which the river runs, complained in a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron.

The plague in Tournai, then part of France, as depicted in "The Annales of Gilles de Muisit" from the mid-14th century.