“The cavalry charged through the streets sabring fugitives, while the infantry, posted on the foot-paths, had their fingers on the triggers of their guns waiting for the unfortunate people to rush from the houses or appear at the windows, the soldiers praising and complimenting each other on their marksmanship as they fired at the unhappy fugitives. Those whose houses were not yet destroyed were ordered to quit and follow the soldiers to the railway station. There the men were separated from mothers, wives, and children, and thrown, some bound, into trains leaving in the direction of Germany. They saw their carefully-collected art and other treasures being shared out by the soldiers, the officers looking on. Those who attempted to appeal to their tormentors’ better feelings were immediately shot. A few were let loose, but most of them were sent to Germany.
“On Wednesday at daybreak the remaining women and children were driven out of the town--a lamentable spectacle--with uplifted arms and under the menace of bayonets and revolvers. The day was practically calm. The destruction of the most beautiful part of the town seemed momentarily to have soothed the barbarian rage of the invaders. On Thursday the remnant of the Civil Guard was called up on the pretext of extinguishing the conflagration; those who demurred were chained and sent with some wounded Germans to the Fatherland, whilst the population had to quit.”
Fair Louvain is now a place of desolation and ashes. Its treasures have been madly sacrificed to the god of war. A graphic description of the ruin has been written by Professor E. Gilson, of the University of Louvain, in the form of a letter to the Belgian Minister of Justice. It says in part:
“At the ‘Seven Corners’ Louvain reveals itself to my eyes like a luminous panorama in the glade of a forest. The center of the city is a smoking heap of ruins. Houses are caved in, nothing remains but smoking ruins, and a mass of brick. It is a veritable Pompeii. But how much more tragic and vivid is the sight of this new Pompeii! An oppressive silence everywhere. Everybody has fled; at the windows of cellars I see frightened faces, and at the street corners Prussian sentinels, sordid, immovable and silent.