Brussels has not been occupied by a foreign army since Napoleon's time, and that was before it was the capital of a free country. It has been forty-four years since the capital of a European Power has had hostile troops marching in triumph through its streets, and the humiliation has been terrible. The Belgians have always had a tremendous city patriotism and have taken more pride in their municipal achievements than any people on earth, and it must hurt them more than it could possibly hurt any other people. The Burgomaster, when he went out to meet General von Jarotzky, declined to take his hand. He courteously explained that there was no personal affront intended, but that under the circumstances he could hardly bring himself to offer even such a purely perfunctory manifestation of friendship. The old General, who must be a good deal of a man, replied quietly that he entirely understood, and that under similar circumstances he would probably do the same. The two men are on exceedingly workable terms, but I don't believe they will exchange photographs after the war is over. Poor Max was going to spend the night at the Hotel de Ville. Most of his assistants cleared out for the night, but he could not bring himself to leave the beautiful old building entirely in control of the enemy. He curled up and slept on the couch in his office, just for the feeling it gave him that he was maintaining some sort of hold on the old place. The Minister arranged to have his telegrams accepted and transmitted without loss of time, so we shall soon get word home that we are still in the land of the living. We wrote out our message and sent it off right after dinner, but Gustave brought it back, saying that the telegraph office was closed and that he could find no one to whom he could hand his bundle of messages. Evidently the orders for the re-opening of the place did not get around in time for our purposes. We shall try again the first thing in the morning, and hope that some of the newspaper men will have succeeded in getting their stuff out in some other way. They were around in force just after dinner and wild to get an O.K. on their stuff, so that it could be sent. The General had said that he wanted the Minister's O.K. on the men themselves, and that he himself would approve their messages after having them carefully read to him. He gave them an interview on alleged German atrocities and will probably let them send through their stories if they play that up properly.