Thus they are now trying to make people believe that Louvain was not intentionally burned, but that the town suffered a bombardment. This is the legend which they related to Dr. Sven Hedin, while calling his attention to the accuracy of their fire:-- "Eleven miles to Louvain. Once in the town one goes a good way before coming to the first ruins. By no means all Louvain has been destroyed by the bombardment, as is imagined. Hardly a fifth of the town is destroyed. It is true that this fifth included many precious buildings, which cannot be replaced; particularly regrettable is the loss of the library. In the midst of this destruction, however, like a rock in the midst of the sea, rises the Hôtel de Ville, the proud jewel of the period of 1450, with its six slender open towers. I went right round the Hôtel de Ville, and I could not with the best will in the world discover a scratch on these walls, with their prodigal richness of ornamentation. Perhaps there may somewhere be a scratch from a shell-splinter which escaped my eyes. Thanks to the excellence of the German fire not a single moulding of the six towers has been damaged. The reason for the bombardment of Louvain is known. The civil population fired from the windows on the German troops at the time of their entering the town, and as this crime could not be punished otherwise, the houses were burned by bombardment. When the German soldiers sought to extinguish the flames in the houses adjacent to the Hôtel de Ville the francs-tireurs again fired on them with their carbines. _Any other army in the world would have done the same_, and the Germans have themselves profoundly regretted that they were forced against their will to resort to such means." (SVEN HEDIN, _Ein Volk in Waffen_, p. 149.) They told the same story at Termonde to Herren Koester and Noske: "It is certain," say these gentlemen, "that Termonde was not intentionally burned." On the other hand, the Germans try to dissemble the extent of the damage inflicted. In the October issue of the official and propagandist _Journal de la Guerre_ they give a plan of Louvain on which the parts destroyed are shown by shading. Now this plan is falsified in two ways. In the first place, no distinction is made between the portion built on and that occupied by market gardeners, which is considerable; so that the ratio of the part destroyed to the part left intact is distorted. Secondly, this portion is absolutely diminished; many quarters burned are shown as intact; to mention only one example, the Old Market, where only the College of the Josephites and a few adjacent houses have been left standing, is marked as untouched by fire.