committed the crime of being found present, for whatever reason, in a house where munitions or arms have been found (p. 335); and also those who have attempted to escape while they were being held as hostages (p. 151). The previous Governor-General of Belgium announced that soldiers need not be sure whether suspects are accessories or not, but that "if any hostility is displayed towards them they may raze a city to the ground." Such is the fate that General von Bülow promised the city of Brussels. The same general thought it incumbent upon him officially to inform the people of Brussels, Liége, and Namur that it was with his consent that the town of Andenne was burned, and about one hundred persons shot (_6th Report_, IV). By these proclamations and others equally sanguinary the military authorities wished to influence both the Germans and the Belgians. The former were absolved beforehand of the horrors they committed, and were assured of impunity for all the "reprisals" they might be pleased to undertake. Moreover, they were kept in perpetual horror of "francs-tireurs." Are they assailed unexpectedly by soldiers of the enemy's army? They fall back without assuring themselves of what has really happened, and return with the main body of the army to expend their rage against the "francs-tireurs." This is what took place at Tamines where more than four hundred citizens were shot down by rifle or machine-gun fire, and also in a dozen villages of Bas-Luxembourg, which were razed to the ground, and in which a thousand inhabitants were shot. _Animosity toward the Clergy._ The military chiefs bear an especial grudge against the clergy. In the manifestoes against "francs-tireurs" the priests are specially mentioned, which amounts to recommending them quite specially to the savagery of the troops. The latter are convinced that the priests incite their flocks from the pulpit, and that they place machine-guns in the belfries. So, in the sack of a village, the worst treatment is always reserved for the priests and the churches. The pastoral letter of His Excellency Cardinal Mercier gives a list of forty-three priests shot or executed.[15] There is no ignominy the troops have not inflicted on the priests. A few examples among hundreds will suffice. They forced members of the Louvain clergy to lie naked in the dung of a pig-sty. The curé of Pont-Brûlé was beaten, by order of the German soldiery, by his own parishioners. The January number of _Kunst und Künstler_ gives a drawing representing a curé hanging from a tree. At Cortemarck it was the priests who were punished because an inhabitant was in communication with the enemy (read, "the Belgians").