In the year after Waterloo William I. and John Cockerill, an Englishman, established iron-works at Seraing, within a few miles of Liége. In 1830, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands was broken up, Cockerill became owner of the business, which has grown since then, until it is now one of the largest iron manufactories in Europe, with some twelve thousand workmen constantly employed in its coal-mines and engine-works. The Palace at Seraing, from which Bishop Hoensbroeck was carried by the revolutionary mob to the Hôtel de Ville at Liége in the summer of 1789, is now the office of the well-known firm of John Cockerill and Company. [Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BOUILLON, IN THE SEMOIS VALLEY] Beyond Seraing the Valley of the Meuse winds up through the centre of what was once the Principality of Liége, and at every turn there is something which recalls the olden time. The white Château of Aigremont, where the Wild Boar of Ardennes used to live, stands boldly on its hilltop on the left bank of the river. A little farther, and we come to the Condroz country, with its capital Ciney, notorious for the insane 'War of the Cow,' and Huy, with the grave of Peter the Hermit, and its long history of suffering. The whole valley is so peaceful now, full of quiet villages, gardens, hay-fields, and well-cultivated land, that it is difficult to realize that for centuries it was nothing but a battlefield, and that in these regions the people suffered almost as much from the depredations of their friends as from the enemy, even long after the barbarism of the Burgundian period was a thing of the past. 'We have,' says Field-Marshal de Merode, during the campaigns of Louis XIV., 'eighteen miserable regiments of infantry, and fourteen of cavalry and dragoons, who are just six thousand beggars or thieves, for they have neither money nor clothing, and live by plunder on the highways, stopping public and private coaches, robbing travellers, or, pistol in hand, demanding at least a _pour boire_. Nobody can go from one place to another without meeting them, which ruins business and the whole country.'