A vivid word-picture of the scene is given by Mr. Gerald Morgan, an American, in the _Daily Telegraph_. “An hour before sunset we entered Louvain,” he says, “and found the city a smoking furnace. The railway station was crowded with troops, drunk with loot and liquor, and rapine as well. From house to house, acting under orders, groups of soldiers were carrying lighted straw, placing it in the basement, and then passing on to the next. It was not one’s idea of a general conflagration, for each house burned separately--hundreds of individual bonfires--while the sparks shot up like thousands of shooting stars into the still night-air. It was exactly like a display of fireworks or Bengal lights and set-pieces at a grand display in Coney Island. “Meanwhile, through the station arch we saw German justice being administered. In a square outside, where the cabs stand, an officer stood, and the soldiers drove the citizens of Louvain into his presence, like so many [Illustration: WRECKAGE IN THE STUDENTS’ QUARTER OF LOUVAIN. _Photo, Newspaper Illustrations, Ld._ _Face p. 87._] unwilling cattle on a market day. Some of the men, after a few words between the officer and the escorts, were marched off under fixed bayonets behind the railway station. Then we heard volleys, and the soldiers returned. Then the train moved out, and the last we saw of the doomed city was an immense red glare in the gathering darkness.” What M. Carton de Wiart Told Me. Before leaving the subject of Louvain it is necessary for me to chronicle the following, which was told me by M. Carton de Wiart, the Belgian Minister of Justice. “As to the sacking of Louvain,” he stated, “we have here a statement dated August 30th, which has been handed to the Commission by a person of universal repute in Belgium, and which has been telegraphed to us. On August 30th that person went from Brussels to Louvain. On the high-road, when he got to a place called Weerde St. George, he saw only burning villages and peasants beside themselves with terror. When he reached Louvain and got to the American College--a large number of American students, young priests, and medical students come to Louvain--he found that fire had destroyed the whole town except the town hall and city station. This gentleman noted that on Sunday last the Germans kept on kindling new fires and placing straw so as to carry the fire farther. The cathedral and the theatre had been destroyed, and had collapsed completely. So had the famous library, one of the most precious in the world, especially as regards manuscripts and works of art. The town,” he says, “presents the aspect of an old ruined city, a city like Pompeii. In the midst of this scene of desolation the only people you could see were drunken soldiers carrying bottles of wine and liqueurs in their arms, and officers themselves sitting in the streets around tables drinking like their men.” The “Times” Speaks Out. Finally I give a quotation from the _Times_:--