This opinion of German jurists, which is, moreover, shared by all writers, has not prevented the Germans from resorting in 1914 to the same practices as in 1870, and even adding thereto fresh cruelties. In Belgium it was the clergy who principally served as hostages. The majority of the Belgian priests who had been ill-treated came under this category. M. Hottier, mayor of Homécourt; M. Varin, curé (both of whom were taken prisoner on the night of the 3rd-4th August, 1914); MM. Alexis and Jean Samain (of the _Souvenir Français_) were taken away to Alsace and German Lorraine. MM. Hottier and Varin had both been denounced by a spy living at La Petite-Fin, whose reports served as a pretext for the accusation made against them by the German authorities. Mayor and curé were first brought to Malancourt, the seat of headquarters. “My companion,” the mayor of Homécourt afterwards told an editor of _L’Est Républicain_, “was more unfortunate than I. He was not allowed time to take his hat nor put on his stockings; he was clad only in his cassock. He marched in a bad pair of slippers. His colleague at Malancourt clothed the wretched ecclesiastic. “They searched me, seized my purse, which contained a sum of twenty-seven francs, my papers… But the acutest suffering which rent my heart was when the hands of a Boche officer snatched my poor ribbon of 1870, my humble decoration. It was as if I had been punished with a lowering of rank.” MM. Hottier and Varin were transferred to Metz and brought before a court-martial. The former was charged with having organised a campaign of francs-tireurs; in regard to the latter, another complaint was formulated—that he had urged some young people in the annexed territories to enlist in the foreign legion. The discussions ended in a double acquittal. But M. Hottier was treated with no more consideration on that account. For five days he was shut up in a cell, getting only food that was uneatable. Fortunately a generous intervention took place. M. Winsbach, an ex-chemist, succeeded in bringing about some mitigation of the rigour of certain orders. He enjoyed a high reputation at Metz. He used his business connections, his influence, his knowledge of the German and French languages sometimes to recommend sick people to the care of the doctors, sometimes to act as interpreter and express their desires or pass on their explanations. These are services which will never be forgotten by the hostages, to whom M. Winsbach rendered them with unwearied devotion. The hostages were brought from Metz to Ehrenbreitstein, where there were 232 French prisoners, all natives of Metz, Thionville, etc. There were also the brothers Samain, the eldest of whom was (until the month of December) supposed in France to be dead, executed by the Germans. He had tried in vain to get news of himself brought through, but his correspondence could not escape the fine net of supervision which encompassed him.