A Baron de S. spent the night here, and told us of the ravages made by the passing troops at his château down in the country. They had buried a Frenchman in one corner of the garden and two Germans in another and nothing was left but the house. All engravings and paintings were cut with a sword; silver platters were melted in a lump in the court yard; meat was cut up on a beautiful salon table; shoe polish was rubbed on another; pipes in the kitchen and bathroom were cut to flood the rooms; every glass in the house was broken and all the linen carried off except the handkerchiefs. _October 9th, Friday._ Baron T., another friend of the family, came to lunch. He told us of his cousin, who was one of the unfortunate victims of the sack of Louvain. This aged man (seventy years) with a thousand others, was obliged to walk for twenty-four hours with nothing to eat or drink and arms stretched up straight over their heads. The poor man, fainting with fatigue, asked permission of the soldiers to put his hands behind his neck, but this grace was denied, and after some hours more all the company was pushed into a cattle train and for eight days taken over the country, as far as Cologne, and at last released in Brussels, almost demented. When this Monsieur--of whom I speak, found himself free again he made his way, laboriously enough, to his brother's house in Brussels. The _maitre d'hotel_ opened the door and, seeing this haggard, bootless individual, who was weakened with fatigue and dazed from his recent horrible experience, did not recognize him, naturally enough, and refused him admission until the old gentleman got his poor scattered brains together enough to prove his identity. This is the story as we have it first-hand. Can it then be possible that the others we heard are true, too? _October 10th, Saturday._ I have been advertised! like a stray dog, and what a feeling of importance it gives one. A peculiar looking document with the Embassy seals of Paris and Brussels on it, arrived from the American Consul in Liége enquiring if such a person as "Me" still exists. Well, rather, I should say. Fancy one's coming all the way on foot from Brussels to find out that! Masses of soldiers and cannon passing today and news from Brussels is bad. The worst must have happened! "Antwerp, the untakable." How is it possible in a few days, with fifty-two forts in triple line? We were so depressed we could scarcely eat dinner, when about nine P. M. came the news, from a man of affairs who is just back from Brussels, that the rumor is false. We shall sleep tonight after this hope and the end of the world is not today, anyway. _October 11th, Sunday._ We have heard the raging of a distant battle for days and we tremble for the result. It seems that Antwerp is really taken, that is, "they say" so, but it is such a mystery to everybody.