"Shortly afterwards German soldiers drove before them 300 men and lads to the corner of a street, where they were shot. The sight filled us with horror. The Burgomaster,[213] two magistrates, the rector of the university, and all police officials had been shot already. "With our hands bound behind our backs we were then marched off by the soldiers, still without having seen our wives and children. We were taken out of the town to a neighbouring hill, from which we had a full view of the burning town. St. Peter's was in flames, and the guns were firing shot after shot into the unhappy place." * * * * * Louvain was not burned down by accident. The soldiers worked on a plan. They began in the heart of the city and set the place on fire house by house and street by street. For thirty-six hours or more they continued to fire the houses. A student of Oxford, who was in the town on 29th August, tells us that "burning houses were every moment falling into the roads; shooting was still going on. The dead and dying, burnt and burning, lay on all sides. Over some of them the Germans had placed sacks. I saw the bodies of half a dozen women and children. In one street I saw two little children walking hand in hand over the bodies of dead men. I have no words to describe these things. [Illustration: The Destruction of Louvain. _Photo, Newspaper Illustrations, Ltd._] "The town hall was standing on Friday morning last, and, as we plainly saw, every effort was being made to save it from the flames. We were told by German officers that it was not to be destroyed. I have no doubt that it is still standing. The German officers dashing about the streets in fine motor cars made a wonderful sight. They were well dressed, shaven, and contented looking; they might have been attending a fashionable race-meeting. The soldiers were looting everywhere; champagne, wines, boots, cigars--everything was being carried off." Until the Germans are driven out of the city we shall not know the full extent of the ruin which they have wrought. The Church of St. Peter has been terribly damaged, but not, perhaps, beyond repair; but the buildings of the university have been almost wiped out. The great library has been given to the flames. I think you can imagine the anguish of a professor who watched the burning from his garden, and saw the charred leaves of priceless manuscripts floating past him. About the time that the English were winning England a Saracen chief named 'Amr burned the great library at Alexandria, and the world has never forgotten his infamous deed. What will it say of the burning of the Louvain library, more than twelve and a half centuries later, by men of a race which boasts of its culture? * * * * *