William Makepeace Thackeray,[259] in his "Vanity Fair," gives us a wonderful picture of Brussels in the year 1815, when the great battle of Waterloo was fought; and in his "Esmond" there is an exquisite account of the hero's visit to his mother's grave in a convent cemetery of the city. Charlotte Brontë,[260] in what is perhaps her best story, "Villette," describes her own experiences as a girl in Brussels very fully and vividly--so much so that many British readers cannot think of the city without thinking of "Villette." Here is her picture of Brussels on a festal night: "Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished; the town by her own flambeaux[261] beholds her own splendour--gay dresses, grand equipages, fine horses, and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even scores of masks.[262] It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams...Safe I passed down the avenues; safe I mixed with the crowd where it was deepest. To be still was not in my power, nor quietly to observe. I drank the elastic night air--the swell of sound, the dubious light, now flashing, now fading." * * * * * On Monday, 17th August, the people of Brussels knew for certain that the Germans were approaching the city. Crowds of refugees came pouring in from the villages and towns which the enemy had destroyed, and the condition of these poor folks would have melted a heart of stone. Mothers, weary and footsore, carried or dragged by the hand little children, weeping with weariness and hunger. Old men struggled along with bundles on their backs, or in wheelbarrows, or even in perambulators, containing all the little store of worldly goods which they had been able to save from the wreck of their homes. There were many widows and many fatherless in the sad throng, and they had terrible tales of sorrow and suffering to tell. Peasant women sent a shudder through the townsfolk by relating how their sons or husbands had been hanged for resisting the Uhlans. Young boys told how the priest, the doctor, and the schoolmaster of their villages had been shot, and the rest of the men carried off as prisoners of war. Still, in spite of all these alarms, the people of Brussels kept their heads. The Government put up notices warning them not to resist the German troops, and ordering them to stay in their houses with closed doors and windows, so that the enemy might have no excuse for shooting them down. [Illustration: Belgian Civic Guards]