No little astonishment was therefore created by an interview which I published with Dr. van der Goot of The Hague, who did so much excellent work in the Red Cross Hospital at Maastricht. He also had come to believe all these stories, and as everybody always mentioned a large hospital in Aix-la-Chapelle, which was said to be full of similarly mutilated soldiers, Dr. van der Goot went to that town to see for himself. The chief medical officer of that hospital in a conversation stated that not one single case of that sort had been treated in his institution nor in any of the other local hospitals where he was a visiting physician. At a meeting of the medical circle just lately held he had not heard one word, nor had any one colleague, about the treatment of similar cases. In Louvain I was myself arrested, because a more than half-drunk soldier had accused me of spying and arson! There too I had to listen to all sorts of abuse because I was a franc-tireur. And in spite of all this they tried to extract a promise from me to write against the francs-tireurs! The history of the destruction of Visé affords also interesting support to my opinion, as previously expressed, that the violent actions of the Germans took place according to a fully thought-out design. During the early days of the war the papers published a report, of German origin, that Visé had been destroyed because francs-tireurs had appeared. I was therefore not a little amazed when, arriving there on August 8th, I found the townlet entirely undamaged, and even the German military admitted that they had not heard a word about francs-tireurs. But the inhabitants were treated even then in a most vexatious manner, and on August 14th (the destruction came about on the 16th) I wrote to _De Tijd_ (No. 20457):-- "Visé is under a real reign of terror. The day before yesterday the town-crier walked the streets with his bell, and announced that within twenty-four hours everyone had to deliver his bicycle at the bridge. Anyone in whose house a bicycle should be found would be shot and his house set on fire. Yesterday morning the Germans announced once more that all arms, including those that were old or damaged or taken to pieces, should be handed in at the town-hall within an hour. If any arms should be found anywhere after that, they would shoot the inhabitants and burn down the town. Eatables and drinkables were requisitioned continuously under threats of firing the town, and the inhabitants are afraid of nothing so much as of the possibility that something may be required some day or other that cannot be produced." Even before that, on August 11th I sent a communication, by post or cable (_De Tijd_, No. 20353), in which the following is found:-- "In and round about Visé people sleep in their cellars, as they are threatened frequently that the town will be set on fire."