Anyone who, like myself, has been able to see in what frame of mind the people were during the first days of the German occupation, cannot believe it possible that they would even think of taking up arms. They lived in an unending terror, tried to forestall the invader's demands, and, if anything was requisitioned, they searched each other's houses to see whether anything was kept back and all the demanded bottles of gin or claret were forthcoming. There was not one who did not keep his door open as widely as possible to prove his complete submissiveness, and to let the Germans enter his house at any time to check what was to be found there. Every moment I saw men or women run into the street offering cigars to the soldiers from open boxes, smiling nervously and desperately, trying to behave as unconcernedly as possible. During those early days payment for refreshments was accepted hardly anywhere, and people often refused to accept money from me, because they mistook me for a German. Men and young women in the prime of life sat whole days in a chair, or lay abed, because in the most literal sense of the word they were unable to stand on their feet for fear and terror, caused by the incessant menaces. And during these first days of the war I had not met a single person who was able to settle down quietly in the existing circumstances, not a single person in whom anger and fury subdued fear and terror. Is it thinkable that persons in that frame of mind would take up arms and invite the enemy's revenge upon themselves and those near and dear to them, a revenge of which they were so mortally afraid? And supposing for a moment that the allegations made by the Germans were true, that there had been shooting at Visé for example, then one might perhaps consider the revenge justifiable, but should also expect that they would punish with a heavy heart, conscious that they were inflicting a necessary evil. Of a heavy heart, however, there was not a trace. In the previous chapter I described how beastly they behaved during the destruction of Visé; how the soldiers drank immoderate quantities of alcohol, and then jeered at the wretched refugees; how they indulged in unmitigated vandalism, and wrecked by hand things of which they knew that by and by would be destroyed by fire. Children and old people perished in consequence of the cruel heartlessness of the Germans, and in St. Hadelin College they robbed their own wounded of medical help and surgical appliances. This happened not only at Visé, but also at other places which I visited, more especially at Louvain. And those who read the following chapters carefully will find sufficient support for my opinion, that _Belgium is innocent of the base charges and allegations uttered by Germany, which country soiled its conscience still worse, first by plunging the little kingdom into the direst misery, and then by accusing it falsely of crimes which it never committed_. CHAPTER VI WITH THE FLEMINGS