He showed the most profound indignation, and offered his apologies with lively gestures. He said that my papers proved quite clearly that I was a Netherland journalist. He declined to allow any further examination, and gave the peremptory order that everything that had been taken away from me should be returned at once. When I had put everything in my pockets, he asked: "Have they given you back everything?" "Yes, sir," I replied, "excepting my pocket-knife." "Where is that knife?" Von Manteuffel asked the sergeant who had fetched my belongings. "But that is a weapon, general!" "Return that knife at once!" The general expatiated once more on the francs-tireurs of Louvain, and asked me to explain in my papers without fail that the citizens had to thank themselves for what had happened. The sergeant who had taken me to him was ordered to escort me, that I might not have any further trouble with the soldiers in the city. I started on my return journey to The Netherlands sick to death. The consequences of lying on that wet floor made themselves badly felt, and besides being quite stiff and chilly, my interior was badly out of order. Many refugees returned to Louvain that morning simply driven by hunger. I myself lived still on the breakfast I had at Maastricht on the previous day, and badly wanted something to eat, but still more a cup of hot coffee, to warm my chilled body. I was able to get the coffee--without milk or sugar--from a peasant along the road, but food was out of the question. Most of the people had nothing left, others saved a piece of bread as hard as a brick for the moment when hunger might drive them to extreme distress. Whatever sums I offered, nothing could be had before I came to Tirlemont, where I was able to buy three eggs. I had a rather amusing meeting at Tongres, with a Netherland colleague, who was on his way to Louvain. "Where do you come from?" was his first question. "From Louvain!" "Have you been there already? I am going there too. How are things there?" "Have you got anything for me to eat?" I asked, not heeding his words. I said it quite innocently, without any other desire beyond that of taking off the edge of my really trying hunger. But the effect of my question was surprising indeed. He looked at me dumbfounded, and asked: "But where did you stay then during the night?" "I have been arrested." "And did you not get anything to eat?" "No!" He was back in The Netherlands before me. CHAPTER IX LOUVAIN UNDER THE MAILED FIST THE next day at Maastricht I tried to cure the evil results of that night on the damp floor in Louvain by eating great quantities of rice and drinking much cocoa with liberal doses of cinnamon, but as it was of no avail, I started again the next morning.