“The city was perfectly quiet,” declares a Belgian witness,[64] “until about 8.0 p.m. At about 9.15 p.m. I was in bed reading when I heard the sound of rifle-fire.... The noise of the firing came nearer and nearer.” The first shot was fired from a window of “Emulation Building,” looking out on the Place de l’Université, in the heart of the town.[65] The Place was immediately crowded with armed German soldiers, firing in the air, breaking into houses, and dragging out any civilians they could find. First nine men (5 of them Spanish subjects) were shot in a batch, then 7 more.[66] “About 10.0 p.m. they were shooting everywhere. About 10.30 p.m. several machine guns were firing and artillery as well.” (The artillery was firing on private houses from the opposite side of the Meuse.[67]) “About 11.0 p.m. I saw between 45 and 50 houses burning. There were two seats of the fire--the first at the Place de l’Université (8 houses--I was close by at the time), the second across the Meuse on the Quai des Pecheurs, where there were about 35 houses burning. I heard a whole series of orders given in German, and also bugle calls, followed by the cries of the victims, and I saw women with children running about in the street, pursued by soldiers....” (a 28). [Illustration: 5. ANS: THE CHURCH] [Illustration: 6. LIÉGE: A FARM HOUSE] The arson was elaborate. In the Rue des Pitteurs the waggon loaded with benzine moved from door to door.[68] “About 20 men were going up to each of the houses. One of them had a sort of syringe, with which he squirted into the house, and another would throw a bucket of water in. A handful of stuff was first put into the bucket, and when this was thrown into the house there was an immediate explosion” (a 31). At the Place de l’Université, when the Belgian fire-brigade arrived, they were forbidden to extinguish the fire, and made to stand, hands up, against a wall (a 28, 29). Later they were assigned another task. “About midnight,” states a witness (a 30), “a whole heap of civilian corpses were brought to the Hôtel de Ville on a fire-brigade cart. There were 17 of them. Bits were blown out of their heads....”