The soldiers in their frenzy respected no one. The Hostel for Spanish students in the _Rue de la Station_ was burnt down, though it was protected by the Spanish flag. Father Catala, the Superior of the Hostel and formerly Vice-Consul of Spain, barely escaped with his life. There was no mercy either for the old or the sick. A retired barrister, bedridden with paralysis, had his house burnt over his head, and was brought to the _Hôpital St.-Thomas_ to die. Another old man, more than eighty years old and in his last illness, was cast out by the soldiers into the street, and died in the _Hôpital St.-Thomas_ next day.[264] An aged concierge was cast alive into the blazing ruins of the house it was his duty to guard.[265] So it went on till dawn, when the havoc was completed by salvoes of artillery. “At four o’clock in the morning,” states an officer of the Ninth German Reserve Corps Staff,[266] “the Army Corps moved out to battle. We did not enter the main streets, but advanced along an avenue.... As the road carrying our lines of communication was continuously fired on, the order was given to clear the town by force. Two guns were sent with 150 shells. The two guns, firing from the _Railway Station_, swept the streets with shells. Thus at least the quarter surrounding the _Railway Station_ was secured, and this made it possible to conduct the supply-columns through the town....” It was now the morning of August 26th. At dawn Mgr. Coenraets and Father Parijs, the hostages of the preceding night, were placed under escort and marched round the City once more. If the firing continued the hostages were to be shot. They had to proclaim this themselves to the inhabitants from point to point of the town, and they were kept at this task till far on in the day.[267] The inhabitants, meanwhile, were paying the penalty for the shots which not they but the Germans had already fired. In one street after another the people were dragged from their houses, and those not slaughtered out of hand were driven by the soldiers to the _Station Square_. “I only had slippers on,” states one victim,[268] “and no hat or waistcoat. On the way to the _Station Square_, soldiers kicked me and hit me with the butt-ends of their rifles, and shouted: ‘Oh, you swine! Another who shot at us! You swine!’ My hands were tied behind my back with a cord, and when I cried: ‘Oh, God, you are hurting me,’ a soldier spat on me.”--“We had to go in front of the soldiers,” adds this witness’s wife,[269] “holding our hands above our heads. All the ladies who lived in the Boulevard--invalids or not--were taken prisoners. One of them, an old lady of 85, who could scarcely walk, was dragged from her cellar with her maid.” [Illustration: 25. LOUVAIN: THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE--INTERIOR] [Illustration: 26. LOUVAIN: STATION SQUARE]