On August 30th the staff of the _Hôpital St.-Thomas_, who had defied the proclamation of the 27th and remained continuously at their posts, took the task of reconstruction in hand.[398] A committee of notables was formed, and overtures were made to Major von Manteuffel, the German Etappen-Kommandant in the town. On September 1st a proclamation, signed by the provisional municipal government, was posted up, with von Manteuffel’s sanction, in the streets.[399] It communicated a promise from the German Military Authorities that pillage and arson should thenceforth cease, and it invited the inhabitants to come back to Louvain and take up again their normal life. The most pressing task was to clear the ruins, and to find and bury the dead. In Louvain alone, not including the suburban communes, 1,120 houses had been destroyed and 100 civilians had been killed during this week of terror. “We arrived at Louvain,” writes a German soldier in his diary on August 29th.[400] “The whole place was swarming with troops. Landsturmers of the Halle Battalion came along, dragging things with them--chiefly bottles of wine--and many of them were drunk. A tour round the town with ten bicyclists in search of billets revealed a picture of devastation as bad as any imaginable. Burning and falling houses bordered the streets; only a house here and there remained standing. Our tour led us over broken glass, burning wood-work and rubble. Tram and telephone wires trailed in the streets. Such barracks as were still standing were full up. Back to the _Station_, where nobody knew what to do next. Detached parties were to enter the streets, but actually the Battalion marched in close order into the town, to break into the first houses and loot--no, of course, only to ‘requisition’--for wine and other things. Like a wild pack they broke loose, each on their own; officers set a good example by going on ahead. A night in a barracks with many drunk was the end of this day, which aroused in me a contempt I cannot describe.” * * * * * [Illustration: THE TRACK OF THE ARMIES: FROM THE FRONTIER TO MALINES.] * * * * * [Illustration: LOUVAIN SKETCH TAKEN FROM MAP ATTACHED TO THE GERMAN WHITE BOOK. The cross hatching denotes the quarters burnt down, and is reproduced exactly from the German original.] * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [74] xv p. 20. [75] Bryce pp. 183-4. [76] xvii p. 66; xxi p. 129; Morgan p. 101; Bland p. 121; Davignon p. 107. [77] The man was a glass-maker. [78] xvii p. 66. [79] xvii p. 63. [80] Reply pp. 140-1; k4; Bédier pp. 10-1; i pp. 3-4. [81] There had been Belgian _soldiers_ with a machine-gun in the village. [82] k18. [83] Reply p. 128. [84] Davignon p. 97. [85] xv p. 20. [86] c1-38; Belg. xxi pp. 111-4; Anns. 1, 7; Reply pp. 147-178; German White Book, A; Struyken; Davignon p. 97. [87] Reply No. 1; g2. [88] c1, 6, 9, 15; R. No. 9.