"At Ghent my family have suffered a great deal from the presence of the enemy in their homes. I have already told you of their installing the passport office in our grandfather's drawing room; you remember the one where the picture hung and the chests that belonged to Marie Antoinette. You may imagine the filth, and they insisted on putting in gas, saying it was so dark they could not see. It is true it was dark, but they had no right to ruin everything. It is curious that our grandfather still has papers giving an account of the Cossacks' sojourn in 1814. In the very same house, a Russian colonel was lodger. According to these papers, there were far fewer injuries and complaints than in 1914 against the Germans. At Laeken, in the royal château, the Germans held a veritable orgy and ruined everything; such dirt; and horrors so ignoble that I dare not describe it further. The fact is that everything in that beautiful château is in a deplorable condition. "The Germans hope to demoralize us by circulating false reports. Every day despatches from the Kaiser announcing their victories are posted on the walls of the towns; this also to encourage their troops. The soldiers arriving in Ghent think they are within a few miles of London. The people have naturally taken a mischievous delight in undeceiving them and telling them they were by no means near London, but near the Yser. They actually wept, for the Yser is their nightmare, and with reason. That is easily understood. They do not advance; quite the contrary. CROWN PRINCE LEOPOLD, DUC DE BRABANT. "The King and Queen are still at La Panne. Little Prince Leopold, thirteen years old, is with them now. The other day all three on horseback reviewed the new recruits on the beach; all the time the German aeroplanes were throwing bombs.