"We have a new army of 200,000 men, and it increases every day. The spirit of the troops is excellent. The other day the Queen went with little Prince Leopold as far as the second line of trenches to see the soldiers. It was near Nieuport. She sat down amongst them, and after she left the soldiers made a little sanctuary of the spot where she had sat. Our sovereigns are adored by their troops, and they well deserve it. Nothing matters to them--neither suffering, fatigue, danger nor money, for they are wonderfully generous. Nearly all the Relief Societies for Refugees in Belgium, here in Holland, in England, and in France have had gifts from them, and in some cases they have been considerable. It is thought now that the barbarity of the Germans and their cruelty has ceased since they have been stopped at the Yser, but this is not so. Naturally massacres are less systematic than during the first three months of the war, but there are constantly peasants and civilians shot and priests sent to Germany. At Cortemarch (near Roulers) they sent the curé and the vicar to Germany because they accused the village of having had a spy. This they posted themselves in all the Flemish towns. The number of people who have had to pay ransom for one or another _soi-disant_ reason is countless. Our cousin, living at Wielt, has been imprisoned and forced to pay one thousand marks fine for daring to lift his voice feebly against the requisitions, without even payment by note, that were levied on the farmers. "The Germans have now forbidden disinterment of the bodies, as the proof of their cruelty was too obvious. At the time of the flight of our poor population here the little children, seeing the Dutch soldiers dressed in gray, took them for Germans, and lifted up their little arms as these latter had obliged them to do. There are still in Holland 250,000 poor refugees. They are nearly all settled in camps of wood which in the beginning were very bad, but are improving now every day. After the taking of Antwerp there were one million here for one or two months. "My brothers are well, thank God.--Pray.--Let us pray together if you will, for all. God will hear us and will give us the joy of acclaiming our King in Brussels when he reënters at the head of his army. It is the goal and dream of all the Belgians. It will be a day of wild and mad delirium. It gives me the shivers even to dream of it." From the son of Dr. Depage to his mother while she was lecturing in America:-- "April. "La Panne[16] has changed a great deal these last few weeks. The tourist that would come here would think himself in an exhibition, just before opening day. [16] The Belgian army retired from Antwerp to La Panne.