On the day of my visit Cardinal Mercier had returned. I had last met him at Louvain--not in the flesh, but in his books. This master of psychology is one of those who have dared to think that the Latin definiteness of Thomas of Aquin is closer to the sound soul of Europe than the fog of Koenigsberg, or the cloudy intoxication of Hegel. The scholar, called to rule, has also been called to suffer. He was passing through the Grand’ Place as a long procession of women stood formed up outside the door of the municipal offices waiting wretchedly for bread. There was a stir, cheering, excitement which he repressed with a gesture. To those who approached him he said: “Your cheers are due to the army and the King, not to me. I am a Belgian citizen, no more.” The ruin of the civil population does not, as in Termonde, brand itself on your eyes, but it is, of course, none the less real. The city is a mere cemetery of shutters. The bombardments came after Louvain had been taught its lesson, and the Malinois did not stop to write notes on the text of that lesson. They fled _en masse_. One sees them in the rain and wind-swept bathing machines at Ostend. You hear them at Folkestone and in London. I saw still another packed trainload leaving Malines for Heyst-sur-Mer, from which many will disperse over the littoral generally, and others will filter into England. In Malines itself a few cafés, a few bakeries, and other shops of prime necessity are open. Everything else is as in a city of plague. Consider what that means. It means, very bluntly, the triumph of German terrorism. If the Hague Convention is worth anything, and is not merely another “scrap of paper,” the lace-makers and the chair-makers of Malines should, under its protection, be now at work, and not in forced idleness and exile. Readers must be weary of hearing the Prussian method characterised as one of scientific blackguardism. But that is what it is. There is nothing incoherent, tumultuous, or spasmodic about it; it goes on a well-formulated principle. And it has succeeded. By producing a panic among the civil population it has created the problem of the refugees. It inflicts day by day on Belgium an economic loss, the size of which cannot even be guessed at. Can nothing be done to check its operation? Can nothing be done to guarantee Malines against the fate of Termonde? The Belgian Commission in its last report stated the case with such concentrated force that no apology is needed for recalling their words--