These acts of destruction, transforming into a rubbish heap that tranquil country of Belgium, which was above everything an incomparable museum, all are agreed to stigmatise as a base, ignoble crime. But it is more than that, it is a masterpiece of the crassest stupidity--the stupidity that Schopenhauer himself could not forbear to publish in the frank outburst evoked by his last moments; for after all it amounts to signing and initialling the ignominy of Germany for the edification of neutrals and of generations to come. The bodies of men tortured and hanged, of women and children shot or mutilated, will soon moulder away completely in their poor, nameless graves, and then the world will remember them no more. But these imperishable ruins, these innumerable ruins of museums or churches, what overwhelming and damning evidence they are, and how everlasting! After having done all this it is perhaps still more foolish to deny it, to deny it in the very face of such incontrovertible evidence, to deny it with an effrontery that leaves us Frenchmen aghast, or even to invent pretexts at whose childish imbecility we can only shrug our shoulders. "A people of born liars," said the Latin writer. Yes, and a people who will never eradicate their original vices, a people who, moreover, actually dared, despite the most irrefutable written documents, to deny the premeditation of their crimes and the treachery of their attack. What absurd childishness they reveal in their impostures! And who can be the simpletons whom they hope to deceive? The light is still fading upon the desolate ruins of Ypres, but how slowly to-day! That is because even at noon the light was scarcely stronger on this dull day of March; only at this hour a certain atmosphere, indefinite and sad, broods upon the distant landscape, indicating the approach of night. They look instinctively at the ruins, these thousands of soldiers, taking their evening walk in such melancholy surroundings, but generally they remain at a distance, leaving the ruins to their magnificent isolation. However, here are three of them, Frenchmen, probably newcomers, who approach the ruins hesitatingly. They advance until they stand under the little arches of the tottering cathedral with a sober air, as if they were visiting tombs. After contemplating them at first in silence, one of them suddenly ejaculates a term of abuse (to whom it is addressed may be easily imagined!), doubtless the most insulting he can find in the French language, a word that I had not expected, which first makes me smile and then, the next moment, impresses me on the contrary as a valuable discovery. "Oh those hooligans!"