Nieuport, like Dixmude and Ypres, shared the sad privilege of an absolute and systematic destruction. There are rent walls everywhere and piled-up ruins, from which the most extraordinary fragments of rubbish emerge, showing all that remains of furniture, so often endeared to its owners by fond memories. Not a single house has been spared. The roofs and the floors, riddled by shells, are shapeless masses now lying on the ground. A few house fronts are still standing, showing the trace of streets all dismal and deserted, except when a few rare soldiers pass silently by, looking like so many wandering ghosts in the midst of fantastical scenery. The Market Place, adjoining the church, was specially aimed at. It is now unrecognisable, thanks to constant bombardment. In a corner, can be seen the massive outline of the Cloth Hall. It is disfigured by horrible wounds, but is still fascinating. It was one of the most interesting monuments of our Flemish art of the fifteenth century. The injuries of time, and those of men, had hitherto respected its primitive architecture. The roof, which was of a special technique, had escaped until now, but these last days it fell in, under a veritable avalanche of balls. Quite near to it stands the spectre of the ruined church. I could still see it, as it used to be, dominating the whole town with its imposing mass, interesting to contemplate and to study in every detail. It was original, too, on account of its various reconstructions, the traces of which could be seen in the different styles composing it, from primitive Gothic to the Renaissance and Louis XIV. And what is left now of all this? One night, it was set on fire by shells, and the deluge of shrapnels, which immediately surrounded the building, prevented anyone from saving the least object. The vaulted roof fell in. Charred walls, riddled by shell fragments, now frame the columns which are still standing, supporting the graceful ogives that had been sullied by the odious aggression. Quantities of material lie in unequal piles; here and there a few decorative pieces, disfigured by their fall. It is an imposing looking skeleton, though, in its despair, and it seems as though it wants to remain there, as a witness, after its own death, to its past grandeur. One tragic relic of its wreckage still remains, and that is the Tower. In spite of numberless projectiles, its massive construction, devastated, but not conquered, persists in dominating the horizon of Flanders. It had been constructed, primitively, to support three times its weight. It scorned the shells which wounded it without knocking it down, and its dark mass, proudly standing in the midst of the heaped-up ruins, seems to be defying the infernal inventions aimed at it.