[Footnote A:  “They have been shooting.”]

Many of the people hid in cellars, but the soldiers shot down through the gratings.  Some citizens were shot on opening the doors, others in endeavoring to escape.  Among other persons whose houses were burned was an old man of 90 lying dangerously ill, who was taken out on his mattress and left lying in his garden all night.  He died shortly after in the hospital to which a friend took him the following morning.

On Thursday, the 27th, orders were given that every one should leave the city, which was to be razed to the ground.  Some citizens, including a canon of the cathedral, with his aged mother, were ordered to go to the station and afterward to take the road to Tirlemont.  Among the number were about twenty priests from Louvain.  They were insulted and threatened, but ultimately allowed to go free and make their way as best they could, women and sick persons among them, to Tirlemont.  Other groups of prisoners from Louvain were on the same day taken by other routes, some early in the morning, through various villages in the direction of Malines, with hands tightly bound by a long cord.  More prisoners were afterward added, and all made to stay the night in the church at Campenhout.  Next day, the 28th, this group, then consisting of about 1,000 men, women and children, was taken back to Louvain.  The houses along the road were burning and many dead bodies of civilians, men and women, were seen on the way.  Some of the principal streets in Louvain had by that time been burned out.  The prisoners were placed in a large building on the cavalry exercise ground—­“One woman went mad, some children died, others were born.”  On the 29th the prisoners were marched along the Malines road, and at Herent the women and children and men over 40 were allowed to go; the others were taken to Boort Meerbeek, 15 kilometers from Malines, and told to march straight to Malines or be shot.  At 11 P.M. they reached the fort of Waelhem and were at first fired on by the sentries, but on calling out they were Belgians were allowed to pass.  These prisoners were practically without food from early morning on the 26th until midnight on the 29th.  Of the corpses seen on the road, some had their hands tied behind their backs, others were burned, some had been killed by blows, and some corpses were those of children who had been shot.

Another witness, a man of independent means, was arrested at noon by the soldiers of the One Hundred and Sixty-fifth Regiment and taken to the Place de la Station.  He was grossly ill-treated on the way and robbed by an officer of his purse and keys.  His hands were tied behind his back.  His wife was kept a prisoner at the other side of the station.  He was then made to march with about 500 other prisoners until midnight, slept in the rain that night, and next day, having had no food since leaving Louvain, was taken to the church in Rotselaer, where there were then