he affray happened. The bombarding lasted until 10 o'clock
at night. Afterward the Germans set fire to the city.

Burning of the Town.

The houses which had not taken fire were entered by German soldiers, who
threw fire grenades, which seem to have been provided for the occasion.
The largest part of the City of Louvain, especially the quarters of the
Ville Haute, comprising the modern houses, the Cathedral of St. Peter,
the University Halls, with the whole library of the university, its
manuscripts, its collections, the largest part of the scientific
institutions, and the town theatres, were at the moment being consumed
by flames.

The commission deems it necessary, in the midst of these horrors, to
insist on the crime of lese humanity which the deliberate annihilation
of an academic library--a library which was one of the treasures of our
time--constitutes.

Numerous corpses of civilians covered the street and squares. On the
route from Louvain to Tirlemont alone one witness testifies having seen
more than fifty of them. On the threshholds of houses were found burned
corpses of people who, surprised in their cellars by the fire, had tried
to escape and fell into the heap of live embers. The suburbs of Louvain
have been completely annihilated.

A group of seventy-five persons, among whom were several notables of the
city, such as Father Coloboet and a Spanish priest, and also an American
priest, were conducted during the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 26, to the
square in front of the station. The men were brutally separated from
their wives and children, and after having received the most abominable
treatment, and after repeated threats of being shot, they were driven in
front of the German troops as far as the village of Campenhout. They
were locked in the church during the night. The following day at 4
o'clock a German officer came to inform them that they might all confess
themselves, and that they would be shot half an hour later. But at 4:30
o'clock they were allowed to go, and shortly afterward they were again
arrested by a German brigade, which forced them to march in front of
them to Malines. Answering a question on the part of one of the
prisoners, a German officer told them that they were going to taste some
of the Belgian grapeshot before Antwerp. At last they were liberated on
Thursday afternoon at the entrance of Malines.

Further testimony shows that several thousand male inhabitants of
Louvain who had