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But always with the stedfast hope and purpose that he might somehow reach and rescue Vivie Warren. She consulted no one, except her mother. Who was there to consult? She did not like to confide too much to Colonel von Giesselin, a little too prone in any case to "protect" them. But as she argued with Mrs. Warren, what else were they to do in their cruel situation?
In November, however, there was a change of scene, which in many ways came to Vivie and her mother with a sense of great relief. Colonel von Giesselin told them one morning he had been appointed Secretary to the German Governor of Brussels, and must reside in the town not far from the Rue de la Loi.
Vivie, though still dazed with the reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them. But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by their own exile to some other lodging.
"It makes me think of Talleyrand was it not? who said 'It is a blunder; worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb von Giesselin "Really dear, if in this time of horrors one dare laugh at anything, I feel oh it is too funny, but also, too 'schokking, as we suppose all English women say.
The King whom the still defiant Brussels Press, especially that unkillable La Libre Belgique, reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra was gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and kingdom.
Von Giesselin, after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily transportable nature. But the visit was a heart-breaking disappointment.
Two days afterwards, von Giesselin sent Vivie into Brussels in his motor, with his orderly to escort her, so that she might deposit her valuables at a bank. She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent.
Except in the matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order she had an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes for raising the Irish against the British Government.
But that, so to speak, was only a domestic quarrel. The British navy never has been licked nor won't be, this time." Colonel von Giesselin did not insist. He seemed depressed himself at times, and far from elated at the victories announced in his own newspapers.
Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity. After the occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic" Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had stopped publication.