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Updated: June 8, 2025
It is ridiculous to suppose that for the next decade or so, whatever happens, any Frenchmen are going to feel genial about the occupation of their north-east provinces, or any Belgians smile at the memory of Dinant or Louvain, or the Poles or Serbs forgive the desolation of their country, or any English or Russians take a humorous view of the treatment their people have had as prisoners in Germany.
The old and the lame could not keep up the pace at which we marched. Their companions helped and dragged them along, constantly beaten with butt-ends. At length, we arrived at the gaol, where they shut us in the cells in lots of three or four at a time. "Included in the number were the burgomaster of Dinant, a sheriff, professors, barristers, and judges.
Villeroy, who lay encamped at Gemblours, was no sooner apprised of this event by a triple discharge of all the artillery, and a running fire along the lines of the confederate army, than he passed the Sambre near Charleroy with great precipitation; and having reinforced the garrison of Dinant, retreated towards the lines in the neighbourhood of Mons.
She was at Dinant, at her own château, when war broke out, and she was most interesting, and able to tell me things at first hand. The German methods are pretty well known now, but she told me a great deal which only women talking together could discuss. When a village or town was taken, the women inhabitants were quite at the mercy of the Germans.
Yet even if German "kultur" in the end sweep wholly into ruin the long accumulated treasures of Belgian architecture, sculpture, and painting if Bruges, which to-day stands still intact, shall to-morrow be reckoned with Dinant and Louvain yet it would still be worth while to set before a few more people this record of vanished splendour, that they may better appreciate what the world has lost through lust of brutal ambition, and better be on guard in the future to protect what wreckage is left.
The Duc de Luxembourg, sole general of his own army, covered the siege operations, and observed the enemy. The ladies went away to Dinant. On the third day of the march M. le Prince went forward to invest the place. The celebrated Vauban, the life and soul of all the sieges the King made, was of opinion that the town should be attacked separately from the castle; and his advice was acted upon.
Compared with these last splendours the low, wooded wolds of the Ardennes, with their narrow limestone valleys, seem a little thing indeed. Dinant, no doubt, and Rochefort would be pleasant places enough if one were not always harking back in memory to Malines and Ypres, or longing to be once more in Ghent or Bruges.
"And as there isn't any use in my wasting the summer, Guy," he said, in conclusion, "I won't let this red-herring, trailed across my path, prevent me from going over at once, as I originally intended, to Dinant and Spa, and fulfilling the commission for those pictures of Dale and Norton's; You and Nevitt can see meanwhile what it's possible for us to do in the matter of hunting up this family mystery.
The Count of Dinant and his brother De Ronsoy were both slain, and two or three hundred thousand florins were paid in ransom by those who escaped with life. The victims were all buried outside of the town in one vast trench, and the effluvia bred a fever which carried off most of the surviving inhabitants. Dourlens became for the time a desert.
The vengeance of a spy, the slightest suspicion of a policeman, sometimes even an anonymous letter, are enough to convince them of the guilt of the accused person. The healthy effect produced on the population by Dinant and Louvain must not be allowed to spend itself. Frightfulness must be kept up at any price. The reign of terror is the condition of the German regime.
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