Thus, inch by inch, the conquerors, sensing a growing spirit
of revolt among the conquered--a spirit as yet nowise visible on the
surface--took typically German steps to hold the rebellious people of
Louvain in hobbles. It was when we reached the Y-shaped square in the
middle of things, with the splendid old Gothic town hall rising on one
side of it and the famous Church of Saint Pierre at the bottom of the
gore, that we first beheld at close hand the army of the War Lord.
Alongside the Belgian Lion we had thought it best to keep our distance
from the troops as they passed obliquely across our line of vision.
Here we might press as closely as we pleased to the column. The
magnificent precision with which the whole machinery moved was
astounding--I started to say appalling. Three streets converging into
the place were glutted with men, extending from curb to curb; and for an
outlet there was but one somewhat wider street, which twisted its course
under the gray walls of the church. Yet somehow the various lines
melted together and went thumping off out of sight like streams running
down a funnel and out at the spout.
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