These individual families made up a city of forty-five thousand people.

In two days there was not a roof left to cover one of them.

The trade those people had built up had been destroyed, the "good-will and fixings," the stock on the shelves and in the storerooms, the goods in the shop-windows, the portraits in the drawing-room, the souvenirs and family heirlooms, the love-letters, the bride's veil, the baby's first worsted shoes, and the will by which some one bequeathed to his beloved wife all his worldly goods.
War came and sent all these possessions, including the will and the worldly goods, up into the air in flames.

Most of the people of Louvain made their living by manufacturing church ornaments and brewing beer.

War was impartial, and destroyed both the beer and the church ornaments.