The night was windless, and the sparks rose in steady, leisurely pillars, falling back into the furnace from which they sprang.

In their work the soldiers were moving from the heart of the city to the outskirts, street by street, from house to house.
In each building they began at the first floor and, when that was burning steadily, passed to the one next.

There were no exceptions-- whether it was a store, chapel, or private residence, it was destroyed.
The occupants had been warned to go, and in each deserted shop or house the furniture was piled, the torch was stuck under it, and into the air went the savings of years, souvenirs of children, of parents, heirlooms that had passed from generation to generation.
The people had time only to fill a pillowcase and fly.

Some were not so fortunate, and by thousands, like flocks of sheep, they were rounded up and marched through the night to concentration camps.
We were not allowed to speak to any citizen of Louvain, but the Germans crowded the windows of the train, boastful, gloating, eager to interpret.
In the two hours during which the train circled the burning city war was before us in its most hateful aspect.
In other wars I have watched men on one hilltop, without haste, without heat, fire at men on another hill, and in consequence on both sides good men were wasted.

But in those fights there were no women or children, and the shells struck only vacant stretches of veldt or uninhabited mountain sides.
At Louvain it was war upon the defenceless, war upon churches, colleges, shops of milliners and lace-makers; war brought to the bedside and the fireside; against women harvesting in the fields, against children in wooden shoes at play in the streets.
At Louvain that night the Germans were like men after an orgy.
There were fifty English prisoners, erect and soldierly.