This word-of-mouth method of spreading an order applied only to the outlying sections.  In the more thickly settled districts, where presumably the populace could read and write, proclamations posted on wall and window took its place.  During the three days we stayed in Louvain one proclamation succeeded another with almost the frequency of special extras of evening newspapers when a big news story breaks in an American city:  The citizens were to surrender all firearms in their possession; it would be immediately fatal to him if a man were caught with a lethal weapon on his person or in his house.  Tradespeople might charge this or that price for the necessities of life, and no more.  All persons, except physicians and nurses in the discharge of their professional duties, and gendarmes—­the latter being now disarmed and entirely subservient to the military authorities—­must be off the streets and public squares at a given time—­to wit, nine p. m.  Cafes must close at the same hour.  Any soldier who refused to pay for any private purchase should be immediately reported at headquarters for punishment.  Upper front windows of all houses on certain specified streets must be closed and locked after nightfall, remaining so until daylight of the following morning; this notice being followed and overlapped very shortly by one more amplifying, which prescribed that not only must front windows be made fast, but all must have lights behind them and the street doors must be left unlocked.

The portent of this was simple enough:  If any man sought to fire on the soldiers below he must first unfasten a window and expose himself in the light; and after he fired admittance would be made easy for those who came searching for him to kill him.

At first these placards were signed by the burgomaster, with the military commandant’s indorsement, and sometimes by both those functionaries; but on the second day there appeared one signed by the commandant only; and this one, for special emphasis, was bounded by wide borders printed in bright red.  It stated, with cruel brevity, that the burgomaster, the senator for the district and the leading magistrate had been taken into custody as hostages for the good conduct of their constituents; and that if a civilian made any attack against the Germans he would forfeit his own life and endanger the lives of the three prisoners.  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