Another famous scholar who was very fond of visiting Louvain was Erasmus.[210] You can read his very interesting story in Charles Reade's novel "The Cloister and the Hearth." Erasmus loved Louvain, and was charmed with its delicious skies and its studious quiet. Indeed, scholars in all ages have loved the city. One of them wrote: "Hail, our Athens, the Athens of Belgium! O faithful, fruitful seat of the arts, shedding far and wide thy light and thy name!" Every year up to the time of the war thousands of people from all parts of the world used to visit this "Athens of Belgium."
Since 1432 the university has been housed in a handsome hall which was first built as a warehouse for the Clothmakers' Guild. Its library, which was founded in 1724, was one of the most valuable in Belgium. It contained 150,000 volumes, in addition to many priceless manuscripts.
There are several other beautiful buildings in Louvain. There is the town hall, the finest building of its kind in Belgium; and the Church of St. Peter, which was finished in the early part of the sixteenth century, and stands on the site of a much earlier church. Before the war St. Peter's was full of art treasures, the wood-carving and the metal work being specially fine. The carved rood screen and the cross were said to be without equal in Europe, and a bronze font was specially prized because it was the work of Quentin Matsys,[211] who was born in Louvain, and began life as a blacksmith. As a young man he fell in love with an artist's daughter, and asked her hand in marriage. Her father, however, refused it, and said she should only marry an artist. Quentin loved the girl very much, so he threw down his hammer and took up the paint-brush. Soon he was a better painter than his future father-in-law, and the marriage took place. In the cathedral at Antwerp there is a tablet to his memory, setting forth that it was love that taught the smith to paint.
The Town Hall of Louvain.
Photo, Newspaper Illustrations, Ltd.
The Germans have always told us that they are great lovers of art and learning, and they constantly boast of their culture. You would have thought that when they entered this glorious old city of Louvain they would have done everything in their power to preserve it from harm. What they actually did was to burn down a large part of it, and in a few hours reduce several of its glorious old buildings to charred and blackened ruins. Mr. Asquith, our Prime Minister, described their work at Louvain as "the greatest crime against civilization and culture since the Thirty Years' War."[212]
You know that the Germans have laid the blame for some of their crimes on the townsfolk, whom they accuse of firing on them. They had no such excuse in the case of Louvain, for all the arms had been handed in by the people some days before the Germans arrived. The mayor had posted placards warning the people that if they attacked the enemy in any way they would bring down vengeance upon themselves and their city.
When the Germans in overwhelming force had beaten back the Belgians who were trying to defend Louvain, and had placed their guns in position to bombard it, they sent an officer to the mayor offering to spare the place if the townsfolk would find food and lodgings for their soldiers. They promised that if this was done the soldiers would not molest the townsfolk, and that those of them who were not billeted in private houses would pay cash for all the goods which they needed. To this the mayor agreed, and the Germans marched in. Soon, however, they broke all their promises. The German soldiers rushed into private houses and took what they fancied, without any payment but worthless paper. They broke open the cellars and drank the wine in them as though it were beer. Their officers ordered the city treasurer to give them 100,000 francs, and grumbled greatly when he could only find part of the money. Meanwhile, though the city was full of drunken Germans, the people remained very quiet and orderly.