Dinant offered a terrible sight; it no longer existed. On foot, of course, we walked along the place where a large shop once stood, but one could not even distinguish where the road had been. Not one street was left, and the few houses that were saved are not in the centre of the town. On a slope on the left bank of the Meuse there had been two large monasteries, which had been turned into hospitals. They had been wrecked completely by gun-fire, and as if in bitter mockery at the cruel fate, the Red Cross flags flew there still undamaged.
In the centre of the town everything, including the large buildings, had been levelled with the ground. This was the case with the principal church "de Notre Dame," the college of the same name, the "Belle Vue," the monasteries, etc., of the "Frères et Sœurs de Notre Dame," the "Saint Nicolas" and "Saint Pierre" churches, and three large factories, "Oudin," "Le Mérinos," and "La Dinant," the "Banque Centrale de la Meuse," the town-hall, the ancient "Palace of the Prince-Bishops," and all its archives, the magnificent post-and-telegraph office, the large hotels "de la Tête d'Or," "des Postes," "des Ardennes," "Moderne," "Terminus," the hotels "de la Citadelle," "la Paix," "la Gare," etc., etc., the "Institut Hydrothérapique," all houses of the "Bon Secours" Congregation, etc.
The finest view of Dinant was from the beautiful bridge affording a passage across the Meuse with the "Notre Dame" in the background. This church was built just in front of a steep rock, on top of which stood the citadel of Dinant.
Now the bridge is blown up, the greater part of the church destroyed by the Germans, and, had nature not been more powerful than their brutal, clumsy violence, they would have pulled down that rock too. But it is still there, the solitary remnant of the famous beauty of Dinant.
My companion wanted to take a snapshot of this point, but in order to enliven the scene somewhat, he requested a few soldiers to stand in the square in front of the church. Each had a couple of champagne bottles hanging on his stomach, and refused absolutely to accede to my colleague's request to remove them. They insisted upon being snapshotted with those bottles hanging on their bodies! So my companion took this snapshot of "Kultur" in that condition, houses burned down, a church destroyed, and in front of these the grinning and coarse villains, puffing out their bodies, proud of their empty bottles....
CHAPTER XII
ON THE BATTLE-FIELDS
As often as I went on tour to collect news on the scene of war, I got dozens of messages and letters, which alarmed people sent to the editor of De Tijd, with the request that they should be handed to me for further transmission to relatives. I took hundreds of them to and from Louvain.
On Monday, September 14th, I took with me a larger number than ever to Louvain.