streets and read a proclamation from the burgomaster calling on all the
inhabitants to preserve their tranquillity and refrain from overt acts
against the Germans, under promise of safety if they obeyed and threat
of death at the hands of the Germans if they disregarded the warning.

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. Cafés
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