The situation, already grave, has taken a definite turn. Germany is going to attack France through Belgium. Completely ignoring the neutrality of the latter, she demands to "just pass through peaceably," but being refused permission, so much the worse for those who are in the road. Personally speaking, I should say we are decidedly in the road—Aix-la-Chapelle—LiÉge—Namur. Don't you think the crow would agree with me?

We saw a charming spectacle this morning if anything connected with war can be so called,—a little company of mitrailleuses-À-chien, that is, small, shrapnel gun carriages drawn by the famous Belgian dogs. It sort of made my heart crinkle up to see those magnificent animals, detailed for fatal duty without doubt, pushing on so joyously. Straining in the traces and really smiling with their great tongues hanging out, they were performing their work, proud as Punch, and eager to get on.

In the afternoon we were suddenly startled by the booming of nearby cannon. I shall never forget the first sound of it! It might have been the Last Trumpet and we didn't know that it was not. My soul turned sick and seemed to be tumbling down a fathomless abyss while a pair of unprejudiced eyes watched its descent. Please do not think I am not serious—it is a moment when one meets things face to face and the inevitable is happening. We hear that the firing is for the purpose of demolishing houses and churches before the forts, which might in any way obstruct the range of the guns. Did I explain that LiÉge is encircled by twelve forts, built about twenty-eight years ago under the personal direction of GÉnÉral Brialmont? They are on the same principle as those of Namur and Bucharest, and are large affairs of concrete, sunk three stories under ground and furnished with elaborate electrical apparatus. Covering and protecting the cannon are automatic, armored cupolas, rising and falling with the modern, disappearing guns. Here is a tiny, freehand map which will give you an idea of the country as well as the situation of ChÂteau d'A——, where I am and which is just between the city and the enceinte of forts. A shell overreaching this latter, from the enemy's field cannon, would, I should say, tumble right into our "zone." But we do not even admit of such a possibility in speaking to each other. Isn't it funny how we continue to deceive ourselves and life is a sham to the last throw?

GÉnÉral Brialmont warned the Government when the forts were under construction, that if it could not maintain an army sufficiently strong to defend the open country between them, he was building them for the Germans. That statement revived suddenly, gives rise to an apprehension hitherto unfelt by the LiÉgeois, who have absolute faith in the impregnability of LiÉge.

Madame X.'s oldest son, Monsieur S., and his wife, arrived tonight from France by auto. They would never have been able to get here if Monsieur S. had not the royal seal on some state papers which he was bringing from the Belgian Embassy in Paris. Was there ever such a wildly exciting ride, plunging through two battle lines (French and Belgian) into massed formations everywhere? Nevertheless Madame S. said she used to fall asleep from sheer fatigue during the long drives in the blackness of the night or when they were stopped for hours at a time to identify even a king's messenger.