The Monticellonian., 1915-07-08

banner Of St. Ge0rge and the dragon, with knights of the Fleece, with the constable of France, with many lords of Brabant and Hainaut, with horse and foot and heavy artillery. The Dinant men, at bay behind their wall, ragged at the sight of him; 1t had come to war at last. and they were Wal looms with arms in their hands. Di- nant was sieged on all sides; the mas ter of the artillery brought his bomb ards up against the gates at full moon, scattering such shot from his small pieces that not head might peep over the wall. The captain of the brassworkers guild would have fought to the end, and his valiant smiths with him. But the magistrates were giv- ing up the key. while the captain was carrying the city banner to the broken wall and the Bastard of Burgundy came in and the court after him. mag nifcent, pitiless, to sit In judgment upon Dinant A few rich men ran somed themselves dearly But there was much hanging and heading At Bouvignes they will show you the
 
 neck and heels, were dropped into the Mouse. There was pillage from house to house; merchants from Brussels had come with carts to carry away passwords and household goods bought cheap of the plunderers. Last ran the fire from end to end of the town. Dfnant was burned in such fashion," says Olivier de Ia Marche, that it seemed as though it had been ruin for a hundred years" For six years it lay In it's ashes, and then. little by little. the life came back to it, though never again came back the pride and the wealth. It's rock was crowned by citadel. and the citadel brought it storm and trouble in the French wars.
 But the town lived meekly in the sight of Bouyignes; 1t never pros pered. In July of 1914 it was selling gingerbread to peasants. and post card pictures of its pretty old houses to the tourists from the Namur boat, showing strangers the way up the cliff by the 400 steps in the rock and serv- ing dinners to holiday folk In August, a fatal month for Dinant, the Ger mans came upon it with mightier bombards than those toys with which Messire Pierre de Hacquembac had made ready to blow in the gates Dinant once again is ruin from end to end. Once again the chronieler may write "Cy fust Dinant."
 Even as Rachel mourned for her children and would not be comfort ed, because they were not, so may this forlorn Belgium mourn for her per ished cities.
 There was little here for the over curious antiquary. Those same archi- tects who would call the church of Dinant notable among all Belgian churches had played here industrious ly those perverse tricks that they name restoration.
 The new bridge was such bridge as cunning engineers will throw you over any river of Europe. Not thus was the old bridge built that carried a castle upon its arches. For the rest you had the lines of high-gabled houses whose windows looked on the water These, again, you will not compare with houses on the Graslei at Ghent. with the houses that line the quays of Bruges. Yet the joss of them Is lamentable, irreparable. We cannot rebuild antiquity, even though it be but the last antiquity, the latest hands turn of work done before the world fell into obedience of the ma chine and learned to rule it's straight lines exactly. Of Dinant you may at least say that was what the old-fash- toned landscape-man would frankly call picturesque" he must have called it so many time when he took his sketch book to the western bank and set to work upon it with a | soft-leaded pencil.
 A friendly little town it was, one | of the decayed nobility among the cities, yet affable and welcoming the stranger