During the summer months, when the war season was in full swing, Rector Piccaert’s already substantial headaches multiplied. His chief aim then was to protect the image from marauding soldiers, and more than once he carried it away to Tervuren or Leuven—never to Overijse—for safekeeping. If soldiers weren’t trouble enough, then there were the semi-legal vendors who sold food and drink around the shrine. Once when Rector Piccaert tried to move the image because of the threat of war, the vendors grew furious that their major attraction was being taken away, and promised to “shoot up” the priest,
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