tary pride of the small southern German countries,
as well as the facility of desertion, made it alluring to every
good-for-nothing fellow to obtain new earnest money. In the recruiting
rooms, therefore, of the Prussians and those of the "Red Ox," there
hung a great variety of wardrobes from the different territories of the
empire, which the deserters had left behind. Besides the wish to gain
more bounty, there was yet another reason which led even the better
sort of soldiers to desert--the wish to marry. No government approved
of their soldiers burdening themselves with wives when in garrison,
but, reckless as the military rulers were, they had no power in this
respect. For there was no better means of keeping hold of a recruit
than by marriage. If permission was refused, it was certain in
garrisons near the frontier, that the soldier would fly with his maiden
to the nearest inn where there was a foreign recruiting officer; and it
was equally certain that he would there be married on the spot; for at
every such recruiting place, there was a clergyman at hand for these
cases.

The result of this was, that by far the greater number of soldiers were
married, especially in the small States, where they could easily reach
the frontier. Thus the Saxon army of about 30,000 men, reckoned in
1790, 20,000 soldiers' children; in the regiment of Thadden at Halle,
almost half the soldiers were provided with wives. The soldiers' wives
and children no longer went into the field, as in the old Landsknecht
time, under the sergeants, but they were a heavy burden on the garrison
towns. The women, supported themselves with difficulty by washing and
other work; the children roamed about wildly without instruction. The
city schools were almost everywhere closed to them; they were despised
by the citizens like gipsies. Even in wealthy Lower Saxony at the
beginning of the French revolution, there was no school for soldiers'
boys except at Annaberg; this undoubtedly was well regulated, but did
not suffice. For the girls there were none; there were neither
preachers nor schools with the regiments. Only in Prussia was the
education of the children and the training of the grown-up men--through
preachers, schools, and orphan houses--seriously attended to.

When a man received earnest-money from a recruiting officer, his whole
life was decided. He was separated from the society of the citizens by
a chasm which the most persevering could seldom pass