About every
tenth man in the city or country was drawn, regularly armed, paid
during service, and appointed for the internal defence of the frontiers
of the country. The beginning of the Landwehr dates from the sixteenth
century. This regulation was recommended by military theorists as most
efficient, and from time to time it was renewed. It was introduced by
the States in Saxony in 1612, and renewed in 1618; there were to be
altogether in the Electorate nine thousand men. The privates were to
receive a daily pay of four groschen, and the serjeants ten and a half,
and the cost was distributed among the houses. But this militia was
found very useless in the war. The discipline was much too lax; the
industrious citizen endeavoured to withdraw himself when danger did not
threaten his own city; the consequence was, that many unsettled people
were scouring the country in arms. If they were required by the
community to defend the ploughs in the field against roving marauders,
they demanded a special gratification, or they evaded it, and very soon
they became more a plague than a benefit to their own country.

What ruin the war brought upon the towns may be learned from every town
chronicle. First, the disorders of the _Kipper_ time inflicted deep
wounds on their morality and prosperity. Then came the sufferings that
even distant war brought upon the citizens, the scarcity and dearness
of provisions. Everything became so insecure that nothing was thought
of but the enjoyment of the day. Rough and wild was the love of
pleasure; and foreign modes, which had been learned from the travelled
courtiers and soldiers became prevalent. From 1626 dandyism began in
Germany after the French fashion; the _Messieurs a la mode_ strutted
about, molesting every one on the paved footpaths of the streets. They
had short pointed beards, long hair in frizzled locks, or cut short on
one side, and on the other hanging on the shoulder in a queue or lock,
a large flapped hat, spurs on their heels, a sword on the left side,
dresses slashed and jagged, a coxcombical bearing, and added to all
this, a corrupt language full of French words. The women were not
behindhand; they began to carry foreign masks before their faces, and
feather fans in their hands; they wore whalebones in their dresses, and
repudiated sables, gold and silver stuffs, and, above all--what
appeared very remarkable--silver, and at last, indeed, white lace. This
conduct raised the indig