tal illness. The years from 1648 to 1650, from the conclusion
of the peace to the celebration of the festival, were among the most
grievous of that iron time; exorbitant war taxes were imposed, the
armies of the different countries lay encamped in the provinces till
they could be paid off, the oppression which they exercised on the
unhappy inhabitants was so fearful, that a despairing cry arose from
the people, which mingled itself with the wrangling of the negotiating
parties. To this was added a plague of another kind; the whole country
swarmed with a rabble that had no masters; bands of discharged soldiers
with the camp followers, troops of beggars, and great hordes of
robbers, roved about from one territory to another; they quartered
themselves by force on those villages which were still inhabited, and
established themselves in the deserted huts. The villagers also,
provided with bad weapons and disused to labour, thought it sometimes
more satisfactory to rob, than to till the fields, and made secret
roving expeditions into the neighbouring territories, the Evangelical
into the Catholic countries, and _vice versa_. The foreign children of
a lawless race, the gipsies, had increased in number and audacity;
fantastically dressed, with heavily laden carts, stolen horses, and
naked children, they encamped in great numbers round the stone trough
of the village green: whenever the ruler was powerful and the officials
active, the wild rovers were encountered with energy. The villagers of
the dukedom of Gotha were still obliged, in 1649, to keep watch from
the church towers, to guard the bridges and fords, and to give an alarm
whenever they perceived any of these marching bands. A well-regulated
system of police was the first sign of that new feeling of
responsibility which the governments had acquired: every one who wished
to settle down was encouraged to do so. Whoever was established, had to
render an account of how much land he had cultivated, of the condition
of his house and farm, and whether he had any cattle. New registers of
the farms and inhabitants were prepared, new taxes on money and on
natural products were imposed; and by the severe pressure of these, the
villagers were compelled to labour. The villages were gradually
reinhabited; many families who had fled to the towns during the war
repaired their devastated farms; others returned from the mountains or
foreign countries; disbanded soldiers and camp followers s