ul Sovereigns; consequently, they were not
always able to protect the sons of their own noble families. The
frontiers of France, Holland, and Switzerland, were favourable
districts for catching recruits; for there were always deserters to be
found in the territory which was surrounded by foreign domains,
especially when a foreign fortress, with burdensome garrison service,
lay in the neighbourhood. Anspach, Baireuth, Dessau, and Brunswick,
were always a good market for the Prussians.

The recruiting officers of the different governments were not in equal
repute. The Austrians had the best character; they were considered in
the soldier world, coarse, but harmless; only took those that willingly
yielded themselves, and kept to the agreement strictly. They had not
much to offer, only three kreuzer and two pounds of bread daily; but
they never were deficient in recruits. The Prussian recruiting
officers, on the contrary, it must be owned, were in the worst repute;
they lived in the highest style, were very insolent and unscrupulous,
and fool-hardy devils. In order to catch a fine lad, they contrived the
most audacious tricks, and exposed themselves to the greatest dangers:
one knows that they were sometimes soundly beaten, when they found
themselves in a minority, that they were imprisoned by foreign
Governments, and more than one of them stabbed; but all this did not
frighten them. This evil report lasted till Frederic William II. made
his new rules of enlistment.

One of the best recruiting places in the empire was Frankfort-a-M.,
with its great fair; Prussians, Austrians, and Danes, still, at the end
of the century, dwelt together there; the Danes had hung out their flag
at the "Fir-tree;" the Austrians had, from olden times, stopped
phlegmatically at the inn "The Red Ox;" but the restless Prussian
recruiting officers were always changing; they were at this time the
most distinguished and most splendid. A kind of diplomatic intercourse
was maintained between the different parties; they were, it is true,
jealous of one another, and endeavoured mutually to intercept each
other's news; but they continued to visit and took wine and tobacco
together as comrades. But Frankfort had already, after the seventeenth
century, become the centre of a special branch of the business for
entrapping men for the Imperial army. The recruiting officers sought
not only new men, but also for deserters; and the bad discipline and
want of mili