either injured severely a number of trades,
especially the artistic ones, or destroyed them altogether; and it was
in just these trades that many working women were occupied. As,
moreover, it ever happens when a social state of things is moving to its
downfall, the wrongest methods are resorted to, and the evil is thereby
aggravated. The sad economic condition of most of the German nations
caused the decimated population to appear as _overpopulation_, and
contributed greatly towards rendering a livelihood harder to earn, and
towards prohibitions of marriage.

Not until the eighteenth century did a slow improvement of matters set
in. The absolute Princes had the liveliest interest, with the view of
raising the standard abroad of their rule, to increase the population of
their territories. They needed this, partly in order to obtain soldiers
for their wars, partly also to gain taxpayers, who were to raise the
sums needed either for the army, or for the extravagant indulgences of
the court, or for both. Following the example of Louis XIV of France,
the majority of the then extraordinarily numerous princely courts of
Germany displayed great lavishness in all manner of show and tinsel.
This was especially the case in the matter of the keeping of
mistresses, which stood in inverse ratio to the size and capabilities of
the realms and realmlets. The history of these courts during the
eighteenth century belongs to the ugliest chapters of history. Libraries
are filled with the chronicles of the scandals of that era. One
potentate sought to surpass the other in hollow pretentiousness, insane
lavishness and expensive military fooleries. Above all, the most
incredible was achieved in the way of female excesses. It is hard to
determine which of the many German courts the palm should be assigned to
for extravagance and for a life that vitiated public morals. To-day it
was this, to-morrow that court; no German State escaped the plague. The
nobility aped the Princes, and the citizens in the residence cities aped
the nobility. If the daughter of a citizen's family had the luck to
please a gentleman high at court, perchance the Serenissimus himself, in
nineteen cases out of twenty she felt highly blessed by such favor, and
her family was ready to hand her over for a mistress to the nobleman or
the Prince. The same was the case with most of the noble families if one
of their daughters found favor with the Prince. Characterlessness and
sha