em by a wide street, stood the shops of the cantineers
in parallel cross rows. Cantineers, butchers, and common victuallers
formed an important community. The price of their goods was decided by
the provost, who received a perquisite in money or in kind; for
example, he received a tongue for every beast that was killed. On every
cask which was to be tapped, he wrote the retail price with chalk. By
these compacts, and the favour of the powerful, which was to be bought
by time-serving, the purveyors of the army maintained a proportionably
secure position, and insured themselves the payment, though irregular,
of their long tallies, which were scored equally for the officers and
soldiers. In good times traders came from afar to the camp with
expensive stuffs, jewels, gold and silver workmanship, and delicacies.
In the beginning of the war especially, the officers set a bad example
to the army by their extreme luxury; every captain would have a French
cook, and consumed the dearest wine in great quantities.

The military signals of the camp were, for the infantry the beat of the
drum, for the cavalry the trumpet: the drum was very large, the drummer
often a half-grown boy, sometimes the fool of the company. In the
beginning of the war, the German army had in many cases a uniform beat.
Every command from the General to the camp, had to be proclaimed by a
herald riding through it with a trumpeter. On such occasions the herald
wore over his dress a "tabard" of coloured silk, embroidered before and
behind with the arms of the sovereign. This proclamation, which
announced to the camp in the evening the work of the following day, was
very destructive to secret and rapid operations; it was also very
injurious to discipline, for it announced to the loiterers and robbers
of the camp, the night when they might steal out for booty.

When times were prosperous, a battle won, a rich city plundered, or an
opulent district laid under contribution, everything was plentiful,
food and drink cheap; and it once happened, in the last year of the
war, that in the Bavarian camp a cow was bought for a pipe of tobacco.
The Croats of the Imperial army in Pomerania, in the winter of 1630 and
1631, had their girdles overlaid with gold, and whole plates of gold
and silver on the breast. Paul Stockmann, a pastor at Luetzen, relates,
that in the Imperial army, before the battle of Luetzen, one horseman
had his horse decorated with a quantity of golden sta