The result of this was, that by far the greater number of soldiers were married, especially in the small States, where they could easily reach the frontier. Thus the Saxon army of about 30,000 men, reckoned in 1790, 20,000 soldiers' children; in the regiment of Thadden at Halle, almost half the soldiers were provided with wives. The soldiers' wives and children no longer went into the field, as in the old Landsknecht time, under the sergeants, but they were a heavy burden on the garrison towns. The women, supported themselves with difficulty by washing and other work; the children roamed about wildly without instruction. The city schools were almost everywhere closed to them; they were despised by the citizens like gipsies. Even in wealthy Lower Saxony at the beginning of the French revolution, there was no school for soldiers' boys except at Annaberg; this undoubtedly was well regulated, but did not suffice. For the girls there were none; there were neither preachers nor schools with the regiments. Only in Prussia was the education of the children and the training of the grown-up men--through preachers, schools, and orphan houses--seriously attended to. When a man received earnest-money from a recruiting officer, his whole life was decided. He was separated from the society of the citizens by a chasm which the most persevering could seldom pass. Under the hard pressure of service, under rough officers and among still rougher comrades, ran the course of his life; the first years in ceaseless drilling, the following ones with occasional relaxation which allowed him to seek for some small service in the neighbourhood, as day-labourer, or some little handicraft. If he was considered secure, he would have leave for months, whether he wished it or not; then the captain kept his pay, and he had meanwhile to provide for himself. The citizens regarded him with distrust and aversion; the honesty and morals of the soldiers were in such bad repute, that civilians avoided all contact with them, if a soldier entered an inn, the citizen and artisan immediately left it, and the landlord considered it a misfortune to have visits from soldiers. Thus he was in his hours of recreation confined to intercourse with comrades and profligate women. Severe was the usage that he met with from his officers; he was cuffed and kicked, punished with flogging for the slightest cause, or placed on the sharp pointed wooden horse or donkey, which stood in the open place near the guard-house; for greater misdemeanors he was confined in chains, put on wooden palings, or if the crime was great, he had to run the gauntlet of rods cut by the Provost, till he died.