And this advance in German civilisation was contributed to, not only by the favoured men who, with gorgets and sashes, sat as comrades with the Colonel Frederic William on the stools of his "collegium," but also by the much tormented soldiers, who were constrained by blows to discharge their guns for their Sovereign's State. But before speaking of the advantages of the government of a great King, we will give a narrative, by a Prussian recruit and deserter, of the sufferings occasioned by the old military system, in which the life of an insignificant individual is delineated. The narrator is the Swiss Ulrich Braecker, the man of Toggenburg, whose autobiography has been often printed,[10] and it is one of the most instructive accounts that we possess of the life of the people. The biography contains, in the first part, an abundance of characteristic and pleasing features; the description of a poor family in a remote valley; the bitter struggle with poverty; the doings of the herdsmen; the first love of the young man; the cunning with which he was kidnapped by the Prussian recruiting officer; and his compulsory military service up to the battle of Lowositz; his flight home, and subsequent weary struggle for existence; the description of his household; and, finally, the resignation of a sensitive, enthusiastic nature which, partly by its own fault, was disturbed in the firm tenor of its own life, by a dreamy tendency and passionate ebullitions. The poor man of Toggenburg displays, throughout his detailed statement, a poetical and touching child-like spirit, a passionate desire to read, reflect, and form himself--in short, a sensitive organisation which was ruled by humours and phantasies.