But there was another characteristic of the Prussian State that made an impression on the Silesians, and soon obtained a mastery over their minds. This was the devoted Spartan spirit of those who served the King, which frequently appeared in the lowest officials. The excise officers, even before the introduction of the French system, were little liked; they were invalid subaltern officers, old soldiers of the King, who had won his battles, and had grown grey in his service. They sat now at the gates, and smoked their wooden pipes; they received very little pay, and could indulge themselves in little, but were from early dawn till late in the evening at their post, did their duty skilfully, quickly, and punctually, like old soldiers, received and faithfully delivered up the money as a matter of course. They thought always of their service: it was their honour, their pride; and long did the old Silesians continue to relate to their descendants how much they had been struck by the punctiliousness, strictness, and honesty of these and other Prussian officials. There was in every district town a receiver of taxes; he lived in his small office room, which was perhaps at the same time his bedroom, and received in a large wooden dish the land tax which the village magistrate brought to his room once a month. Many thousand thalers were noted down on the long list, and were delivered to the last penny into the State coffers. Small was the salary of even such a man as this; he sat, received and packed away in bags, till his hair became white, and his trembling hands could no longer lay hold of the two-groschen pieces. And the pride of his life was, that the King knew him personally, and, if he ever came through the place during the change of horses, he fixed on him silently his large eyes, or, if he was very gracious, inclined his head a little towards him. The people regarded with a certain degree of respect and awe these subordinate servants of a new principle. And not the Silesians only; it was something new in the world. It was not as a mere jest that Frederic II. had called himself the first servant of his State. As on the battlefield he had taught his wild nobles that the highest honour was to die for the Fatherland, so did his unwearied care and high sense of duty imprint upon the soul of the meanest of his servants on the most distant frontiers his great idea, that his first duty was to live and labour for the good of his King and country.