It is known that the great peace came very slowly, like the recovery from a mortal illness. The years from 1648 to 1650, from the conclusion of the peace to the celebration of the festival, were among the most grievous of that iron time; exorbitant war taxes were imposed, the armies of the different countries lay encamped in the provinces till they could be paid off, the oppression which they exercised on the unhappy inhabitants was so fearful, that a despairing cry arose from the people, which mingled itself with the wrangling of the negotiating parties. To this was added a plague of another kind; the whole country swarmed with a rabble that had no masters; bands of discharged soldiers with the camp followers, troops of beggars, and great hordes of robbers, roved about from one territory to another; they quartered themselves by force on those villages which were still inhabited, and established themselves in the deserted huts. The villagers also, provided with bad weapons and disused to labour, thought it sometimes more satisfactory to rob, than to till the fields, and made secret roving expeditions into the neighbouring territories, the Evangelical into the Catholic countries, and _vice versâ_. The foreign children of a lawless race, the gipsies, had increased in number and audacity; fantastically dressed, with heavily laden carts, stolen horses, and naked children, they encamped in great numbers round the stone trough of the village green: whenever the ruler was powerful and the officials active, the wild rovers were encountered with energy. The villagers of the dukedom of Gotha were still obliged, in 1649, to keep watch from the church towers, to guard the bridges and fords, and to give an alarm whenever they perceived any of these marching bands. A well-regulated system of police was the first sign of that new feeling of responsibility which the governments had acquired: every one who wished to settle down was encouraged to do so. Whoever was established, had to render an account of how much land he had cultivated, of the condition of his house and farm, and whether he had any cattle. New registers of the farms and inhabitants were prepared, new taxes on money and on natural products were imposed; and by the severe pressure of these, the villagers were compelled to labour. The villages were gradually reinhabited; many families who had fled to the towns during the war repaired their devastated farms; others returned from the mountains or foreign countries; disbanded soldiers and camp followers sometimes bought fields and empty houses with the remainder of their booty, or returned to their native villages. There was much marrying and baptizing.