Still greater were the changes which the war made in the intellectual life of the nation. Above all among the country people. Many old customs passed away, life became aimless and full of suffering. In the place of the old household gear the rudest forms of modern furniture were introduced; the artistic chalices, and old fonts, and almost all the adornments of the churches, had disappeared, and were succeeded by a tasteless poverty in the village churches, which still continues. For more than a century after the war the peasant vegetated, penned in, almost as much as his herds, whilst his pastor watched him as a shepherd, and he was shorn by the landed proprietors and rulers of his country. There was a long period of gloomy suffering. The price of corn in the depopulated country was, for fifty years after the war, even lower than before. But the burdens upon landed property rose so high, that for a long time, land together with house and farm, bore little value, and sometimes were offered in vain as acquittance for service and imposts. Severer than ever was the pressure of vassalage, worst of all in the former Sclave countries, in which the peasantry were kept down by a numerous nobility. With respect to their marriages, they were placed under an unnatural and compulsory guardianship; strict care was taken that the son of the countryman should not evade by flight the servitude which was to weigh down his future. He could not travel without a written permission; even ship and raft masters were forbidden under severe penalties to take such fugitives into their service. Much to be lamented is the injury to civilization which took place in the devastated cities, especially the return to luxury, love of pleasure, and coarse sensuality, the want of common sense and independence, the cringing towards superiors and heartlessness towards inferiors. They are the ancient sufferings of a decaying race. That the self-government of cities was more and more infringed upon by the princes, was frequently fortunate, for the administrators were too often deficient in judgment and feeling of duty. The new constitution of governments which had arisen during the war, laid its iron hands on town and country. The old territories of the German empire were changed into despotic bureaucratic states. The ruler governed through his officials, and kept a standing army against his enemies; to maintain his "state," that is, his courtiers, officials and soldiers, was the task of the people. But to make this possible, it was necessary to promote carefully the increase of the population, and the greater tax-paying capacity of the subject. Some princes, especially the Brandenburgers, did this in a liberal spirit, and thus in this dark period, by increasing the power of their new state, laid the foundation of the greatness of their houses. Others indeed lavished the popular strength, in coarse imitation of French demoralization.