But the Hungarian soldiers, who in this somewhat rough school of chivalry had acquired objectionable habits—such, for instance, as that of bringing back their enemies’ heads attached to the saddle-bow whenever they returned from a skirmish—had, despite their evident utility, fallen into bad odor at Vienna; so when the Hungarian nobles themselves lost their independence, these frontier troops were suffered to fall into disorganization. Only after Maria Theresa had ascended the throne, and, having consolidated the Austrian power, obtained for herself and her descendants the irrevocable right to the Hungarian crown, was it thought necessary to reorganize in more regular fashion this living rampart along the frontier, with a view to keeping out the Turks, who were again showing signs of being troublesome. Accordingly, the population of the whole southern frontier, from Poland to the Adriatic, was classified in military companies and regiments, and the ground distributed to the peasants under condition that they and their children should live and die on the spot, their sons inheriting the obligation of serving in like manner as their fathers. Of these frontier regiments, altogether fourteen in number, six were created in Transylvania. Of these two infantry and one dragoon regiment were recruited from the Wallachian population; the remaining three, two infantry and one hussar, from the Hungarians. This system was carried out without trouble in the provinces recently reconquered from the Turks, which, being thinly populated, offered greater inducements for fresh settlers; but elsewhere, where there already existed a fixed population of Hungarians and Roumanians, there was much difficulty in establishing it. In former days the peasants had consented to pass their life on horseback in order to protect the frontier; but those days were long since gone by when people found such life to be congenial, and many of the novel conditions imposed by the Austrians were exceedingly distasteful. They did not care to be commanded by German officers, nor to feel themselves amalgamated with the Austrian regular troops, liable to be sent to fight on foreign territory.