To take the risk of violence first, and, among the forms of violence, war, it has to be remembered that the United Provinces was the only State whose soldiers were paid punctually. An effect of this laxness may be traced in the experience of a tourist in Picardy when the latter had been reduced to such a state of destitution by war that the commandants could not wring anything further out of the inhabitants and therefore forced contributions from travellers who passed through. In 1594 Moryson wished to remit from Venice to Paris, but no one had any correspondence farther than Geneva on account of the civil wars, in spite of these being nominally at an end. And they assured him it was twenty to one he would be robbed by the disbanded soldiers (which came true), and, if robbed, would be killed, because if they took him for an enemy they would think him well killed; if a friend, they would kill him to avoid making restitution; and the marshals were so strictly looked after that they would kill anyone who seemed likely to make complaints. The effect on prices receives illustration by comparing Andrew Boorde's experience of Aquitaine after a long period of peace and prosperity,—that one pennyworth [say 10d.] of bread will feed a man a week, and they sell nine cakes a penny, each cake being enough to last a man a day, "except he be a ravener,"—with a letter from a Venetian gentleman,[143] fifty-four years later, by which time civil war had become chronic. He writes from England, where he found that a good meal could be had for ten soldi [2s. 6d.], comparing this with France, which he had just traversed, where the same could not be bought for less than sixty soldi, or even a whole gold crown [£1 13s.]. As to Germany, in 1623, only five years after the Thirty Years' War broke out, Wotton writes that prices have risen enormously, "insomuch as I am almost quite out of hope to find Conscience any more, since there is none among the very hills and deserts, whither I thought she had fled." [Illustration: LITHGOW IN TROUBLE] The effect on communications goes without saying. Even worse than that was the danger from those whom the horrible cruelty of sixteenth-century warfare drove half-mad with grief and loss, who shook off civilisation and robbed and murdered recklessly. According to Aubigné, who witnessed the horrors which he dwells on at length in his "Les Tragiques," war demoralised even the dogs in a way that endangered every passer-by. Speaking of those around Moncontour, where was fought one of the battles which left most bodies on the field, Vous en voyez l'espreuve au champ de Moncontour; Héréditairement ils ont, depuis ce jour, La rage naturelle, et leur race enyvrée Du sang des vrais François, se sent de la curée.