In the face of such proofs of heroism, we count but lightly against German womanhood a number of degraded women of noble, even princely birth, who helped to make such courts as that of Jerôme of Westphalia abodes of licentiousness. In German cities, especially in Berlin, where the conquerors were quartered, German ladies conducted themselves "with much dignity, and such reserve as was becoming them toward the enemies of their fathers, husbands, and brothers." Only the dregs of society were at the disposal of the invaders. Voss reports that "the frequentation of the temples of lust was so great that the number of Venus's priestesses was found to be too small." The shamelessness of vile women became intolerable. Unnatural vices arose, and continued despite the severity of the law, which the police strove to enforce rigidly. During the years of reconstruction, however, which carried with them the social liberation of the peasant-serfs and the Jews, the autonomy of the communes unavoidably produced a mighty advance in the emancipation of women. The frivolity and immorality of Romanticism, which appeared barefaced in Schlegel's Lucinde and in the lives of almost all the romanticists in their intercourse with women, was indignantly rejected in those troubled times, and a return to simple virtue, chastity, and housewifely qualities was preached and inaugurated. German youths began to yearn for pure and pious women, such as had fought in male attire for the fatherland, or healed the wounded patriots in the hospitals, or worked, suffered, and sacrificed fortune, comfort, and personal interests for the holy cause.