It has always been an interest of mine to understand history from a contemporary perspective, that is what would it have been like to live during any arbitrary historical period.
We're all familiar with clinically generic and sterile history of names, dates, and places, most of which is focused upon the elite, the ruling class. Very little of history is representative of what life was actually like then. This is no different than what can be discerned from any history books concerning contemporary modern times. what do Boomer's children & grandchildren actually know about what life was like post-Kennedy assassination, LBJ era, landing on the moon, Watergate, etc. except what the history books state, except nameless faces and clinical detachement of sterile figures, places, and events (e.g. Tonkin Gulf, U.S.S. Pueblo, Landing Xone X-Ray). Its not until first hand narrative accounts are read that one gets an inkling what it was like to live through those events.
I think Grimmelhausen's satire does an exquisite and erudite job of edifying and illuminating the period from the eyes of the common man, i.e. the hoi polloi, and not some lofty, rarified, nobility and blue-blooded aristrocracy (the tip of the iceberg if you will). That would be akin to understanding contemporary life through accounts of the names, dates, places and activities and meetings held by current heads of state.
You mention the price of progress. I guess there's no better example of that than the U.S. Civil War. The Time-Life series on the Civl War puts that conflict into contemporary eyewitness terms, i.e., what it was like to have actually lived through those battles (often on an hour to hour time frame).
Another good example of this would be Robert Graves series, I, Claudius. This is a historical narrative written from Emperor Claudius' perspective about what contemplatively and plausibly could've been day to day life for the very elite of Roman society. Initially its written from the "fly on the wall" perspective. What struck me immensely with that work is the irony of these people considering themselves to be the epitome of civilized. One only can ponder what "barbarian" life was like in that regard (in that the horrendous brutality of those "civilized" people is utterly breathtaking).
Other than that, no point should be implied by my posting that excerpt from Grimmelhausen's story, other than what may be inferred existentially; you'll get out of it whatever you get out of it (in whatever terms whatever you get out of it means something to you).