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of his native town the unmerited misfortunes which they had brought
upon his family.
In Fribourg—where, in olden times, equality of rights for all
burghers had been settled as a principle—a no less close aristocracy
had formed itself than in Bern, since the middle of the seventeenth
century. A few houses, under the denomination of secret families,
had contrived to exclude, not only the country people, but a large
proportion likewise of the town burghers, from all participation in
public affairs; and, in 1684, admission into the number of these
secret families was rendered wholly impossible. From
thenceforwards, constantly increasing discontent displayed itself
both in town and country. Several very moderate proposals for
alleviating the pressure of this oligarchy were rejected with such
haughtiness by the government, that disaffection swelled into revolt.
In 1781 Peter Nicholas Chenaux of la Tour de
[1781 a.d.] Trême, John Peter Raccaud, and an advocate
of Gruyères of the name of Castellaz, formed a
league for the achievement of a higher degree of freedom. First they
endeavoured to work upon the people by fair promises. Then
Chenaux, at the head of a select band of fifty or sixty, undertook to
terrify the government into a compromise. But the gates being closed
on the party, and the walls manned with armed burghers, this
undertaking ended in open revolt. The toll of alarm-bells summoned
up the country people from every hill and valley in the canton to
assist in the coercion of the domineering capital. A body of nearly
three thousand men encamped before the walls of Fribourg, and
further aid was hourly expected. The terrified burghers instantly
called for the armed intervention of Bern, and the latter town
detached a part of its guard without delay. Three hundred dragoons
marched upon Fribourg, and were to be followed by fourteen
hundred foot. The burghers of Fribourg now thought themselves
strong enough to meet force with force. The garrison made a sally
from the town, and on the first sight of the Bernese flag, not to
mention the heavy artillery, the malcontents solicited an armistice.
The surrender of their arms and of the ringleaders was demanded as
preliminary to all negotiation. The people refused the latter of these
conditions, but fled panic-struck on the first attack, without making
any resistance.
The whole affair would have ended without bloodshed, had not the
leader Chenaux been murdered in his flight by Henry Rosier, himself
one of the popular party. The two remaining heads of the insurgents
got clear off: Chenaux’s corpse was delivered to the public
executioner, and his head fixed on a spear above the Romont gate.
Sentence of death was passed on Castellaz and Raccaud, the two
fugitives. Several others were visited with less degrees of
punishment: new reinforcements from Bern, Solothurn, and Lucerne
secured the town from any recurrence of tumult, and their
ambassadors strove to promote the restoration of tranquillity. It was
ordered to be proclaimed, from all the pulpits, that the council was
well disposed to protect the old and well attested rights of its loving
subjects, as well as to hear, with its never-failing graciousness, every
suitable and respectful representation. Three days were allotted to
each commune to lay their complaints and wishes before the
government, through delegates. But when months elapsed without
the popular grievances having obtained a hearing, the loss of
Chenaux began to be appreciated. Multitudes assembled round his
tomb weeping and praying: pilgrimages, as if to the tomb of a saint,
were made thither with banners, and with crucifixes. Vainly were
these demonstrations of feeling stigmatised, by the government as
crime against the state, by the bishop as impious profanations. They
were neither to be checked by posting sentinels, nor fulminating
excommunications. They were the last sad consolation of the people
—the last substitute for hopes that were already given up.

DISORDERS AT GENEVA (1707-1782 A.D.)

Shortly after the establishment of Genevan

[1707-1714 a.d.] independence, it had been decreed by the
general assembly, for the better suppression of
hostile attempts against their hard-won freedom, that whoever
should propose a change in the government of Geneva should be
considered to deserve capital punishment. This did not, however,
hinder alterations being made, at different times, in various parts of
the constitution. So early as the middle of the sixteenth century, the
laws were revised and improved. The advantageous situation of the
town and the long duration of peace promoted the increase of wealth
in Geneva, and the rise of many families to opulence. These families
aimed at separating themselves from their fellow citizens, even in
their places of habitation, by settling in the upper part of the town,
near the council-house, while the other burghers inhabited the lower
town. The principal families already regarded themselves as a
standing patriciate; and even the name of patrician came into use in
the acts of council.
The year 1707 witnessed an effort of the inferior burghers to wrest
from the principal families a part of their usurped power, and to
introduce amendments in the constitution. In this emergency, the
council invoked the mediation of Bern and Zurich, received a
confederate garrison, and maintained itself by force of arms and by
execution of its principal antagonists. A renewal of the disturbances
which had been quelled by such violent measures, was produced, in
1714, by the imposition of an arbitrary tax by the council for the
enlargement and completion of the fortifications of the town. This
stretch of power occasioned great discontent among the burghers;
bitter attacks and censures on the government appeared in print;
and the more strictly these were prohibited, they obtained the more
eager perusal and credence.
One of the arch-promoters of the rising storm was Michael
Ducrest, a Genevan burgher and noble, an officer in the army, and a
member of the great council. This man opposed himself with
extraordinary vehemence to the building of the new fortifications, and
heaped offensive charges on the partisans of the measure. The
government condemned him to recant, and, on his evading
compliance by flight, a penal sentence was pronounced against him.
New attempts which he made to excite disturbance were followed by
a sentence of perpetual imprisonment. This sentence could not be
put in execution, as Ducrest had taken refuge under a foreign
jurisdiction, where he set at defiance the council of Geneva, and
provoked that body to such a degree by his writings and intrigues
against them, that sentences more and more severe were heaped
upon his head, until at length the most offensive of his writings was
torn by the hangman, and his effigy was suspended from the
gallows. His person, however, enjoyed impunity till 1744, when he
was taken into custody in the territory of Bern. The government of
Geneva did not thirst for his blood, and was content with his
perpetual imprisonment. Even in this situation he contrived to mix in
Hentzi’s conspiracy, was confined in the castle of Aarburg, and
closed, in extreme old age, as a state prisoner, a life which he had
spent in incessant labours in the cause of democracy.
Meanwhile Geneva continued to be agitated
[1734-1738 a.d.] by party manœuvres and popular discontents.
In the year 1734 a body of eight hundred
burghers addressed themselves to the heads of the government,
desiring the curtailment of the projected fortifications, and the repeal
of the tax levied for that object. The council only replied by
preparations for defence: firearms were transported to the council
hall; barricades erected in the approaches thither as well as in those
to the upper town, where the principal class of burghers lived, and
the garrison kept in readiness to act on the first signal. All this
apparatus was regarded with mistrust by the burghers, who were still
farther provoked by reports of the approach of Bernese troops, and
by the removal of a part of the town artillery to the upper regions,
while two and twenty other pieces were spiked. The multitude made
themselves masters of the city guard, pointed field-pieces on the
road by which the troops from Bern were expected, and tumultuously
demanded the convocation of the burgher assembly, the sovereign
authority of Geneva. The council contrived to win over the members
of this body so far that they voted unanimously the completion of the
fortifications and the continuance of the tax for ten years. The
declaration of an amnesty and improvement of the criminal and
judicial administration formed the rest of their business. The
burghers laid down their arms and returned to their ordinary
vocations; so that an embassy which arrived from Zurich and Bern
found Geneva in a state of apparent tranquillity.
 Permanent ill will was fostered only against the syndic Trembley,
commander of the garrison and conductor of the defensive
preparations of the council. Whatever this person had done by the
instructions of the council was laid to his individual account, and
added to the mass of dark imputations which were heaped on him,
as the head of an already obnoxious family. He plumed himself on
the favour of the confederate ambassadors, and forfeited thus the
last chance of retrieving himself in the public opinion. The
remembrance of the armed intervention of Zurich and Bern, in 1707,
was too recent to admit of their ambassadors doing any good to
Trembley’s cause through the medium of pacific intercession. The
departure of these embassies removed the only screen of the
syndic: he demanded his dismission, which was refused him, in
order to deprive him of his functions more ignominiously. No
resistance or artifice of a powerful connection could save him: the
tumults were renewed with increased fury; and the question soon
ceased to regard the person or party of Trembley, and became that
of the triumph of the aristocratic or democratic principle at Geneva.
In 1737, the council ventured several arrests, and the consequence
was that the whole body of burghers rushed to arms, and the council
was defeated, not without bloodshed. A garrison from Bern and
Zurich was thrown into the town: the ambassadors of these cantons,
in concert with the French ambassadors, undertook the office of
mediators, and in 1738 framed a constitution which set limits to the
assumptions of the council and the principal families, and was
gratefully and all but unanimously accepted as a fundamental law by
the burghers.
After four and twenty years of repose and
[1762-1768 a.d.] prosperity, occasion was given to new political
movements at Geneva by a subject of a nature
purely speculative. It pleased more than one government about this
time to apply the doom of fire, which had been visited by inquisitors
on the ill fated victims of their zealotry, to certain of the more
remarkable works of the human intellect—a proceeding highly
calculated to draw the eyes of the reading public on productions
which seemed worthy of such signal condemnation. On the first
appearance of that work of Rousseau which opened views so novel
and so striking on the moral and still more on the physical education
of man, the parliament of Paris had the work burned by the
hangman, and sentenced Rousseau to imprisonment, which he only
escaped by flight. Both of these decisions were immediately
repeated by the council of Geneva [1762], which improved on them
by launching a like condemnatory sentence against the Contrat
Social of the same author. It was in vain that Rousseau’s
connections demanded a copy of the sentence against him: their
reiterated demands, though supported by a large body of burghers,
were rejected by the council. The popular party, which vindicated the
right of the burgher assembly to bring up representations or
remonstrances against the council on any subject under discussion,
distinguished themselves by the name of representatives. Their
claims were met by asserting a droit négatif, or right of rejection, on
the strength of which the council pretended that nothing that should
not have been previously consented to by themselves could come
before the general assembly. The partisans of the council were
called negatives.
The tranquillity of Geneva was
once more disturbed to such a
degree by passionate
discourses, party writings, and
manœuvres that the
ambassadors of Zurich, Bern,
and France again interfered, and
pronounced themselves in
favour of the council. The
representatives rejected their
decision, the ambassadors left
Geneva, French troops
advanced on the town, and all
trade and intercourse were
suspended. But the French
ministry speedily became
lukewarm in the cause of the
negatives. The latter, when they
found themselves abandoned by
all foreign aid, apprehending Jean Jacques Rousseau
what might ensue, patched up a
(1712-1778)
peace with the representatives.
By a compact closed in March,
1768, the burghers acquired
valuable rights, and even a third party, that of the so-called natifs or
habitans (old inhabitants, excluded by birth from taking part in public
affairs), obtained extended franchises, and was flattered with a
prospect of participation in all the rights of citizenship.
But on recovery from the first panic, reciprocal hatred soon
revived. The negatives were vexed at having made such important
sacrifices, and aimed at resuming all their former ascendency.
Moreover they found a favourable hearing in the French court, which
had long viewed with an evil eye the trade and wealth of Geneva,
desired to raise the neighbouring Versoix to a commercial town, and
hoped, by encouraging tumult and disorder at Geneva, either to
annihilate its industry and opulence, or ultimately to bring it under the
sovereignty of France. French emissaries therefore aided the
negatives in spiriting the natifs up against the representatives, by
promising to confer on them the franchises withheld by the latter. But
the representatives flew to arms, took possession of the gates, and
speedily succeeded in disarming the unpractised and undisciplined
mob of natifs. Well aware by what manœuvres the natifs had been
led to revolt, they prudently abstained from taking any vindictive
measures against them; but, on the contrary, imparted to them, in
1781, that equality of rights which had been promised by the
negatives, and endeavoured thus to win them over permanently to
the common cause.
The council, on the other hand, impelled by
[1782 a.d.] French influence, declared the newly conferred
rights illegally extorted, and invoked the
mediation of Bern and Zurich. But, betwixt representative
stubbornness and negative assumption, the ambassadors of these
towns could exert but limited influence. They essayed to put an end
to disputes by amicable arrangements, but were baffled by the
intrigues of the French court, which was resolved to recognise no
democratical system on its frontiers, and soon proceeded to open
force in support of its secret policy. The first act of aggression was to
garrison Versoix; a measure which gave just offence to Zurich and
Bern, who thereupon renounced all adhesion to the mediation of
1738, and left the Genevans to their own discretion. France also
declared she would mix no more in the affairs of Geneva; the
government was overthrown and a new constitution established.
Zurich and Bern now declared formally and coldly that they could
not acknowledge a government erected by revolt. Still more
indignation was exhibited by France and Savoy, who entered into a
league for the coercion of the town. Bern, too, joined this league in
1782, that the destiny of Geneva, that point d’appui of her own
dominion, might not be trusted altogether to the caprices of foreign
powers. On the appearance of the allied troops before the gates of
Geneva, the burghers, unaware of the bad state of their defences,
swore to bury themselves in the ruins of their native town rather than
yield. But when the cannon of the besiegers was advanced up to
their walls, and the alternative of desperate resistance or surrender
was offered, the disunited city opened her gates without stroke of
sword, after the principal heads of the representative party had taken
to flight.
Mortal dread accompanied the victorious troops as they entered
Geneva. Many had reason to tremble for their lives, their liberty, and
possessions. No punishments, however, were inflicted, excepting
only the banishment of the principal popular leaders; but the rights of
the burghers were almost entirely annihilated by the arbitrary
arrangements of the victors; the government was invested by them
with almost unlimited power, and proceeded under their auspices to
prohibit all secret societies, military exercises, books and pamphlets
on recent events, and to reinforce the garrison by twelve hundred
men under foreign leaders. Thus the town was reduced to utter
subjection, and depopulated by exile and emigration. From
thenceforwards commerce and enterprise fell into decay; and for
seven long years a forced, unnatural calm dwelt in Geneva.
During these years the government was conducted with much
mildness, the administration of justice was impartial, that of the
public revenues incorrupt, art and industry were encouraged to the
utmost. But nothing could win the lost hearts of the people back to
the government. The iniquity of the so-called règlement of 1782, the
destruction of their franchises, and the disarming of their persons,
had wounded irrecoverably the feelings of the burghers. The
malcontents increased daily in number; and even many former
negatives now disowned their party, which had gone greater lengths
than they had ever wished or expected. At length, on the death of
Vergennes, the French minister, and arch enemy of Genevan
independence, the spirit of freedom awoke with all its ancient
strength in Geneva, and the burghers arose to break their slavish
fetters. But the recital of the subsequent occurrences must be
postponed until we come to notice the train of events fired by the
French Revolution.

TUMULTS IN NEUCHÂTEL

The little principality of Neuchâtel, the

[1748-1767 a.d.] succession of which had descended in the
same line since the era of the second
Burgundian monarchy, came, in 1707, into the hands of the king of
Prussia, as next heir to the ancient house of Châlons. In 1748,
Frederick II displayed that love of economy which distinguished all
his measures, by farming out certain parts of the public revenue
arising from tithes, ground rents, and the crown lands; from the
former administration of which many of the inhabitants had enjoyed
considerable profits. The loss of these, of course, was felt as a
grievance by the losers; but what was viewed with more concern by
the mass of the inhabitants was the prospect of still further
innovations. Accordingly five communes of the Val de Travers
transmitted their remonstrances through a delegate to Berlin; and
their example was soon afterwards followed throughout the
principality.
The arrival of two commissaries, despatched by the king to
Neuchâtel, was viewed with discontent as an encroachment on its
immunities. Shortly after their coming, an attempt was made to put in
execution the proposed financial system, of which the only result
was to provoke a tumultuous popular movement. On the 7th of
January, 1767, the burgher assembly of Neuchâtel passed a
resolution of exclusion from the rights of citizenship, against all who
should farm or guarantee the farming of the revenues. On this the
royal commissary, Von Derschau, brought a suit before the council of
Bern, against the town of Neuchâtel; and the advocate-general,
Gaudot, who had formerly been a popular favourite, much to the
surprise of his fellow-citizens, seceded to the royal side, and
thenceforwards gave his active assistance to the commissary.
The cause was decided at Bern (with some limitations) in the royal
favour. With regard to the resolutions of the Neuchâtel burghers,
already referred to, it was decreed that they should be cancelled in
the presence of the burgher assembly, and a public apology made to
the vice-governor. The costs of the whole process to be paid by the
town. Gaudot, who had attacked the civic immunities both by word
and writing, naturally became an object of popular indignation. By
way of compensation, however, he received a lucrative government
office, along with the functions of procurator-general, from which
another man had been removed who possessed the popular favour.
He returned to Neuchâtel from Bern with the royal plenipotentiaries.
These and the vice-governor advised him to take up his residence in
the castle; but, in spite of their recommendations, Gaudot thought fit
to repair to his own residence. The same evening, clamour and
disturbance took place around the house, which the magistrates
were forced to protect by military force.
The next morning the mob returned in increased numbers, and
was still further exasperated by missiles being thrown down upon
them. A carriage, escorted by servants in the royal livery, which had
been sent by the king’s commissary for Gaudot, was knocked to
pieces by the infuriated multitude. Gaudot and his nephew now
imprudently fired from the windows, and their shots took effect,
fatally for themselves. The exasperated populace forced its way into
the house; Gaudot was killed by three shots, and the mob dispersed
after the deed, with cries of “Long live the king.” The chief actors in
this tragedy escaped, and could be executed only in effigy. The
whole affair was ultimately compromised by the benevolent
moderation of the great Frederick; and terms of pacification were
accepted by the communes, which provided alike against arbitrary
government and popular turbulence.
On this occasion, Frederick displayed more generosity than would
have been shown by any cantonal government; and his conduct
seemed to justify the general reflection, which must often occur to
the student of Swiss history that when administrative abuses are
introduced into a monarchy, it only requires a well-disposed and
enlightened prince to crush the gang of official oppressors and
extortioners; because such a prince is powerfully backed in such
measures by the public opinion. Whereas, when the majority of the
ruling class in misnamed republics is corrupted so far as to speculate
on the profits of malversation, it generally takes care to recruit its
ranks with new accomplices; or, at all events, only to promote to
public offices such men as will at least shut their eyes to public
abuses. The magnanimity of Frederick was but ill repaid to his
successor by the tumults which ensued in Neuchâtel on the
commencement of the French Revolution; and we have lately seen
the same misunderstandings, as in the last century, arise between
the now canton of Neuchâtel and its Prussian sovereign.

ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY

The democratical cantons, where the assembled population

exercised the supreme power in their landsgemeinde, held the
lowest station, in almost every respect, amongst the confederates.
Narrowness of mind and ignorant hatred of all innovation withstood
every proposal of improvement; while passion and prejudice, aided
by the artifices of demagogues, often occasioned acts of crying
injustice. Judicial proceedings were in the highest degree arbitrary;
confession of crimes was extracted by torture, which, indeed, was
often employed when nothing more remained to confess. Capital
punishment, even for minor offences, was by no means rare. Public
offices, particularly that of bailiff or land-vogt, were commonly
conferred not on the worthiest but on the highest bidder; and the
proceeds of this ignominious traffic went to the public treasury. Was
it to be wondered at if these functionaries in their turn set justice up
to auction in their bailiwicks, and endeavoured to recover their
advances to the government by every sort of oppression of its
subjects?
Mental cultivation was extremely neglected in
[1780 a.d.] these cantons, scientific establishments were
rare, and those for education were, for the most
part, in the hands of the capuchins; whose esprit de corps was at
least on one occasion beneficial, by preventing the admission of the
jesuits into the canton of Schwytz in 1758. Elsewhere, however,
similar influences produced worse effects. In Glarus, so late as 1780,
an unfortunate servant girl was executed as a witch, on the charge of
having lamed the leg of a child by magic, and having caused it to
vomit pins. Credulous souls were even found to believe the
affirmation that the girl had administered pin-seed through the
medium of a magical cake, which had afterwards borne its fruit within
the body of the child. The political relations of these cantons, in the
period now before us, were of little importance.
The constitutions of the aristocratical cantons had all of them this
circumstance in common, that not only the capital towns assumed
the rule of the whole canton, but the burghers of those towns
themselves were divided into ruling and non-ruling families, of which
the former monopolised admission to all places of honour. But the
governments of these cantons deserve to be treated of more at
length.
Bern, which, in the first period after its foundation, had no domains
of any importance outside its walls, possessed in that immediately
preceding the French revolution a territory containing more than
400,000, inhabitants. This considerable tract of land was
administered by 250 ruling families, of which, however, only about
sixty were in actual possession of the government; and these again
were divided into so-called great and small families, and did not
easily suffer others to rise to an equality with them. The sovereign
power resided in 299 persons, of whom the great council was
composed. A little council or senate of five-and-twenty formed the
executive. The rural districts and the Pays de Vaud were governed
by land-vogts or bailiffs. It was chiefly there that discontent prevailed
against the Bernese government. The nobles of the Pays de Vaud
were rendered wholly insensible to the real and solid advantages
secured to them by that government, by resentment of their
exclusion from all public employments. The peasants of that district,
for the most part subjects or bondsmen of the nobles, sighed under
the weight of feudal oppression and its accustomed offspring,
poverty, neglected culture, mental and moral abortion.

Davel

A singular attempt at revolt was made in 1723 by Major Daniel

Abraham Davel, a well-intentioned man, of excellent character, but a
decided political and religious enthusiast, possessed with the idea
that he was called by inspiration to emancipate the Vaud from Bern.
He assembled the regiment of militia which he commanded, under
the pretext of a review, and with these troops, who were altogether
ignorant of his real design, and unprovided with stores or
ammunition, he surprised the town of Lausanne at a point of time
when all the Bernese land-vogts had gone to Bern for the annual
installation. Davel offered his aid for the restoration of independence
to the hastily assembled town council. He found, however, no
kindred spirit in that body; and the cautious citizens put him off with
fair words till a force was under arms sufficient to crush him.
Meanwhile his troops had discovered the real object of their
commander, and shrank from him in surprise and consternation. He
himself was arrested, cruelly tortured for the discovery of
accomplices, of whom he had none, and lastly beheaded.
A certain contempt of scholastic acquirements seemed the
prevailing tone at Bern; and school education naturally came to
deserve the low esteem which it met with. Accordingly those
patrician youths who did not serve in the army remained for the most
part unemployed until they obtained places under government. The
establishment of what was called the “exterior state” afforded but a
superficial substitute for more solid attainments, and initiated youth
only too early in the petty intrigues and jealousies of faction. This
institution, which was also known by the name of the “shadow state,”
was intended to give the youth of the ruling families opportunities for
acquainting themselves with the forms at least of public business,
and of acquiring an unembarrassed address, so important for
republicans. It parodised the dignities and offices of the state, the
election of avoyers, councillors, and senators, had its secretaries
and functionaries of all ranks, and distributed by lot 120 vogtships,
which for the most part took their names from ruined castles.
Without any sufficient evidence, some would refer to the era of the
Burgundian war the origin of this institution, which received the
sanction of government in 1687, and for which a council-house, far
more splendid than that which belonged to the actual government,
was built in 1729. The seal of this “exterior state” bore an ape astride
on a lobster, and looking at himself in a mirror. These and similar
traits of humour seem to owe their descent to an era exceedingly
remote from the measured formality of later times.
The government of Lucerne, which with Solothurn and Fribourg
formed the remaining pure Swiss aristocracies, consisted of a little
council of six-and-thirty members, which, reinforced by sixty-four
others, held the sovereign authority. With regard to intellectual
cultivation, the most contradictory features were observable at
Lucerne. On the one hand, learning, enlightenment, and patriotism
were hereditary distinctions of some families; while, on the other
hand, the mass was imbued with ignorant fanaticism. On the one
hand, the encroachments of the papacy were resisted with inflexible
firmness; while, on the other hand, the clergy kept possession of a
highly mischievous influence in the state. On the one hand, a series
of saints’ days and holidays was abolished, as being dedicated to
dissoluteness more than devotion; while, on the other hand, we are
horror-struck by the burning of a so-called heretic. In 1747, a court,
consisting of four clergymen, sentenced Jacob Schmidli, a man of
blameless life, to be strangled, and then burned with his books and
writings, because he had not only read the Bible for his private
edification, but had explained and recommended it to others as the
sole true basis of religion. His wife, his six children, and seventy-one
other persons were banished, his house was burned to the ground
by the hands of the public executioner, and a monument raised on its
former site, to perpetuate the ignomy (query: of the victim or of his
judges?).
The appearance of two pamphlets in 1769, on the question
“whether removal or restriction of the monastic orders might not be
found beneficial to the Catholic cantons?” excited terrible uproar at
Lucerne, where certain classes were constantly scenting danger to
church or state from some quarter. The town and county clergy, and
the bigots in the council, were rejoiced to get so good an opportunity
to persecute the holders of free principles, and raised a deplorable
howl, as if the canton were on the verge of destruction. The whole
population was plunged in consternation and astonishment, by
thundering sermons and rigorous prohibitions of the obnoxious work.
Free-thinkers were fulminated against by name from the pulpits; and
Schinznach, which had witnessed the formation of the Helvetic
society, was denounced as the focus and headquarters of heresy.
This society, which aimed at the diffusion of useful knowledge,
public spirit, and union throughout the Helvetic body, without
reference to varieties of religion, rank, or political system, was
founded by a knot of patriotic and instructed men, in the pious hope
of arresting the decline of the confederation. At its commencement it
consisted of no more than nine members, but added to its numbers
with astonishing rapidity. The society was soon viewed with an evil
eye by the cantonal governments, which dreaded all independence
of feeling and action in the people. At Bern, political dangers were
anticipated from it, as symptoms of refractoriness were exhibited
shortly after its formation by the nobles in the Vaud; while at Lucerne
it was regarded as a conspiracy for shaking off the Catholic religion,
and assisting the supposed ambition of Bern to gain ascendency
over the whole confederation.
The aristo-democratical governments next come under our notice,
and in these, as in most of the purely aristocratical, the metropolis
had obtained unlimited power over the whole canton. In these,
however, particular families did not engross the sovereign power; the
collective body of citizens had maintained themselves by means of
the regulations of their guilds in the possession of considerable
influence over the public affairs. Accordingly the magistracy favoured
the monopolies which enriched the metropolitan traders, and
imposed restraints on the industry and invention of the surrounding
country. Thence the subjects of these towns were much more
harshly administered than those of the aristocratical cantons. Their
ancient charters fell into oblivion, and were withdrawn as far as
possible from public inspection; they were not only excluded from
civil and military, but even from ecclesiastical functions; and the
exercise of many branches of industry, and the sale of their
productions in the towns, was wholly cut off by corporation
privileges. Moreover, since the commencement of the century of
which we are treating, no mode of acquiring the rights of burghers
remained open; they were only conferred on extremely rare
occasions to reward eminent merit; or when the times became
troublesome to conciliate influential burghers. Hence that discontent
and disaffection which broke out at the close of the century found a
principal focus in the heart of the mixed aristocracies.
In the larger cantons the public administration was for the most
part incorrupt; and that of justice was liable on the whole to fewer
complaints than in many other European countries. The pay of public
servants, with few exceptions, was extremely moderate. Men who
had devoted their whole lives to public affairs, and who had filled the
highest offices in the state, lost more than they gained by the bounty
of their country. At Zurich, the expenses of the government were
wholly defrayed without the imposition of taxes, properly so called,
from the revenues and interests of the national lands and capital,
from ground-rents, tithes, the salt monopoly, and the produce of the
premium paid by the several guilds of traders in return for their
exclusive privileges. The same description is applicable to the
government of Bern, excepting that here the course of justice was
tedious and expensive. The superior financial resources of the latter
canton enabled her to execute more for public ends than Zurich.
Bern invested considerable sums in foreign securities, particularly in
the English funds; and, besides, amassed a treasure amounting to
some millions of dollars, which became, as we shall presently see,
and as Mably had predicted, the booty of rapacious and powerful
neighbours.
Very different was the condition of the free or common bailiwicks,
particularly those of the democratical cantons; here most of the land-
vogts sought by every species of extortion to indemnify themselves
for the sums for which they had in fact bought their places from the
general assemblies of their respective cantons. Many made an open
traffic of justice; took presents from both parties; helped delinquents
to evade deserved punishment who could pay for exemption, and
exacted contributions from the wealthier class whenever and
wherever they could. Even farther than in the German domains of
Switzerland were abuses of this kind carried in the Italian bailiwicks,
and most of all in those of the Grisons. The inevitable tendency of
such treatment was to debase the popular character in those
districts, and its effects have left unequivocal traces even to this day.
In those towns of which the constitution was grounded on
corporate bodies, the privileges of the burghers and their guilds
received progressive extensions. Propositions were made which
would hardly have been conceivable in monarchical states, and
could only, in fact, take place where particular classes had to decide
upon the destiny of the rest of their fellow-countrymen. In Bâle it was
several times proposed, under the pretext of protection to
agriculture, that the exercise of certain manufactures should be
prohibited altogether in the rural part of the canton.c

FEDERAL RELATIONS OF THE SWISS STATES

The federal bond which united the various cantons and their allies
was very loose, and far different from that which fastened together
the united provinces of Holland, or even from the federal compact of
the United States of North America. There was not in Switzerland
any permanent sovereign body, no standing federal magistrate
equally acknowledged by all, no central government having its own
establishment, its own treasury, its own servants, civil and military.
The general diets could not decide upon any important question,
unless it had been previously debated and decided on in the councils
of each of the cantons, who were applied to by their own deputies for
fresh instructions at every new case which was brought before the
diet. The cantons were not even each allied to all. The eight older
cantons had among them a federal compact for their common
defence, and even of these eight the five first only, viz. Zurich,
Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Lucerne, were bound to enter into no
other alliance without each other’s consent; while the other three,
Glarus, Zug, and Bern, were at liberty to form alliances with other
states or foreign princes, provided such alliances contained nothing
prejudicial to the federal bond. The eight cantons were also bound,
by the convention of Stanz, to assist one another in supporting the
form of government established in each of them.
The five junior cantons, viz. Fribourg, Solothurn, Bâle,
Schaffhausen, and Appenzell, had no federal bond with the whole of
the rest, nor among themselves, but every one of them was allied to
some one or more of the others. The three forest cantons alone were
allied to every one of the other cantons. By these means, however,
the guarantee of common defence was secured to each; for, as any
canton attacked had the right of calling some other cantons to its
assistance, and as these were entitled to call others, all would be
brought in to take a part, in virtue of their particular bonds.
The general diets of the confederation were either ordinary or
extraordinary. The ordinary diets met once a year at Frauenfeld in
Thurgau, instead of Baden, where, until the treaty of Aarau in 1712,
they had been accustomed to meet. The deputy from Zurich
presided: he brought forward the matters to be discussed, collected
the votes, framed the resolutions, etc. Each canton or associate had
one vote and questions were decided by a simple majority. The
sittings were held with closed doors, and at the end of the session
the deputy of Zurich drew up a statement of the decisions of the diet,
of which he sent a copy round to each canton. The principal
business of the diet was to hear appeals from the common
bailiwicks, and to inspect the accounts and inquire into the conduct
of the bailiffs.
Extraordinary diets were assembled at the request of any
particular canton, or of any of the foreign ministers in case of urgent
business. In such a case the canton of Zurich summoned the other
cantons to send their deputies to Frauenfeld, or any other place fixed
upon, acquainting them at the same time with the nature of the
subjects which were to be discussed, in order that the cantonal
governments might give instructions to their deputies accordingly.
The foreign minister, at whose request an extraordinary diet was
convoked, was bound to pay the expenses of the deputies who were
thus called from their homes at an unexpected season.
The partial diets were held by the Protestant cantons at Aarau,
and by the Catholic ones at Lucerne. There was no fixed time for
their meeting, but they were summoned as the occasion required it.
A regulation, called the “defensionale,” was, as we have seen,
agreed upon at a general diet held at Baden in 1668, for providing
against sudden emergencies, such as an attack from foreign powers,
when the proceedings of the diet would have proved too slow for the
common safety. In such a case deputies were to be named by all the
members of the Helvetic body, and invested with full powers to direct
the military force of the nation, which was to be raised by contingents
from the militia of each state. This body consisted of 9600 men for
the thirteen cantons, 1400 for the associates, and 2400 for the
subject bailiwicks—in all 13,400 men; which number, however, might
be doubled and trebled if required.
The militia of each canton consisted of all the males from sixteen
to sixty years of age, and these received military instruction at
certain epochs. Only one-third of the whole, however, consisting of
the youngest and strongest, were enrolled into regiments, the other
two-thirds supplying them with recruits if necessary. The regiments
were divided into fusileers and electionaries, the fusileers being all
young unmarried men, who were considered as always ready to
march at a moment’s notice; the electionaries were composed of the
married men, of an age and size proper for service, and these were
called out after the fusileers. When in active service they received
regular pay; but every man was bound to provide his own uniform,
arms, and accoutrements.
 The Swiss, it is well known, furnished troops to several European
powers, according to certain treaties or capitulations, as they were
called, agreed upon between those powers and the various cantons.
The chief power having Swiss troops in its service was France, who
had retained them ever since the treaty made between the Swiss
and Louis XI. Under Louis XIV the number of Swiss troops in the
French service amounted to 28,000 men; but, in 1790, at the
beginning of the French Revolution, there were not more than
15,000, who were divided into twelve regiments. Six Swiss regiments
were in the service of Holland, four were serving in Piedmont, four at
Naples, and four in Spain: the pope had also a small body guard of
Swiss. There has been considerable misconception abroad upon this
subject; the cantons have been represented as selling their
countrymen as if they were cattle, while the truth is that the men
were not sold, but enlisted of their own accord for a certain period of
time, receiving the bounty money.d
Agriculture was advanced by the cultivation of clover and of other
artificial grasses, and by the consequent increase of pasturage and
manure. Many districts which had formerly been regarded as
unfruitful were thus rendered remarkable for fertility. The processes
of manuring, and many other processes in Swiss cultivation, became
a model for foreign agriculturists. Arts and manufactures were
extended more and more widely. In the canton of Bern, in the
Thurgau, and elsewhere, industry was employed on native materials
in the linen manufacture; in Zurich, St. Gall, and Appenzell, in
working up imported wool in spinning, weaving, and cotton printing.
Silk manufactures occupied Zurich and Bâle, and the latter town
enriched itself by its riband manufacture. Trade in all its branches
throve at Geneva; where a wholesale watch manufacture was
conducted, and from whence watchmaking was soon spread through
the district of Neuchâtel, where it suggested many other mechanical
processes.
Intellectual culture and social refinements marched abreast with
commercial wealth. Not only the towns were embellished with
architectural structures, but in the Emmenthal, and around the lakes
of Zurich and Geneva, arose new and splendid edifices which