nment by popular magistrates prevailed in all the cantons.
Liberty was not quite democratic, for the cantons ruled several subject
provinces, and in the cities a somewhat aristocratic electorate held
power; nevertheless there was no state in Europe approaching the Swiss
in self-government. Though they were generally accounted the best
soldiers of the {147} day, their military valor did not redound to
their own advantage, for the hardy peasantry yielded to the
solicitations of the great powers around them to enter into foreign,
mercenary service. The influential men, especially the priests, took
pensions from the pope or from France or from other princes, in return
for their labors in recruiting. The system was a bad one for both
sides. Swiss politics were corrupted and the land drained of its
strongest men; whereas the princes who hired the mercenaries often
found to their cost that such soldiers were not only the most
formidable to their enemies but also the most troublesome to
themselves, always on the point of mutiny for more pay and plunder.
The Swiss were beginning to see the evils of the system, and prohibited
the taking of pensions in 1503, though this law remained largely a dead
letter. [Sidenote: September 13-14, 1515] The reputation of the
mountaineers suffered a blow in their defeat by the French at
Marignano, followed by a treaty with France, intended by that power to
make Switzerland a permanent dependency in return for a large annual
subsidy payable to each of the thirteen cantons and to the Grisons and
Valais as well. The country suffered from faction. The rural or
"Forest" cantons were jealous of the cities, and the latter, especially
Berne, the strongest, pursued selfish policies of individual
aggrandizement at the expense of their confederates.

As everywhere else, the cities were the centers of culture and of
social movements. Basle was famous for its university and for the
great printing house of Froben. Here Albert Duerer had stayed for a
while during his wandering years. Here Sebastian Brant had studied and
had written his famous satire. Here the great Erasmus had come to
publish his New Testament.

But the Reformation in Switzerland was only in [Sidenote: 1521-9] {148}
part a child of humanism. Nationalism played its role in the revolt
from Rome, memories of councils lingered at Constance and Basle, and
the desire for a purer religion made itself felt among the more
earnest. Switze