e
Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Muehlhausen
in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchatel, and
Valais on the Upper Rhone. Last came the subject-lands, Aargau,
Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various
degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords. Such was the old
Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian
league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so
profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the
masterful genius of Philip. Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a
new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the
greatest statesman of the age.

On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution
exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud
strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the
invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave
resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the
Swiss treasuries. After the plunderers came the constitution-mongers,
who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and
geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons,
allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was
constituted as an indivisible republic--except Valais, which was to be
independent, and Geneva and Muehlhausen, which were absorbed by France.
The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited
considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence;
but a constitution recklessly transferred from Paris to Berne could
only provoke loathing among a people that never before had submitted
to foreign dictation. Moreover, the new order of things violated the
most elementary needs of the Swiss, whose racial and religious
instincts claimed freedom of action for each district or canton.

Of these deep-seated feelings the oligarchs of the plains, no less
than the democrats of the Forest Cantons, were now the champions;
while the partisans of the new-fangled democracy were held up to scorn
as the supporters of a cast-iron centralization. It soon became clear
that the constitution of 1798 could be perpetuated only by the support
of the French troops quartered on that unhappy land; for throughout
the years 1800 and 1801 the political see-saw tilted every few months,
first in favour of the oligarchic or federal party, then again toward