ers
encouraged the First Consul to impose his will on the deputies from
the cantons, who assembled at Paris at the close of the year 1802. He
first caused their aims and the capacity of their leaders to be
sounded in a Franco-Swiss Commission, and thereafter assembled them at
St. Cloud on Sunday, December 12th. He harangued them at great length,
hinting very clearly that the Swiss must now take a far lower place in
the scale of peoples than in the days when France was divided into
sixty fiefs, and that union with her could alone enable them to play a
great part in the world's affairs: nevertheless, as they clung to
independence he would undertake in his quality of mediator to end
their troubles, and yet leave them free. That they could attain unity
was a mere dream of their metaphysicians: they must rely on the
cantonal organization, always provided that the French and Italian
districts of Vaud and the upper Ticino were not subject to the central
or German cantons: to prevent such a dishonour he would shed the blood
of 50,000 Frenchmen: Berne must also open its golden book of the
privileged families to include four times their number. For the rest,
the Continental Powers could not help them, and England had "no right
to meddle in Swiss affairs." The same menace was repeated in more
strident tones on January 29th:

"I tell you that I would sacrifice 100,000 men rather than allow
England to meddle in your affairs: if the Cabinet of St. James
uttered a single word for you, it would be all up with you, I would
unite you to France: if that Court made the least insinuation of
its fears that I would be your Landamman, I would make myself your
Landamman."

There spake forth the inner mind of the man who, whether as child,
youth, lieutenant, general, Consul, or Emperor, loved to bear down
opposition.[227]

In those days of superhuman activity, when he was carving out one
colonial Empire in the New World and preparing to found another in
India, when he was outwitting the Cardinals, rearranging the map of
Germany, breathing new life into French commerce and striving to
shackle that of Britain, he yet found time to utter some of the sagest
maxims as to the widely different needs of the Swiss cantons. He
assured the deputies that he spoke as a Corsican and a mountaineer,
who knew and loved the clan system. His words proved it. With sure
touch he sketched the characteristics of the French and Swiss p