tz. They came by the lake of
Lucerne, or lake of the forest cantons, as it is more frequently called
by the people themselves, a beautiful sheet of limpid water, lying in
the bosom of noble Alpine mountains, with sweet pastoral valleys opening
here and there among the solemn cliffs. There were soldiers, merchants,
lawyers, and peasants in the assembly; there were burghers from Berne,
Zurich, and Lucerne, with shepherds from Schwyz and Uri; in addition to
the regular deputies, there were also agents from St. Gall, Appenzell,
Soleure, and Friburg, applying for admission to the confederacy, to
which they had been hitherto only allies. It was in the winter season
that the Diet assembled. The session was scarcely opened when it became
evident that they had met in an evil temper; every subject introduced
was received with bitterness, mistrust, and suspicion. The angry
passions of the rural cantons were thoroughly aroused; they were
extremely jealous of the towns, and no reasoning could induce them to
accede to the application for admission from Friburg and Soleure. These
districts were headed by important cities, and every city was accused of
tyranny. The burghers knew too much, they were too rich, they were too
prosperous. The deputies of the larger cantons, on the other hand, were
indignant at this petty jealousy, and at the refusal to receive Soleure
and Friburg, whose citizens had fought side by side with them in so many
of their struggles. The subject of the division of the spoils from the
war with Burgundy was again advanced by the rural cantons with renewed
bitterness. In short, every matter broached seemed to offer only another
field for mistrust and fierce contention.

While the Diet was thus holding its stormy session at Stantz, a
conspiracy against Lucerne was discovered. The peasants of a rural
district subject to the town were implicated in it; they had resolved to
seize the occasion of an approaching festival for attacking the
burghers, murdering the governor and council, and razing the city to the
ground, so that in future nothing but a village, like their own, should
exist on the spot. Tidings of the discovery of this conspiracy only
aggravated the evil temper of the Diet. From invective and accusation
both parties proceeded to the gravest threats. The deputies of Friburg
and Soleure, in the hopes of restoring a better understanding,
voluntarily withdrew their application, but in vain. Both parties were
too hi