The submission of the Swiss and the weakness of all the Powers 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[pg.397] 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,[pg.398] 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 people. Switzerland needed the local freedom imparted by her cantons: while France required unity, Switzerland needed federalism: the French rejected this last as damaging their power and glory; but the Swiss did not ask for glory; they needed "political tranquillity and obscurity": moreover, a simple pastoral people must have extensive local rights, which formed their chief distraction from the monotony of life: democracy was a necessity for the forest cantons; but let not the aristocrats of the towns fear that a wider franchise would end their influence, for a people dependent on pastoral pursuits would always cling to great families rather than to electoral assemblies: let these be elected on a fairly wide basis. Then again, what ready wit flashed forth in his retort to a deputy who objected to the Bernese Oberland forming part of the Canton of Berne: "Where do you take your cattle and your cheese?"—"To Berne."—"Whence do you get your grain, cloth, and iron?"—"From Berne."—"Very well: 'To Berne, from Berne'—you consequently belong to Berne." The reply is a good instance of that canny materialism which he so victoriously opposed to feudal chaos and monarchical ineptitude.
Indeed, in matters great as well as small his genius pierced to the heart of a problem: he saw that the democratic unionists had failed from the rigidity of their centralization, while the federals had given offence by insufficiently recognizing the new passion for social equality.[[228]] He now prepared to federalize Switzerland[pg.399] on a moderately democratic basis; for a policy of balance, he himself being at the middle of the see-saw, was obviously required by good sense as well as by self-interest. Witness his words to Roederer on this subject:
"While satisfying the generality, I cause the patricians to tremble. In giving to these last the appearance of power, I oblige them to take refuge at my side in order to find protection. I let the people threaten the aristocrats, so that these may have need of me. I will give them places and distinctions, but they will hold them from me. This system of mine has succeeded in France. See the clergy. Every day they will become, in spite of themselves, more devoted to my government than they had foreseen."
How simple and yet how subtle is this statecraft; simplicity of aim, with subtlety in the choice of means: this is the secret of his success.
After much preliminary work done by French commissioners and the Swiss deputies in committee, the First Consul summed up the results of their labours in the Act of Mediation of February 19th, 1803, which constituted the Confederation in nineteen cantons, the formerly subject districts now attaining cantonal dignity and privileges. The forest cantons kept their ancient folk-moots, while the town cantons such as Berne, Zürich, and Basel were suffered to blend their old institutions with democratic customs, greatly to the chagrin of the unionists, at whose invitation Bonaparte had taken up the work of mediation.
The federal compact was also a compromise between the old and the new. The nineteen cantons were to enjoy sovereign powers under the shelter of the old federal pact. Bonaparte saw that the fussy imposition of French governmental forms in 1798 had wrought infinite harm, and he now granted to the federal authorities merely the powers necessary for self-defence: the federal forces were to consist of 15,200 men—a number less than that which by old treaty Switzerland had to furnish to France. The central power was vested in a [pg.400] Landamman and other officers appointed yearly by one of the six chief cantons taken in rotation; and a Federal Diet, consisting of twenty-five deputies—one from each of the small cantons, and two from each of the six larger cantons—met to discuss matters of general import, but the balance of power rested with the cantons: further articles regulated the Helvetic debt and declared the independence of Switzerland—as if a land could be independent which furnished more troops to the foreigner than it was allowed to maintain for its own defence. Furthermore, the Act breathed not a word about religious liberty, freedom of the Press, or the right of petition: and, viewing it as a whole, the friends of freedom had cause to echo the complaint of Stapfer that "the First Consul's aim was to annul Switzerland politically, but to assure to the Swiss the greatest possible domestic happiness."
I have judged it advisable to give an account of Franco-Swiss relations on a scale proportionate to their interest and importance; they exhibit, not only the meanness and folly of the French Directory, but the genius of the great Corsican in skilfully blending the new and the old, and in his rejection of the fussy pedantry of French theorists and the worst prejudices of the Swiss oligarchs. Had not his sage designs been intertwined with subtle intrigues which assured his own unquestioned supremacy in that land, the Act of Mediation might be reckoned among the grandest and most beneficent achievements. As it is, it must be regarded as a masterpiece of able but selfish statecraft, which contrasts unfavourably with the disinterested arrangements sanctioned by the allies for Switzerland in 1815. [pg.401]