[872] "What the Cantons mostly stand chargeable with, is the feeling of cantonal selfishness" (Grote, as cited, p. 20). Compare, in the work of Sir F.O. Adams and C.D. Cunningham on The Swiss Confederation (éd. française par Loumyer, 1890, p. 29), the account of how, after the most fraternal meetings in common of the citizens of the different Cantons, "each confederate, on returning home, begins to yield to his old jealousy, and thinks of hardly anything but the particular interests of his Canton."
[873] Vieusseux, History of Switzerland, 1840, p. 39.
[874] Rilliet, Les origines de la Confédération Suisse, 1868, pp. 26-28; Dierauer, Geschichte der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, 1887, i, 84.
[875] Rilliet, pp. 21, 27, 28.
[876] J. von Müller, Geschichte der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, ed. 1824, i, 287.
[877] Müller, i, 288; Rilliet, pp. 39-42. The men of Schwytz were associated as concurrers with the powerful Counts of Lenzburg in disputes with the monastery.
[878] It seems just possible that a confederation of tribes existed in the Alps at the beginning of the fifth century—on the theory, that is, that the Bagaudæ of that period were so called from a Celtic word Bagard, meaning a cluster. See the editorial note in Bohn ed. of Gibbon, iii, 379.
[879] Rilliet, pp. 88 ff.; Dierauer, i, 78.
[880] Having sworn an oath to stand by each other, they called themselves Eidgenossen=Oathfellows, Confederates. The old spellings, Eitgnozzen and Eidgnosschaft (Dierauer, i, 265, n.; Dändliker, Geschichte der Schweiz, i, 636—in the old Tell song), show how easily could arise the later French form "Huguenots."
[881] Dierauer, pp. 85, 90; Rilliet, pp. 50, 67, 68.