Such was the first encroachment on the ancient limits of Switzerland: shortly afterwards the bishopric of Bâle was annexed to France. Great consternation was caused by these proceedings in the confederation; but still more serious evils were at hand. In the canton of Bâle the peasantry murmured loudly against the town: in the Aargau several towns advanced tumultuous claims against Bern, for the recovery of their old and chartered rights; and the Pays de Vaud reclaimed its freedom with more impatience than ever. It was said besides, that a French army was already marching on Switzerland; ostensibly to support the claims of the malcontents, but really to make themselves masters of the land for their own purposes. Bern and Fribourg hastily levied forces for the coercion of their turbulent dependencies; and a diet of the confederacy was summoned at Aarau. Much was said and nothing done at this meeting, as the cantonal governments neither trusted each other nor their subjects. The members of the diet renewed the original league of the cantons, as if urged by the presentiment of its coming dissolution. The oath had hardly been taken, when a messenger from Bâle brought the intelligence that the mansions of the land-vogts were in flames; that a large body of peasantry had entered the town, and that all the subject districts had declared themselves free.
The spectacle of feebleness and fear in the authorities, combined with dogged resistance to the wishes of the people, of course diffused, instead of quelling, the spirit of revolt. As in the thirteenth and succeeding century, the prerogatives of the nobles had been forced to yield to the claims of a class of burghers and of shepherds, so soon as the example of the Lombard towns, and the growth of public prosperity, had excited independence of feeling; so likewise, in the times of which we are treating, it had ceased to be within the power of a privileged class to contend with success against the claims of the so-called third order, encouraged as it was by the example of France. Some districts, indeed, took no part in the prevalent agitations, and pertinaciously adhered to the accustomed order of things; others, more distinguished for enlightenment and enterprise, demanded an equality of rights in town and country; others, again, required the restoration of ancient franchises: some regarded nothing as attainable but by French interference; while nobler minds retained an insurmountable abhorrence for the agency of strangers in the internal affairs of their country.
[1797-1798 A.D.]
It became more and more evident that the policy of the French directory led them to foment intestine discord in Switzerland. For several years past it had been observed, that foreign emissaries set themselves to work upon the public opinion. A person of the name of Mengaud made his appearance at Bâle, under the unusual and equivocal title of commissary, and set his seal on the papers of the French embassy: this individual not only made no secret of his intelligence with the malcontents in Switzerland, but affected to display it ostentatiously. He went to Bern on the 10th of October, 1797, where he demanded, in a note addressed to the government, the dismissal of the English ambassador Wickham, who had certainly exerted himself openly against France, but had done so as the envoy of a power at war with that country. Bern referred the demand of Mengaud to the then directing canton, as a matter which concerned the whole confederacy.
Wickham relieved for the moment the embarrassment of the Helvetic body, while he deprived the French directory of a present pretence for violence, by taking his departure on a tour into Germany; but he left an able diplomatist behind him in the person of his secretary Talbot. Mengaud was received at Zurich and Bern with undisguised aversion, and no diplomatic visits were paid him at either of these places. In the month of November, an embassy from the latter town had been sent to Paris; which, though admitted to an audience of the director Barras, soon received a rude dismissal homewards.
Great were the hopes infused into the disaffected party by the promises of Mengaud, and other subordinate agents of France; and proportional fears were excited amongst the friends of the old system, including the greater number of public functionaries. In order to increase their uneasiness, Mengaud threatened the diet of the confederation in January, 1798, with the entrance of French troops into Switzerland, should Austria be suffered to occupy the Grisons. He travelled to the place of meeting at Aarau, with tricoloured flags flying from his carriage; and, on his arrival there, hung out an immense banner in front of his house. The triumphant revolutionists of Bâle had already formed a tricoloured flag of their own, by the addition of green to their formal cantonal colours, black and white, and their delegate at Paris, Ochs, had hastily sketched what he called an Helvetic constitution, on the model of that of the French Republic. This document was printed in Italian, French, and German, and distributed by Mengaud, not in official quarters only, but throughout the whole population of the cantons.
FRENCH TROOPS IN SWITZERLAND
In the mean time, a division of the French army, under Menard, appeared on the western frontier; and the Pays de Vaud, protected by it, declared its independence of Bern. The Bernese government saw the necessity of trying the force of arms on its subjects; and the command of the forces having been declined by councillor Erlach of Spiez, who had hitherto been one of the strongest assertors of aristocracy, it was conferred on Colonel Rudolf Weiss, who had, till then, sustained the character of a champion of the opposite system; and had contributed, by a published work,[g] to the favourable temper of the partisans of Robespierre towards the Swiss confederation. An unusual delegation of full powers placed in his hands the whole military government of the Vaud. The new commander held conferences with the leaders of the malcontents; published a treatise[h] intended to conciliate them, but intermixed conciliation with menace. Chillon was recovered by surprise from the insurgents, and the German troops of Bern were moved on the frontiers of the Vaud.
Meanwhile, General Menard was already on the lake of Geneva, with ten thousand men of the conquering army of Italy; and to him the insurgent leaders, alarmed for their own safety, addressed themselves. Menard replied, that he was instructed to give them aid and protection; and threatened Colonel Weiss that he would repel force with force, if the former should persist in drawing troops around a territory already declared independent, and in arming the communes against each other. Without taking any measures of defence—without even attempting to maintain himself on the high grounds—Weiss withdrew to the neighbourhood of Yverdun. It happened, accidentally, that two French hussars were shot on the outposts of the Bernese army, because they had not immediately answered the challenge of the sentinels. This incident was taken up by Menard, and afterwards by the directory, as an infringement of the law of nations, and the commencement of hostilities.
The revolution of Bâle, and the entrance of French troops into the Pays de Vaud, rendered it impossible for reflecting men any longer to doubt that sweeping social changes were inevitable. Yet the Swiss democracies would not be persuaded that anyone could shake their constitutions, or force on them a new species of freedom. The numerous friends of things as they were still hoped to steer themselves through the crisis without any great sacrifices, by mere dint of tenacity and delay. Many, moreover, flattered themselves with the notion that the plans of France were levelled at no wider mark than the Vaud; and were prompted by a petty feeling of jealousy towards Bern [the stronghold of the aristocracy], to see nothing in the affair but a mortification to that envied canton.