The resistance of these worthy patriots, their calm, dignified, and manly conduct, their simple and affecting pleas against overmastering violence, though they failed to procure the advantages which they hoped for their country, were not lost to the world, or to the cause of freedom. Their pathetic complaints, when perused in many a remote valley, excited detestation of French usurpation, in bosoms which had hitherto contented themselves with regarding the victories of the Republic with wonder, if not with admiration. For other aggressions, the hurry of revolution, the extremity of war, the strong compulsion of necessity might be pleaded; but that upon Switzerland was as gratuitous and unprovoked as it was nefariously unjust. The name of the cantons, connected with so many recollections of ancient faith and bravery, hardy simplicity, and manly freedom, gave additional interest to the sufferings of such a country; and no one act of his public life did Buonaparte so much injury throughout Europe, as his conduct towards Switzerland.[654]
The dignified resistance of the Swiss, their renown for courage, and the policy of not thwarting them too far, had some effect on the chief consul himself; and in the final act of mediation, by which he saved them the farther trouble of taking thought about their own constitution, he permitted federalism to remain as an integral principle. By a subsequent defensive treaty, the cantons agreed to refuse all passage through the country to the enemies of France, and engaged to maintain an army of a few thousand men to guarantee this engagement. Switzerland also furnished France with a subsidiary army of sixteen thousand men, to be maintained at the expense of the French Government. But the firmness which these mountaineers showed in the course of discussing this treaty was such, that it saved them from having the conscription imposed on them, as in other countries under the dominion of France.[655]
HELVETIC REPUBLIC.
Notwithstanding these qualifications, however, it was evident that the voluntary and self-elected-Mediator[656] of Switzerland was in fact sovereign of that country, as well as of France and the north of Italy; but there was no voice to interdict this formidable accumulation of power. England alone interfered, by sending an envoy (Mr. Moore) to the diet of Schweitz, to inquire by what means she could give assistance to their claims of independence; but ere his arrival, the operations of Ney had rendered all farther resistance impossible. A remonstrance was also made by England to the French Government upon this unprovoked aggression on the liberties of an independent people.[657] But it remained unanswered and unnoticed, unless in the pages of the Moniteur, where the pretensions of Britain to interfere with the affairs of the Continent, were held up to ridicule and contempt. After this period, Buonaparte adopted, and continued to bear, the title of Grand Mediator of the Helvetian Republic, in token, doubtless, of the right which he had assumed, and effectually exercised, of interfering in their affairs whenever it suited him to do so.[658]
APPENDIX.
No. I.
BUONAPARTE'S LETTER TO GENERAL PAOLI.
[See p. [9].]
General,