who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and
geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons,
allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was
constituted as an indivisible republic--except Valais, which was to be
independent, and Geneva and Muehlhausen, which were absorbed by France.
The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited
considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence;
but a constitution recklessly transferred from Paris to Berne could
only provoke loathing among a people that never before had submitted
to foreign dictation. Moreover, the new order of things violated the
most elementary needs of the Swiss, whose racial and religious
instincts claimed freedom of action for each district or canton.

Of these deep-seated feelings the oligarchs of the plains, no less
than the democrats of the Forest Cantons, were now the champions;
while the partisans of the new-fangled democracy were held up to scorn
as the supporters of a cast-iron centralization. It soon became clear
that the constitution of 1798 could be perpetuated only by the support
of the French troops quartered on that unhappy land; for throughout
the years 1800 and 1801 the political see-saw tilted every few months,
first in favour of the oligarchic or federal party, then again towards
their unionist opponents. After the Peace of Luneville, which
recognized the right of the Swiss to adopt what form of government
they thought fit, some of their deputies travelled to Paris with the
draft of a constitution lately drawn up by the Chamber at Berne, in
the hope of gaining the assent of the First Consul to its provisions
and the withdrawal of French troops. They had every reason for hope:
the party then in power at Berne was that which favoured a centralized
democracy, and their plenipotentiary in Paris, a thorough republican
named Stapfer, had been led to hope that Switzerland would now be
allowed to carve out its own destiny. What, then, was his surprise to
find the First Consul increasingly enamoured of federalism. The
letters written by Stapfer to the Swiss Government at this time are
highly instructive.[220]

On March 10th, 1801, he wrote:

"What torments us most is the cruel uncertainty as to the real aims
of the French Government. Does it want to federalize us in order to
weaken us and to rule more surely by our divisions: or does it
really desire