delayed, but
finally asked the Confederates for their usual contingent. The Five
Cantons refused it; and Zurich also, concerned for her own safety,
hesitated about marching an army to such a great distance. Urged by the
repeated demands of Geneva, Bern at last sent out 5,000 men, who passed
through the Pays de Vaud, burning and pillaging, to the great terror of
the inhabitants, and in the end became troublesome in Geneva itself,
through their want of discipline. A treaty with Savoy, concluded at St.
Julien, restored peace for a while; but the lack of zeal manifested by
Zurich, in not coming to the succor, could not but dampen the sympathy
of the Bernese in her affairs.

Two new events occurred, to make her condition only the more critical.
The biennial term of the governor-general of St. Gall expired with the
close of the year 1530. A Luzerner was to take the place of the
retiring Zuricher. Before she would give her consent to the change,
Zurich demanded of him a public avowal, in favor of the Reformation,
and an oath to protect the people of the abbacy. Luzern entreated her
to dispense with such an avowal, and be content with that oath, by
which he was pledged to maintain the _Landfriede_, on the ground that
this of itself would serve to protect the Reformation, wherever
introduced by a majority of votes. Zurich persisted in her demand. She
wished all others to put the same construction on the _Landfriede_ that
she did. In consequence of this, the governor-general Frei not only
refused to leave Wyl, but marched also at the head of an armed troop of
the abbey-people, beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, to compel two
parishes in the Rheinthal, where strife had arisen, to accept the
Reformation. Vainly had Bern, on complaint of the Five Cantons,
implored Zurich to keep faith and admit the Luzernese governor-general,
on the strength of the pledge required by the _Landfriede_, thus giving
his administration a trial. No escape being left for the Five Cantons,
except an appeal to the Confederates, a General Diet was assembled in
Baden, on the 8th of January. The unanimous instruction of the Five
Cantons at this Diet shows the position which they were resolved to
maintain, as well as what was expected from their federal associates.

"We had hoped," so said their deputies in accordance with their
commission, "that all our Confederates had been sufficiently convinced
by deeds, of our firm purpose to uphold the peace and all