_?7 /-9
















SWITZERLAND:
HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
"What lonely magnificence stretches around!
Each sight how sublime! and how awful each sound!
All hush'd and serene, as a region of dreams,
The mountains repose'Inid the roar of the streams;
Their glens of black umbrage by cataracts riven,
But calm their blue tops in the beauty of heaven."
em-04ork.
PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER,
SUNDAY-SCIIOOL UrNION, 200 IMULBERSRY-STREET.
18I5G.








CONTENTS.
PART I.-HISTORICAL.
CHAP.                                                                   PAGE
I.-THE DI3I  DISTANCE.................................    5:II.-SEEDS OF NA.TIONALITY..........................                   18
IIl.-HEROIS01           AND  INDEPENDENCE.....................   29
IV.-TIIE  REFORMATIO                        ON.............4........... 9..   49
V.-WARS  OF RELIGION.................................   67
VI.-A   LONG  PEACE.......................................   73
VII.-OVERTHROW  AND  RESTORATION..................   84
PART II.-DESCRIPTIVE.
1.-NATURE...............................................  103
II.-ART....................................................  143
III. —SOCIETY...............................................  173








SWITZERLAND:
HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
PART I.-HISTORICAL.
CHAPTER I.
THE DIM DISTANCE.
THE aboriginal inhabitants of the beautiful land,
to some account of which this volume is devoted,
were doubtless the bear, the wolf, and the chamois.
Wild animals originally roamed at will among its
rocks and ravines, through its woods and forests,
along its valleys and table-lands, over its glaciers
and snow mountains. Perfectly uncultivated, barien in many parts, but yielding here and theae
profuse vegetation in forms most diversified, the
whole aspect of the country must have been as
wild as its wandering tenants. Nowhere has human toil and skill been more active and ingenious
than in Switzerland, in tilling the soil and reclaiming the waste, and in gathering round the savage




.6              SWITZERLAND.
scenes of nature the pleasing forms cf civilization.
What a country of awful and terrible grandeur
must it have been before man had begun to fell
its trees, to lay out fields and towns on the banks
of its rivers, and to make paths over its mountains! What an impression must its vast solitudes have made on the minds of those who were
first led by the accidents of war or the chase to
penetrate into its unknown recesses!
The earliest human inhabitants were probably
of the Celtic race. "Cimmerian darkness" has
become proverbial. The Cimmerian and the
Celt appear to be the same, and the clouds and
gloom with which ancient popular belief overspread the regions peopled by them, ere they
spread over the heart of Europe, are but emblematical of the deep obscurity which envelops all
their early movements. While classical and other
nations on the Mediterranean shores, and kingdoms and empires in the East, were in a state of
advanced civilization, with historians recording
their national progress, these Celtic emigrants,
who found a home among the fastnesses of the
Alps, were rude and barbarous; unorganized, and
not attaining to the rank of a national existence;
ignorant of the higher laws of social life, and incapable of recording their own struggles.
The first glimpse we catch of this Celtic people




THE DIM DISTANCE.            7
is at a period about a century before the Christian era, under the name of ielvetians. Coesar
subsequently alludes to them as strong and warlike, and specially distinguishes two tribes of
them, the Tigurini and the Urbigeni, whose local
position it has been supposed were Zurich and
Orbe. In addition to the Celtic IHelvetii, who
settled or wandered about the northern and western regions of the Alps, there was a distinct race,
perhaps of Etruscan origin, who inhabited the
present Grison country, called Rhketia by the Ro-'mans. The Tigurinian Helvetii, if we may so
call them, we find, in the time of the Consul
L. Cassius, engaged in an invasion of Gaul, fighting in union with the Cimbri, also of the Cimmerian or Celtic stock. Cassius was sent against
them, for Gaul had become subject to Roman
sway. A battle was fought between these people and the consular army; on the banks of the
Aar, say some; on the eastern shore of Lake
Leman, say others; but it is agreed by all that
the consul was killed and the Romans routed.
LA Celtic leader named Divico appears conspicuously in connection with this exploit of the hardy
mountaineers, and after him  another chieftain,
still more remarkable, called Orgetorix.  He
seems to have been a man of ambition, discontented with a mountain life, preferring the pur



8               SWITZERLAND.
suits of war to the feeding of his cattle, and turning his eyes with envy from the wastes around to
the well-tilled fields of Gaul. Oratory is numbered among his gifts; and as the result of his
persuasive eloquence, his people are described as
resolving to emigrate with all their possessions in
search of a richer home. Selfish and despotic
designs, however, on the part of this individual,
being discovered by his followers, he committed
suicide to escape the threatened punishment of
the stake. Notwithstanding, the project of settling in Gaul was pursued; but Caesar met these
wanderers and thinned their numbers; sending
back those who survived to repair their forsaken
and ruined dwellings, and to remember that they
were thenceforth tributaries to Rome.
After Gaul was thoroughly subdued, the conquerors sent, in pursuance of their established
policy, certain colonies into the country of HIelvetia, and for a while some sort of amity existed
between the Celtic men of the mountain and
their new masters; but a war soon broke out between them. The Roman legions, under Caecina,
aided by the subject Rhmetians, attacked with experienced skill and steady valor the undisciplined
bands of the Helvetii, cutting them down with
resistless force, giving them no quarter, showing
them no mercy. Slaveryv was the lot of those




THE DIM DISTANCE.            9
who escaped death; and the poor natives of the
rocks and woods had to rue their temerity in
daring to face the conquerors of the world. Even
surrender did not placate their aroused wrath;
and the earliest episode in ielvetian history,
which appeals strongly to our feelings, is that of
Julia Alpinula, who pleaded in vain with the
legate and General Caecina for the life of her
father, when with the people of Aventicum he
humbly submitted to the victorious enemy. A
touching record of the failure of her personal entreaties in the Roman camp, at the feet of the
Roman warrior, was long ago discovered in the
following inscription on a stone among the ruins
of Aventicum: —" I, Julia Alpinula, lie buried
here; the unhappy child of an unhappy father;
a priestess of the goddess Aventia. I was unable
by my prayers to avert his death, for fate had decreed his mournful end. I have lived three-andtwenty years." The eloquence of Claudius Cossus, a Helvetian envoy, was more successful; and
through his representations, acknowledgments,
and entreaties, the wrath of the Roman soldiery
was appeased, when it was on the point of wreaking summary vengeance on the vanquished, and
totally exterminating the race. Better times came
afterward, and Vespasian, who had spent his boyhood in the city of the young priestess Julia, en



1 0            SWITZERLAND.
larged its walls and improved its buildings.
Marks of old Roman civilization have been traced
over the Rhaetian Alps and the open country in
the north of Switzerland. The language of the
former region at the present day is a proof of the
existence there of Roman influence; while Roman stations have been identified in a line from
Wallenstadt to Berne, by way of Lucerne. To
the south of this boundary it is supposed that
Roman power was not steadily employed; and
that the Helvetii, who were living there, retained
a wild independence.
No incidents are discernible in the dinm distance
relative to Helvetia for some centuries after the
age of Vespasian; but at the fall of the empire,
when all Europe appears in movement and confusion, the organization of the old world being
broken up, and the elements of the modern world
beginning to appear, we discover that fresh tribes
were coming from the north to find a home among
the Swiss hills and valleys, and to become the
parents of the race who since have covered their
country with proofs of vigorous industry, and
have linked it in enduring association with the
romantic stories of their patriotism and valor.
First came the Burgundians from the Baltic
shores, settling down between the Jura range, the
Lake of Geneva, and the river Aar. Then came the




THIE DIM DISTANCE.          11 l
Alemanni with vengeful hate against all that was
Roman, and spread themselves over the northern
portions, or what is now called German Switzerland. Then came the Ostrogoths, establishing
their power in the Rhxetian Alps. Finally came
the Franks, crushing the Alemanni, and sharing
Switzerland with the Burgundians and Ostrogoths. But the Burgundians had soon to submit
to the Franks, and the Ostrogoths were too weak
to retain their possessions; so that we find, at the
end of the sixth century, all iHelvetia had become
subject to Frankish sway. It should be observed,
however, that the Burgundians remained a distinct people.
The buddings of Roman civilization among the
HIelvetii were nipped, and the seeds entirely destroyed by this influx of barbarian tribes. Roman architecture and art, with its comforts and
luxuries, completely disappeared, especially before
the Alemanni, to be replaced, however, in progress
of time, by the fruits of a better civilizationattended by social habits of higher and purer
morality which would more than compensate for
the temporary loss. For a time there was the
reign of desolation. The flocks and herds of the
new possessors of the land " supplied them with
all they required for subsistence, so that the whole
country became one vast common or pasture




12             SWITZERLAND.
ground; the arable and cultivated lands were
abandoned to waste, the furrows of the Roman
plow overgrown with thickets, while the banks
of the Lake of Constance became covered with
vast forests, the retreat of wolves and bears."
Thus in many parts men resigned their dominion
over nature, and the aboriginal brute denizens of
the woods returned to their former haunts.
The Franks, however, brought with them the
rudiments of that remarkable social system which
formed a rough kind of network during the middle ages-keeping men and things together in
some imperfect connection and order. Feudal
arrangements obtained in Switzerland from the
time of the earliest Frankish settlements; the
Frankish king was a feudal sovereign; the Frankish court was a type of the feudal baron; the
Frankish soldiers were the precursors and patterns
of the feudal vassal; and too many of the old
Helvetii who remained were reduced to a state
of servitude, and became the progenitors of feudal
serfs.* Feudalism did not reach its full organic
development till the tenth century, when it was
found in France, exhibiting all its characteristic
features, and yielding advantages of no mean
value in otherwise almost lawless times; but the: For an account of the feudal system, see "Glimpses
of the Dark Ages," No. 365 Youth's Library.




THE DIM DISTANCE.           13
germs of that order of things were certainly
springing up among the Franks on their first establishnaent in Gaul and Helvetia, to produce
their ripened fruits after the days of Charlemagne.
The Celts were pagans, and the slaves of abject
superstition. They worshiped not only the sun,
the moon, and the stars, but the sylphs and
shadowy powers which they imagined haunted
the wood, the rock, and the stream. The Romans
carried their religion along with their arms into
Helvetia; but besides the forms of Roman worship, there would still be retained by the natives
the adoration of their earlier gods. The date of
the introduction of Christianity into Switzerland
cannot be ascertained; we have only legends remaining in reference to this important branch of
history, and they are anything but safe guides to
a definite conclusion. There may be a measure
of truth in them; but how, in this case, to separate the gold from the alloy is a process which
modern ingenuity is incompetent to discover.
We read of 13eatus in the first, and of Lucius in
the third century, as teachers of the Christian
religion to the pagans of Helvetia. No doubt
the tidings of the gospel may be regarded as
having been conveyed at a very early age, if not
by express -missionaries, yet by converted soldiers




14             SWITZERLAND.
and travelers from Rome, after a Church had
been established in that city, to most of the provinces of the empire, especially to one so little
remote as Helvetia; and it is pretty certain that
Churches existed in the country of the Valais before the end of the fourth century, and in Geneva,
Coire, and Aventicum  during the fifth.  The
Franks under Clovis, as the result of their victory
over the Alemanni, and in fulfillment of a previous conditional vow, embraced the religion of
Christ, to whose interference they attributed their
success; but a profession of Christianity under
such circumstances is anything but satisfactory,
for however sincere the parties might be, they
could not have a correct and adequate idea of the
faith they nominally embraced. Whatever might
be the Christianity of the Franks, no doubt they
carried it with them, such as it was, to their new
abodes, and diffused it among those who became
their subjects and dependents.  The Christian
religion, under a purer form and by a better
agency, was taught to the inhabitants of the
north-eastern part of Switzerland at the beginning
of the seventh century. It was conveyed by a
missionary born in Ireland, and educated under
Columba, the founder of the Scottish monastery,
in the island of Iona. Less corrupted, and main..
tained with more zeal and vigor than in some




THE DIM DISTANCE.           15
other parts of Europe, Christianity flourished in
that remote spot, throwing its illumination far
and wide. Trained so auspiciously in an age
when primitive Christianity had declined, Gall
became the companion of Columba in his missionary enterprises.  After attending him  in
France, he proceeded alone to a place called
Arbon, near the Lake of Constance. He finally
removed to a retired spot near the river Sitter,
where, in company with twelve brethren, he laid
the foundation of an institute which afterward became the famous monastery of St. Gall. Some
buildings yet remain, the relics of this once powerful establishment; and the name of their original
founder still connected with them, after the lapse
of so many ages, points to their Gaelic originfor "the Gael" is evidently the import of the
missionary's title-and it thus connects the diffusion of the gospel in that part of Switzerland
with Scotland.
It is a curious fact, that the earliest account
we have of bell-towers is in the records of the
Columban monastery of Iona, from which point
they seem to have been spread over other parts
of Europe; so that in the line of old towers of
that description, between the Rhoetian Alps and
Cologne, along the banks of the Rhine, may be
traced the interesting memorials of missionary




16              SWITZERLAND.
labors performed by these Scottish Christians.
Ascetic practices, we certainly know, and deeply
lament, blended with their piety, for they are
characteristic of their age; but if their faith was
mixed with error, their devotion seems to have
been fervent, and their zeal and activity untiring.
The monastery of St. Gall became not only a
school of religious instruction, but a center of
civilization, in times when, according to the statements just made, humanizing influences were so
much needed.  As early as the ninth century, a
pile of buildings, with which the primitive cells
of the Gaelic missionaries could not be compared,
succeeded those simple structures.  They were
of very spacious dimensions, and embraced all
the details of a complete and commanding monastic institute.  While we can never forget and
must deeply deplore that monachism was thoroughly unscriptural in its fundamental principle,
and that in many of its religious effects it was
extremely pernicious, yet we should remember
that the industry of the monks was, in the hands
of God's providence, the means of effecting beneficial results to the age in which they lived. We
happen to have before us a curious plan of the
monastery of St. Gall, as it existed in the ninth
century. It illustrates the provisions made in it
for the support of the large community dwelling




'TIlE DIM DISTANCE'.         17
within its walls, and for the aid and benefit of
the surrounding inhabitants and the travelers
who reached its gates. Judging from the plan,
it must have been a little town, full of streets and
houses, grouped about a large church. There
were shops for numerous trades, including shoemakers, saddlers, turners, curriers, goldsmiths,
and fullers. The building included barns and
thrashing-floors, with sheds and houses for cattle,
sheep, and swine, and ample accommodation for
fowls and ducks, to which were added large gardens and goodly orchards, well stocked with
vegetables and fruits.  Infirmaries and schools
were also embraced within its spacious walls;
and the hospitium for the entertainment of wayfarers was one of its most characteristic provisions.
The monastery of St. Gall, brought so vividly before us by the plan just mentioned, is the one
distinct spot in the dim distance of early Swiss
civilization.
Charlemagne must be noticed, in connection
with this part of our history.  The Helvetian
territory, as part of the Frankish kingdom, came
under his sway. He was a civilizer in a barbarous age; a man seeking, amid manifold confusion, to subdue society into something like order.
He had a vigorous mind, a strong arm, and a
steadv will; and in Switzerland, as well as else



18             SWITZERLAND.
where, he sought to improve the condition of hi,
subjects. He promoted agriculture in the valleys,
and taught the peasants to clothe the hills with
vines. His stay at Zurich is particularly recorded.
There he enriched the cathedral and established
schools-a branch of national improvement on
which, with much wisdom, he especially set his
heart; and a work of benevolence which the
Zurichers, with sympathetic wisdom, were wont
to celebrate by an annual fbstival.
CHAPTER II.
SEEDS OF NATIONALITY.
GREAT empires, established by great men, have
crumbled away with the dust of their founders.
The empire of Charlemagne fell to pieces after
his death. Germanic Helvetia, the abode of the
old Alemanni, formed part of the great Germanic
division which became subject to the scepter of
Lothaire.  Burgundian Helvetia remained attached to France, under Henry the Fowler, who
succeeded to the crown of the German empire at the close of the ninth century. We trace
among the inhabitants of Germanic Helvetia, the




SEEDS OF NATIONALITY.          19
formation of elements which prepared for the existence and unfolding of Swiss nationality. The
emperor was a friend to the foundation and improvement of towns; seeking thereby to establish posts of defense against a new horde of barbarians, the Magyars or natives of Hungary, who
were then traversing the old pathway of the Huns,
in order to possess themselves of the coveted territory of the west and south. Accordingly, he
walled and fortified Soleure, Basle, Zurich, and
St. Gall; a town having grown up at the latter
spot in the neighborhood of the famous monastery of that name.  Corporate councils for deliberation and action were aimong the fiuits of
this revived municipal life, of which Henry planted
the seeds along the frontiers of the Swiss dominions. The same thing was afterward repeated in
that portion of Helvetia which had formerly
known the Burgundian rule, and Geneva, Lausanne, and Fribourg were added to the number
of the new corporate towns. These civic communities afforded points of attraction to the free
inhabitants of the country, whose liberty, owing
to the power and oppression of neighboring petty
counts and bishops, was most imperfect and uncertain, most disturbed and insecure. The solitary freeman was little better than the serf; but
combination in the town, and organized union




20              SWITZERLAND.
within its well-built walls, enabled the inhabitants
to defend their lives, families, and possessions
against the assaults of lordly marauders. They
ceased to be either mere units or herds of slaves.
They sacrificed a lawless independence; but they
found liberty within lines of order, and safety
under the shield of mutual protection.  Social
sympathies took root in their new abodes, as they
had not done among the rude and scattered farms
of the hill and glen. Individual patriotism, born
in the country, shaped itself, within the towns,
into social forms; the love of home fired at once
a thousand hearts; and affections were cultivated,
out of which afterward arose some of the most
striking phenomena of Swiss nationality,  The
population of Helvetia was still comparatively
small; the villages were poor and thinly peopled,
and the towns were few, and as yet, for the most
part, far from strong. But bonds of union are
seen in that remote age, at least occasionally and
for a time, woven here and there by some one
hand more vigorous than others, or by the united
action of the less powerful. The house of Zveringen appears conspicuous in the history of Switzerland during the twelfth century. The dukes of
that family, who bore the name of Bertholdt,
possessed considerable prerogatives delegated to
thmel by the emperor of Germany; and at the




SEEDS OF NATIONALITY.         21
same time owed additional power to their being
elected as kast vogts, or patrons, by Zurich and
other towns. They exercised an indefinable kind
of lordship over a large part of Helvetia, but
chiefly employed their power in the establishment
and protection of towns. They exacted oaths of
fidelity from those to whom they gave encouragenent, afforded support, or promised defense. The
bondsmen, who fled to the towns, are described
as "free, when their masters did not claim them
within the term  of one year, and prove their
vassalage by the oath of seven witnesses.  The
burghers imposed taxes on themselves. In the
wars of the duke they were not obliged to march
to such a distance as would prevent them from
sleeping at home the same night. Every burgher
was also obliged to possess a house, as a pledge
of his allegiance. In good or evil fortune they
stood each for all and all for each."
It is true that the town thus became to the
citizen as his country, and patriotism took but a
narrow range; yet a schooling was thus going
on for the subsequent outgrowths of lHelvctic
nationality, and the Bertholdts were the nurses
of that spirit of mutual league and brotherhood
which at length was manifested by the Swiss in
their republican confederation. Bertholdt the fifth
was the most distinguished of his family, and to




22              SWITZERLAND.
him is attributed the erection of Berne, on the
lofty peninsula which is formed by the circling
stream of the Aar. The position he selected does
credit to his taste, and proves his wisdom, while
no one who now visits the picturesque old city
can fail to notice the honor paid to his memory
by the Bernese.  One of the favorite legendary
stories of the place relates to the origin of its name.
Bertholdt is said to have resolved on taking a title
for his city from the first animal whom his huntsmlen should kill in the chase. A bear was attacked and slaughtered, and hence the appellation
of Berne, which signifies bear, was given to the
spot.
It is difficult sometimes to spell men's motives
out of tleir actions, and perhaps we should be
attributing too much to the Bertholdts if we were
to describe them as disinterested friends to the
liberties of the people; probably they intended
by the establishment of towns to strengthen themselves against the rival nobles of their time. But
at any rate they proved themselves benefactors to
their race, and their names appear with some
considerable degree of honor in the early annals
of Switzerland.
Upon the extinction of the Zxeringen dynasty,
another and still more illustrious friend of his
country appeared in the person of Rudolph of




SEEDS OF NATIONALITY'.        23
lHapsburgh, a member of a family of feudal lords,
who had long maintained a wide and powerful
rule in the north of Switzerland. Such was his
importance and influence, that in 1273 he was
elevated to the throne of the German empire; but
so far from forgetting the interests of the land of
his birth, after his attainment of that distinguished
honor, he devoted himself-at least for a whilemost sedulously to the improvement of the Helvetic towns, by adding to their municipal privileges; thus walking in the footsteps of the Dukes
of Zaeringen. To Zurich, Shaffhausen, and Soleure, were conceded by him the right of electing
their own judges and framing their own laws.
Laupen and Lucerne were placed on a level with
Berne; and Bienne was invested with the same
immunities as Basle. The latter part of Rudolph's
career proved not so favorable to the interests of
his countrymen.
While nationality was fostered in the towns,
the same sentiment was rising, under very different circumstances, in the rural districts of Helvetia. On the borders of the lake now known as
that of the four cantons, dwelt a race of shepherds
from ancient times, in a state of primitive simplicity, undisturbed in what was then an almost
inaccessible region, strangers to Alemanni, Burgundian, and Frank, and nursing in their breasts




24             SWITZERLAND.
a spirit of courage and freedom amid the mountain air and by the mountain stream. Three
valleys were in close neighborhood, called Schwyz,
Unterwalden, and Uri, forming the Waldstatten,
or wooded cantons.   According to their own
traditions they were from Scandinavia, or Friesland, an island on the North Sea.* They were
peopled by inhabitants of a remote northern origin, descendants from one stock, with feelings
and traditions in common, strengthened, even
after the increase of their flocks had rendered it
needful for them to seek fresh pastures, by their
continuing still to fiequent in the vale of the
Muotta the same church within the humble walls
of which their fathers had worshiped. When
each band' of settlers was compelled to have its
own house of prayer, its own court of justice, and
its own distinct rulers and guardians, a bond of
union, derived from their common descent and
early associations, was still preserved.  Their
abodes were so unfrequented by strangers that
their existence long remained unknown to the
lords of Helvetia; and some of their judicial
usages were so simple that they had what was
called a street court, which consisted of the first
seven men who happened to assemble. In religion, some among them at least seem to beo;: Not the modern Friesland.




SEEDS OF NATIONALITY.          25
free from certain errors of their times. In a later
chronicle of the Abbey of Corvey, written in the
twelfth century, Swiss travelers are mentionedthe people of these forests or wood cantons alone
bore the name then-as opposed to image or
relic worship, and other rites of the Romish
Church, and as knowing the Bible by heart.h
In this very hasty and imperfect sketch of
Swiss history, we can dwell only on a few leading points; but to prevent being misunderstood,
we must remark, in connection with these notices
of the seeds of nationality, that while a process
was going on, destined by Divine Providence at
length to yield some very remarkable results,
there was a great deal coexistent with that process calculated to hinder its advance.  At the
time of which we speak, there were to be found
over Switzerland at large, numbers of petty tyrants, both lay and ecclesiastical, who were crushing the energies of the feudal dependents by the
weight of their exactions, and who looked with
intense jealousy upon the proceedings of the
Dukes of Zaeringen and the Count of lHapsburgh.
The reader would make a grievous mistake if he
were to suppose either that those distinguished
- Planta gives the passage, from which it appears
that some of these people would not eat animal food.
— Ielvetic Confederacy, vol. i, p. 178.




26              SWITZERLAND.
personages had an uncontested lordship over the
land, or that other nobles adopted plans like
theirs. A number of counts strove to maintain,
and not without success, the utmost amount of
feudal authority, and to exact from their vassals
all the submissive homage and tribute that could
possibly be obtained. The Abbots of St. Gall and
of Einsiedlen are mentioned as honorable exceptions, having promoted the welfare of the serfs
on their estates by releasing their bonds and by
encouraging their industry. Yet in cases when,
from enlightened views or with selfish ends, a
baron or bishop improved his property and the
comfort of his humbler tenants, by commanding
them to clear the land, cultivate the soil, and
build better homesteads, these poor men, according to feudal usage, so executing their lord's
pleasure, did it but as menials, having only a
modified and imperfect kind of property in the
fruit of their labor. They received " the timber
requisite for their dwellings and stables, the seeds
for sowing, the plow and wagon for the labors
of the field, a hatchet and ladder for those within
doors, the first cows in the stall, the first sow and
pigs, and in the farm-yard the first cocks and
hens. For this they were required to pay a tax
on every article, to afford their services in the
field for their lord, and transport the products to




SEEDS OF NATIONALITY.         27
his castle, to pay rent and tithes for their own
crops, and other contributions in linen, cheese,
poultry, and eggs." —Zschokke.
Among those who were sunk in the lowest
state of vassalage were the inhabitants of the
Rhwetian Alps. The Bishop of Coire, and certain
abbots and counts, ruled with a rod of iron
over their rural tributaries. Many a castle raised its head in the rocky passes of that rugged
but magnificent region, at the foot of which
groups of peasants dwelt in a state of miserable
serfdom. The old town of Coire enjoyed municipal rights, and in some of the remoter valleys
there were people who lived in comparative independence; but generally, in about the whole of
what is now the common line of road from Wallenstadt to Spliigen Pass, the condition of the inhabitants in the tenth century, and for four hundred years afterward, was one of the most abject
feudal slavery. The population of the Valais, on
the banks of the Rhine, were in a similar condition. The Bishop of Sion acted the part of a
petty king. But still there, as among the Rhvetian Alps, civic rights were possessed by townspeople, and a few hardy mountaineers defied in
their secluded homes the tyranny of their neighbors.
The castle life of Switzerland, at the period to




28             SWITZERLAND.
which we refer, was no doubt in some cases fruitful in domestic affections. Men were not all savages; the gentle instincts which God has infused
into the human breast were not utterly stifled.
Even in the bosom of feudalism there were nourished home sympathies; the love of wife and
child flowered there. But there were cases in
which wild and fitful passions flamed forth with
volcanic violence, burning up all the verdure of
kindliness and justice; nor were their laws strong
enough to check its outbursts, or sanctions sufficiently sacred and powerful to make the transgressor a warning to others.  A characteristic
story is told of one of the Counts of Tokenburg,
illustrative of the lengths of jealousy and revenge
to which the feudal lords among the Swiss would,
at that period, sometimes go. Count Henry had
a beautiful wife, named Ida, who left her wedding-ring by accident close to the open window
of her chamber. A raven seized it, carried it off,
and dropped it in the neighborhood.  It was
picked up by a servant, who put it on his hand.
His lord, on discovering the ornament on the
menial's finger, accused Ida of infidelity; and
then, deaf to all explanations which were offered,
hurled the unhappy lady from the castle window
down among the rocks, and at the same time
caused the servant to be bound to the tail of a




HEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.       29
wild horse to be dragged to death. Ida clung
to some bushes and broke her fall; but, refusing
to return to the man who had mistrusted and
wronged her, she spent the rest of her life in the
nunnery of Fischingen.
CHAPTER III.
HEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.
THE nationality which had been nursed in the
towns, and which had been fostered by the union
between Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, was
destined in the fourteenth century to manifest
itself in a decided form. On the death of Rudolph of Hapsburgh, Adolph of Nassau succeeded to the imperial crown; but after a short reign,
Albert, the son of Rudolph, attained to the same
sovereign eminence as his father had reached.
To him, therefore, as Emperor of Germany, the
free towns of Switzerland and the three confederated forest states were immediately subject;
but he soon showed himself an enemy to the
former, and wished to change the relation of the
latter. His object was to make them dependent
upon him and his house, as Dukes of Austria,
and thus render them a part of his family pos



30              SWITZERLAND.
sessions.  This was contemplated by the cities
with just apprehension. Zurich concluded an alliance with neighboring bishops and nobles against
Albert. Berne, Fribourg, and Soleure adopted
a similar course. The forest people, suspicious
of his designs, and prizing their present liberties,
objected to become Austrian subjects, and prayed
to be left in the condition of their fathers; pleading in support of their claim an express charter
from the emperor, Henry VII., by which they
were acknowledged as freemen, owing no allegiance but to the emperor. The purpose of Albert
evidently was to crush the nascent spirit of freedom  and nationality, and to put all Switzerland
under his yoke; but he signally failed.  The
banks of the lake of the four cantons became witnesses of a heroism which baffled the tyrant, and
laid the foundation for the subsequent independence of the whole country.  In furtherance of his
despotic plans, Albert sent two hard-hearted men,
named Gessler and Beringer-such is the current
story-to levy tolls, exact dues, and punish with
severity any signs of insubjection among the people.  This task was fulfilled with the utmost
rigor, and many a tale is handed down of their
pride and oppression.  "Is it to be endured,"
asked Gessler, as he looked at the new-built
house of one Stauffachr, " that clownish peasants




HEROISMi AND INDEPENDENCE.        31
should erect such handsome dwellings?"  Arnold
of Mlelchthal committed a trivial offense; a servant of Beringer seized on his oxen, remarking,
as he unyoked them, that "boors nmight dr aw
their own plows."  The Swiss farmer's son struck
the man a blow, which broke two of his fingers.
Albert's deputy sentenced the father to lose his
eyes.
It was not likely that such people as these
foresters were —bold, free, and patriotic-should
quietly submit to be so trodden down.  The wife
of Stauffacher is said to have asked her lusbanld,
"How long shall arrogance triumph, and humility weep? Shall foreigners become mnasters of the
land, and heirs to our property? ~What avails it
that our mnountains are inhabited by menl   Are
we mothers to suckle sons doomed to become
beggars, and bring up our daughters as slaves to
foreigners'? This cannot be!" Stauffacher, roused
by such appeals, went and consulted with Arnold
and another patriot, Walter Furst.  These three
talked together about the state of the country,
and the oppression of the duke's agents, and resolved to take steps for the emancipation of their
families and neighbors.  In the day they sounded the peasants as to their feelings toward the
tyrants; and at night they met for conference in; little mad,!, tlh, side of tl:he lake, bearing




32             SWITZERLAND.
still the name of Rutli-a name derived from the
uprooting and clearing of the trees on that verdant
slope. Encouraged by the sympathy of friends,
they went on Martinmas eve, 1307, each taking
ten confederates, to the accustomed trysting-place,
and then, lifting up their hands toward the silent
stars, shining down from a clear sky on meadow,
lake, and hill, they swore to live and die for the
freedom of their native home; to resist the oppression of the house of Hapsburgh, but not to
inflict on it any wrong; to expel the domineering
officers, Gessler and Beringer, but not to cast off
allegiance to the empire.
In connection with all this occurs the famous
episode of William Tell. He was a cross-bowmnu
of the village of Barglen, and one of the men who
had been at Rutli.  Gessler, among other expedients for humbling the refractory peasants, set
up in the market-place of Altorf a pole with Duke
Albert's hat fixed on the top, to which all passersby were to make obeisance. This act of homage
Tell refused to render. He was, therefore, seized
and taken before the governor, who immediately
pronounced sentence on him for his offense, in the
following manner:-" Know, audacious bowman,
that thy own art shall serve to punish thee.
Thou must shoot from off thy own son's head an
apple' take thy aim and miss it not,"  Tile boy'




HEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.          33
was bound —as patient as his father was bravethe expert archer bent his bow and exactly shot
his mark.  "Why hast thou brought a second
arrow?" asked Gessler, as he saw him concealing
an additional shaft.  " If the first had missed the
apple," was his reply, "the second should not
have missed thy heart."  For this Gessler made
Tell prisoner, loaded him  with cllains, and embarked with him on board his boat to carry him
over the lake to the Castle of Kussnacht.  But a
storm arose, and tile party were in danger; when,
to save his own life, Gessler ordered Tell, who
was as expert at the oar as he was ia archery, to
be unchained, and thell conmmitted to himl the
management of the imperiled bark.  Availing
himself of this opportunity, the hero guided the
boat to shore, and sprinlginig outl among the rocks,
made his escape over the Axenberg, leaving his
oppressor to battle as he could with the elements.
Afterwarcl, concealing himself in a lane which led
to Gessler's castle, Tell shot his oppressor in the
heart.'This was a wild and cruel outbreak of revenge; but the measures, calnly concerted alnd
carried out in unison by the confederates, were
of another description.  Early on new  year's
morning, 1308, a youong man, one of the Rutli
band, scaled the window  of the Austrianl castle
of'Rosberl-:, io'  ()-lrwlele. lt!X- the aidl (,f!, rope




34              SWITZERLAND.
let down by his betrothed, who was living there.
He soon introduced twenty companions into the
fortress, and made himself master of the place.
The same day a party marched to Landenberg,
where Beringer lived, and met him on his way
to mass. Offering him a new year's present,
they were admitted within the castle gates; when,
fixing pike heads on the apparently peaceful
staves they carried in their hands, as harmless
wayfarers might do, they sounded their signal
horns according to a preconcerted plan, upon
which thirty associates lying in ambush just by
sprang up at once to their aid, and the Austrian
stronghold was easily captured.  No blood was
spilt. Beringer and his servants had their lives
spared, on the simple condition that they should
leave the country forever. The people of Schwyz
and of Uri simultaneously demolished the Castles
of Schwanau and Kussnacht, and in twenty-four
hours the whole work was done, and the cantons
were freed entirely from the rod of the oppressor.
We have related these stories according to the
traditions of the country, as told in a dramatic,
but abbreviated form by Heinrich Zschokke. They
are oft related on the banks of the lake. The
child in the chalet listens to them with wonder.
The figures of the heroes are painted on the walls
c>f house- and chull'ich:   lieient,,tlets  (f the imen




HIEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.       35
and their deeds abound in the neighborhood.
They are commemorated in the simple songs of
the people, and in the religious rites of the Church.
They have also formed an inspiring theme for the
poets of other lands. How much the lapse of
time and the activity of imagination may have
added to the original incidents of the liberation
of Switzerland, it is impossible now to determine;
but that there were persons of the names recorded,
and performing substantially the exploits ascribed
to them, we have not the slightest doubt. The story
of Tell in particular has been subject to severe
historical criticism, and more than doubt has been
thrown by some historians on the cherished traditions connected with his name. In the Wilkina
Saga of Saxo Grammaticus, a similar exploit to
that of Tell is related of a Danish King Harold;
moreover, it is stated that in old documents, published by Kopp, at Lucerne, the name of Gessler
is not found in the list of bailiffs residing in the
Castle of Kussnacht. The coincidence between
the Saga and Swiss traditions is certainly very remarkable; but when it is remembered that the
ignorant people of the forest cantons could hardly
be acquainted with Danish legends, and that the
work of Saxo Grammaticus was first printed and
published in 1486, it is difficult to conceive how
the Swiss story could be an imitation of the




36               SWITZERLAND.
Danish one. Nor can the negative objection
about Gessler's name weigh very much against
the ancient tradition of Tell and his heroism.
The existence of the patriot is demonstrated by
the circumstance, that one huLndred and fourteen
persons who had known him very well were present
at Uri in 1388.  Chronicles composed in the next
century record his history, and the constant veneration in which he has been held is apparent in
an annual solemnity to his honor, celebrated ever
since the year 13887.*
Soon after these occurrences, Albert was assassinated by his nephew; and the men of the
three cantons, thus relieved fiom any renewal of
his oppression, employed their time in consolidating their union.  But Leopold, the son of Albert,
succeeding to the possessions of the house of
Austria, inherited with them his father's desire to
-: Planta observes, vol. i, p. 249, "that Tell's male
issue became extinct in 1684, and the female not before 1720. No honors and rewards," he adds, "were
conferred on him or his progeny, nor indeed on any
of those who on this occasion freed their country. All
their descendants lived in obscurity; some are even
said to have died in hospitals." It may be noticed,
that though Planta, following the German historian
M11ller, receives the story of Tell as generally authentic, lie omits, like ]his great authority, the anecdote of
the apple.




HIEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.        37
subdue the spirit of the forest league, and accordingly soon led his soldiers against the brave
peasants.  The proud enemy marched in great
force, and carried ropes to hang the Swiss chieftains, so sure they deemed the victory.  On the
15th of November, 1315, at the dawn of day,
the Austrians approached the scene of conflict.
"The helmets and cuirasses of the knights gleamed in the sunshine; as far as the eye could reach,
glittered the spears of the first army which had
ever been drawn out agoainst the forest cantons,
and the Swiss may be supposed to have contemplated so novel a phenomenon with emotion.
The narrow way between the ridge of Morgarten
and the lake was soon crowded with the close
column of horsemlen."  Pieces of rock and trunks
of trees were hurled down on the invaders, which
frightened their horses, and threw the ranks into
disorder.  The Swiss, taking advantage of the
confusion, rushed down the hills and struck the
foe with halberds and clubs, slaying great numbers, and making a total rout of the rest. By
nine o'clock the battle was over, and the cantons
were left undisputed masters of the field. The
next day a second victory was gained over the
Count of Strasburg.
Only temporary unions had hitherto been
formed amlong these warlike foresters; they now




38             SWITZERLAND.
resolved on a formal and permanent confederation; and on the 13th of December, 1315, at
Brunnen, they began a league which constituted
the grand corner-stone of Swiss nationality. Luzern, at first an ally of Austria against its neighbors, afterward joined this famous league, and
plighted faith with the other states as a common
nation. This brought down on the citizens the
wrath of Austria, in which the nobles of the
place strongly sympathized, and a plot was formed by them to murder the patriots in their beds,
and deliver up the town to Leopold. But a boy
overheard the conspirators, and though detected
in his discovery, he was allowed to escape, on
giving a solemn promise that he would tell nobody of the circumstance. The youth, anxious
to save his friends and the rest of the townspeople, yet keeping, as he thought, his promise
to the letter, began to speak aloud to a stove in
the room where a number of citizens were assembled, stating that he had solemnly sworn to relate
to no one what had recently been said in his
presence. This led to the deliverance of Luzern
fiom the impending danger. The conspirators
were banished; a city council was formed of
three hundred burghers, and the independence of
the whole community secured.
The league of the Waldstatter, or Forest Can



IIEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.        39
tons, naturally sympathized with other parties in
IIelvetia who were independent, or were struggling to become so. When the Bernese were
attacked, in 1339, by the Emperor Louis, they
sent nine hundred soldiers to their help. These
warriors took a prominent part in the battle of
Laupen, another of the conflicts belonging to the
heroic age of Switzerland. They rolled down before them a line of cars armed with scythes, so
constructed that they could not be wheeled backward, and when they came within reach of the
enemy's line they threw from their slings (in the
use of which they were very expert) a shower of
stones, which created confusion among the horses.
The Swiss then feigned to retire toward the hill
in their rear, and the princes pushed forward
their cavalry; but the cars opposing their passage,
broke their ranks, and the Swiss rushing forward,
fought man to man against them.  This, like
the battle at Morgarten, was soon over; an hour
and a half sufficed for the valor of the Bernese
and their allies to discomfit completely the army
of their enemies. Rudolph d'Erlach, the conquering commander at Laupen, retired, like another Cincinnatus, when the battle was over, to
his patrimonial fields, without desiring any reward for his valor.
We have not space minutely to detail the cir



40             SWITZERLAND.
cumstances connected with the further growth of
the original Swiss confederation.  To the four
cantons already united, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Luzern, Zurich was added in 1351,
Glarus the same year, Zug and Berne the year
following. This limited combination of town and
forest in the assertion and defense of national independence, " constituted for more than a century
the whole federative republic of the Swiss; and
even after the accession of other cantons, they retained, together with the title of the eight old
cantons, a superiority over the younger members
of the league."- Vieusseux.
The peace of the inhabitants on the banks of
the Aar and Limlmat was strangely disturbed in
1375 by the devastating inroads of a band of adventurers, English and French, who were defeated
by the Bernese; but a more memorable conflict,
not only on account of its political importance to
the Swiss, but for an instance of devoted patriotism which it exhibited, was the battle of Sempach,
in 1386. Duke Leopold of Austria, full of revenge for the resistance made by the forest cantons to the designs of his house, and supported by
neighboring nobles, jealous of the spirit of freedom, which they saw had become so strong,
came down with a large army  -and in much
chivalrous pomp to chastise the peasa:nt patriots.




HIEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.        41
They approached Sempach, a small town in the
canton of Luzern, included in the confederacy,
bringing with them, as had been done on a former
occasion, an abundant provision of ropes for hanging the people. The Austrian army consisted of
four thousand picked men. The confederation,
on the other hand, could not muster more than
one thousand three hundred badly accoutered
soldiers. It was a hot day in harvest, and after
a short prayer, as they knelt prostrate on the
earth, the Swiss rushed upon the formidable
phalanx of the enemy, but not with force sufficient to make an impression.  A wall of shields,
a forest of spears, were before them.  The brave
defenders of their country fell one after another
at the feet of the foe, when Anthony du Port exclaimed, "Strike the poles of the spears, for they
are hollow."  The spears thus broken, however,
were speedily replaced by others; when Arnold
of Winkleried, with better success, after exclaiming, "Provide for my wife and children," gathered within his arms the points of the enemy's
pikes and plunged them in his bosom, thereby
opening a passage into the midst of the Austrian
ranks. His companions, fired by his example,
pressed on, and soon the flower of the army lay
bleeding on the ground, or, panic-struck, took to
flight. The victory thuls gained by the Swiss,




42             SWITZERLAND.
along with another soon after won at Nafels, was
decisive, and a period of repose followed, unbroken by the incursions of their old enemies.
Certain laws were afterward framed at Sempach
to regulate their warfare, and these are strongly
illustrative of the character of the people. They
pledged themselves not to attack or injure any
church unless it was used as a garrison; not to
insult any females; not to withhold property or
life for their country's good; not to abandon their
post even when wounded; not to straggle for
plunder, or individually appropriate booty, but to
protect and guard such as brought provisions;
not to undertake war but by the consent of all
the eight cantons, and not to injure one another
either in peace or war. War is a dreadful thing
even when defensive; but it is to the honor of the
Swiss, that in a martial age, with which they
were by no means out of sympathy, they did,
notwithstanding, endeavor to mitigate its horrors.
The spirit of freedom and independence grew
and increased after the battles of Sempach and
Nafels, and better methods than fighting were
employed to augment the power and influence of
the cantons. Zurich, Berne, and Soleure, purchased estates and jurisdictions of the feudal nobility; and the inhabitants of Frutigen, according
to an old song quoted by Miiller, engaged not to




HIEOISM AND INDEPENDENCE.         43
eat beef for seven years, in order to free themselves and their descendants from feudal burdens.
Luzern obtained for three thousand gold florins,
the cession from  the Duke of Austria of his
seignorial rights over the Entlibuch; and for a
further sum secured the transfer to themselves of
other districts. The emperors subsequently favored the confederacy, and renounced whatever
remained of imperial jurisdiction. The independence of Appenzell was recognized iD 1408, but it
did not become a confederated canton till 1513.
Soleure and Fribourg were admitted in 1481;
Basle and Schaffhausen in 1513. These completed the number of thirteen cantons, with which
we find associated, at the commencement of the
sixteenth century, in the character of allies, the
cities of St. Gall, AMulhausen, and Bienne, Geneva,
Neuchh'tel, the Grison or Gray League, established
by the mnen of Rhaetia and the Valais, who had
thrown off the yoke of the old lords of Raron.
War, on the part of Austria, was renewed in
1443 and in 1452; after which another powerful
enemy of the Swiss appears in Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy.  Incensed especially against
the cities of Berne and Soleure, this reckless
soldier crossed the Jura mountains and at;acked
the town of Granson, which the confederates had
garrisoned, and then he cruelly put to death all




44              SWITZERLAND.
the soldiers in the place.  The battle of Granson
immediately followed, when, after the advanced
guard of the Bernese and of Schwyz had comnmenced the attack, the horns of Uri and Unterwalden were heard sounding a charge, and the
banners of Zurich and Schaffhausen were seen
waving in the air. "They are the men before
whom Austria has fled," cried the Baron of Steur.
iWoe to us then," replied Charles; "a handful
of men has kept us at bay till now; what will
become of us when the rest join them?" The
Burgundians were driven from the field "like a
herd of cattle," says one who was present, and a
camp full of money and luxuries was left a prey
to the victors. The more bloody battle of Morat
followed, when Charles's army was utterly routed
-a prelude to his own miserable death at the
siege of Nancy.
But though we have seen the forest cantons
and the towns fighting side by side in defense of
their common liberties and country, it must not
be supposed that perfect amity reigned among
them. There were many manifestations of heartburning and jealousy. The town cantons were
aristocratic, the cities governing the districts
around them; the forests cantons were pure denzocracies, all the people within their borders
having equal political rights. At a congress held




IIEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.        45
in the town of Stanz, in 1481, the mutual jealousy of the two classes burst out into a flame,
which threatened very serious consequences. It
was on the occasion of the admission of Fribourg
and Soleure being proposed.  The mountaineers
strongly objected to the increase of the number
of aristocratic powers in the Helvetic confederacy,
and the opposite party became equally violent.
The priest of Stanz went and fetched a hermit
called Nicolas Von Flue, who was in great repute
among the people of the forest for his ascetic
habits, to come and use his influence to restore
harmony.  The old man, pale and emaciated
with fasting, but tall and of a benignant expression of countenance, produced a great effect by
his very appearance, as he entered with solemn
step like a specter within the hall of council.
"You towns," said the peace-maker, "renounce
partial alliances among yourselves, which excite
the jealousy and suspicion of your elder confederates; and you, people of the Waldstattcr, remember the days in which Fribourg and Soleure
fought by your side, and receive them in your
common bond of alliance. But, confederates All,
do not widen too much the hedge which incloses
you; do not mix in foreign quarrels; do not listen
to intrigue, or accept the price of bribery and
treachllry a g;ainst l' our colnmil ]:ind."  This siul



46             SWITZERLAND.
plie, pathetic appeal, backed by the old man's
venerable aspect and reputation for asceticism,
produced the desired result. All differences were
at once settled, some additions were made to the
articles of confederacy, and the bells of the
churches from the Jura to the Alps soon after
rang peals of joy at the preservation of peace.
Besides dissensions, which, though allayed,
were not extinguished at the Congress of Stanz,
intestine commotion was not uncommon in the
towns, and in particular may be mentioned a
tragical occurrence of that nature in the year
1484. John Waldmann, a peasant's son of the
Zug canton, rose to great eminence and power in
the city of Zurich, having distinguished himself
by his talents and courage, especially by his exploits in the battles of Morat and Nancy. Waldmann, in his office of burgomaster, was charged
with despotic conduct and an abuse of his influence, and the country people rose in arms against
him. Mediation was attempted; but Waldmann,
venturing on his authority, which he thought was
well established, pursued his own course, and to
guard against his enemies slept in the town hall.
The vengeance of the people at length burst out,
and the burgomaster and his adherents were put
to the rack and afterward beheaded. Other outrages were committed in different pails by iuldi



HEROISM AND INDEPENDENCE.          47
viduals, and in three months of the year 1480
no less than one thousand five hundred assassins
and robbers were sentenced to death-a fact
which shows how many desperate characters
there were in a nation celebrated for its simple
manners, its patriotism, and its bravery.  But
another foul blot attaching, not merely to individuals, but to the general policy and character
of the confederates, is found in the engagement
of their soldiers as mercenaries in foreign warsa practice which began in the fifteenth century.
Men enlisted with the sanction of the cantons in
the service of other countries, without caring for
the question at issue between the belligerent parties, but simply looking for pay, or influenced by
at wild love of adventure and strife.  Over the
Jura into France, and over the Alps into Italy,
did the youths of the forest and city go forth
from their homes, in armor marked with a white
cross, and wearing felt hats surmounted with a
feather, to sell their lives for money or for tile
gratification of martial passion.  Some have attempted to defend this practice of the Swiss, and
we regret to find so excellent a historian as
Planta engaged on that side. Far more in accordance with our views are the remarks of Grattan:
i' t is impossible to trace, without a feeling of relputll:illi.,  the relatiun,:, whether foreign or do



4 8.SWITZERLAND.
moestic, in which Switzerland was engaged during
a period which, in spite of martial achievements,
must be deemed the most deplorable and disgraceful of her history. It became the only object of state policy in Switzerland to drive a
lucrative traffic with the blood of its inhabitants;
and though the article must be acknowledged to
have fetched a price, it is not the less a scandalous
blot in the history of the country that so vile a
trade should so long have remained the only one
pursued with any energy by the people and its
leaders. It is true that the Helvetic seats of
government were surrounded with more splendor
than ever. Embassadors crowded thither from
the emperor and the pope, and from many other
monarchs, princes, nobles, and free towns, soliciting with emulous zeal their friendship and alliance, and bidding against each other for the iron
arm of Switzerland, by offers of absolution, special
privileges, rich presents, large pensions, and high
pay."  Trying the question not on the principles
of expediency, or according to the manners and
practices of that or any other age, but by the
everlasting laws of moral rectitude, not a word
can be said in defense of the conduct of the
Swiss in their mercenary services. Immoral consequences, in addition to the ilnmorality of the
system itself, followend to the.sore distress of the




TIIE REFORMATION.          49
true Swiss patriots; and Bullinger, at a subsequent period, records "that a lewd and wanton
life was commonly practiced, with gluttony,
gaming, dancing, and all manner of wantonness,
day and night, especially where diets were held,
as at Zurich, Luzern, and Baden:* (the latter, it
may be observed, was a most licentious place.)
The common people in town and country were
drawn away from honest labor to idleness, lewdness, and warlike undertakings, and reckless and
abandoned habits thus prevailed everywhere."
CHAPTER IV.
THE REFORMATION.
THE errors, superstitions, and immoralities of the
Church of Rome had become so gross and startling in the Swiss branch of that communion at
the early part of the sixteenth century, that it
only needed some bold and resolute spirit, under
the blessing of God, to place them in their true
light, and to oppose them by the pure religion of
the Bible, to produce a reaction in the minds of::: This is Baden near Zurich, and must not be confounded with any of the Badens in Germany. Baden
simply means Baths.
4




50             SWITZERLAND.
the people, and to lay the foundation of a grand
religious reform.  A farmer's son, brought up
amid the scenery of the Toggenburg, full of those
aspirations after freedom which mountain scenes
seem to kindle and mountain breezes to fan-a
youth of energy, of studious habits, of large
knowledge for the times in which he lived, of a
strong will, of a warm heart, resolute in action,
eloquent in speech, was the instrument chosen by
Divine Providence for the purpose. Ulrich Zwingle, the individual referred to, whose youth had
then ripened into mature manhood, appeared, in
1516, as a preacher at Einsiedlen, (at that period,
as it is still, a famous and influential monastery,)
and afterward at Zurich, in both which places his
ministry evinced that he had been taught by the
Scriptures to grasp and feel those great principles
of evangelical truth which are the most formidable antagonists of papal corruptions.  Through
his own experience, under the teaching of divine
grace, he had learned that simple faith in the glorious work of the one Mediator, a hearty dependence on the sacrifice and intercession of Christ
alone, could convey to the soul a peace, an assurance, and a joy, which trust in the prayers of the
Virgin and saints, or the performance of multiplied ceremonies, or the presumptuous words of
absolution from priestly lips, could never bring.




THE REFORMATION.            51
Zwingle had not merely, as a student of scientific
theology, discovered that certain dogmas were
unsound, and that contrary ones were scriptural;
but he had received from God a new spiritual life
which could find its nourishment only in the faith
of Christ as revealed in the New Testament. For
the mind to be diverted from IHim, the only hope
of the sinner, to other and vain grounds of dependence-for access to Him, the only Mediator,
to be hindered by the introduction of subordinate
mediators, Zwingle, taught by the ever-present
Comforter of the Church, plainly saw was fatal to
all evangelical tranquillity of mind. At the same
time he also discerned that simple reliance upon
the one Saviour and Lord of the Church was the
most powerful impulse to a life of practical holiness.  The preaching of this very remarkable
mnan and illustrious reformer in the old cathedral
of Zurich gathered together vast crowds, who
listened eagerly to a voice which proclaimed with
marvelous freshness, sympathy, and power, the
way of life as taught in the gospel, and which,
with sincere and earnest love, invited the sinner
to place his hope on the Lamb of God.
The sale of indulgences was one of the most
obvious scandals of the age. What Tetzel did
in Germany, a friar named Samson was doing in
Switzerland. From canton to canton this igno



5 2            SWITZERLAND.
rant hireling traveled in the prosecution of his
infamous trade, uttering extravagances enough
to revolt even the confirmed papist. The doctrine of indulgences, as taught by the highest
authorities of the papal Church, does not, it is
contended, set aside the necessity of repentance;
but certainly Samson made the papers he sold
do everything for the sinner, and moreover in the
grossest way he showed that all he thought of
was the filling of the Church's coffers.  "Let
those pass first who have money," cried this miserable creature; " we shall afterward listen to the
poor." At Baden, not far from Zurich, he went
round the church-yard singing the service for the
dead, and crying out,.Ecce volant, "See they
fly;" pretending that by the indulgences which
the people bought, the souls of their friends were
escaping from purgatory and flying up to heaven.
The seller of these wares could not succeed at
Zurich in the face of Zwingle's opposition. The
work of reform went on there under the leadership of this holy and apostolic man. Other honest-hearted laborers in the same cause, like-minded with himself, whose eyes God's truth had
opened, whose hearts God's love had touchedEcolampadius, Bullinger, and tlaller, especiallystrengthened his hands and helped on his success.
Both at Berne and Basle the principles of the




THE REFORMATION.          563
Reformation took root, and the worship of images was abolished, but not without some violent
measures, in which rashness of zeal got the better
of sound judgment and Christian consistency. In
the progress of the work, an important conference
was held at Berne, in 1528. Zwingle, with a
deputation from Zurich, was present.  Glarus,
Appenzel, Basle, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Bienne,
Lausanne, and the Grisons, also sent representatives. It was determined by the assembly that
no argument would be admitted which was not
grounded on a text of Scripture, to the exclusion
of other authorities-a mode of deciding the grand
questions in dispute fatal of course to tile success
of the Roman theologians, while it showed the
preponderance of Protestant influence.  This
meeting was a decisive step in the right direction,
and produced a powerful effect in favor of the
reformed cause; but the opposition made by the
Lutherans to the Zwinglians (as the Swiss reformers were called) on the question of the nature of
the Lord's Supper-Luther maintaining the doctrine of consubstantiation, and Zwingle holding
that it was a simple ordinance of commemoration,
fellowship, and love-tended much to hinder the
advance of the Swiss reformation by the disunion
it exhibited to the opponents of Rome, and much
more by the violent passions it aroused in tile




54             SWITZERLAND.
breasts of the Protestant controversialists. The
conduct of the Anabaptists, full of fanatical excess,
having no connection with the leading tenet which
gave them  their name, but rather the outbursts
of a species of religious madness, also operated
in a way most unfriendly to the great ecclesiastical movement, with which, though perfectly separate in point of principle and spirit, the advocates
of Rome strove to represent it as intimately connected, and, indeed, as one of its natural outgrowths.
In addition to argument, misrepresentation,
and abuse, force was employed by the papal party, when it had the power, in resisting the refornmation. Jacob Keyser, a minister of the Zurich
canton, was burned publicly at Schwytz, in May,
1529; the martyr, in the midst of the flames, invoking the name of the Lord Jesus as his only
solace and helper in the fiery trial.  Farel at
Orbe, was assaulted by the mob, who would have
most likely killed him if the Bernese bailiff had
not come to his rescue. At Soleure, a number
of Romanists gathered about a house where the
Protestants were worshiping, and pointed a fieldpiece at the inmates, which would have done
dreadful execution among them, had it not been
for the noble firmness of the avoyer, who placed
himself at the mouth of the cannon, exclaiming:




THIE XREFORMATION.           55
"If you are determined to shed the blood of your
fellow-citizens, you shall begin with mine." The
amount of sanguinary persecution in Switzerland
was very little, compared with what obtained in
some other countries, but this was owing to the
preponderating number of Protestants in certain
of the cantons, and their political relations to the
rest.
The persecutions by the Roman Catholics excited the anger of Zurich, and a proclamation of
war was the result.  Assisted by Berne, St. Gall,
Mulhausen, and Bienne, the Zurichers advanced
toward Scllhwyz to chastise their brethren of the
mountain and forest for their inhuman treatment
of Keyser, and their sympathy in persecuting
principles. But John Oebly, the landamman of
Glarus, who hlad already saved his own canton
from the horrors of a civil war, now appeared in
the field as an angel of peace, and by his prudent
and zealous interference extinguished for a time
the torch of strife. A conference ensued; a truce
was proclaimed; the soldiers on both sides began
to mingle as friends, and a religious peace, as it
was called, was concluded in June, 1529.  " You
Swiss," cried a deputy of Strasburgh, "are a
strange people; for although you seem divided,
you are still united, and do not forget your ancient alliances."




SWITZERLAND.
After the settlement at the Synod of Berne,
in 1532, of the Helvetic confession of faith, (a
thoroughly evangelical standard of doctrine, and
one in full harmony with those published by the
reformed Churches of France and Holland, as
well as with that of the Scottish kirk,) and after
the full concession of liberty of conscience by the
Protestant cantons, the parties who retained an
affection for the see of Rome, its doctrines and
ceremonies, were more than ever dissatisfied with
the condition of religious affairs in Switzerland,
and were ready to avail themselves of any occasion to take up arms against their brethren of
opposite sentiments, hoping to crush by force what
could not be subdued by reason and persuasion.
The senate of Zurich, besides adopting some questionable measures in reference to St. Gall, endeavored to force the papal cantons to allow the free
use of the Scriptures by forbidding all commerce
with them, going so far as to deny the supplying
of salt, all article of traffic of essential importance,
which the forest cantons received from Zurich.
This measure, which Zwingle opposed as uncharitable, aroused the inhabitants of the Waldstatter
to a state of furious indignation, and excited them
to cry, "The sword alone can cut this knot."
Indeed, not only were there religious reasons for
the enmity which had before existed, and now




THE REFORMATION.             57
again blazed forth, but political considerations and
feelings tended to foment the existing quarrels.
The seat of Protestantism was in the towns;
Popery retained its strong-holds in the mountain
villages, in the forest cantons especially, where the
rites of the ancient faith had become blended with
the historical recollections of Tell and his compatriots. Popery seemed to the ignorant people
about the lake of the four cantons to be a part of
patriotism, and to it they transferred the enthusiasm awakened by the heroic memories of their
fatherland. Between town and forest, as we have
before seen, there had long existed great jealousies.
The aristocratic element of the one was opposed
to the democratic element of the other, and at
the time of the controversies about the reformation in Switzerland, the old political feeling was
revived in conjunction with the religious excitement. Zurich and the city cantons, on the one
side, were political, no less than ecclesiastical antagonists of Schwyz; Unterwalden, and the rest
on the other side. The Romanists prepared for
war this time in earnest; so did the opposite
party. The fatal battle of Cappel, that mournful episode in the history of the Swiss reformation, was the result: there Zwingle fell. He attended the Zurich troops in the capacity of chaplain, according to the custom of the age, not




58              SWITZERLAND.
without some forebodings, it is said, of the
fate awaiting him. The battle went hard with
the army on the side of the reformation.  It
was broken, routed, dispersed; and Zwingle, who
went to preach and pray, not to fight, though his
presence there at all, according to our better notions of ministerial position and duty, canll hardly
be considered proper, was struck on the head by
a stone, as he was kneeling by the side of a dying
man, and administering to him religious consolation.  Repeated wounds were inflicted on the
reformer, and he lay under a pear-tree by the
roadside, with his hands clasped and his eyes lifted up to heaven. There, in the dark night, he
was found by the enemy. " Call upon the saints,
and confess to our priests," was the cry. Zwingle
needed no mediator but the one High Priest who
ever liveth to make intercession for us.  His
silence, when the question about a confessor was
put to him, excited suspicion. " No doubt you
are one of the heretics," said one.  "I think it
is Zwingle," cried another.  " Zwingle!" exclaimed Feckinger of Unterwalden, " that vile heretic!
-then die;" plunging his sword at the same instant into the reformer's throat.  Zwingle had
said, as he lay bleeding, "They may kill the
body, they cannot kill the soul;" he now experienced the truth of those blessed words; while




THE REFORMATION.             59
every indignity was shown to his senseless corpse,
which the enemy afterward burned to ashes.
Tidings of his death spread a panic over Zurich.
His poor weeping wife had listened with anguish
to the distant reports of artillery, and her worst
fears were fulfilled when the people ran crying
through the streets, "Zwingle is fallen!"  Son,
too, and brother, and son-in-law, had all perished
in the strife. It was a mournful day indeed for
the reformer's family, and for the whole city.
The preacher, the shepherd, the adviser, was gone.
" These men may fall upon his body," said his
friends; "they may kindle their piles and brand
his innocent life, but he lives; this invincible hero
lives in eternity, and leaves behind him an imnmortal monument of glory which no flames can
destroy.  God, for whose honor he had labored
even at the price of his blood, will make his
memory eternal." Every one who has crossed
the Albis from Zurich to Zug must have paused
to notice the stone monument by the wayside at
Cappel, where Zwingle fell. It marks the site of
the pear-tree where he lay and bled; and as one
looks over the now quiet scene on a summer's
day, and dwells upon the calm majesty of the
mountains in the neighborhood, what a type it
seems of the character of the man, and of the
celestial tranquillity of his spirit, now that all the




60             SWITZERLAND.
storms and battles of this world have for him
been long over, and he lives in the sunshine of
his Lord's favor and love.
The Protestants rallied after the battle of Cappel, but only to sustain a second defeat. Victorious in debate, they failed in their appeal to arms,
as if God intended to teach them that the proper
weapons of their warfare were not carnal. But
the Roman Catholics were wearied at last with
fighting, and were glad to come to terms of peace;
whereupon it was agreed that the five Catholic
cantons should be left unmolested in the possession of their religion, and that the Protestant
cantons should be the same.
In Geneva, where ecclesiastical influence had
been very powerful-the city being under the
government of a bishop, who was a temporal
prince —the Reformation made its way, in a great
measure, through the indefatigable labors of the
famous Farel. The alliance of the Bernese materially helped on the cause in its outward and
political aspects. The citizens who had adopted
the Protestant faith overturned the altars, destroyed the images, and excommunicated the bishops.
Then mass was forbidden, and the intolerance of
Rome, alas! was copied to some degree by those
who protested against it. In Lausanne, too,
where the people had seen enough in the conduct




THE REFORMATION.            61
of the priests to disgust them with Popery, the
Reformation obtained now a signal triumph.  All
sorts of immoralities had prevailed among the
priesthood, and it had not been an uncommon
thing for ecclesiastics in that city to fight in the
church, and to walk through the streets at night
in military dresses and with naked swords. When
a theological discussion was to take place in
Lausanne, under the leadership of Farel, the
Roman Catholics declined to mneet him, and in
the end there was an abolition of the mass and
the appointment of reformed clergymen to the
various parishes.
A more illustrious man, in point of learning
and extensive influence, than any we have mentioned in our notice of the Swiss reformation, was
John Calvin, and with Geneva in particular his
name and memory are associated. IIe visited
the city when young, and thus became acquainted with Farel, whose opinions and sentiments accorded with his own. They attached great importance to the doctrine of divine predestination,
desired the abolition of all festivals except the
Sunday, used leavened bread in the sacrament,
recognized a spiritual presence of Christ in the
bread and wine, and enforced the moral duties
of life with the greatest strictness.  Some of their
peculiarities offended even their Protestant breth



62              SWITZERLANID.
ren, and in consequence of their refusing to submit to the decisions of a synod held at Lausanne,
Calvin and Farel were forbidden by the magistrates of Geneva to remain in the town. But
though exiled for a while, Calvin was earnestly requested at length to return to his former post.
" Perceiving the necessity of having a moral censorship, in order to restrain the utter licentiousness which threatened the very existence of the
community, he proposed to establish a consistory
to act as censor mnorumn, composed of the pastors
or parish incumbents, two members of the council of state or executive, two members of the
council of two hundred, one of the syndics, and a
secretary. This and other regulations proposed
by Calvin, concerning Church government and
discipline, were approved by the general council
of all the citizens, and received the form of law
in November, 1541. The consistory assembled
every Thursday, and Calvin, who always attended the sittings, may be said to have been its presiding spirit. It had very extensive and almost
inquisitorial powers; it took cognizance of immoralities, of blasphemies, of profanations, and
other offenses against religion. The punishments
were fine, imprisonment, and in some cases death.
This institution of the consistory has continued to
exist down to the present day, though consider



THE REFORMATION.            63
ably modified. Calvin also undertook the task
of collecting and revising the old laws and edicts,
so as to form a body of civil law for the republic,
which was approved of in 1543 by the council
general. At the same time he was not unmindful of the cultivation of the mind; and he proposed and effected the establishment of a public
icollege, called the academy, for teaching the arts
and sciences, in which he himself lectured three
times a week on theology, and which soon acquired and has ever since maintained a high
character among the schools of learning in Europe,
and has been a nursery of pastors and divines to
the reformed Churches of France and other countries."- Vieusseux.
The amount of labor which this indefatigable
man accomplished, in spite of his delicate constitution and comparatively short life, (for he died at
fifty-five, worn out by toil,) is really amazing. In
addition to all his multifarious duties in connection
with Geneva, he wrote numerous works, remarkable for their depth of thought, copiousness, and
even elegance of diction, besides carrying on a
correspondence which embraced within its range
the principal reformers of Europe. " Shall I be
idle when my Lord comes?" was the answer he
gave on his dying bed to those who entreated him
to relax his exertions; and it was in the spirit




64             SWITZERLAND.
of those noble words that he ever lived and
worked. His virtues were of the stern, heroic
cast. He was Elijah-like, Luther-like; but was
wanting constitutionally in that tenderness of soul
and that genial warmth which sometimes adorn
and enliven even the severest natures. The part
he took in reference to the death of Servetus, is
the one stain on his memory. Every Protestant
must deplore it as utterly inconsistent with that
spirit of tolerance which is a part of his religion.
Consistent vindicators of Calvin in this matter,
among men who love the reformation as preparing liberty for every man in his religious profession, there cannot be; but historic justice demands of us to remember that Calvin only imbibed the spirit of former days, which in his time
still cast their shadows over the Churches; that
he did what many of his brethren approved; and
especially it should be observed that Roman
Catholics, who are very apt to malign the name
of the reformer on account of this single fact in
his life, are the last people in the world who
should do so, seeing that he only committed on
a small scale what the authorities of their Church
have perpetrated on a very large one, and what
they have continued to do, notwithstanding the
advance of knowledge and civilization.
Calvin died in 1564, and was succeeded in the




THE REFORMATION.            65
pastoral office by Theodore Beza. A glimpse of
the latter when he had grown very old, and after
the cause to which his life was devoted had been
periled by war, must close this chapter. Political relations and disputes were mixed up with the
vicissitudes of the Reformation in Geneva as elsewhere. After peace had been for many years
maintained between that city and Savoy, Charles
Emanuel, its duke, who had driven away the
Protestant ministers from Chablais in his own
dominions, made an assault on Geneva, which, if
successful, would have been, no doubt, of serious
consequence to the interests of the reformed religion. A small body of his troops, on a December night in 1602, scaled the walls of Geneva,
intending to give a signal to their comrades to
force the gates; but a sentry, hearing the noise,
gave an alarm and roused the citizens, who barricaded the streets, while the guard let down the
portcullis and swept away the scaling ladders.
The Savoyards who had entered the city were
hurled into the ditch, or killed, and those who
remained outside retreated. Old Beza was quietly sleeping in his bed during this stormy and
critical night, little dreaming of the danger impending over the city. The good man, owing to
his infirmities, had ceased to preach; but when
he heard of what had happened he hastened to




66             SWITZERLAND.
the church, and summoned the citizens to join
him in singing the hundred and twenty-fourth
Psalm, which has continued every year on the
anniversary of the event to be chanted by the
Genevese, in devout commemoration of God's
goodness to their fathers. The Psalm seemed as
if it were written for the occasion, and how often
are minds familiar with the Bible astonished at
the pertinency of these sacred Hebrew compositions to passing events in individual and national
history! " If it had not been the Lord who was
on our side, now may Israel say; if it had not
been the Lord who was on our side, when men
rose up against us: then they had swallowed us
up quick; when their wrath was kindled against
us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the
stream had gone over our soul: then the proud
waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the
Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their
teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the
snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and
we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the
Lord, who made heaven and earth."




WARS OF' REII;ION.          67
CHAPTER V.
WARS OF RELIGION.
SUCH is the title given to those conflicts in Switzerland which form the chief incidents of its history during the seventeenth century.  Though a
knowledge of the opinions and spirit of the age
throughout Europe, and of the previous blending
of the religious with the political in all the Swiss
cantons, removes surprise from our minds that
the great ecclesiastical events of the reformation
should have entailed warfare for many years, yet
we cannot but lament (useless though such lamentations be) that the hallowed name of religion
should have been so dishonored as to be made
the occasion of bloodshed and devastation. But
it is not superfluous to record the truth which the
growing light kindled at the reformation has since
taught us-that argument and persuasion, not
force in any form, are the weapons which belong
to the armory of the Christian faith; that as
Christ's kingdom is not of this world, it is forbidden to his servants to fight with earthly
weapons for its extension, and that they that
thus use the sword shall perish by the sword.
There have, however, been periods in history




08               SWITZERLAND.
when it has been necessary for a nation to resist,
by force of arms, the attempst of invaders or oppressors to exterminate their religion.
Our limited space prevents us from  entering
into the story of the wars in the Grisons, betweenl
Roman Catholics and Protestants, in which, we
lament to say, the latter were the aggressors;
and from telling the horrible tale of the Catholic
revolt in the Vattellina, and of thie massacre of
the Protestants in cold blood.  Nor can we narrate the fruitless attempts of the Duke of Savoy,
the King of France, and the Pope of Rome at
mediation, the invasion of the Grisons by Austria, and the submission for a time of the former
to the latter power.
We must also pass over the conflicts and intrigues of France and Austria, in reference to
this little mountain league, so illustrative of the
Grison proverb-" Austria takes, and France lies,"
-and of the progress and success of the struggle by the mountaineers for the recovery of their
independence, acting on the maxim, "Let us
trust no foreign power, but seek help only from
our arms."
The thirty years' war of Germany only remotely relates to Switzerland, as she was not
one of the powers involved in that contest;
though many of her sons served as mercenaries




WARS OF RELIGION.            69
in its memorable battles, and the peace of the
country  was disturbed by bands of adventurers,
the refuse of the two great armies.  The treaty
of Westphalia in 1648, however, was a fact of
importance to Switzerland, inasmuch as it acknowledged the independence of the confederation, and its freedom from all claims on the part
of the German empire.
The peasants' war, which broke out in 1653,
was only a new form  of the old Swiss controversy between country and town.  The rural inhabitants complained of monopolies enjoyed by
the citizens, andl of the taxes they imposed on
certain necessaries.  The insurrection began at
Entlibuch, in the canton of Luzern, but soon
spread over other districts till half Switzerland
was thrown into commotion.  The insurgents
committed some desperate cruelties; so that
whatever might be their original grievances, it
was seen that all the friends of order must unite
to put down the terrible revolt. Though a war
between town and country, it was not like former
wars between canton and canton, between one
common interest (and another, between order and
confusion, but between class and class, between
peasant and burgess, between agriculture and
commerce, between lawless violence and settled
government.  The Waldstatter, therefore, united




0o              SWITZERLAND.
with the other states in a determined step to
crush the turbulent peasantry   Efforts at conciliation were made, but peace was not restored
till after two engagements, one of which was
very severe.
The first war, commonly called religious, pertained to the period now under review; but the
second, if we include the period surveyed in the
last chapter, began in 1655. Heart-burnings between the Roman Catholic and( Protestant cantons
had not been extinguished by the formal friendship which followed the close of the previous
war.  Nor did the close tie of their confederacy
prevent each party f'ron  entering into such foreign alliances as it chose.  So the one formed
treaties with the English and Dutch, the other
with the Dukes of Savoy.  Elements of discord
between them were silently at work, when a case
of persecution in the Roman Catholic canton of
Schywz aroused the sympathy of Protestant Zurich for the persecuted.  Appeals were made to
former treaties about toleration: but in vain. So
the martial Zurichers, joined by Schaffhllausen
and Basle, again drew the sword against their
old enelnies. Berne, too, came to the help of its
old fiiends.  A  decisive engagement at Willmergen, near Luzern, took place on the 15th of
January, 1656, when the Bernese weire defeated




WARS OF RELTIG10AN.          71
with great loss, and a treaty of peace ensued,
which left the Roman Catholic cantons to do still
as they pleased. Nine weeks of war, and half a
million of florins, and at least a thousand brave
lives, had been spent for nothing. Fifty years of
quiet ensued, during which Switzerland became a
place of refuge for the persecuted French Protestants under Louis XIV., and the persecuted Waldenses under the Duke of Savoy. The generous
practical sympathy of the Protestant cantons at
this time toward their suffering brethren from
other lands was very beautiful.  Large sums
were expended on their behalf, and Zurich alone
is reported to have contributed four hundred
thousand florins.
Of old there had been much quarreling between the Bishop of St. Gall and the people of
the Toggenburg.  He treated them  as vassals,
denying them the rights they justly claimed.
The majority of them were Protestants, and all
such were excluded by him from offices of trust
and advantage. The contest between them grew
worse and worse-the religious aspects of the disputes became more and more decided. Zurich
and the Protestant cantons declared themselves
the defenders of these oppressed people; Luzern
and the Roman Catholic cantons took part with
the abbot. The war which ensued is the second




'72             SWITZERLAND.
religious war of this period, the third from the
beginning. Some Roman Catholic soldiers murdered two harmless men and mutilated a helpless
woman. This roused those on the other side to
make terrible reprisals.  These atrocities, as well
as another committed by the people of the abbot,
who placed their own general, on account of alleged cowardice, on a miserable horse, and chased
him amid savage howlings to a bridge on the
Setter, where they shot him, and then cut up his
body-show how much of the barbarous spirit
of their early ancestors still lingered in some of
the Swiss, and how little civilization and religion
had done for their character and habits.  As
many as one hundred and fifty thousand men
were under arms in Switzerland, engaged in this
which proved to be the last of their civil and religious wars, until their renewal in very recent
times.  Several actions took place, and the last,
which settled the question in dispute, was fought
at Willmergen, where the two religious parties
had met fifty years before; but now the result
was different, for the Beruese broke through the
ranks of their foes, and covered the field with
two thousand slain, including five Capuchin fr'iars.
The Roman Catholics sued for peace, and a treaty
was formed at Aargau, giving' religious fi'eedom
to the inhabitants of the Thurgau and the Rtliein



A LONG PEACE.              73
thal, and restricting the power of the Abbot of
St. Gall over the people of the Toggenburg.
The old ecclesiastic obstinately resisted the terms,
and died in exile; but his successor agreed to
them.
CHAPTER VI.
A  LONG PEACEA.
PEACE continued from  1712 to 1793, a period
marked by few incidents, and noticeable chieflyv
for the opportunities it afforded for the quiet
working of those different forms of republican
government which, within so small a space,
wrought side by side, affording to the philosophical politician an interesting group of subjects for
study and speculation.
Berne was the chief of the first division com-;posed of the aristocratic cantons. Its council,
self-elected, might amount to two hundred and
ninety-nine, but it seldom  numbered so many.
The only persons eligible were the burghers, descendants of the old families who founded the
city, and such as might have since been admitted
to that rank. The executive consisted of a senate
chosen out of the council. The principal magis



'74,SWITZERLAND.
tratcs were two avoyers, two treasurers, and foli
bannerets. One was called reigning avoyer, and
presided over the meetings of the council, and
was deemed chief of the republic.  A  singular
appendage to the actual government of Berne
was the "exterior state," as it was called-a
school, in short, for training up the young patricians, in which the forms and offices of the
canton were imitated, and a mock semblance of
the doings of their fathers was carried on by the
sons from year to year, till they were thus themselves trained to bear the burdens of the state.
The l3ernese government has been much applaudecl for its general integrity, notwithstanding
that its constitution was of a stationary character,
and not subject to the direct influence of the people at large. It had all the faults, says one of its
members, but all the virtues of an aristocracy,
and the commendation probably is as true as the
admission which qualifies it.  Peculation was
never its crime, nor was it guilty of inquisitorial
tyranny. No bribe could seduce its members;
in illustration of which M. de Bonstatten, the
patrician just alluded to, relates the following
circumstance:- "A peasant, who had a suit before our court, left one day, unobserved, a basket
full of lump sugar in the kitchen of one of the
judges, hoping thllul to secure his f;avor, without




A LONG P'EACE.              75
committing either the magistrate or himself. The
peasant was summoned before the judges, charged
with an attempt at bribery, reprimanded, and sent
to prison."  But this authority adds, that the
Italian bailiwicks were by no means so scrupulous.  It may be remarked, in addition, that the
prison discipline of the B]ernese was superior to
that in many countries, and obtained the commenclation  of the great phlilanthropist, John
IIoward, when he visited the canton toward the
close of the century.  The criminals may still be
seen at work on the highways, much after the
fashion described by the great reformer of the
prison world of Europe.
Close Aristocracies are sure to awaken suspicion,
to lack the enjoyment of public confidence, and
to be assailed sooner or later, as the result of dissatisfaction from  without.  It was so with the
aristocratic government of Berne.  An officer
named lenzi, in 1749, promoted petitions to the
legislature for a concession to all the burghers of
the right of election. For this he was banished
five years, and on his return he engaged in a
conspiracy to overturn the executive, and to place
the whole administration of affairs on a broader
basis.  Some of his associates were men of far
different character from  himself.  Hle was patriotic-they were selfish.  Ite sought his couln



'76             SWITZERLAND.
try's welfare-their hearts were set on gain.  He
wished as far as possible to avoid bloodshedthey were advocates for the most violent measures. On discovering this, HIenzi sought to break
off the connection and escape, but it was too late.
Ile was tried and executed with two of his accomplices, and others of them were banished.
His wife, stung by her loss, as she reached the
Rhine with her two boys, exclaimed, "If I knew
that these children would not avenge the blood
of their father, I should desire, dear as they are
to me, to see them  ingulfed in these waves."
" But her sons," adds Zschokke, " were actuated
with nobler sentiments than their mother.  One
of them, who became governor of the pages in
the service of the Stadtholder of the Netherlands,
afterward requited, by services rendered to the
citizens of his native place, his own unmerited
misfortune."
The government of Fribourg was a still more
limited aristocracy, being confined to seventy-one
families, somewhat like the exclusiveness of Venice with her golden book.  Out of the two hundred members of council, a senate and council of
secresy were chosen by what was called " blind
ballot," being in fact an accidental throw of balls
into a box.  That compartment which happcened
to get the greatest number decided the election




A LONG I'EACE.              77
of the candidate whose name was written upon
it. Some of the people, dissatisfied with such a
strange political constitution, broke out into rebellion in 1781, but were defeated. Other cantons, by persuasion, induced Fribourg to modify
some of its peculiarities; but it still retained the
most oligarchic government in Switzerland. In
Soleure, though the council was confined to the
aristocracy, a show of popular rights was allowed
by the assembling of all the burghers once a year,
to confirm, pro formad, tile magistrates in office.
Lucern had a more real blending of patrician and
plebeian; for though that distinction was not lost
sight of, the latter class were eligible to a seat in
the senate, and the great council was elected by
general suffrage. All questions of war and taxation were, at the same time, submitted to a general assembly of burghers.
" The second class of cantons, the government
of which might be called municipal, consisted of
Zurich, Basle, and Schaffhausen. The feature
which mainly distinguished them from the former
was that the sovereign power resided among all
the burghers of the principal city of each canton,
who elected the members of both the great council and of the senate, every burgher being eligible
to sit in either."  The Zurich burghers were divided into thirteen tribes, one of which, called




78              SWITZERLAND.
noble, enjoyed certain privileges above the rest.
The burghers of Basle formed eighteen tribes,
with no noble or patrician class. Here, too, as in
Fribourg, the principle of chance was adopted ill
elections; but then, instead of a blind ballot, there
was a drawing of lots.  This practice, strange as
it may seem, was adopted even in the choice of
professors for the university.  Three candidates
who had taken a doctor's degree drew lots, and
if the successful one did not exactly suit his new
office, he changed places with some other professor. Schaffhausen, also, had its tribes, twelve
in number, and like the rest derived its revenues
from demesnes, tithes, and duties.  In both the
classes of cantons just noticed, the sovereign
power was vested exclusively in the chief town,
the smaller towns and the whole country being
subject to it.  Subordinate local governments,
however, existed, and the supreme administration
is said to have been generally moderate and liberal toward the dependencies, while the charges
of carrying on public affairs were extremely economical.
With regard to the third class of cantons, the
Waldstatter, together with Zug, Glarus, and Appenzell, we need only observe that they continued,
as from the beginning, purely democratical, every
shepherd and peasant having' a shalre in the elec



A LONG PEACE.              7 9
tion of their governors, and also meeting in the
landsgemeinde, or great assembly, for the decision
of all important matters affecting the canton.  It
must not, however, be supposed that these democracies were as pure in practice as they were
in theory. The history of Zug, for example,
shows that a family might gain virtually an aristocratic influence, and lord it over other citizens.
There we find the family of the Zurlaubens guiding the votes of the people to a large extent, and
keeping power in their own hands. In opposition
to this family influence, we see Anthony Schunacher busily at work, supplanting the parties of
whom  he was jealous, and at last in his turn
reigning almost supreme.  His measures became
most arbitrary and cruel, till the public were tired
of him and his faction, and sentenced him to the
scaffold; a punishment commuted to hard labor,
in the endurance of which he soon died. Foreign
politics and alliances were mixed up with internal
disputes. One party at Zug favored Austria, the
other France; and they were called respectively
the hard and the mild. The working of the system of foreign enlistment also stands connected
with the troubles at Zug.  Enlistments in the
French army had been encouraged, for which
subsidies were paid and money also privately
distributedL,'Pecple thus became corrupted by




80             SWITZERLAND.
bribes from a foreign power to maintain a line of
policy which it approved-a state of things fatal
to patriotism and national integrity, and most
pernicious to the cultivation of social virtue in
general.
The other cantons stood in relation of allies to
the foregoing. They were the Grisons, the Valais, St. Gall, Bienne, Neuchatel, Grison, Engelberg, and Geneva. Among the Grisons, democracy was maintained to the fullest possible extent, so that the small Alpine region over which
the bond of the Gray League extended was
broken up into no less than sixty minute districts,
each in fact containing a distinct republic with
full powers of self-government. These sent deputies to the meeting of the Grison confederation,
which was held in annual succession at Coire,
Davos, and Ilantz. But even here, with an almost
infinitesimal division of power, human tendencies
had their way, and a few persons obtained the
management of all the rest. The Valais had ten
districts, of which the seven of the Upper Valais
were masters of the three Lower Valais. Six of
the districts were democracies, the rest had some
aristocratic element; and one, that of Sion, was
subject to the bishop, who possessed, however,
but very limited sovereign rights. St. Gall was
a double state-one part under the dominion of




A LONG'EACE.               81
the abbot, whose sway in the eighteenth century
was somewhat short of the absolutism it formerly
possessed; and the other, the city, in fact, was a
combination of aristocratic and popular rule.
Singularly enough, the abbey stood in the midst
of the city, and the territories of the abbey surrounded the city; so that the municipality was
a sort of ring inserted in the middle of and cutting in two the prelatical domain.  The town of
Bienne had its council, court of justice, and
mayor, and managed its own affairs; but was
dependent, in some small degree, on Basle. Neuchatel became part of the dominion of the House
of Brandenburg in 1707 by its own vote, and
thus was incorporated in the kingdom of Prussia.
Its relations to the government of that country
were too complicated and unimportant to be noticed here. Grison, the smallest democracy in
the world, consisting only of a thousand people,
and Engelberg, subject to a bishop, require no
particular notice; and indeed of some others it
may be said, as of these, that they offer no observation which may tend to illustrate the spirit
and genius of this heterogeneous commonwealth.
Geneva was full of political disturbances in the
eighteenth century, class being arrayed against
class, democracy fighting with aristocracy; the
whole being of small importance, and reminding
6




82              SWITZERLAND.
one, as the Emperor Paul used to say, of temnpests in a tumbler of water.  " The government
of Geneva, as settled by the pacification of 1768,
consisted of a great council, a senate, and a general assembly.  All laws were proposed by the
senate, discussed in the great council, and then
laid before the assembly of the citizens, who approved of them or rejected them  by majority of
suffrag'es, but without discussion. The senate had
the executive power, administered the finances,
and exercised the privilege of conferring, under
certain  conditions, the rights of burgllership,
which was rendered more accessible than before.
The principal magistrates, such as the four syndics, were chosen from among the senators. The
senate also appointed to one-half of the vacancies
in the great council, who in their turn filled up
vacancies in the senate.  The general assembly
approved or rejected the proposed laws, imposed
taxes, declared war or peace, and contracted alliances."
With regard to the bond between the cantons
themselves, and between them  and their allies,
we can only observe that it was far less intimate
than that which once connected the Dutch provinces, or than what now  obtains between the
American States. The Helvetic confederacy had
neither central government nor a permanent




A LONG PEACE.              83
magistrate-in-chief.  The executive was vested in
each canton, and such general legislation as there
Ilight be in the federal council was, according to
specific instructions, given to the members by
those whom they represented.  The meetings of
the federal council were ordinary and extraordinary-the former being annually held at Baden
till 1712, and afterward at Frauenfeld; the latter being moveable according to circumstances.
Zurich took a certain precedence of the rest, its
deputy being president of the federal assembly,
and the canton having authority to summon the
other cantons to meet together.  Between some
of the cantons there was a slighter bond than between others.  Zurich, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden,
and Luzern, formed no foreign alliance without
mutual consent.  Glarus, Zug, and Berne, each
did in this respect as it pleased, but all these
eight were bound to support each other's form of
government.  The other five cantons, Fribourg,
Soleure, Basle, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell, were
much more independent, both of the rest and of
each other, and chose their own allies both iat
home and abroad.  We need only add, that the
Swiss army was a militia, consisting of all the
males from sixteen to sixty, one-third being enrolled in regiments.  Thus a body of nine thousand six hundred were available for the defense




84              SWITZERLAND.
of the whole country in case of sudden invasion,
to be assembled and directed on such an emnergency by deputies from  all the states nominated
for the purpose.
Such was the political constitution of the IIelvetie, republics, of which a comparatively quiet
elcvelopment forms their history  durinlg the last
century; and certainly a group of governments
so diversified, individually alnd specifically, and
yet so plainlly of one gCeneric description, hlas been
found nowhere else so situated and conjoined in
ancient or modern tinmes.
CHAPTER VII.
OVERTIROW  AND RESTORATION.,
TIIE French revolution was the revolution of all
Europe.  Every kingdom and state was more or
less affected by that tremendous concussion of
principles and parties.  The sentiments of the
revolutionists awakenedl sympathy among the oppressed or dissatisfied everywhere, and the attempts of the old monarchy to steml the swelling
torrent excited a friendly interest on the part of
other governments.  The military spirit and projects of the republic soon involved the continent




OVERTHRO0W AND RESTORATION.        85
in war, and powers which originally had no wish
to take any part in it were forced into the fearful
strife.  From the commencement of those movements in France which led to the subversion of
the throne, different parties in that country found
favour with corresponding parties among the
Swiss.  But the policy of tile confederated cantons was neutral.  Interference on the part of the
government in the strulggles of the neighboring
king'dom was studiously avoided; yet events after
a time brought the united republics of Helvetia
within the whirl of the tremendous maelstrom, in
whose waters their independence was ingulfed,
till at the general peace it was restored and secured.  The massacre of the Swiss guards ill
Paris on the 10th of August, 1792, does not
properly belong to the history of Switzerland;
for those ill-fated men were only individual mercenaries in the monarch's pay. Their horrible
death, however, threw many a Swiss family into
mourning, and must have produced deep feelingls,
as regarded the revolution, in a thousand breasls.
The first great overt act which connected Switzcrland with the French revolution, was the occupation of Basle by a French army, and its annexation to the new republic in 1793.  Geneva, with
its old French relations, was not likely to remain
in safety and quietude; revolutionary agents wero




86              SWITZERLAND.
at work there, fanning the embers of civil strife,
which for so many years had been occasionally
bursting out. A reign of terror occurred in the
city in 1794. The atrocities of Paris were repeated, only on a less scale.  Forty were formally
condemned to death, and a hundred were exiled;
but a large number besides were shot by an infuriated mob, while many more suffered from
fines and imprisonment.  Order was restored, and
the little Genevese republic returned to its old
constitution in the course of a year, but in other
parts of Switzerland there were disturbances.
The rural populations of Zurich and St. Gall
sought to gain redress of their grievances, but
with very different results: the former failing in
their attempt, and suffering heavy punishment
for their agitation; the latter securing some considerable advantages from their abbot lord, which
made him very popular among his dependents.
For some time the French Directory professed
to respect the neutrality of the Swiss. A public
audience was given in the Luxembourg to the
minister of the confederation, and its flag was
hung up in the convention hall, beside that of the
United States. Diplomatic notes, however, were
constantly sent to the governments of the cantons,
full of complaints about their giving asylum to
French emigrants, and demandingl i  their immedi



OVERTTHROW AND RESTO0R ATION.      87
ate expulsion.  These, with other charges and requirements, irritated the Swiss authorities; yet,
fearful of further provoking their powerful neighbors, they manifested the most remarkable moderation and patience.  The unfriendliness of France
toward Switzerland increased after the triumph
of the new Directory.  Anxious to possess the
Alps, as an outpost against Austria, and fixing
its eyes on the city coffers of Berne, Zurich, and
Basle, the unprincipled government of the revolution had no difficulty in creating a ground of
quarrel.  The Pays dle Vaud was subject; to
Berne; the former complained of the latter, aind
aimed at the revival of certain political rights
which, whether in formn extinguished or not, had
long been waived.  The people of the country,
wearied of the yoke of their city masters, proceeded to open revolt; a petition was got up
among them and forwarded to the French Directory, which at once espoused their cause.  Under
the hypocritical pretense of giving freedom to the
oppressed, and of putting down tyrannical aristocracies, one body of French troops speedily appeared on the frontiers of the Pays de Vaud, and another on the northern borders of Berne.  It was
demanded of the Bernese tlat they should expel
thile English minister. This, they said, was impossible; Iut for their sakes hle withdrew.  It




88              SWITZERLAND.
was then required that they should expel all emigrants.  This was evaded by a counter-demand
on the part of the Swiss. Then it was asked that
all decorations received by Swiss officers from the
French monarchy should be laid aside. This was
granted. But still there was no peace for Switzerland: Bonaparte's army seized on the Grison
country, after which, as the general returned to
France by way of Berne and Basle, he treated
the authorities of the former with contempt, but
expressed much favor toward the latter city, which
was already a part of the revolutionary republic,
while the most violent sentiments were rife amongr
the peasantry of the canton.  A  club of the
"friends of liberty," as they called themselves,
was shortly afterward formed under French influence, and the result was the dissolution of the old
cantonal government, and the temporary deposit
of power in the hands of sixty persons chosen
from  all classes.  The Helvetic confederacy was
now evidently on the brink of ruin; a diet was
held at Aargau, to consult respecting the general
welfare; an attempt was made to imitate the
memorable scene at Rutli, by the. deputies swearing to maintain the liberties of their common
country; but it was a mere farce; they talked,
but did nothing.  Basle had withdrawn from
them; and as soon as the diet broke up, there




OVERTHROW AND RESTORATION.        89
was an insurrection at the place of meeting.
Aargau was subject to Berne. The dependency
now threw off its allegiance, and planted in the
streets the tree of liberty: the revolt spread.
Berne, threatened by a French army, thus found
itself also involved in a domestic revolution.  The
disaffected were encouraged by the success of the
Pays de Vaud, which had shaken off the yoke
of Berne-thanks to the arms of France.  Power
thus crumbling into pieces on all sides, the government of the canton met full of consternation;
plans of reform were proposed; concessions welre
made to the democratic spirit now dayly gaining
ground.  Other cantons, moved by fear, adopted
a similar course.  But neither in Berne nor elsewhere had the authorities a full comprehension
of their own danger. It was thought the approaching evils might be staved off, and a sort
of superstitious confidence existed in reference to
the stability of the confederation, which had
weathered so many storms. The Bernese senators therefore temporized and vacillated; they
were not the men for the crisis, though it is much
easier for us to administer blame now than it was
for them to act in a manner becoming their position then.  While in Switzerland there were
wanting both wisdom and courage, the French,
as sagacious and bold as they were unprincipled,




90              SWITZERLAND.
pushed on their plans, and took possession of
Mulhausen and Geneva.  Thley forced those cities
to join the French republic, and then represented
them as seeking "the honor," and as surrendering the old constitution to obtain it.
To add to the confusion and misery of the
period, the Bernese soldiers were exasperated by
the irresolution of the government. D'Erlach,
their brave and patriotic general, received orders
and counter-orders, which showed that the executive had lost its strength and also its reason. The
Swiss forces were disposed in bad positions, contingents did not come in time, whole troops deserted, while the French triumphantly march ed
on toward Berne. There were thirty thousand
Frenchmen; the'army opposed to them did not
consist of more than half that number: all was
in confusion. The council of Berne, in a moment
of agony, dissolved and proclaimed a provisional
regency; a conciliatory message was sent to the
French, which was haughtily received, and served
not at all to stay their progress.  Mutiny had
begun among the Swiss army owing to the conduct of the rulers, and some of the officers were
slain.  On the.5th of March, 1797, an engagement took place at Laupen, and the French were
repulsed; on the same day a fatal reverse was
experiened by I}1'Erlaeh, under whom the B3er



OVERTIIROW AND RESTORATION.        91
nese were defeated at Frauenbrunnen, in the immediate neighborhood of their own city; two
thousand Swiss were killed and wounded, and
the loss of the French amounted to three-fourths
of that number. Berne immediately surrendered,
and the terrible tragedy ended in the further
mutiny of the soldiers, who, deeming themselves
betrayed, actually murdered their officers in cold
blood! Among the victims was D'Erlach himself; and it afterward appeared that the assassins
had been stimulated to this villanous and cruel
act by forged documents which they had received
from  the French, as proofs of their general's
treachery!  "More than one hundred officers,
including twelve members of the great council,
and most of themn belonging to the principal
famlilies of Berne, were killed on that fatal day;
their names are registered in golden letters upon
six marble slabs placed in one of the aisles of the
Cathedral of Berne. Such was the fall of Berne,
a republic that had existed for nearly six hundred
years.  It feli by the same acts, the same hands,
and nearly about the same time as Venice and
Genoa; like them it exhibited wealiness and hesitation in its councils; but, unlike them, it showed
something of old Swiss determination in the hour
of its struggle, and it fell neither unhonored nor
lunnlournec."- V.'ieu.seir,ix.




92              SWITZERLAND.
The occupation of Zurich, and the whole north
of Switzerland by the French army, immediately
succeeded, while the treasures of Berne were cartied off to Paris, and further levies were made in
Switzerland upon the impudent ground that the
country ought to pay for its liberation. All the
proceedings of the Directory in reference to Switzerland, it is said, were carried on without ever
consulting the legislative council of the French
republic; and even an ex-director, Carnot, afterward acknowledged that it was an impious war,
realizing to the letter the well-known fable of the
wolf and the lamb. A new constitution was soon
prepaecld for Switzerland by its masters, and the
cantons were summoned to send deputies to
Aargau for its adoption; but the mountaineers
of the Waldstatter refused, and backed their refusal by taking up arlms under Aloys Reding.
Terrible was the resistance of these men, in whom
the spirit of their fathers burned anew, and terrible was the revenge they wreaked on the French
soldiery, whose atrocious excesses had roused
their intense indignation. Aloys Reding was
able to extort honorable terms from his enemies;
but a different termination came to another struggle by the people of Unterwalden, whose country
was ravaged in the most awful manner with fire
and sword. In the ch,,lrch-yard of the little town




OVERTnIROW AND) RESTOliRATION.       93
of Stanz a chapel stands, erected to the memory
of four hundred and fourteen people, including
one hundred and two women and twenty-five
children all of whom were murdered together by
the French on the 9th September, 1797.  The
heloism  of R eding is,also com:mIiemorated on a
stone which bearls Ilis name near the o)tltlet of the
la;ke of Thun, on which Wordsworth composed
the followingr lines:
" Around a wild and woody hill,
A gravel pathway heading,
We reach a votive stone, that bears
The name of Aloys Reding.
"Well judged the friend who placed it there,
For silence and protection,
And happily with a finer care
Of dutiful affection,
"The sun regards it from the west,
And while in summer glory
lIe sets, his sinking yields a type
Of that pathetic story.
"And oft he tempts the patriot Swiss
Around the grove to linger;
Till all is dim, save tlhis bright stone,
Touch'd by his golden finger."
The occupation of Switzerland by the French
continued till 1801.  It was a period of the
deepest distress to the inhabitants.  All kinds of




94              SWITZERLAND.
misery which could be inflicted by a brutal soldiery were endured. To add to the sorrows of
this unhappy country, it was invaded by Austrians and Russians, after the outbreak of a firesh
war between the Emperor of Germany and the
French republic.  Zurich and St. Gothard were
scenes of dreadful engagements, especially the
latter, on whose mountain passes the army of the
allies met their enemies, and fought with ferocious
energy, hurling one another down the rocks, and
dyeing the stream of the Ruess with the blood
of the slain. The peasantry suffered from both
parties, who unceremoniously seized upon their
hlumble possessions; spoiling them of their flocks,
occupying their homesteads, and appropiating
their harvests. One-fourth of the Schwyz canton was reduced to beggary.  Between six and
seven hundred persons in one valley were left utterly destitute. Among the Grisons, where the
inhabitants rose up to defend themselves against
the troublers of their peace, the French took unmerciful revenge; women were hunted like beasts,
and shot with infants in their arms in the halffrozen Lake of Toma.
After the peace of Luneville in 1801, the
French evacuated Switzerland. The new constitution was found utterly abortive, and the civil
affairs of the country were thrown into complete




OVERTHROW AND RESTORATION.         95
disorder. French agents were the only real governors, and they treated Switzerland as a conquered country, seizing upon public and private
property as need or avarice might prompt.  To
the credit of such of the Swiss as the French
Directory intrusted with the carrying out of the
new constitution, it ought to be stated that they
never imitated their masters in the way of coniscation and punishment.  They did not erect a
revolutionary tribunal; they enforced no proscriptions; they reared no scaffolds; they filled no
dungeons.  The useless puppet-show of the lIelvetic Directory, as the Swiss executive was called,
was soon put down by its creators, and a new
constitution was devised.  There was to be one
Helvetic republic, and Berne was to be the
capital; but this project, though adopted at a
diet, came to nothing.  A third constitution was
afterward framed; but the forest cantons, opposed
to centralization, upon which these schemes were
based, endeavored to revive their old confederacy. Different factions now arose. The flame
of discord began to blaze; Switzerland was on
the brink of a civil war; when, in 1803, Napoleon, who, though unfriendly to the old aristocratic governments of the Helvetic confederacy,
had never desired the entire overthrow of Swiss
independence, interfered, and summoned to Paris




g9               SWITZERLAND.
thile representatives of different parties and interests, oil whom  he urged the reorganization of
affairs in the several cantons according to their
peculiar character, including the restoration of
the pure democracies, and the reform  and liberahlization of tile aristocratic governments.  He
iinpressed upon  them  the impossibility of reducing  their country undcer one republic, and
urgLed "that a federal diet, consisting of deputies
named by the various cantons, should assemble
every year in one of the principal towns, and
decide upon all matters which concern the whole
confederation, as well as mediate in all differences
between one canton and another; and that there
should be no central directing canton, but that
the landamnman of the canton where the diet
meets for the year should transact all federal
affairs."  This was the famous act of mediatioln
which restored peace to Switzerland.  In harmony with Napoleon's directions, a constitution
was framed and adopted; and though the peasantry in some parts at first refused to submit to
it, obedience was at length enforced, and order
and tranquillity ensued.
Napoleon's mediation in the affairs of Switzerland was, perhaps, the most liberal act in his
whole political life; it was certainly the one in
which he observed the conditions most faithfully.




OVERTHROW AND RESTORATION.       97
During the eleven momentous years which followed throughout the headlong career of his ambition, in the midst of the gigantic wars of the
empire, he respected his own work, the independence of Switzerland.  That little country, surrounded by immense armies, rested in peace amid
the din of battle and the crash of falling empires.
No foreign soldier stepped over its tranquil boundaries, and it was the only remaining asylum on
the continent where individual security and freedom were still to be found. The Swiss were the
only people exenmpt firom the tyrannical code of the
conscription; they furnished, however, a body of
sixteen thousand men to the French service, as
they had done under the old monarchy, but it
was raised and kept effective by Ineans of voluntary enlistment. He, however, took care to enforce his continental system on Switzerland, and
would not allow them to import English goods.
Manufactures and commerce revived; agricultuire
was improved; a great deal of land was drained;
and encouragement was given to literature, science,
and education.
The act of mediation was dissolved in 1814,
when the tutelage of the French emperor over
Switzerland came to an end. The cantons assembled to reconsider their constitution.  The
basis was laid for a new federal union of nineteen
7




98              SVWITZERLAND.
independent cantons.*   To these the Valais,
Neuchatel, and Geneva, were afterward added,
making the number twenty-two. The Congress
of Vienna in 1815 acknowledged the independence and neutrality of the Swiss, and on the 7th
of August the new compact was solemnly adopted
at Zurich.  "This federal fact," says Franscini,
"whether of good or imperfection, has been the
work of the Swiss themselves. It contains principles entirely national; some of which date fiom
the oldest times of Swiss independence, while
others are taken from  the act of mediation of
1803, or are improvements upon the latter."  The
independency of each canton as to its internal
affairs was hereby guaranteed, provision was made
for the raising of troops in the proportion of one
to fifty of the population, and a war fund created
by the enactment of levies on foreign imports.
The diet was formed to consist of deputies from
the twenty-two cantons, each canton having but
one vote. An executive was appointed for the
administration of federal affairs during the suspension of sittings.  War, peace, and alliances
were left to be determined by the diet, on all:" Zurich, Berne, Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden,
Glarus, Zug, Fribourg, Solothurn, Basle, Schaffhausen,
Appenzell, St. Gall, the Grisons, Aargau, Thurgau,
Ticino, Vaiud.




OVERTHROW AND RESTORATION.         99
which questions a majority of three-fourths was
rendered requisite. To it was confided the appointment of diplomatic agents, and the making
provision for the general safety of the country;
while it was also authorized to appoint an arbitrator and umpires for the settlement of disputes
between one canton and another.
Such is a very general description of the principles of the Swiss confederacy as determined upon in 1815, and as they are still on the whole
maintained among these interesting republics.
Changes took place in the internal constitution of
the aristocratic cantons.  The country, as well as
the town, was admitted to return members to the
legislature in the proportion of one-third, and
monopolies-another old source of discordwere abolished. The democratic cantons remained much the same as before, and the new ones,
Aargau, Thurganu, Vaud, Ticino, and St. Gall,
were fralmed on the basis of an equality of rights;
while Neuchattel, it should be stated, was restored
as an lappendage to the Prussian crown.
Switzerland remained at peace from 1815  to
1830.  "The general condition of the country
might be called prosperous.  Civil and criminal
laws in most cantons remained as they had been
of old, defective and encumbered with the rust of
the middle ages.  The education was improved




100              SWITZERLAND.
in several districts, but not all over the country,
no general system  of popular instruction being
enforced. The press was, in most of the cantons,
under a strict censorship.  The sittings of the cantonal councils and of the federal diet were kept
close, and no report of their discussions was publishedl. In short, most of the Swiss states, although
under republican names and forms, were really
less popular in their institutions than several of
the constitutional mnonarchies of Europe.  The
same inen remained in power and office as if they
had been appointed for life."  Dissatisfaction was
the result.  Disturbances arose in 1830.  They
spread through the country, and  Switzerland
witnessed another general revolution.  The tangiled threads of its history we cannot here unravel;
but the state into wllichl the governments afterward settled down will be briefly noticed in a subsequent part of this volume.




DESCRIPTIVE.             101
PART  II.-DESCRIPTIVE.
HAVING completed our very brief sketch of Swiss
history, we propose to notice the interesting
country itself which has been the theater of so
mnany stirring events, and the stage on which has
been developed so remarkable a system of republican institutions.
It is a small territory, about two hundred and
ten miles in length from east to wiest, and about
one hundred and thirty in breadth from north to
south. Adjoining the plains of Lombardy on the
Italian side, the plains of 13urgundy on the French
side, and the plains of Swabia on the German
side, it lifts itself above the level of the European
continent, and throws up those lofty mountains
which are its defense, its ornaments, cand its glory.
Even the lower parts of the country are one thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea,
and one thousand feet higher than the level of
northern Italy. Its surface is distributed into mountain and table-land, the former yielding those beautiful,,n1l magnificent prospects which the traveler




102             SWITZERLAND.
goes from far to see; while the latter is also full
of pictorial and picturesque interest, and presents
characteristic features and claims in its rich fertility and its thriving towns, its natural productions,
and its forms of human industry. The plateau
of Switzerland forms one-half of the whole country, occupying its whole breadth from south-west
to north-east, and including the cantons of Vaud
and Fribourg, the larger part of Berne, almost
the whole of Luzern and Aargau, Zurich, Zug,
and Thurgau entirely, and a considerable part of
St. Gall. The mountain region will be described
as we proceed; but before we enter on any notices of its character and scenery, it may be
proper briefly to observe that Switzerland has its
iron mines in the Jura, coal in Fribourg, Basle,
and Thurgau, rich veins of lead and zinc in the
country of the Grisons, rock salt in the canton of
Vaud, and salt springs abundantly in various
places; that it has mineral waters in the Valais,
and Aargau and Berne and Vaud and St. Gall;
that its lakes are full of fish, especially trout, and
that its rivers abound in tench and and carp perch
and salmon; that the hare and the partridge find
cover amid the maple, the birch, the beech, and the
oak, which clothe the sides of the mountains; that
bears and wolves invest the higher regions, where
also the fleet chamois leaps from crag to crag, and




NATURE.                103
leads the chase of the sportsman; while birds of
prey, the vulture and the eagle, build among the
rocks, and sail over the glaciers, and whirl round
the snowy peaks.
In the arrangement of this second portion of
our little volume, we propose to notice Switzerland
as it is, under the three-fold aspect of nature, art,
and society, not altogether overlooking such associations as may present themselves to our mind
in connection with them.
CHIIAPTER I.
N ATURE.
WE shall begin by calling attention to the mountalins of Switzerland.
The Jura range, sloping on the French side
and abrupt on the Swiss, divides the two countries by its slightly curved line, running in a
north-easterly direction, for about one hundred
and fifty miles, from  the banks of the Rhone,
near Mount Vauche in Savoy, to the banks of the
Aar near Soleure, and onward toward the Rhine
near Basle.  It is not a single ridge, but a number of mountain masses, sometimes lying parallel'nnd solnetim'es branching out in spurs; the whole




104             SWITZERLAND.
presenting a variety of scene, consisting of rounded
summits, broad table-lands, and deep valleys. Its
highest point is not more than five thousand five
hundred feet above the level of the sea.
Among the many passes of the Jura, we may
mention three of the great gateways to Switzerland, much frequented by travelers, from the west
and north. The first is by Mijoux and Gex; but
as they are in France, we shall not notice the
scenery there. The other passes, of which we
have a delightful recollection, are the Upper and
Lower iauenstein; the former on the high road
from Basle to Soleure, the latter on the high road
from Basle to Luzern.  We have entered Switzerland by the latter, and how beautiful is the
road all the way from the old city, by the banks
of the Rhone, to the foot of the pass at Bakten,
-calmly, sweetly beautiful.  There begins the
ascent amid scenery very grand, and rather rich
than wild; and as one proceeds, the overflowing
ftillness of the verdure, the deep green of the valleys, the strips of corn which variegate them like
gold veins in an emerald basin, delight the eye
dnd quicken the imagination.  At the top of the
pass, the view, looking down on the broad deep
valley to the south-east, which there opens, is
charming in the extreme; and as the road advances, distant views of the Alps appear, and the




NATURE.               105
snowy tops are seen, whiter than alabaster, lifting
themselves up against the clear blue sky like
clouds full of light ascending from the horizon.
We have twice left Switzerland by the Upper
Hauenstein. It is soon reached after leaving Soleure. The mountains are much grander, more
rugged, stern, and sublime, than about the former
pass. They assume a castellated form, and the
valley between of brilliant hue looks like the
smoothly shaven lawn of some baronial hall.
Woods hang like green drapery down the walls
of rock, and the fortress of Talkenstein juts over
the road, as if it were some eagle's nest; while
houses and orchards dot and enliven the towns
and sides of the vale. Issuing from the gorge,
the traveler sees before him  another mountain
range, another branch of the Jura, resembling a
second rampart, inclosing a second castle court.
Then the pass becomes narrower as the road ascends, and winds round the outstretched limlbs
of these immense hills. Some views further on
reminded us of the finest part of the north of
Devon, only the cottages sprinkled over the rocks
gave the place that unmistakeable Swiss character which the eye at once recognizes.  Here and
there a castle on the heights imparts additional
interest and character to the scene.
The Weissenstein, at the back of Soleure, is one




106            SWITZERLAND.
of those summits in Switzerland, from which, as a
lofty observatory, the most commanding panoramic views are obtained. The Alps here are seen in
the extreme distance, the chain extending its links
of snow for a length of two hundred miles, from
Sentis to Mont Blanc. This is the southern line
of the picture. To the south-east are the Bernese
Alps, showing the Jungfrau, Schreckhorn, and
other peaks; while the space between all those
sublime regions and the point of sight is filled up
by wooded vales, the Lakes of Morat, Neuchatel,
and Bienne, and the winding of the river Aar.
Another celebrated view from the Jura mountains
is on the summit of Claremont, just above Neuchh'tel. On a very clear day the view is even
more magnificent in the judgment of some than
that from the Weissenstein.
The Alps form by far the grander portion of
the mountains of Switzerland. They enter the
country on the south-west from  Savoy, bearing
the name of the Pennine ranges, and dividing
Switzerland from Italy. Some very high peaks
are in this region, Mount Velan belonging to the
St. Bernard group eleven thousand feet high, the
Matterhorn fourteen thousand eight hundred, and
Mount Rosa fifteen thousand one hundred and
fifty. Then comes the great St. Gothard mass,
which folrms a centerl, whel(ncle lranellhe shoot out




NATURE.                107
in various directions; the Bernese, the Alps of
Glarus, the Rhaetian Alps, and another mountain
band reaching down to the Pennine.  Among
these are summits from nine thousand to twelve
thousand feet. Another vast assemblage of Alps
is situated to the north-east of St. Gothard, covering the Grison country, and furrowed by not
less than sixty deep valleys. Generally, with regard to these " everlasting hills," it may be remarked that their majestic elevation may be divided into distinct bands, or regions, marked by
characteristic vegetation, till they reach the point
where all vegetation ceases.  The lowest step,
which gently slopes and is covered with a rich soil,
is industriously cultivated, and abundantly repays
the toils of the husbandman.  Then comes the
wood region, covered with huge forests of firs and
other trees.  Above that is the Alp proper, or
pasture region, the place for hardy wild flowers
and grass. Moss and lichens border the crest of
rocks where vegetation stops; sometimes the sumnmits are covered with meadow-land, and herds
and flocks graze on the very top.  When the
mountain rises above the snow line, you have noble white cones, and pinnacles, and domes, such
as Rosa, the Jungfrau, and Mont Blanc.
The passes among the Alps are incomparably
more grand than those of the Jura.  Beauty pre



108             SWITZERLAND.
dominant in the one is exchanged for the predominance of sublimity in the other-sublimity in
many cases very terrible.  Of the fifty and more
Alpine passes we can only speak here of a very
few. To take the following, which are well known,
the traveler will probably range them in his recollections in some such order as this:-First, the
Brunig, from Lungern to Meyringen, as the easiest and gentlest, with its woods and little slips of
arlable and pasture land, and the grand view of
the vale of Mevringen at the south end of the
pass.  Next comes the Scheideck, by which the
traveler from the south approaches the wonders
of the Oberland, passing by the beautiful Rosenlau, with its rich wild flowers, and then threading
forests of fir, through which the Jungfrau and
other peaks shine down upon the path like galaxies of jewels, till the magnificent descent to
Grindelwald brings in sight the whole of that
vale with its glaciers and ravines. The Grimsel
with the Falls of the Aar, and the Furca with theglacier of the Rhone, both lying between Meyringen and St. Gothard, will probably then occur
to the memory, with all their wild, bare, rugged,
and desolate associations, and thoughts of a weary
march on the edge of precipices and over firagments of rock, and through marshy swamps. The
Gemini, leading from Kandersteg to Leuch, will




NATURE.                109
contest the palm of the stern and terrible with
the Grimsel and the Furca, while its rocks scattered in confilsion as if an earthquake had upheaved the hills-and the long snow-drifts in
summer — and the dead-looking tarn or lake by
the wavside-and the dreary walk for miles and
miles, without seeing a house, or a creature, or
a tree-and the precipitous descent at last to
Leuch, down the winding stair of the rock, will
come to mind; making the contrast of the warm
home fireside on a winter's evening very, very
pleasant, as the pictorial palnorama of the whole
scene glides before the imagination.  The three
great passes over the Alps to Italy will crown
these recollections.  The first is the Simplon,
commencing on the Swiss side at the little town
of Brielg, and terminating at Domo d'Ossola on
the Italian side.  Winding in a zigzag direction,
carried over chasms, and penetrating through
rocks, with all the general objects of Alpine
scenery, such as steep precipices, overhanging
pines, dizzy-looking bridges, and thundering cataracts, the road commands on the Swiss side near
Pearsal an amazingly grand view of the Bernese
Alps with their glittering points; and on the
Italian side presents now one of those gorges
with precipitous sides which arrest the traveler's
steps, and fuirnish such abundant material for the




110             SWITZERLAND.
artist's pencil; and then a charming map of
Italian beauty, full of maize fields, and vineyards,
and villages, with tall white campanilles, under a
sky of the clearest and richest azure. The second
is the St. Gothard, beginning at Amsteg and
ending at Bellinzona. Running to Andermatt on
rocky ledges by the side of the roaring Reuss,
and crossing it by the Devil's Bridge, where there
is one of the largest and wildest of Swiss waterfalls; then winding in a zigzag shape, like all
other pathways over these regions, the road
scales the summit, a bare, bleak, windy spot,
six thousand eight hundred and eight feet above
the level of the sea, and then descends toward
Airolo, looking down into the romantic valleys
of the Ticino, passing by picturesque rocks,
especially the Dazio Grande, a rent in Monte
Piottino, sweeping along the Val Levantina, and
revealing as it approaches Italy all the exquisite
features which pertain to the scenery of that land.
The third is the Spltigen, on the way to which
from Zurich the traveler is to blame if he do not
stop to see the baths of Pfeffers, in a narrow ravine where the light of day is almost excluded,
and a wild mountain stream boils along at the
bottom.  The Via Mala, the most interesting part
of the Spliigen, is not entered till you have passed
Thusis.  There begins some of the most gloomy




NATURE.                111
and sublime scenery in all Switzerland, formed
by rocks beetling overhead, while the Rhine rolls
in the deep bottom  of the ravine.  Wonderful
views are obtained from the bridges which cross
the gulf, the rocks beneath in some instances
meeting so as to overlap one another and to conceal the foaming waters.  The middle bridge, as
it is called, is four hundred feet above the stream,
vet in the fearful inundation of 1834 it rose to
within a few feet of the spring of the arch.  The
road is a shelf cut along the side of a rock, and
what the traveler sees and hears is sure to fill
hlim with emotions which it were useless to en-,leavor to describe in words. The village of Spliigell is situated fiurther on, beyond which is the
summit of the pass, six thousand eight hundred
and fourteen feet high, near the Austrian boundal;ry. The descent to Italy opens a succession of
noble views, and after crossing the magnificent
waterfall of the Medessino, the road reaches
Campo Dolcino, an ugly place with a beautiful
name; beyond which huge fragments of rocks,
grown over by majestic chestnuts, form a succession of objects exquisitely pictorial, the green
foliage and the brown rock, with the white campanille, forming a delightful harmony of colors.
Among the many Alpine objects of leading
interest ale the sides and crowns of the snow




112             SWITZERLAND.
mountains, shining with a dazzling whiteness in
the summer's sun. Those who have seen the
Jungfrau from the Wengern Alps will ever afterward dwell on it as among the richest of memory's pictures.  So clear and unencumbered, it
stands out with a mantle of snow hanging down
its gigantic shoulders, and presenting such a field
of brilliant whiteness that the eye is compelled to
turn for relief to the green slopes on the opposite
side. It is the region of avalanches. Every day
in summer they may be heard breaking with the
noise of thunder, and appearing, when they meet
the traveler's eye, like a stream of snow, winding
down a mountain side, till, at the bottom, it curls
into folds, like the convolutions of a silver snake.
But these summer avalanches, it may be here remarked, are very different from  those of which
we so often read, as having inflicted fearful injuries on the dwellers of the mountain regions.
The harmless avalanches, on which the tourist
looks which so much interest, are called glacier,
or ice avalanches. Others are divided into three
classes, and are phenomena of a terrific character.
The dri~ft avalanches are composed of loose snow,
when it is dislodged from its position for want of
support, which is often the case in the winter
months, and is attributable, according to the
opinion of scientific men, to the impulse of the




NATURE.               113
wind. The sliding avalanches are formed by
huge masses of frozen snow, and originate in the
middle region of the mountains, when the natural
warmth of the earth has melted the icy bonds,
and left a slippery descent. The creeping avalanches are similar, but are confined to gentler
declivities, and derive their distinction from the
comparative slowness of their motion. The first
of these are the most destructive; the second are
not without injury; the last are generally harmless.
From the top of the Col de Balme, looking
into the Valley of Chamouni, a magnificent sight
is obtained of Mont Blanc.  From this point the
monarch of mountains, when seen as it was by
ourselves for a few minutes completely unclouded,
appears grand and impressive in the extreme.
There he was, as if seated on a throne, with his
guards around him, and the glaciers penetrating
into the valley seeming like the ermine borders
of his robes. The Fl6gere is another eminence,
_much resorted to as an observatory from which
to gaze on the hoary father of the Alps. The
I3revin, loftier, and of more fatiguing ascent, is a
still more favorable point from which to gain the
coveted sight of the mount in his majesty. Until
lately, the summit of the Jungfrau had not been
scaled.  The feat was accomplished by some
8




114             SWVITZER1LAND.
peasants in 1828; and afterward, in 1841, by
Professor Forbes, and some scientific friends. The
ascent of Mont Blanc, though loftier than the
Jungfrau, (the former being fifteen thousand five
hundred and twenty-six, the latter only thirteen
thousand seven hundred and eighteen feet,) has
been several times accomplished, and the adventures connected with it have now become familiar
to a multitude of persons by graphic and pictorial
representations.
Another ascent of a different kind, and for a
different purpose, is made by hundreds of tourists
every summer to the top of the Righi, near
Luzern. The pathway from Arth winds through
a very romantic region, and behind the traveler
there lie the scattered fragments of the huge
land slip of the Rossberg, the fall of which caused
such tremendous devastation in the valley, sweeping away cottages, cattle, and human beings.
Toiling up, from station to station, the pedestrian
gladly stops ever and anon to look on the glorious views he is leaving; and when he has attained the summit, what a panorama breaks on him
of lands and lakes-of heroic memories associated
with the name of Tell and Winkelried; for on
one side is the lake of the four cantons, on the
other the field of Sempach. But the greatest
sight of all is the cleail lunlise tinging the moun



NATURE.                115
tain tops.  Having been disappointed of this
spectacle ourselves, we must here trust to the pen
of others. And as the phenomenon is so exceedingly beautiful and grand, we shall venture on
inserting two accounts of it from different pens,
the first fiom that of Dr. Forbes:
"We wvere roused shortly after four by the
loud notes of an Alpine horn, blown in the gallery of the house; and all the party were soon
assembled on the highest point of the Rigi-Kulm.
The morning was bright and without a cloud,
showing all the views much more distinctly than
on the preceding evening. The air was, however, very cold to our feelings, and we required
all our coats to keep us warm while awaiting the
sunrise.  The thermometer showed the same
temperature as last night, 52'. The sunrise was
glorious, and the clearness of the atmosphere enabled us to observe distinctly the beautiful phenomuenon,, so often seen afterward, of the gradual
illumination of the snowy peaks, according to
their height and the progressive descent of the
line of light on them as the sun ascended. After
satiating and almost tiring our eyes by long and,
manifold speculations of the grand scenes on all
sides of us, near and remote, we returned to the
hotel, and having completed our toilet, partook
of a very fair breakfast of coffee, etc., and then




116             SWITZERLAND.
started on our return to Goldau about half-past
six."
So much for Dr. Forbes's description.  The
following is from the pen of Dr. Cheever, and
glows with a poetic fervor more worthy of the
thleme:" It was the 6th of September, and the most
perfectly beautiful morning that can be imagined.
At a quarter past three the stars were reigning
supreme in the heavens, with just enough of the
old moon left to make a trail of light in the shape
of a little silver boat among them. But speedily
the horizon began to redden over the eastern
fringe of mountains, and then the dawn stole on
ill such a succession of deepening tints, that nothitlg but the hues of the preceding sunset could be
mlore beautiful.  But there is this great difference
between the sunrise and the sunset, that the hues
of sunset are every moment deepening as you
look upon them until again they fade into the
darkness, while those of the sunrise gradually
fade into the light of day. It is difficult to say
which process is most beautiful; for if you could
mnake everything stand still around you, if you
could stereotype or stay the process for an hour,
you could not tell whether it were the morning
dawn or evening twilight. A few long thin
stripes of fleeyv cloud lav Imotionless above the




NATURE.                117
eastern horizon, like layers of silver lace, dipped
first in crimson, then in gold, then in pink, then
lined with an ermine of light, just as if the moon
had been lengthened in soft furrows along the
sky.  This scene in the east attracts every eve
at first, but it is not here that the glory of the
view is to be looked for.  This glory is in that
part of the horizon on which the sun first falls as
he struggles up behind the mountains to flood the
world with light.  And the reason why it is so
glorious is because, long before you call it sunrise
in the east, he lights up in the west a range of
colossal pyres, that look like blazing cressets
kindled from the skv and fed with naphtha. The
olbject mot  conspicuous as the dawn broke, and
indeed the most sublimely beautiful, was the vast
enormous range of the snowy mountains of the
Oberland, without spot or vail of cloud or mist
to dim  them; the Finster Aarhorn at the left,
and the Jungfirau and Silberhorn at the right,
peak after peak and mass after mass, glittering
with a cold wintry whiteness in the gray dawn.
Almost the exact half of the circumference of the
horizon, commanded before and behind in our
view, was filled with these peaks and masses of
snow and ice; then, lower down, the mountains
of bare rock, and lower still the earth with mounds
of verdure.  And tlhis sectioni of the horizontal




118             SWITZERLAND.
circumference, which is filled with the vast ranges
of the Oberland Alps, being almost due west from
the sun's first appearance, it is on their tops that
the rising rays first strike.
"This was the scene for which we watched,
and it seems as if nothing in nature can ever
again be so beautiful.  It was as if an angel had
flown round the horizon of mountain ranges, and
lighted up each of their white pyramidal points
in succession, like a row of gigantic lamps burning with rosy fires. Just so the sun suddenly
tipped the highest points and lines of the snowy
outline; and then, descending lower on the body
of the mountains, it was as if an invisible omnipotent HIand had taken thelm  and dipped the
whlole range in a glowing pink; the hue between
the cold snow untouched by the sunlighlt, and
the warlm roseate hue above, remaining perfectly
distinct.  This effect continued some minutes,
becoming, up to a certain point, more and more
beautiful.
"We were like children in a dark room,
watching for the lighting up of some great transparency; or, to use that image with which the
poet Dante endeavored to describe the expectant
gaze of Beatrice in Paradise, awaiting the splendors to be revealed, we might say, connecting
some passages and adapting the imageryI-                 I,- "'_'"'"`" 1_1~,   3'




NATURE.                 119'E'en as the bird who,'midst the leafy bower,
Has in her nest sat darkling through the night
With her sweet brood; impatient to descry
Their wished looks, and to bring home their food,
In the fond quest unconscious of her toil:
She of the time prevenient, on the spray
That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze
Expects the sun; nor ever till the dawn
Removeth from the east her eager ken.
Wistfully thus we look'd to see the heavens
Wax more and more resplendent, till on earth
Her mountain peaks burn'd as with rosy flame.'Twixt gladness and amaze,
In sooth no will had we to utter aught
Or hear. And as a pilgrim, when he rests
Within the temple of his vow, looks round,
In breathless awe, and hopes some time to tell
Of all its goodly state; e'en so our eyes
Coursed up and down along the living light,
Now low, and now aloft, and now around,
Visiting every step. Each mount did seem
Colossal ruby whereon so inwrought
The sunbeam glow'd, yet soft, it flamed intense
In ecstasy of glory.'
"In truth, no word was uttered when that
scene became visible. Each gazed in silence, or
spake as in a whisper. It was as if we witnessed
some supernatural revelation, where mighty spirits
were the actors between earth and heaven —' With such ravishing light
And mantling crimson, in transparent air,
The splendors shot before us.'




120             SWITZERLAND.
"And yet a devout soul might have almost felt,
seeing those fires kindled as on the altars of God
made visible, as if it heard the voices of seraphim
crying,'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts:
the whole earth is full of his glory!' For indeed
the vision was so radiant, so full of sudden and
unimaginable beauty and splendor, that methinks
a phalanx of the sons of God, who might have
been passing at that moment, could not have
helped stopping and shouting for joy as on the
morning of creation."
To return to more general descriptions.  The
mountains, as seen from  the valleys, are very
sublime. As the ridges wind and branch out
and intersect, of course, as beheld from the bottom, a num]er of the peaks are hidden, and it is
difficult to estimate the height of those which
are visible; but to look at them from that point
of view, is to enjoy a variety of vision which,
combined with the remembrance of the sight from
lofty points, adds greatly to the enjoyment of the
spectator. The beauty of many of the valleys
enhances the value of the whole picture; the
verdure of the fields, the foliage of the orchard,and wood, and the silver waters of the cascade,
standing out in relief upon the background of
rock and glacier and snow mountain.  For example, the view of the Jungfrau, fiom the cluarining




NATURE.                121
vale of Lauterbrunnen, so worthy of its name,
(nothing but fountains,) and views of other
peaks from the opposite vale of Grindelwald, and
views again of the same from the vale of Rosenlau, and views of the mountains on the side of
the broad valley of the Rhone, and especially
views of Mont Blanc and the neighboring summits from the rich vale of Chamouni; these imprint themselves on the mind with a charm which
no lover of nature can soon "let die."  To see
them as the morning breaks, rich in roseate hues,
and after the sun has risen on them, long before
the valley has caught his rays, burning in purest
light —and at mid-day looking so cool on the
traveler amid sultry heat-and at eventide again
throwing back the slanting beams in varied colors
-and after sunset, amid the pale radiance of
the moon, standing like angel watchmen round
the region, with stars glimmering overhead-all
this awakens the deepest enthusiasm of the soul,
and satisfies the love of the beautiful, and suggests manifold similitudes of still purer and holier
things, and raises the thoughts to that Infinite
One who made them all, and sustains them all,
and who gives to man what enables him to enjoy
them all.
From this general account of Swiss mountains,
we proceed to a notice of the Swiss glaciers.




12 2            SWITZERLAND.
There are few things of which it is more difficult
to convey a correct idea to those who have not
seen them.  They are often confounded with
snow mountains, but though connected with
them, they are distinct phenomena, being composed of that part of the snow which is converted into ice. They lie below the snow line in
deep hollows, as if they were frozen lakes, or
droop over the side of a valley as if they were
frozen cataracts.  Most numerous are they in
Switzerland, being not less than six hundred in
number, covering altogether a surface of fifty
German square miles; connected with Mont
Blanc there are seventeen or eighteen. When
the fact of their being ice and not snow is fully
realized, still persons are apt to misimagine their
appearance; for they are by no means smooth,
like our fiozen lakes and rivers, but present a
very unequal surface, undulating, furrowed, and
broken.  Nor is the ice itself like ours when
thoroughly frozen, but rather resembles it when
the process of freezing has just commenced, and
sharp crystals are formed on the face of the water.
After all these qualifications are apprehended and
received, poetical fancy will be apt to paint the
glacier as an expanse all white and pure, the
crystals glittering in the sunbeams-the field if
ice looking like a sea of glass. The traveler who




NATURE.                 123
comes upon the Grindelwaldl glacier, whether
upper or lower, having never beheld one before,
feels much disappointment at so pleasing an illusion being dispelled, for dispelled it is most completely.  The glaciers bend over into the valley,
and present at a distance the aspect of huge heaps
of very dirty snow, with a strong tinge of blue in
some parts; it reminds one somewhat of the snow
in our streets when a thaw has set in, and the
virgin whiteness has given place to dull hues and
streaks of filth: but yet in the tinge of blue there
is something very beautiful; it is quite cerulean,
and the glacier, on closer inspection, discloses a
number of clefts or enormous gashes where this
color is predominant, and in connection with the
shapes in which the ice is thus disposed, produces
a very interesting effect. In some cases there
are noble caverns formed in the ice; a noted one
in Grindelwald some summers since has disappeared, so changeffil is the state'of these great
fiozen masses. A walk over the glacier, or rather,
as on some parts it proves, a climb or scramble
over its blocks of ice, and a careful creeping
round the edges of its chasms, give a very different impression from a view at a distance; then
one gets at the poetry of the glacier. This is
especially the case when the traveler reaches the
AMer (le Glace, in the vale of Chamouni, under




124             SWITZERLAND.
the shadow of Mont Blanc.  Looking close upon
it from the elevation of Montanvert, or crossing
its broad surface toward the Jardin, you are surrounded by a scene which baffles description.
The glacier is like a broad river, or armn of the
sea, frozen at the instant of its being agitated by
the wind, and thrown into irregular billows and
contending currents.  It lies in a vast hollow
among the mountains, and on descending to its
surface, it is found broken up by enormous gaps,
irregular hillocks, and channels scooped out by
the melted snow. The effect of the dirty streaks
is lost when a person is toiling along over the
ice, and the lofty rocks all round, and the snowy
domes and pinnacles beyond, and the silence and
the solitude, are perfectly entrancing.  To minds
of sensibility and imagination, a visit to the Mer
de Gl]ace is an era in their history.
So much for the poetry of the glacier.  The
science of it is not less interesting, though in another way; the glacier is ever in motion, slow
but certain motion, and the dirty streaks we
have spoken of are what have been called moraines, that is, accumulations of stone and rubbish disintegrated from  the rocks by the ice in
its ceaseless progress toward the valley.  These
moraines are in ridges running along the sides,
and also alonig the middle of the glacier; hlence




,NATURE.               125
called lateral and roedial moraines.  The formation of the lateral moraines may be understood
aIt a glance; that of the medial is not so obvious,
but it becomes plain enough, when it is remembered that the ice sea, if we may so call it, is
supplied by tributary streams joining the main
body, which also bring with them their moraines
formed at the sides, and these meeting in the
middle of the AMer de Glace, of course form moraines there. The scientific name of the clefts or
openings is crevasses, and these are produced by
the unequal movement of the glacier, and the inilulence of sun and wind; great blocks of stone
or boulders are found here and there resting on
a frozen pedestal, a phenomenon produced by
the melting of the snow and ice around the fragment, while the portion on which it rests has been
preserved in the shade and screened fron the
rays of the sun. The glacier on the edge next
the valley is ever melting and disappearing, and
helre, too, cataracts come dashing down, formed
of melting snow, constituting the source of rivers
-the Arve and the Arveron, for example, in the
valley of Chamouni-yet the waste is being ever
supplied from the snowy heights, which are constantly yielding material for the formation of ice.
We have spoken of the motion of the glacier;
the natlule of that motion, for the best theory of




126             SWITZERLAND.
which we are indebted to Professor Forbes, must
be briefly explained. According to that eminently
scientific man, the glacier does not slide as was
once supposed, but it flows.  From his observations it appears to be a mass of viscous mattera body, though of great consistency, yet really fluid;
it passes along a very unequal channel; it expands
and contracts according to its boundaries; from
a broad basin it presses through more limited
openings, and the motion of the middle part is
less slow than that of its sides; thus it clearly
obeys all the laws of fluid motion, and must
therefore be considered fluid, though of immense
consistency and thickness.
The following striking passage (Forbes's Travels throught the Alps, p. 386) will form a conclusion to this account of glaciers:-" Poets and
philosophers have delighted to compare the course
of human life to that of a river; perhaps a still
fitter simile might be found in the history of a
glacier.  Heaven-descending in its origin, it yet
takes it mold and conformation from the hidden
womb of the mountains which brought it forth.
At first soft and ductile, it acquires a character
and firmness of its own, as an inevitable destiny
urges it on its onward career. Jostled and constrained by the crosses and inequalities of its prescribed
path, hedged in by impassable batiiers which fix




NATURE.                 127
limits to its movements, it yields, groaning, to its
fate, and still travels forward, seamed with the
scars of many a conflict with opposing obstacles;
all this while, although wasting, it is renewed by
an unseen power; it evaporates but is not consumed.  On its surface it bears the spoils which,
during the progress of its existence, it has made
its own; often weighty burdens, devoid of beauty
and value; at times precious masses, sparkling
with gems or with ore. Having at length attained its greatest width and extension, commanding
admiration by its beauty and power, waste predominates over supply; the vital springs begin
to fail; it stoops into an attitude of decrepitude;
it drops the burdens one by one, which it had
borne so proudly aloft-its dissolution is inevitable.  But as it is resolved into its elements, it
takes all at once a new, and livelier, and diseinbarrassed form; firoml the wreck of its members it
arises another, yet the same; a noble, full-bodied,
arrowy stream, which leaps rejoicing over the obstacles which before had stayed its progress, and
hastens through fertile valleys toward a freer existence, and a final union in the ocean with the
boundless and the indefinite."
We may add, that over man as over the glacier
there rules a divine law; the agency of God is
1-liversal.   lHe fiveth snow like wool he scats




128             SWITZERLAND.
tereth the hoar-frost like ashes. He casteth forth
his ice like morsels: who can stand before his
cold?  He sendeth out his word and melteth
them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.  He showeth his word unto Jacob, his
statutes and his judgments unto Israel."* Nor
should it be forgotten, that only the life which by
the renewing grace of God becomes a spiritual
one, can be compared to the melted glacier in the
latter part of this noble passage.'T is only when
heavenly love, under the renewing influences of
the Holy Spirit, melts the frozen soul, that it assumes its new, livelier, and disembarrassed form,
and hastens to a freer existence.
The rivers and cataracts of Switzerland require
a particular notice. The principal valleys, which
form such beautiful features in Swiss scenery, have
been scooped out by the rich and sparkling mountain streams which are seen flowing through them,
and which swell in their onward course till some
of them become deep navigable floods, bearing on
their bosom the riches of commerce, and the
children of pleasure.  The Saane, which rises on
the borders of the Valais canton among the Alps,
and flows through the valley which bears its
name; the Gross Emmen, which begins near tlhe: Dr. Alexander makes the same remark in his.
Letters on Switzerland.




NATURE.                129
Lake of Brienz, and continues below Soleure, and
has also a valley of its own; the Reuss, which
descends from St. Gothard, making a magnificent
fall near Andermatt, and, like the two former,
distinguishing by its own appellation the ravine
along which it bends its course; and the Limmat,
which comes from the Alps of Glarus, through
the Lake of Wallenstadt-these are all affluents
of the river Aar. That again has its own valley;
and after rushing from its birthplace in the glaciers
of the Grimsel, and taking its stupendous Handek leap of more than two hundred feet, it winds
on to the Lake of Thun, and then round the foot
of Berne, and afterward by the base of the Jura.
The Saane joins it below Berne; the Gross Emmen below Soleure; the Reuss, near Windesch;
the Limmat, a little lower down.  The Aar, fed
by these affluents, indeed the great drainer of
Switzerland, is itself an affluent, and pours its
waters into the Rhine at a short distance from
Waldshut. The Thur, which rises in the Toggenburg, in the canton of St. Gall, is another
tributary of the Rhine, joining it near Rheinau.
But it is impossible to enumerate all the smaller
contributions which are made to that majestic
flow of waters; for as many as two thousand five
hundred mountain streams are absorbed by it in
its early course.  The Rhine itself rises inl tile




10-i0           SWITZERLAND.
Alps of the Grisons; its two main springs meet at
Reichenau, a most pleasant village, where the confluence presents a beautiful picture. On it rolls
to Constance, and then beyond Schaffhausen it
dcashes -over the great rocks, there forming the
sublime Rhein falls; the grandest in point of
breadth, the sublimest in point of volume, and
the most beautiful in point of its bank scenery
and little rural accessories, of all the falls of
Switzerland. To see it on a bright morning, when
it looks like, a stream of clouds, arched by a rainbow, pi'essing between its rocky gates, is a sight
about which words can say little, but silent pictured thoughts must ever after remain its precious
memorial. The banks of the Rhine between
Schaffhausen and Basle are exceedingly beautiful,
and here and there-near Luffengburg, for example-views are opened of river scenery which
may well entrance an artist or a poet. The other
great Swiss river is the Rhone; rising at the foot
of Mount Furca, and flowing through the broad
valley, it receives a number of tributaries, among
which may be mentioned the Dala, the Usen, and
the Trient.  The Rhone flows through the Lake
of Geneva, at the west end of which it is joined
by the Arve, where is presented the singular phenomenon noticed by all travelers of the two riv



NATURE.                131
as the earth-flowin g on side by side, touching
one another, but not mingling their streams.
The scenery of the Rhone is far inferior to that
of the Rhine; the broad valley of the former, indeedl, is lined by majestic mountains, which canl
not but yield magnificent views, and some of the
first glimpses of this valley are very imposing, as
seel, otr instance, from the mountains above
Martigny, or from the rocks by the side of the
Dala.  But the very breadth of the valley lessens
the interest of the scenery when the traveler is
in the midst of it, and the wide shingly shores
when the river is low are a very great drawback
upon its effect on a tourist.  The valley is an
unwholesome region, and it is in this locality that
the goitre and cretinism prevail-those terrible
scourges of Switzerland; the former an unwieldy
protuberance in the neck, the other a most distressing form of idiocy. " Various theories have
been resorted to, to account for the goitre: some
have attributed it to the use of water derived from
melting snow; others to the habit of carrying
heavy weights; others again to filthy habits;
while a fourth theory derives it from the nature
of the soil, or the use of spring water impregnated with calcareous matter." Dr. Forbes rejects
the water theory, and inclines to think that the
dirtv habits of the people imay minister to the




13 2            SWITZERLAND.
disease; but he also assigns the miasma of the
regions where it prevails as a principal cause. It
is difficult to trace the connection between the neck
swelling and the mental imbecility; but the two
maladies certainly coexist to a remarkable degree
in the same localities. We may add, that in many
other Swiss valleys these forms of disease are
found.
We have only mentioned the rivers which flow
through Switzerland, but there are other rivers
taking their rise on the eastern side of the Alps,
the Ticino and Adda, which flow into Italy, and
the Juri, which waters the Tyrol.  Some of the
cataracts of Switzerland have been mentioned in
connection with the course of the rivers, but there
are others of note that should not be passed over.
The Reichenbach, in the vale of Meyringen, is
very beautiful, shooting down like a discharge of
rockets reversed, and displaying at certain times
an iris, like a sun ray, crossing clouds of manycolored dust.  The Staubach is another wonderful
mountain stream, leaping from its upper bed down
into the valley of Lauterbrun, a depth of nine
hundred feet, making altogether a thin waving
column of water, which becomes mere spray at
the lower end.  The Giesbach, on the lake of
Brienz, is a succession of falls with many beautifil aljuncts in the wa  oCf rock and wood:  and




NATURE.                133
the Pelerin, in the vale of Chamouni, is a singular cascade, which, falling upon a basin in a rock,
malkes a fresh leap in the form of a curve, or
"parabolic arch of singular beauty."  But cascades are plentiful in Switzerland, and it would
be vain to attempt their enumeration.
In connection with these scenes, exquisitely
lovely or overwhelmingly grand, the traveler is
often reminded of terrible catastrophes which have
occurred through the overflow  of rivers.  The
following account of one, though rather long, we
shall, fiom  its interesting character, venture to
insert:
"In the spring of 1818, the people of the valley of Bagnes became alarmed on observing the
low state of the watetrs of the Drance, at a season
when the melting of the snows usually enlarged
the torrent; and this alarm was increased by the
records of similar appearances before the dreadful
inundation of 1595, which was then occasioned
by the accumulation of the waters behind the
debris of a glacier that formed a dam, which remained until the pressure of the water burst the
dike, and it rushed through the valley, leaving
desolation in its course. In April, 1818, some
persons went up the valley to ascertain the cause
of the deficiency of water, and they discovered
that vast masses of the glaciers of Getroz, and




134             SWITZERLAND.
avalanches of snow had fallen into a narrow part
of the valley, between Mont Pleureur and Mont'Mauvoisin, and formed a dike of ice and snow
six hundred feet wide and four hundred feet high,
on a base of three thousand feet, behind which
the waters of the Drance had accumulated and
formed a lake above seven thousand feet long.
M. Venetz, the engineer of the Valais, was consulted, and lie immediately decided upon cutting
a gallery through this barrier of ice, sixty feet
above the level of tilhe water at the time of commencing, and where the dike was six hundred
fbet thick.  IIc calculated upon making a tunnel
through this mass beftre the water should have
risen sixty feet higher in the lake. On the 10th
of May, the work was begun by gangs of fifty
men, who relieved each other and worked without intermission, day and night, with inconceivable courage and perseverance, neither deterred
by the dayly-occurring danger from the falling
of fresh masses of the glacier, nor by the rapid
increase of the water in the lake, which rose sixtytwo feet in tlirty-four days-on an average, nearly two feet each day; but it once rose five feet
in one day, a-nd threatened each moment to burst
the dike by its increasing pressure; or, rising in
a more rapid proportion than the men could proceed with tileir work, realder their eflorts abortive




NATURE.               135
by rising above them. Sometimes dreadful noises
were heard, as the pressure of water detached
masses of ice from the bottom, which, floating,
presented so much of their bulk above the water
as led to the belief that some of them were seventy
feet thick. The men persevered in their fearful
duty without any serious accident, and, though
suffering severely from cold and wet, and surrounded by dangers which cannot be justly described, by the 4th of June they had accomplished an opening six hundred feet long; but having
begun their work on both sides of the dike at the
same time, the place where they ought to have
met was twenty feet lower on one side of the
lake than on the other: it was fortunate that
latterly the increase of the perpendicular height
of the water was less, owing to the extension of
its surface. They proceeded to level the highest
side of the tunnel, and completed it just before
the water reached them. On the evening of the
13th the water began to flow.  At first, the
opening was not large enough to carry off the
supplies of water which the lake received, and it
rose two feet above the tunnel; but this soon enlarged from the action of the water, as it melted
the floor of the gallery, and the torrent rushed
through. In thirty-two hours the lake sank ten
feet, and during the following twenty-four hours




136             SWITZERLAND.
twenty feet more; in a few days it would have
been emptied; for the floor melting, and being
driven off as the water escaped, kept itself below
the level of the water within; but the cataract
which issued from the gallery melted and broke
up also a large portion of the base of the dike
which had served as its buttress: its resistance
decreased faster than the pressure of the lake lessened, and at four o'clock in the afternoon of the
16th of June the dike burst, and in half an hour
the water escaped through the breach, and left
the lake empty.
" The greatest accumulation of water had been
eight hundred million of cubic feet; the tunnel,
before the disruption, had carried off nearly
three hundred and thirty million-Escher says,
two hundred and seventy million; but he neglected to add sixty million which flowed into the
lake in three days.
"In half an hour, five hundred and thirty
million cubic feet of water passed through the
breach, or three hundred thousand feet per second;
which is five times greater in quantity than the
waters of the Rhine at Basle, where it is one
thousand three hundred English feet wide. In
one hour and a half the water reached Martigny,
a distance of eight leagues. Tlhrough the first
seventy thousand feet it passed wit!h the velocity




NATURE.                137
of thirty-three feet per second-four or five times
faster than the most rapid river known; yet it
was charged with ice, rocks, earth, trees, houses,
cattle, and men; thirty-four persons were lost,
four hundred cottages swept away, and the damage done in the two hours of its desolating
power exceeded a million of Swiss livres. All
the people of the valley had been cautioned
against the danger of a sudden eruption; yet it
was fatal to so many. All the bridges in its
course were swept away, and among them  the
bridge of Mauvoisin, which was elevated ninety
feet above the ordinary height of the Drance.
If the dike had remained untouched, and it
could have endured the pressure until the lake
had reached the level of its top, a volume of
seventeen hundred million cubic feet of water
would have been accumulated there, and a devastation much more fatal and extensive must
have been the consequence. From this greater
danger, the people of the valley of the Drance
were preserved by the heroism and devotion of
the brave men who effected the formation of the
gallery over the dike, under the direction of M.
Venetz. We know no instance on record of
courage equal to this; their risk of life was not
for fame or for riches —they had not the usual
excitements to personal risk in a world's applause




138             SWITZERLAND.
or gazetted promotion-their devoted courage
was to save the lives and property of their fellowmen, not to destroy them. They steadily and
heroically persevered in their labors, amid dangers such as a field of battle never presented, and
from which some of the bravest men, of mere
animal courage, who ever lived, would have
shrunk in dismay. These truly brave Vallaisians
deserve all honor."
We must now add a few words in reference to
the Swiss lakes. The largest of these is Lake
Leman, or the Lake of Geneva. It is about fortyseven miles in length, measuring it as nearly as
possible in a straight line. Pen and pencil have
often been employed in portraying its scenery,
but neither has sufficed to do justice to its charms.
The western end by Geneva and the opposite end
by Vevay are very different; each, however, possessing an aspect of peculiar interest. The old
city of Geneva washing its foot in the clear blue
waters, and the gently-sloping banks as the lake
widens toward the east, and the numerous villas
and gardens which speckle and variegate the
shores, and the far-distant view of Mont Blanc and
the whole of the majestic range of neighboring
mountains which you catch to the south, are objects which, when seen on a clear sunny day,
more than realize the poetic dreams created be



NATURE.                139
forehand by description. Vevay partly touching
the water-side and partly perched on a hill, with
the Castle of Chillon not far off, and the amphitheater of mountains rising rather abruptly from
the edge of the lake, and shutting in the scene,
form a fine contrast to what is seen at the other
end. But it is only the contrast which obtains
between one form of beauty and another. The
boats scudding over the lake in full sail, or slowly
plied by oars, or resting quietly in their own
shadow, filled perhaps with gayly-dressed peassants, or rich market stores of fruits and vegetables,
add very greatly to the effect of the general picture.  Persons of intelligence while traversing
this region will remember certain names with
which the shores are associated.  The forms of
Voltaire, and Rousseau, and Gibbon, and Byron,
will come before the imagination; but though
the genius of these men will give interest to the
spots where they trod, the perversion of that
genius, the frightful employment of it on the side
of infidelity and vice, will throw a dark moral
shadow over their homes' and haunts-the only
thing which there is on Lake Leman, judging by
our own experience, to diminish the rich deep
pleasure of a visit.  The Lake of Constance, fortyfour miles in length, is next to Leman in point of
size, but fiar inferior in point of scenery, though




1 40            SWITZERLAND.
its shores, generally flat and tame, are not without some picturesque points. Neuchatel comes
next in reference to extent, being twenty-five miles
long, and though, like Constance, it can never
vie with some of its sisters in this land of lakes,
yet "the glorious view of the Alps from the
heights of the Jura above the town must appear
magnificent; and should the sky be clear, and
the traveler's temper even, the object around will
assume a different aspect, and Neuchhtel, with
fts picturesque old castle, its numerous white
country houses, its vine-clad hills, and its blue
expanse of lake, will be pronounced beautiful."
The lake of the four cantons is about the same
length as Neuchatel, but its form  is very different; the latter being straight, the former bent
into four branches like the arms of a star-fish,
the arm to the east being greatly lengthened out
and angularly bent in the direction of Altorf.
What Ullswater is to Windermere, the lake of
the Waldstatter is to Neuchhtel, and more-for
no Cumberland scenery can match the glories of
Switzerland, especially in this locality.  We give
the preference to the Waldstatter over all the
other lakes. The view from Luzern across the
blue waters, taking in the Righi and Pilatus, and
the magnificent ranges of many-colored mountains tipped with snow; and then the connected




NATURE.                 141
views as the traveler in a boat passes from one
headland to another, and looks down the beautiful creeks or inlets which successively openwhile the shores become more precipitous, till toward the east end they shoot up from the water's
edge in steep declivities-are wonderfully enchanting: the first so soothing, the second so heartstirring. The associations of the latter are in
harmony.  Iereabouts is the Tell region, approaching toward Altorf, the scene of the appleshooting; there lies on the right the green slope
of Rutli, the trysting place of all the Swiss patriots, at the foot of a lofty mountain; there stands
on the left the little chapel, among clustering
rocks and trees, which was built in commemoration of Tell's escape from Gessler. But our space
forbids us to enlarge, and we must hastily notice
the other lakes. Zurich is twenty-four miles long,
and a truly pleasant region it is, calm and cheerful as gently-sloping banks and busy villages can
make it. The smaller lakes are Thun, Brienz,
Zug, Bienne, and Morat.  The last has little to
recommend it; the fourth, anywhere but in
Switzerland, would be noticeable for beauty; the
first three even there have claims on the traveler's
admiration.
And now, in closing this chapter on nature as
seen ill Switzerland, one feels the truth of the




142             SWITZERLAND.
sentiment expressed by Arnold when in Italy:" Truly may one feel with Von Canitz, that if the
glory of God's perishable works be so great, what
must be the glory of the imperishable —what infinitely more of him who is the Author of both?
And if I feel thrilling through me the sense of
this outward beauty, innocent indeed, yet necessarily unconscious, what is the sense one ought to
have of moral beauty, of God, thd Holy Spirit's
creation, of humbleness and truth, self-devotion
and love! Much more beautiful, because made
truly after God's image, are the forms and colors
of kind, and wise, and holy thoughts, and words
and actions; more truly beautiful is one hour of
old Mrs. Price's* patient waiting for the Lord's
time, and her cheerful and kind interest in us all,
as if she owed us anything, than this glorious
valley of the Velinus; for this will pass away, and
that will not pass away.  But that is not the
great point: believe with Aristotle that this should
abide, and that should perish; still there is in
the moral beauty an inherent excellence which
the natural beauty cannot have. His living and
conscious ministers and servants are, it is permitted us to say, the temples of which the light is
God himself."  And if these thoughts apply to
the experience and manifestation of piety in the
Aiin old womalnu in the allnshouse at Rugby.




ART.                143
heart, how much more do they apply to that
truth-that divine, and blessed, and glorious truth
which paints the colors of holy thought, and which
God employs as the means of building up the
spiritual temple of his presence on earth! Inspired truth must be placed by us above all the
scenery of nature.  It has majesty more majestic
than the mountain, strength more enduring than
Mont Blanc, purity whiter than the snow, brightness more piercing than the sunlit waters, and
beauty sweeter far than the Alpine rose.  Let
this thought be our companion in every ramblo
amid natural scenery, and while we enjoy the
lesser, let us not lose the benefit of the greate.
gift.  Let reflections, gathered from God's book,
blend with the observation of God's work; and
let us rise from the adoring love of God in crea.
tion, to the filial and trustful love of God in Christ.
CHAPTER IIL
ART.
WE shall begin with some account of the towns
and buildings of Switzerland. There is not much
artistically beautiful in the architecture of Switzea d, etl th.i    s in its cdifiCee. souethiln4  of




144             SWITZERLAND.
interest to the antiquary and the lover of the picturesque. In connection with our notice of buildings, we shall touch on their historical associations.
We greatly like old Zurich, with its antique-fashioned houses, and its later accessions of mansions,
and villas, and hotels. The rather handsome
Church of St. Peter will be visited, more for the
sake of its connection with Lavater-who was its
minister, and who was shot by a French soldier
at his own door-than for its architectural pretensions. The massive rauthaub, of modern erection,
with its memorials outside of Swiss heroes, will
detain the stranger a little while as he reads the
inscriptions; but the chief object of interest to
one of architectural and archeological taste will.e the cathedral or minster, on the left bank of
the Limmat. It belongs to the large division of
Romnanesque architecture which we style Lombardic, and which, in many of its features and details,
reminds us much of the Saxon and Norman. Its
most characteristic parts are, as to the exterior of
the buildings, the two towers at the west end; the
highly ornamental doorway on the north side, in
the Lombard style, with pointed insertions; and
the cloisters, now a playground for schoolboys,
which exhibit rows of round-headed arches, and
many curious enrichments at the top of the small
pillars.  The designs are ill some cases very odd




ART.                 145
and grotesque; and it amuses one to trace here
Delilah cutting off Samson's locks, and there,
wolves attacking a hog, or a bear carrying off a
pig in triumph. As to the inside of the church,
it presents Norman-like arches with plain capitals,
and a triforium turned into a gallery. The choir
is now parted off from the nave, and the latter is
used as the place for worship. Of course one
thinks of Zwingle at Zurich; and having pictured
him in this old church, proclaiming the doctrines
of salvation by grace through faith, while crowds
were hanging on his lips to hear the good old
doctrine-to them, however, as new as it was refr'eshing-it is interesting to visit the house where
it is said he lived, now a mere relic, of conventual
appearance.
Basle is remarkable for the Swiss aspect of its
houses on the one side of the town, and the German character of them on the other.  The rauthaus is Gothic, of the date 1508, and there is a
handsome hospital of modern age on the site of
the palace of the margraves of Baden. The old
gateways are highly interesting, with flanking
towers, machicolations, and portcullis, all well
preserved; and the fountains in the streets look
very cool and pleasant on a hot summer's day.
But the chief object of interest is the minster at
the top of the hill on the west bank of the Rhine.
10




146             SWITZERLAN D.
So deep is the color of the red sandstone of which
it is built, that it looks as if it had been ochered
all over. It wlas beg'un when so mlany other
churches were built in tbe eleventh century, though
the oldest part now remaining is of the twelfth.
There are two towers on the west front, and two
equestrian statues worth looking at. The portal
of the north transept is worthy of special attention, and down in the crypt under the church
are some very ancient relics of architecture and
sculpture, perhaps as old as the foundation of the
edifice. The chapter-house and the cloisters are
very remarkable; the one for its having been occupied by the fathers of the Council of Basle, the
other for having been probably a place of resort
for Erasmus, who latterly lived and at last died
in the town.  CEcolampadius, and Grynaus, and
Meyer are buried here. Erasmus also lies entombed in the church, whose high-built pews
block up the place of his sepulcher.  The oldest
church in Basle is St. Martin's, where (Ecolampadius used to preach. Connected with the University of Basle, which occupies a range of modern
buildings very fresh and white, are the famous
library and museum-the former enriched by numerous MSS., and the latter containing a fine
collection of paintings and drawings by Holbein.
Holbein lived in Baskl. tlh lhief association with




ART.                 147
Switzerland of any very eminent name in the history
of the fine arts. Many of his productions here
are very original and characteristic; and a curious
story is told of him, more creditable to his skill in
foreshortening than to his moral habits.  iHe
painted a pair of legs so well that, putting themi
on a scaffold b, a window, the person inside
thought that the painter was at work, when in fact
he was far otheiwise employed at a neighboring
wine-shop.
A room in the house of the Rev. J. Linder, Archdeacon of Basle, is that assigned by tradition as
the chamber where (Ecolampadius died.  "Opposite the door of entrance to this room," says
Dr. Alexander,* " are two windows; on the left
hand the wall is pierced by a door, on the right
the wall is unbroken from end to end. Against
the latter wall, I judge, was placed the couch of
OEcolampadius, and at these windows entered
those morning rays amid which his spirit passed
away. It is a brave and hallowed story, that of
the death-bed scene of CEcolampadius. As night
gathered, and the rumor spread that the reformer
would not live till the morning, the ministers of
Basle, to the number of ten, hastened to his presence.  Already, on a former occasion, he had
given them his dying charge, beseeching them to
4 Dr. Alexander on the Swiss Churches.




148           SWITZERLAND.
be men of light and men of love; now he said
but little, as he desired to remain calm and still.'Do you bring any tidings l' exclaimed he to a
person of rank who entered the room. The answer was in the negative.  A feeling of self-reproach seemed to cross his mind for asking such
a question at such a moment, and he said hastily,'But I-I shall soon be with my Lord.' By and
by, one asked him whether the light of the lamp
did not annoy him.  Laying his hand on his
heart, he exclaimed,'Here, here is where I have
enough of light.'  At length the day began to
dawn; in a feeble voice he chanted the fifty-first
psalmI; and then heaving a sigh, lie said,'Lord
Jesus, come to my help.' I-le spoke no more, but
quietly breathed his last. The sun now poured
his rays into the chamber; but they fell on that
inanimate corpse, Cand on the pale and weeping
friends, who, with uplifted hands, were kneeling
around his couch.  Does it not seem striking that
one who, answerable to his name, had been such' a bright and shining light' in the world, should,
in the last words he addressed to his fellow-men,
have spoken so firmly and joyously of that light
which was within him —a light in which thousands
had rejoiced to walk, and which calumny has not
been able to darken, nor death itself to extinguish?
Striking, too, that one whose life had been a long




ART.                 149
and earnest protest against darkness, should thus
wait for the morning light ere lie passed away to
be forever with Him who dwelleth in light, and
in whom there is no darkness at all!"
Berne is finely situated on the top of a promontory formed by the winding of the Aar, which is
here crossed by a noble bridge. The town sits
like a mural crown on the brow of the hill. Very
curious are some of the streets of Berne, the pavement by the shops on each side being inclosed
under heavy arcades, which give the place somewhat of an eastern look.  The clock tower, the
cage tower, and the Christopher tower in the
principal street, are very odd grotesque-looking
edifices, with their great ugly paintings and droll
clock-work puppets. Bears sculptured in different
orders of merit constitute favourite ornaments in
Berne, in honor of their founder, and till of late
live bears have been kept by the Aarburg gate.
The museum, containing specimens of stuffed
animals and other natural curiosities, is a place
in which to spend a few hours pleasurably and
with instruction.  "Berne is celebrated for the
number and excellence of its charitable institutions; they are perhaps more carefully attended
to than any in Europe. There is a public granary in case of scarcity, two orphan houses, an infirmary, and an extensive hospital, bearing the




150             SWITZERLAND.
inscription' Christo in 2auperibus.' It was for
a long time the finest, indeed the only grand
building in the town, a just subject of gratification; but it has of late been eclipsed by the colossal dimensions of the new prison and penitentiary, a circumstance characteristic of the present
period perhaps in other countries besides the canton of Berne."  The principal building is the
cathedral, a fine Gothic building of the fifteenth
century, considered to have been planned by the
architect of Strasburg minster.  Everybody, on
entering it at the west end, must notice the sculpture of the last judgment over the principal doorway, one of those illustrations of the theology of
medieval art which are very curious, showing
the gross ideas of Scriptural subjects then prevalent, and how much something was needed to
raise the tone of religious thought, to spiritualize
ideas of the future state, and to detach the awful
from the grotesque.  The carving in the choir is
worth examination, and the painted windows are
very remarkable for subjects as well as style; for
in one there is the pope grinding the four evangelists in a mill, whence there comes a stream of
wafers, which a bishop is busy in gathering into
his chalice.  In the chancel part there are preserved some of the rich tapestry and coverings
lwhich were'seized in the camp of Charles of ]3ur



ART.                151
gundy, at Morat.  The platform  on which the
church stands, on the river side, is a work of art,
for it is supported by a massive wall of masonry
one hundred and eight feet high. The houses
studding the side of the hill down to the lower
part of the town remind one of some parts of
Clifton, near Bristol. It is recorded that a spirited
horse, with a young student on his back, was once
frightened by some children, and leaped down
from the platform to the base of the precipice,
with no other injury than a few broken ribs;
and that the student lived to a good old age,
clergyman of the parish of Kerzerz.  The view
of the Aar and the country beyond, with the distant Alps, forms the chief attraction of the platform, an advantage which is augmented if the
traveler ascends to the top of the cathedral:
there is one of the noblest prospects in Switzerland.
As specimens of the fine arts are not very numerous in Switzerland, we will venture here to
insert, from the interesting work of Archdeacon
Coxe, an account of a piece of sculpture at Hindelbank, a village about four miles from  Berne,
executed by Nahl, a Saxon sculptor.  "Being
employed in constructing a sepulcher for Count
d'Erlach, he was lodged in the house of the
clergymran, his particular friend, whose wife, a




152            SWITZERLAND.
woman of uncommon beauty, expired in childbed
on Easter-eve. Struck with the time of her death,
animated by the recollection of her beauty, symT)athizino with the affliction of her husband she
conceived and finished this affecting monument.
It is placed in the body of the church, sunk into
the pavement like a grave, and covered with two
folding doors: when these are opened, a gravestone appears, as if just rent into three fractures,
through which is half discovered the figure of a
woman slightly vailed with a shroud. She is
represented at the moment of the resurrection,
when the graves are commanded to yield up their
dead; her right hand is gently raising that portion of the broken stone which lies over her head,
and the other holds a naked infant struggling
with its little hands to release itself from the
tomb.' Here am I, Lord, and the children whom
thou gavest me,' are the sublime words which
form the inscription.  Below is the name of the
deceased,'Anna Magdalena Langhams, wife of
the clergyman, born 1723, died 1751.'  The
workmanship is by no means inferior to the original design; the artist has formed the whole sepulcher out of one block, and so naturally expressed
the swelling of the stone, that the fragments seem
as if they had just burst, and were in the act of
opening. The only circrumstance to he regretted




ART.                  153
is, that the materials are not so durable as such
a monument deserves; being of sand-stone, they
are too soft to resist the effects of time, and even
now exhibit some symptoms of decay."
Luzern has no remarkable buildings; the
Church of St. Leger, the principal one, has nothing to recommend it, though, indeed, the quaint
monuments in the cloisters may be worth inspection. The covered bridges are the chief structures of interest; one, the longest of all, has been
lately removed.  The two which remain are the
mill bridge and the upper bridge: the former has
on the rafters paintings of the dance of death;
the latter, seventy-seven rude designs representing the legendary tales of Luzern's patron saints.
Wordsworth was much interested in these pictures:
" Long may these homely works devised of old,
These simple efforts of Helvetian skill,
Aid with congenial influence to uphold
The state-the country's destiny to mold;'Turning for them who pass the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold;
Filling the soul with sentiments august,
The beautiful, the brave, the holy, and the just."i'
" These lines now hardly apply, as the Scripture
pictures to which he chiefly alludes were in the bridge
since destroyed.




154            SWITZERLAND.
It is to be feared, however, that these pictures
have not upon the people much of the effect desired by the poet; for, except tourists, nobody
looks at them. These bridges, it may be remarked, together with the pictures on the walls
of the houses, and the elevated range of watchtowers behind the town, give it an unusually picturesque appearance.
But the great lion of Luzern is literally a lion
-a lion most exquisitely sculptured in bold relief on the side of the rock near the gate to Weggis. The animal is represented in the agony of
death, with a broken spear in his body, and his
fore-paw resting on the shield of France. It is a
design by Thorwaldsen, and was executed by
Ahorn, a sculptor of Constance, to the memory
of the unfortunate Swiss who fell during the
French revolution in August and September,
1792, as they were defending the Tuileries against
the attacks of the mob.  A shadow comes over
the remembrance of their bravery and fidelity,
when it is recollected that they were mercenary
troops, engaged in foreign service, and perishing
in a cause to which they were attached by mere
pay, and not principle.  "There is," as it is remarked in Murray's guide-book, " a quiet solitude and shade about the spot, which is particularly pleasing and refreslhing.  The roc'ks around




ART.                 155
are mantled with fern and creepers, forming a
natural framework of the monument, and a
streamlet of clear water trickling down from the
top of the rock is received into a basin shaped
hollow below it, forming a mirror in which the
sculpture is reflected. One of the very few survivors of the Swiss guard, dressed in its red uniform, used to act as guardian of the monument,
and cicerone to the stranger; but it is believed
that the last of this brave band is now dead."
The arsenal contains some military antiquities
and trophies, and among works of art in Luzern
must be included the model of Switzerland by
General Pfyffer.
Fribourg, in its fortifications, affords forms of
feudal military art in its watch-towers and gateways, and specimens of ancient domestic architecture in some of its houses; altogether the
town has a very romantic air. The Church of
St. Nicholas is a Gothic building, commenced in
the thirteenth century and finished in 1500. The
portal under the tower exhibits a sculpture of the
last judgment, in the grossest of that style of
theological art before noticed.  The organ in the
church is of world-wide fame; but the chief objects of art at Fribourg are the bridges. The suspension bridge, the longest of a single curve in
the world, extends to the lengthl of nine hundred




156             SWITZERLAND.
and forty-one feet, and is at an elevation of one
hundred and eighty feet,* and in height one
hundred and thirty. Four iron cables support
the bridge, and these enter the ground obliquely,
and are carried down into shafts cut out of the
rock.  It is all of Swiss production; the iron
was from  Berne, the lime-stone from the Jura,
and the wood from  neighboring forests, while
every workman, except one, was a native; the
heaviest weights produce scarcely a vibration in
this ingenious structure. On the opposite side
of the river there is another suspension bridge,
six hundred and forty feet long, even more curious than the other.  Three miles from Fribourg is
the grotto of St. Magdalene, cut out of the sandstone by one person in the course of ten years.
Geneva is the largest town in Switzerland, and
has in it more of bustle than any other.  The
quay and upper part contain some very fine modern houses-the rest is old-fashioned, and bears
some resemblance to old Edinburgh.  The museum, library, and post-office, are the chief public
buildings, but none of them are at all noticeable.
The cathedral would not be a bad building if it
were not for the Corinthian portico absurdly
placed in fiont of what is Lombardic, and that of
o The Menai bridge is only five hundred and eighty
feet long.




ART.                157
the simplest and severest style. The interior has
been restored, and is a very good specimen of its
order and style. Here Calvin preached, and of
him there is a memorial on the canopy over the
pulpit; the same beneath which his voice often
resounded. There is a house, said to have been
inhabited by him, in the Rue de Chanoines, but
on inquiry we found the tradition to be very
apocryphal. He is buried in the cemetery of the
Plain Palais, but, according to his wish, his grave
remains without a monument. Rousseau was
born in Geneva; but a far more pleasing association to our mind is found in the fact, that here
some of our countrymen found refuge at the time
of the Reformation, and that here was prepared
the famous translation of the Bible called the
Genevan version, so much prized by our Puritan
ancestors. Near Geneva is Ferney, where Voltaire lived; his house, not at all uncommon in
itself, is suggestive of very painful thoughts to a
Christian mind as having been the abode of such
a man. There is in the garden a very pleasant
walk, under a covering of clipped hornbeam, on
the side of which there are gaps cut to allow a
view of the distant prospect. Here it was that
the great literary infidel used to saunter and dictate, insensible to the love of that Being who has
spread around this spot so much of the beautiful




158            SWITZERLAND.
and the grand-deaf to the voice of his Divine
Son, without whom " nothing was made that is
made," and, still more awful, inspired by intense
enmity to that only name, given under heaven,
whereby we must be saved.
Lausanne is a considerable town on the shores
of Lake Leman, built on a slope in a series of
steps. The castle and the cathedral are the principal edifices; the former  a square tower witl
turrets, the latter the finest Gothic church in
Switzerland. There are groined arches behind
the altar, apparently belonging to the eleventh
century, but the present building almost entirely
dates fiom theyear 1275. In spite of the present
arrangements, formed by closing up the choir and
removing the stalls, the interior is still very beautiful, and affords valuable materials for architect
ural studies. The grouping of columns, and the
style and method of the arches, are very peculiar.
The church contains a monument of Otho of
Granson, and the tomb of Victor Amadeus VIII.,
who was Duke of Savoy and Bishop of Geneva,
and afterward pope, under the title of Felix V.
It was at Lausanne that Gibbon lived; there he
wrote the latter part of "The Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire."  Some Roman antiquities found in the neighborhood are preserved at
Lausanne, including an altar of white marble, and




RTr.                 159
a milestone bearing the name of Antoninus Pius,
who was a great benefactor to the ancient Hielvetians.
There are other towns in Switzerland of the
smaller class, not requiring very particular notice.
Soleure is interesting for what still remains of its
fortifications, and for its old clock tower. Neuchatel contains an old church and castle, and a
Inodern hotel de ville andcl gymnasium. Constance
is very antique, and contains several houses of the
fifteenth century, and is especially memorable for
its connection with John Huss, who was burned
in the neighborhood of the town, through an iniaTnous breach of faith, as well as a cruel exercise
of tyranny on the part of the council which met
here in 1414. St. Gall still retains some considerable portion of its famous abbey, alluded to
in a former part of this work. Zug has one or
two worth looking into, and a traveler passing
through it should by all means stop to glance at
the bone-house connected with one at the back
of the town, where a number of skulls are ranged
in rows, all polished and labelled, bearing the
names of the persons they belonged to, and the
date of their death: the date of some of them
being very recent. Thun is a very picturesque
old town, and is remarkable for its tower and
church, situated on the very summit of the hill




160            SWITZERLAND.
on which the town stands, and giving to it a
singularly conical appearance. The streets with
their raised galleries over lower shops will, perhaps, remind the tourist of the city of Chester, in
England; and he will do well to ramble up into
the churchyard, and look down on the prospect
of mountain and flood.
Vevay is another small town, with a church
and churchyard at the top of a hill; but here
the hill lies behind the town, and there slumber
in it the remains of General Ludlow, one of the
celebrated characters connected with the commonwealth. His monument is a plain grave-stone of
black marble.
Stanz, Sarneu, Altorf, and Schwyz, in the
Waldstatte, as well as some other still smaller
towns in other parts, must be passed over with
the remark, that the buildings in them are very
simple, and their whole appearance indicates the
unambitious taste and the quiet and rural habits
of the people.
We have spoken of houses in the town; the
houses in the country also deserve a passing ren-ark. But they need no particular description
here, because every one is familiar with the ingenious and accurate models of them sold in our
toy-shops. The galleries, projecting roofs, and
green windows are exceedingly picturesque, espe



ART.                161
cially as seen on the sides of the mountains or
embowered among the trees. They often have
large stones placed on the roofs to preserve them
against the wind; and in the canton of Berne
you frequently see inscriptions in German on the
front of these dwellings, consisting of passages of
Scripture and the names of the persons by whom
they were erected. The chalets, so numerous in
the upland pasturage, are but mean hovels and
cattle-sheds.
Engineering in Switzerland has accomplished
some remarkable achievements.  Perhaps the
most striking displays of practical skill, combined
with sound scientific knowledge, are the roads
which have been carried over the mountains.
They wind in zigzags very curiously up steep ascents. They are carried over immense gulfs and
tremendous torrents"The rugged rock
Opens and lets them in, and on they run,
Winding their easy way from clime to clime,
Through glens lock'd up before."
They are often nothing more than shelves cut
on the face of the rock sufficiently wide to admit
of carriages passing each other.  Formerly the
main roads, as well as others, were very insecure
and imperfectly laid down, wood being sometimes
thile chief material employed; but modern engi11




162             SWITZERLAND.
neering skill has accomplished great improvements, and for the most part the roads in the Alps
of Switzerland are as firm and smooth as the English turnpikes. The principal of the mountain
roads are the three great roads into Italy: the
Splilgen, the St. Gothard, and the Simnplon. The
last is the work of Napoleon, and was commenced immediately after the battle of Marengo. The
engineer was AM. Ceard, and the whole undertaking was completed in six years, more than thirty
thousand men being employed on it at a time.
Not less than six hundred and eleven bridges may
be numbered in the course of this surprising work
of art. Ten galleries are cut for it in the rock or
are* built of stone, and for miles and miles it is
carried over lofty terraces. Sometimes the work
is so contrived as to serve the double purpose of
viaduct and aqueduct, and, strange as it may
seem, it even passes under both glacier and waterfall. The gallery of Gondo is five hundred and
ninety-six feet long, and it required one hundred
workmen day and night for eighteen months to
construct it. They not only worked at both ends,
but two lateral openings were made by miners
suspended by ropes, so that thus they wrought at
four points together, and the lateral openings are
now made to serve as windows. Opposite one is
the simple, but proud inscription, "AEre Italo,




ART.                 163
1805, Nap. Imp."   The average slope of the
road is about six inches in six feet, and the breadth
is never less than twenty-five feet.  The cost was
$25,000 a mile. Houses of refuge are built at
intervals, and the whole deserves the eulogium of
Sir James Mackintosh: "The Simplon may be
safely said to be the most wonderful of useful
works; because, though our canals and docks
surpass it in utility, science, and magnitude, they
hlave no grandeur to the eye.  Its peculiar character is to be the greatest of those monuments
that at once dazzle the imagination by their splendor, and are subservient to general convenience."
To keep this road throughout in good repair is
very expensive, and hence in some part of the
Sardinian states it is in a terrible condition, carriages having to be dragged through the beds of
torrents.  Throughout the whole line accidents
are frequently occurring in bad weather, by the
bursting of floods and the fall of snow, which
break up the path; and, therefore, without constant attention,anad expense, such a work as this
is soon comes to a very ruinous state.
Another instance of engineering in Switzerland,
of a different kind, we shall now notice.  It is
the partial draining of the Lake of Lungern.
Every traveler perceives that some strange change
has taken place there, for a part of the old bed




164             SWITZERLAND.
Of the waters is now covered with vegetation, and
does credit to the toils of the agriculturist; five
hundred acres of good land have been obtained,
though certainly at the expense of appearance;
for the banks of the lake, in point of scenery, are
now quite spoiled. The enterprise was acconmplished by a joint-stock company formed of persons in the district, and the engineer employed
was Sulzberger.  A tunnel was formed near Burglen, carried upward in a sloping direction toward
the lake. When the tunnel was brought pretty
near the bed of the waters, the difficulty was to
prevent a sudden eruption, which might prove
very destructive. First, it was determined to bore
holes; but the first attempt, though a hole was
bored, proved unsuccessful, owing to the nature
of the soil. The engineer then determined on
forming a mine, and therefore enlarged the end
of his tunnel into a chamber six feet square, and
within six feet of the lake. IIere a charge of
powder was placed, and precautions taken to prevent its exploding in the wrong direction. The
process was very arduous and full of danger, owing to the foulness of the air and the running in
of water; but five hundred men persevered and
finished their task. On the 9th of January the
explosion took place.  The train was fired by
three hardy fellows, who employed an enormous



ART.                165
ly long match. Ten mlinutes after the firing there
was a dull explosion, very dubious in report it
seemed, so that fears began to be entertained lest
the scheme had failed, when suddenly an immense
torrent of black mud made its appearance at the
lower end of the tunnel.  The drainage then
went on gradually, and in fourteen days the lake
had fallen to the level of the tunnel's mouth. The
cost was $25,000, and the whole of the labor was
performed by the peasants.
As a further and different illustration of engineering skill, may be noticed an example in the
mining department at Bex salt-works, on the
Simplon road, between Chillon and St. Maurice.
Formerly the brine springs were the only sources
from which salt was obtained, and it is interesting
to read the following notice of them given by
Coxe. It will fully introduce our account of what
has subsequently been done here by- enterprise
and art. "Upon our arrival at the salt springs,
I put on a workman's jacket, and went into the
mountains about three thousand feet almost horizontally. The gallery is six feet high and four
broad, and as much hollowed as if cut with a
chisel; it is hewn in a black rock, veined in some
places with white gypsum. The salt is procured
from springs which are found within a solid rock
perforated at great expense; the richest source




16 6            SWITZERLAND.
yields twenty-eight pounds of salt per cent., and
the poorest but half a pound. Near these springs
are several warm sources, which contain a mixture of salt, but are so strongly impregnated with
sulphur as to flamee when a lighted candle is put
into the pipe through which they flow.  After
traveling in this subterraneous passage near threequarters of a mile, I observed a great wheel of
thirty-five feet diameter, which raises the brine
from the depth of about seventy feet.  From this
place is a shaft three hundred feet high, which is
cut through the mountain to the surface, for the
purpose of introducing fresh air.  I noticed two
reservoirs hollowed in the solid rock for holding
the brine; one was one hundred and sixty feet
square and nine in depth.  Since my first expedition in 1776, the workmen had pierced the rock
twenty-five feet deeper, and cut a gallery a hundred feet ini length; they had also begun to form
a third reservoir, to contain five thousand five
hundred cubic feet, which was nearly half finished.
The brine deposited in these reservoirs is conveyed
by means of two thousand pipes, about a league,
to Bexvieux, where the salt is extracted."  In
1823, the springs were found to be failing, when
M. Charpentier proposed to search for rock salt.
Accordingly, shafts and galleries were constructed, and a rich vein was traced to a distance of




ART.                 167
four thousand feet.  The rock salt is blasted with
gunpowder, then crushed and thrown into large
reservoirs, where it is dissolved. Each reservoir
is filled with water three times, the last two solutions being weaker than the first. The brine thus
obtained is further subjected to a process of graduation in long sheds, where the salt water, raised to the roof by pumps, comes trickling down in
drops, thus producing evaporation of the watery
particles. The salt crystallizes, and is afterward
boiled in pans.
But we must leave these ingenious contrivances
to extract wealth fronm the stores of nature, to
afford some account of the manufactures which
display so eminently the skill and industry of the
Swiss.  Switzerland has its iron works in the
cantons of Berne, Soleure, and Vaud.  At Zurich there is an extensive manufactory of machines
belonging to Mr. Escher, and employing seven
hundred hands; and every traveler must have
noticed many of the iron steamers on the Swiss
lake,s as having been made at this large establishment. The manufacture of silks in Switzerland
is far more important, being one of the main staples of its trade. Twelve or thirteen thousand
people are employed upon it in the canton of
Zurich, where many of the masters grow  rich
without much polish, according to the proverb,




168            SWITZERLAND.
" Grossier comme un Zurichois."  Six hundred
thousand pounds sterling is the produce of the
Zurich silk manufactory.  " Rarely," observes
Dr. Bowring, in his interesting report on Swiss
commerce, "are there a number of looms at work
collectively; almost all are to be found singly, or
two together, seldom even three or four. In the
common apartment of the family of the country
people, one or two members of the family may
be seen weaving, and carrying on at the same
time their household occupations; sometimes
working in the gardens: other members of the
family, even the children when released from
school, assist in the winding of the silk; and it
is this union of manufacturing with agricultural
pursuits which has combined to promote the trade."
Silk ribbons, taffetas, and satins, are made in great
quantities at Basle, keeping between three and
four thousand looms employed, and supplying annual exports to the amount of ten millions of
francs. Cotton goods also are largely manufactured in Switzerland; Zurich adding this branch
to her silk trade, and having as many as twelve
thousand cottoil weavers.  In the canton of St.
Gall and Appenzell, a great deal is done in the
same line; the workmen, as in Zurich, dividing
their time between the loom and the plow.
Schaff hausen has its cotton spinners, and in




ART.                169
Thurgau, Glarus, and Aargau there are various
descriptions of cotton cloth produced.  Cotton
printing is extensively carried on in Neuchatel,
and a considerable amount of it is also executed
in the last of the cantons before named. Lace
likewise is made at Neuch&tel, though not in such
large quantities as formerly. Stockings and hosiery are produced at Aargau. As to hardware,
Schaffhausen has a manufactory in high repute
for steel and files, and Geneva has its cutlery, so
has the canton Vaud: pottery and leather, firearms and saddlery, are also mentioned among
Swiss manufactures, especially in Geneva.
But the articles best known among us are the
watches of the latter place. One hundred thousand watches are annually made there, employing
between thirteen and fourteen hundred workmen;
and the shops, which display splendid assortments
of these beautiful goods, as well as musical boxes
and jewelry, are among the lions of the city
visited by tourists. The largest and most celebrated is that of Bautte & Co., Rue du Rhone.
" The watches of English manufacture," remarks
Dr. Bowring in his report, " do not come into
competition with those of Swiss production, which
are used for different purposes and by a different
class of persons. Notwithstanding all the risks
and charges, the sale of Swiss watches is large;




1'70            SWITZERLAN'D.
and it has not really injured the English watchmaking trade.  The English watches are far more
solid in construction, fitter for service, and especially in countries where no good watchmakers
are to be found, as the Swiss watches require
delicate treatment. English watches, therefore,
are sold to the purchaser who can pay a high
price; the Swiss watches supply the classes to
whom a costly watch is inaccessible."  In Neucha'tel there is as much of watchmaking now as
in Geneva. From one hundred thousand to one
hundred and twenty thousand are annually made
in that canton, and many a villager among the
Jura Mountains obtains his livelihood by this ingenious craft.  About a third of the watches are
gold, the rest are silver.  Some of the latter sell
as low as from twenty to twenty-five francs.
Among the characteristic productions of this
interesting people, we cannot avoid noticing their
wooden toys and ornaments. Every one is familiar with the farm-houses and chalets; the lions,
bears, and chamois; the peasant-girls, shepherds;
and hunters, so delicately carved.  These are
chiefly made at Interlachen and Meyringen; at
least, there principally we have noticed the manufacture going on, and have been not a little interested as we have stopped to watch the progress
of the humble wood-carver.  At the doors of cot



ART.                 171
tages, in rooms fitted up for the purpose in hotels,
and in considerable shops here and there, these
tempting goods are offered for sale to the tourist,
who cannot do better than fix on some of these
ingenious articles, if he wish to carry away any
mementoes of Switzerland. Articles of a very
superior order, for useful as well as ornamental
purposes-especially tables, richly carved and exquisitely painted-are to be obtained at some of
the larger depositories, especially in the shops at
Berne; and another pleasing souvenir of Switzerland, at once national and artistic, may be obtained in beautiful collections of dried wild-flowers, arranged in book-like cases, framed according to scientific nomenclature.  We were much
pleased with some specimens of this hortus siccus
which we met with at Rosenlau, and brought
home with us: it still affords a welcome quickener of memory and imagination when we spread
out its treasures of Alpine botany.
To proceed to the subject of agriculture.  We
do not know whether there be much of science in
the Swiss husbandry; but we can answer for the
simple art and diligent industry which it displays.'The peasant has reclaimed from waste every
available spot; and it is interesting to observe the
ledges of the rocks laid under cultivation, and
rich in cabbages and edible roots. The irrigation




17 2            SWITZERLAND.
of the higher spots on the mountains, which the
husbandman has made the scene of his toils, is
very laborious; and people may be seen climbing up the steeps with large wooden tubs fastened
to their backs full of water. The mountain torrents are also made available for watering the
fields, and rude wooden troughs of fir-tree are
used for conveying the stream to the desired spot.
The Swiss farmers are great economists of manure,
and piles of that material are often met with by
the side of the road in villages, by no means yielding a fiagrant odor. A large portion of Switzerland is used for pasture-land, and in many parts
there are rich crops of hay. When at the hay
hlarvest, the women, in the costume of their canton, busily engaged in hay-making, give increased
animation to the rural scene. Corn is not cultivated to a great extent, owing to the lofty elevation of the country preventing its growth. Buckwheat is sown successfully at a height of two
thousand two hundred feet; maize at two thousand five hundred; barley and rye at four thousand; flax, and hemp, and maize are all reared
in the highlands. Carrots, turnips, and cabbages,
are planted as high as five thousand feet. Mulberry-trees and silk-worms are reared on the Ticino side of the Alps.  Chestnuts, walnuts, olive,
fig', and peacll-trees, and even pomegranates and




sociETY.                173
almonds are grown in some parts. Cider is made
in the highlands, and a drinkl, distilled from cherries, is common all over Switzerland. Beer is
brewed in most of the towns, but of inferior quality, and a good deal of wine is made in the
canton of Neuchh'tel, some of it resembling Burgundy; sparkling wines are produced at Cortaillod and Auvergnier. In the cantons of Geneva,
Zurich, Sclafflausen, Valais, some part of Aargau,
Thurgau, St. Gall, and Basle, the vine is very
much cultivated: but on the Italian side of Italy
the vineyards are richest, and they form an object
of beauty by the road-side, as they spread out in
a field of rich foliage trained over supporters, so
as to form  a series of embowered alleys and
vistas.
CHAPTER III.
SOCIETY.
WE have already intimated our intention to
notice briefly the forms of the cantonal governments in Switzerland.  Most of them are representative.  Some require a property qualification
in the electors. This is the case in Luzern, Ticino,
and Geneva.  A still higher qualification is re



174             SWITZERLAND.
quired for members of the legislative chamber.
In Luzern, persons are admissible to the council
at twenty-five years of age. At Ticino, they are
not eligible for that dignity till they are thirty.
Both there and at Geneva the elective franchise
is confined to those who are twenty-five and upward.  In most of the cantons having a representative government, the suffrage is universal.
It is so in Berne, Zurich, Vaud, Aargau, St. Gall,
Fribourg, Thurgau, Basle, Soleure, and Schaffhausen.  All males above a certain age are
electors. The age varies in different cantons from
twenty to twenty-five. There are differences also
in the age prescribed as necessary to the admission of any one to the senatorial assembly. Property qualification is requisite for members of council in Berne and Aargau. In Soleure, it is only
necessary that a candidate should not be a journeyman or servant. In the rest of the cantons
last named no qualification is demanded from the
legislator any more than the elector. In St. Gall,
though there be a representative government, yet
all laws are subject to the sanction of the primary
assemblies of the communes. Several of the cantons are pure democracies still.  The Grisons present a curious example of popular sovereignty.
There is a vast number of small districts or parishes, where all the people have a voice in the




SOCIETY.              175
management of affairs. These are grouped so as
to form a certain number of communes. The
communes constitute twenty-six hoch gerichts, or
higher councils. Above them is the diet of the
league; and above all, the diet of the three
leagues, which is composed of seventy members,
who meet at Coire. The Valais are divided into
thirteen dixams or districts, each being a small
republic, sending deputies to the cantonal diet,
where the Bishop of Sion has four votes. Appenzell is another pure democracy, divided into two
separate states, with annual assemblies of all the:-lult male population.  Glarus is equally democratical, but is not divided into districts. Zug is
a simple democracy, with a universal assembly
every year. Schwyz and Uri are the same.
Unterwalden, like Appenzell, consists of two departments, both pure democracies. Neuchatel is
a constitutional monarchy, being part of the dominion of the king of Prussia, who is prince of
that canton. The legislative authority is vested
in the "audiences generales," the members of
which are chosen by nearly universal suffrage,
except ten deputies who are named by the
prince.
Berne, since 1849, has been the permanent
place for the meeting of the diet, composed of
representatives from the different cantons. The




176             SWITZERLAND.
powers of the diet and of the permanent central
government now fixed at Berne, where diplomatic
business is transacted with foreign ministers, have
been already noticed; and it may serve to give
some general idea of the state of parties in the
diet, if we make the following extract from the
work of M. Vieusseux, which, though penned a
few years ago, is still correct in its general application.  He says: " In the Swiss diet, as well as
in other representative assemblies of Europe, the
members are divided into three political parties,
there known as the right, left, and center.  The
first-named division consists of the statu qgzo
members, or aristocrats, as they are vulgarly
called, though in fact this party in Switzerland
includes the three forest cantons, the oldest and
purest democracies of Switzerland, who are averse
to all change in the federal pact, and are jealous
and suspicious of the city democracies.  The
Valais, Neuchhtel, and Basle towns belong also
to this division.  The left, or radical party, is the
party of centralization and unity at the expense
of individual independence of the canton; it
wishes for a general representative assembly for
all Switzerland, elected on the basis of numerical
proportion; it is the party of sweeping change, to
be effected by numerical majority and physical
force.  This party was represented in the diet of




SOCIETY.              177
1834 by the cantons of Berne, Luzern, Thurgau,
Basle country, and St. Gall; not that the population of all these cantons are to be considered as
ultra-democratic, but because the ultra-democratic
principle prevailed then in their councils, whose
function it is to give instructions to the deputies
to the diet, which instructions the latter are bound
to follow, or ask for further directions. Between
the two extreme parties just mentioned is the
center, which includes the majority of the cantons; some, however, inclining to the right, others
to the left, upon particular questions, but all
attached to their cantonal independence, and
averse to a general fusion of all Switzerland into a
single democracy. The real center, whose device
is moderation, conciliation, justice to all, gradual
reforms, respect for the cantoial independence,
and for existing laws and treaties, was represented
in the diet of 1834 by Zurich, Geneva, Vaud, the
Grisons, Fribourg, and Glarus."  To these statements we may add a remark made in 1851:
"Since 1830, democratic principles have made
rapid strides in almost all the cantons; and the
political constituents of Switzerland at present
have, with much truth, been described as consisting of an aristocracy enraged at its own weak —
ness, a democracy eager to ride above them, and
demanding for the peolle more rights than they
IT,~ ~ j




17 8            SWITZERLAND.
desire, for doubtful and unknown good, risking
all that is most desirable-gentle sway, contented
obedience, simplicity of manners, tranquillity of
life."
Next to the governments of Switzerland, we
would notice the state of education.  At Basle
and Zurich there are universities; and at Geneva,
Berne, and Lausanne, academies, having the
power of granting degrees. Two names connected with the University of Basle are familiar
to most readers of English theology through translations of their works into our language.  The
one is De Witte-now no more-a very learned
critic, whose opposition to the distinctive truths
of the gospel was most decided; the other is
Hagenbach, the author of a valuable digest of the
history of Christian doctrine. There are several
learned societies in Switzerland, in addition to the
universities and academies. Such are the Helvetic
Society, founded in 1763; the Swiss Society of
Public Utility, formed in 1820; and the Natural
History Society, established in 1815. The cantonal governments promote popular education;
and in this Zurich, Basle, Schaffhausen, Neuchhtel, Geneva, and Vaud, take the lead. The
forest cantons are far behind.  The same may be
said of Appenzell, the Grisons, Ticino, and the
Paaiq:L  Ti; v3r: n  A tI  f  imnt1.




SOCIETY.               179
there are normal schools, which exist, too, among
the Grisons in Luzern. Most of the head towns
of cantons have their gymnasia, in some of which
Latin is taught, and other branches of an oldfashioned education; but in the cantons more
advanced in the culture of educational methods,
modern languages and other departments of a
generally useful and accomplished education are
introduced. Gymnastic exercises, too, have their
proper share of attention in Berne, St. Gall, and
Glarus; and in the first of these towns there are
mechanical schools for the instruction of artisans.
"'Switzerland,7 says Dr. Hoppus, in his "Crisis
of Education," "as we learn from the HIelvetie,
can now boast of having one scholar for every
five inhabitants in some parts of the confederation.  The cantons of Zurich, Berne, Aargau,
Vaud, and St. Gall, are especially named. In
Soleure, the ratio in 1837 was stated to be one
in nine."  "Fribourg has been distinguished by
the labors of Pere Girard, whose schools in that
town were the most successful development of the
system of mutual instruction which the continent
has yet witnessed. His method resembled, in
some important respects, that pursued by Mr.
Wood, in the Edinburgh Sessional Schools.
Generally it may be stated that the Protestant
cantons of Switzerland are nearly folemost in




180             SWITZERLAND.
Europe as respects primary education."-Recent
Measures of Education.  Religious instruction is
afforded by the Swiss clergymen. The Protestants have large Sunday schools or catechetical
classes, conducted by the ministers, who examine
them in the principles of the ielvetic Confession.
These juvenile assemblies may be seen gathered
in Protestant churches on the noon of the Sabbath, under the superintendence of the pastor,
when they are publicly questioned respecting their
religious knowledge.
Among the private schools of Switzerland,
there is a very remarkable one at Hofwyl nenar
Berne.  It was founded by the well-known De
Fellenberg, but has undergone some changes, for
the worse, we believe, since his death.  Ile was
completely devoted to the cause of education, and
spent the greater part of his life in promoting it
in his native country. Of patrician rank, he
counted it no condescension to employ himself in
educational efforts, esteeming the formation of
youthful character one of the most valuable services which can be rendered to the state as well
as to the individual.  He divided his establishment into three branches; one for the upper
class, a second for the pool', and a third for instruction in practical agriculture.  His grand princil)le was to adlapt th, education to the natural




SOCIETY.              181
endowments of the pupil, to endeavor to fit him
for that thing which it would appear God meant
him for; and the peculiar method which he
adopted, and which tended much to the successful working of the schools while he lived, was to
nourish and encourage a public spirit in the
establishment on the side of obedience and all
virtue-a spirit which he had carefully nursed at
the outset of his enterprise, by beginning with a
very few whom he imbued with his own sentiments. As fresh pupils were added, they were
brouight under the existing influence and molded
accordingly, and any boy found to remain decidedly out of sympathy with his companions
was expelled. De Fellenberg employed a large
number of assistants, and sometimes, ill cases of
peculiar idiosyncrasy, would appoint one tutor to
the oversight of a single child. He treated his
pupils as a father, and ever appealed to their love
rather than their fears. Many of the details of
his plans would be impracticable with us, and
some things about his establishment would be
found objectionable; but we cannot help thinking that the principles and spirit of that great
educational undertaking which has rendered him
illustrious in his own country, deserve far more
attention than they have yet received in this.
Before we proceed to another topic connected




182             SWITZERLAND.
with society in Switzerland, we would refer to a
very singular fact mentioned in the introduction
to Murray's Swiss Hand-book, which will serve
as a connecting link between the present and the
following subject: " A singular custom, connected with education, prevails in some parts of
Switzerland, which deserves notice here from the
influence which it exercises over society. In many
of the large towns, children of the same age and
sex are associated together by their parents in
little knots and clubs called Societes de Dimanche.
The parents seek out for their children an eligible
set of companions when they are still quite young.
The parties so formed amount to twelve or fifteen
in number, and the variation of age between
them is not more than two or three years.  All
the members meet in turn on Sunday evenings
at the houses of their parents, while children, to
play together and partake of tea-cakes and sweetmeats, attended by their bonnes, or nurses; when
grown up, to pass the evening in other occupations and amusements suited to their age. At
these meetings, not even brothers or sisters are
present, except they are members of the society.
From thus being constantly thrown together on
all occasions, a strict friendship grows up among
the members of each brotherhood or sisterhood,
which generally lasts through life, even after the




SOCIETY.               183
people are settled and dispersed about the world.
The females, even when grown up, distinguish
their companions by such endearing terms as,' Ma mignonne,'  Mon cceur,''Mon ange.' This
practice renders Swiss society very exclusive, and
few strangers, however well introduced, penetrate below the surface."
The last remark in the foregoing extract will
prepare the reader for not expecting any account
of the private social life of the Swiss. We do
not pretend to give any information on that subject; our own observations have been made only
in public, and we should regard inferences relative to domestic habits and the privacies of home
life very untrustworthy, if derived only from what
a traveler may see of a people in places of general resort.  We may just remark that the western Swiss, in their social character and habits,
assimilate to the French; the eastern and northern to the Germans of the Tyrol and Suabia.
The French language is spoken in the former,
the German or dialects of German in the latter.
We believe that there is a strong line of caste in
some of the large Swiss towns, but have been informed by residents that among people of the
same class there is a great deal of neighborly
feeling and cheerful fellowship.
Our own notices of social life in Switzerland




184             SWITZERLAND.
have been confined to the hotel, the pension or
boarding-house, and the bathing establishments.
In the hotel one meets with persons from all
parts of the world, and almost everything distinctively Swiss is there merged. The table d'hote
is generally a scene of much interest to a stranger,
affording, as it often does, a gathering of many
nations-the English and Americans being in
some cases predominant. Such a place as the
hotel on the top of the Righi, where a hundred
people or so assemble in the evening, to prepare
for witnessing the morrow's sunrise, is preeminently favorable to the exhibition of social habits
pertaining to the respective travelers; for there,
especially, reserve is thrown off, and the costumes,
and manners, and conversation in many languages, producing a very discordant hubbub, are
extremely amusing.  In the best hotels there is
no want of comforts and luxuries.  The pension,
where persons are accommodated with everything
at so many francs a day, and meet in a common
room for meals and occasional intercourse, is less
public than the hotel, and makes a nearer approach to family life. In some of these the English are most numerous; in some the Gernmans;
in some the French: and they bring with thlem
the habits. of their own country.  The fare is according to the pay, and of course the social




SOCIETY.              185
pleasure derived, according to the company. We
have pleasant reminiscences of a pension at Interlachen, where the arrangements were quite Swiss,
and the visitors mostly German, the tables well
spread, the party agreeable —the waiters being
daughters of the hostess, in the costume of the
canton. The Swiss bathing establishments are
great gathering places for people seeking health,
or striving to preserve it. We have visited two,
very different in character; the one is the bath
of Pfeffers, most romantic in position, and crushed in between lofty rocks, where they nearly close
up the valley of the Tamina. The mountain
gorge, in which the bath is situated, is truly
frightful, and the buildings are very gloomy.
The springs are hot, and pour out clouds of steam.
There are long passages and wide halls, and
dining-rooms and dormitories, and bathing-cells
in abundance, giving the place very much the
aspect of a conventual establishment, with invalids, very melancholy in appearance, slowly
and quietly moving up and down like monks.
The house, from its position, must at all times be
very gloomy; but what rays of cheerfulness may be
thrown over it by good society we cannot say, as
our visit was very brief, and we went to see the
springs and the scenery, not the people. We
may remark in passing, that we have seen noth



186             SWITZERLAND.
ing in Switzerland surpassing the baths of Pfeffers
for stern and savage grandeur compressed into a
point. The valley or gorge beyond the baths,
leading to the springs by a little rickety modern
bridge beside the foaming torrent, with the rocks
lapping one another overhead —all so gloomy,
and the roaring of the waters so tremendous-is
certainly one which no traveler in that part of
Switzerland should omit to enter. The baths of
Leuk, at the foot of the Gemini Pass, are very different.  When we were there, all looked as cheerful as in the other case all was melancholy. The
former was I1 Penseroso, and the latter L'Allegro.
There are eighteen or twenty bathing-houses at
Leuk.
The Swiss are fond of festive gatherings, some
of which on certain occasions are of national interest, and afford striking displays of characteristic costumes, manners, and habits. In most of
the cantons there are societies for archery and
rifle-shooting, the marksman's skill being of much
practical importance to the children of the mountain, who are wont to bring down the chamois as
it climbs the perilous heights. Wrestling, too,
and other athletic exercises are much practiced
in some parts, and have also societies formed to
patronize and promote them. Exhibitions of skill
and power in all these respects take place annu



SOCIETY.               187
ally in the chief towns of the district where the
societies are established; and then there are
prizes-some very considerable-distributed  to
those who excel in these rustic feats. But of all
the Swiss festivities, " La Fete des Vignerons " at
Vevay is the most celebrated. The vineyards of
the vicinity are very rich, and yield some of the
choicest wines of Switzerland.  The cultivation
of the grape here is as ancient as Romajl times,
and a temple to Bacchus is known to have stood
near Vevay, from the discovery of a stone there
bearing the inscription, " Libero Patri Colliensi.?'
A society has existed from remote times for prormoting the best husbandry of the vine, and at
spring and autumn persons are sent out, well
skilled and of experience, to examine the produce
of the district. Medals and pruning hooks are
given as prizes to the most successful cultivators.
At distant intervals grand feasts are held under
the direction of this ancient guild, and these ale
"Les Fetes des Vignerons."  One took place in
1797; another in 1819; in 1833, again there
was a festival; the last was in 1851. Murray, in
his Guide-Book, gives an account of the manner
in which the ceremonies, processions, and festivities used to be performed, and they seem to
have included an odd and irreverent mixture of
classical and sacred associations-father Bacchus




188              SWITZERLAND.
and Silenus being accompanied by Noah and his
ark. At the last celebration, from an account
given in the "Illustrated News," and from the
report of a friend who was present, we learn that
the old customs were somewhat modified; the
personages appearing in the procession being all
classical or rustic representatives of the four seasons; and these with archers and vine-dressers, and
many shows, formed the procession. In the market-place of Vevay, there were public ceremonies in
the midst of a vast amphitheater, crowded with
spectators, including the coronation of the most
successful vine-dressers, the singing of odes, and
dancing.  These festive scenes were extended
through two days, and the whole was closed by a
public illumination.  Forty thousand persons are
reported to have been present at the last f6te, and
from all accounts it must have been a remarkable
manifestation of national character. The motto
of the guild is " Ora et labora," pray and labor —
an excellent maxim.  How far the first piece of
wisdom may be practically regarded by the Swiss
vine-dressers we cannot say; their attention to the
second is very obvious; and, assuredly, a diligent
attention to both will be found the true path to
prosperity: as in vine-dressing, so in everything else.
In turning to look for a moment to other and
more important forms of society, to those which




SOCIETY.               189
are exhibited in the churches of the country, we
may remark that the Roman Catholics of Switzerland form about two-fifths of the population;
being, according to the census of 1850, nine hundred and seventy-one thousand eight hundred
and twenty.*  The three old forest cantons, together with Luzern, Zug, the Valais, and Ticino,
are thoroughly Roman Catholic, and did not (un-: A valuable table of religious statistics as to Switzerland is given in a volume just published, called
"' The Religious Condition of Christendom," containing papers read before the Evangelical Alliance in
London, 1851. That table has subjoined the following sumnmary remark:-" In every thousand persons
five hundred and ninety-three would be Reformed,
four hundred and six Catholics, and one Jew,-three
Reformed to two Catholics. The proportion borne by
the Reformed to the Roman Catholic population remains much as it was, notwithstanding the accession
of the Valais, Ncuchatel, and Geneva in 1815, and the
various degrees in which the population of the differcut cantons has increased. The Roman Catholic population has decreased and the Reformed increased in
the cantons of Berne, Glarus, St. Gall, and Argovie;
while, on the contrary, the Reformed has decreased
and the Roman Catholics increased in the Grisons,
Thurgovie, the city and canton of Basle, Neuchatel,
and Geneva, especially in the latter canton." As to
language-the German is spoken by 1,670,000; the
French by 474,000; the Italian by 133,500; and the
Rlomanch by!;i'*,-10)




190              SWITZERLAND.
til very lately) tolerate any other religion than
their own, except that in Luzern the opening of
a Protestant chapel was permitted; but matters
are now altered, and religious liberty, to some
extent, is enjoyed in all the cantons.* In St.
Gall the Roman Catholics are a majority; and
the same is the case in Fribourg and Soleure; but
in all these cantons Protestants arc allowed the
right of worship, and in St. Gall they enjoy per-: The federal constitution of 1848 grants the free
exercise of worship, but only to recognized Christian
confessions; so that Dissenters might be prohibited
throughout the whole extent of the confederation from
the exercise of worship under the pretense of maintaining public order. " Besides, although the same
constitution guarantees to all Swiss belonging to a
Christian Church the right of settling in any part
of the Swiss territory, a permit of abode has just been
withdrawn from an evangelical schoolmaster residing
at Martigny in Valais, who has hitherto appealed in
vain to the federal authority. Thia present state of
things, therefore, leaves much to be desired in respect
to religious liberty, though we acknowledge with satisfaction that the cause is making progress dayly. A
visible change has taken place in the minds of many,
especially in the Canton de Vaud, the only quarter in
which a retrograde movement in this matter has been
made. The Free Church can now assemble anywhere
without molestation, for which we thank God." —Condition of Chi-istendom, p.;59.




SOCIETY.               191
feet civil equality. In the other cantons Roman
Catholics are in a minority; in some a very small
one; but in all they have freely conceded to them
the same liberties as other subjects. In the Roman Catholic districts the parishes generally are
smaller than in the Protestant; and owing to
this circumstance, and to that of several priests
being attached to one establishment, the number
of the Roman Catholic clergy far exceeds that of
the Protestant, though the flocks of the latter
comprise three-fifths of the population.  In Roman Catholic Switzerland there is a priest for
about every hundred and fifty persons. In the
Protestant portions of the country there is one to
every seven hundred. There are five thousand
two hundred priests and monks, and two thousand
nuns.* The convents are sixty in number; among
which are St. Urban in Luzern, Weltingen in
Aargau, and Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz.
The last is a place of high repute among papists,
on account of a black image of the Virgin which
it contains, miraculous and celestial in its origin,
as some believe.  Immense multitudes flock to
this famous shrine, and it has been calculated
that between the years 1820 and 1840, the average annual resort of pilgrims has been one hun-: These numbers are taken from statistics publishcil i~ithin the l:i.t t act    x ears




192              SVITZER LAND.
dred and fifty thousand. The spot still retains
its popularity, and swarms of devotees may be
often seen wending their way to its altars. The
most absurd superstitions are there cherished;
and it is actually pretended that from one of the
jets of the fountain in front of the church, our
Saviour drank when he was upon earth.  How
this could be is not explained, and by the ignorant devotees is not inquired.  In Aargau, where
the population is mixed and the Protestants are
most numerous, efforts have been made to reform
conventual abuses, but the opposition has been
very obstinate.  "In the mountain districts," observes Dr. Alexander, "Catholicism  appears in
much the same guise as it bore before the Reformation; it is the religion of an honest, untutored, and superstitious race, who receive it in
all its integrity, submit to it with undisguised sinceritv,* and regard with horror all who would:- Both the influence of the priests and the superstition of the people were remarkably manifested
during the late wars of the Sunderbund. The former
blessed the bullets and fire-arms, the latter believed
that in the sacerdotal benediction they received a
charm that would secure them from danger. The
continued sympathy with the Sunderbund movement,
at least in the neighborhood to which it relates, appears from the following anecdote, recorded in the': eli:i(oum t'ilnAditiiuii of Chrlistendoni:-"( A fete latel v




SOCIETY.                193
call it in question. In the Italian States there is
more of astuteness, more of mere formalism, less
depth of feeling and sincerity of devotion, but not
less of bigotry or ignorance.  In the French cantons Catholicism  appears under a more cosmopolitan guise; it is the religion of a people acquainted with letters, accustomed to the usages
of cultivated society, apt to be assailed by argument directed against their faith, and consequently more versed in crafty devices and plausible reasonings. The Jesuits, who ever since the
foundation of their order have been the main stay
of the Church of Rome, though their atrocious
proceedings at times have excited the indignation
of Roman Catholic sovereigns, and brought down
the condemnation of the pontiff himself, have
long been an active party in Switzerland, seeking to propagate as well as secure the Roman
Catholic faith, and for that end engaging in deep
brought together the whole population of a district in
Fribourg, in the confines of the Canton de Vaud. Suddenly a man steps forward, with proud and confident
looks, and, with a glass in his hand, announces that he
is going to propose a toast, which, without exception,
will make all hearts beat:-' To the Seven Cantons of
the Sunderbund,' said he; and the multitude, lately
divided into two parties, Radical and Romish, answered to his voice by an immense and unanimous apPi:ause."




194             SWiTZErLAND.
political intrigues, and in some instances plunging the country into civil war. Their headquarters are at Fribourg; and in Soleure, Schwyz,
and the Valais they are strong and active. In
the last of these cantons they procured, so late as
the year 1845, the passing of a law proscribing all
assemblies, discussions, and conversations reflecting on the Roman Catholic Church, under penalty
of fine and imprisonment. The law also prohibited
the possession of any book indirectly attacking
the religion of the state; so that, for having any
book whatever which the Jesuit priest might pronounce unfriendly to Roman Catholicism, a person might be amenable to the authorities.  A
Swiss writer has justly said, " The Jesuits are the
enemies of Switzerland, because they hate and
would obliterate Swiss feeling and Swiss nationlality. They are the enemies of Switzerland, because they detest and aim at overthrowing its
freedom.  They are the enemies of Switzerland,
because wherever they are, they try to appropriate the civil power, to abrogate institutions, and
to degrade the Swiss people into the condition of
slaves under a priestocracy.  In fine, they are
the enemies of Switzerland, because they oppose
all true intellectual education, and would put
chains on men's linds, that they may the more
easily e_-ve thei -,~is.in."




SOCIETY.              195
In the Roman Catholic cantons, there is less
general intelligence and a much lower order of
civilization than in those that are Protestant.
The fact cannot be denied by any one who has
mixed with the Swiss, or who has traveled through
the country, and noticed the most obvious indications of the state of the people. Passing from
the canton of Berne to the canton of the Valais,
the tourist finds himself in a different region, as it
regards the state of the farms, the gardens, the
villages, the towns, the houses, and the people;
neatness, and cleanliness, and order, and evident
physical comfort and prosperity, are at once
changed for their opposites.  Roman Catholics
themselves have been forced to admit the fact,
and an intelligent writer among them, Franscini,
in his Statutes of the Swiss, attributes it to the
number of ecclesiastics, who are so many citizens
withdrawn fiom  secular employments-to the
absorption of property by monasteries-to the
large sums spent in worship-and to the numerous saints' days observed as holidays by the people. These things, no doubt, in some degree,
lead to and promote the evil in question, and are
themselves evils, whatever Roman Catholics may
think of themi; nor does the writer just mentioned
attempt to deny the neglect of education in the
fRomanl  Catholic cantons-another fact damaging




196             SWITZERLAND.
the Church to which they belong. But over and
above all this, is there not a spirit in Popery
which serves to crush the energies of a people,
and to retard their progress to the highest state
of civilization?  Witness every country where
Popery has all things its own way-witness the
papal states, which of course must be the model
for Roman Catholic Christendom.  Three-fifths
of the Swiss are nominally Protestant; and according to the last census, in 1850, amounted to
one million four hundred and seventeen thousand
four hundred and seventy-four.  The cantons of
Zurich, Basle, Berne, Vaud, Neuchatel, and
Geneva, are those in which Protestantismn is
most prevalent.  In Aargau, Appenzell, Glarus,
Schaffausen, and Thurgau, there is also a majority of Protestants; yet in all, the principle of
equality in civil rights is maintained in reference
to the Roman Catholic part of the popullation.
The Protestant clergy may amount to seventeen
hundred, and very few parishes have more than
one minister.  "There is no Swiss national
Church; but in each canton, that formula of
doctrine and order which has seemed best to the
ruling powers has been established by public
sanction.  In respect of doctrine there is no great
difference, so far as creeds go, between the different cautondl C(iliulche, almost all of theim hold



SOCIETY.               197
ing professedly by the ancient Helvetic confession; and in point of order they are more or less
strictly conformed to the Presbyterian model,
though in some cases with a slight infusion of
the Episcopal element, and in others with certain
leanings to the Congregational system.  Thus,
as respects the appointment of the ministers, in
some cantons the choice rests exclusively with the
people, who have power to appoint and power to
remove, independent of any superior control; in
other cantons the government nominates the
clergy, and the people have not a veto on the
appointment; in other cases, the people send up
a list to the government, with whom the final
appointment rests; in some cases a right of interference belongs to the body of clergy already in
office; and in one case, that of NeuchAtel, the
clerical body absorb the entile power, subject
only to the supervision of the king of Prussia,
who never interferes with their movements. For
the most part, the Presbyterian parity is preserved
among the clergy, the office of doyen, which is the
highest rank among them, being simply that of
primus inter pares, the first among equals, and
lasting but for one year at a time in the case of
each occupant. In the canton of Basle, however,
some vestiges of the episcopal subordination are
retained; the first minister of the Minster Church,




198              SWITZERLAND.
in the city of Basle, holding a certain official preeminence among his brethren; and his colleague,
tire second minister, bearing the title of archidiaconus, or archdeacon.  The tenure by which the
ministers hold their parishes is also very different
in different cantons, some being elected for life, or
intil any fault worthy of deposition is committed;
others for a term of years; and others from week
to week.  In fine, the mode in which the clergy
are supported varies in different cantons; in some
the government provides the entire salary of the
mlinister, while in others the government supplies
only a part, and in some cases but a very small
part, and the rest is made up by fees, or from the
voluntary offerings of the people.*
The state of religion in the Protestant Churches
of Switzerland, as compared with that among the
Roman Catholics, is by no means such as to
produce much complacency.  A  state of mind`: This general view is supplied by Dr. Alexander,
but the Churches of Switzerland arc in such a transition state, that what mnay apply to them one year mlay
be incorrect another. For example, Professor Baup
tells the Evangelical Alliance in 1851: " The Bernese
Church has jtust received a mixed synodical organization, of which it is to make trial some time before
it is definitely adopted. You see," he adds, "we occupy a shifting position-the picture we draw to-day
may possibly be considerably changed to-morrow."




sOCIETY.                199
scarcely better than infidelity or skepticism obtains
extensively among those who bear the name of
the Reformed. Sincerity and earnestness under
any religious form is but rare with the Swiss
Protestants; this is the opinion of those who have
had the best opportunities of inquiry and observation.  "Dead forms," says Dr. Alexander, to
whose work on the religious state of Switzerland
we are in this part of our volume greatly indebted,
-" Dead forms, parchment orthodoxy, mechanical
rites, engross the entire religious interest of multitudes; and with others a lax indifferentism  and
courteous latitudinarianism confound all religious
distinctions, and make religion itself a mere article
of worldly convenience.*   Between these two: In a paper on Infidelity in Switzerland, read at the
Evangelical Alliance meeting in 1851, it was stated
that in French Switzerland, that is, Geneva, the High
Jura, Vaud, Neuchatel, and Berne, where all have
their children baptized, who are afterward admitted to
the Lord's supper, many never enter the church after
their first communion. "Even among those who remain more faithful for a time," proceeds the writer,
the Rev. L. Burnier, " open infidelity soon reaps a new
harvest; so that a great majority of our artisans and
manufacturers end in throwing off all regard to divine
worship. Their infidelity is open, avowed, reasoned,
or rather nibbling at arguments, (I speak in a general
manner;) hence it follows that it is more varied than
among the country people. At one time it is the con



200             SWITZERLAND.
classes the great mass of those who still adhere to
the profession of Protestant Christianity in the
national Churches of Switzerland are divided.
The exceptions are comparatively few, and are
found principally among the younger clergy.
The brightness of some of these exceptions is
such as almost to compensate for the gloom amid
which they shine." These statements are confirmed by other authorities-by the Rev. R. Burgess, for example, who was once a resident in
Geneva, and who, after speaking favorably of the
canton of Vaud, adds, " There is much sound religion in the cantons of Basle and Berne.  The
state of the Reformed religion, viewed in the mass
of professing Protestants, is gloomy; viewed in
its reviving energy, and among the handful of
pious believers, whose zeal is worthy of the primitive ages, it is cheering and consoling."  The refession of faith of the Savoyard vicar, at another it is
the cynical mocking of Voltairianism; but among
people who are upward of forty years of age, infidelity is the fierce and full representation of the irreligious and revolutionary movement of the eighteenth
century-an infidelity entirely French, that of Volney,
whose works are often found in our workshops; but
among those of a new generation, it is the pantheistic
mysticism of Lamennais, or of Pierre Leroux, arnd the
socialist materialism, which its skillf:l1 advocates cover
over with a kind of Gallo-Germanllism.'




SOCIETY.              201
rult of our own inquiries when in Switzerland
was to the same effect. To speak with indignity
of Christ crucified, and to exhibit him merely as
a good and great man, was lately no very uncommon thing with the Swiss teachers of theology in
public; and it may be stated that, some years
ago, the professor of divinity at Geneva published
an essay against original sin-the Trinitarian
system-and justification by faith, and that, too,
without a word of remonstrance from his University or ecclesiastical brethren. The latter excused
their silence by saying, that every man in their
Church had a right to entertain and publish his
own opinions. The men, on the other hand,
who, in the established Churches of Switzerland
are doing their divine Master's work by the simple
and earnest preaching of his word, and the ingathering of souls into his fold, are less known to
European fame; but their witness is above-their
record is on high. The doctrinal errors, the semiinfidelity, the absence of discipline and the want
of life in the old religious communities of Switzerland, some time ago awakened deep concern in
the minds of those with whom Christianity had
become more than a form. In Geneva especially
was this the case. The visits of pious foreigners
to that city, particularly Mr. Robert Haldane and.Mr. Henry Drummond, promoted the revival of




202            SWITZERLAND.
vital piety, which before their arrival had commenced, and they encouraged those whose spirits
had been touched by a holy zeal to stem the
progress of falsehood and corruption. In 1816,
an Anglican congregation was formed in Geneva
by the present bishop of Winchester, " and it became," says Mr. Burgess, " a city of refuge for
many who were deprived of the means of grace
in their own community."  In 1817, a formal
secession took place from the Genevese establishment, and a new religious community was formed
under M. Bost, M. Empeytaz, and Mr. Guers.
In 1819, through the preaching of the wellknown Caesar Malan, another secession took place,
but he still remained in the old Genevan Church.
At length he was expelled for his doctrinal teaching, and then, in 1823, he formed a distinct
Church on the Presbyterian plan, and erected a
chapel at Pr6 l'Eveque, one of the suburbs of
Geneva.  In the mean time, another congregation was formed; for, in 1819, M. Gaussen and
M. Cellerier, by a publication on the Helvetic
Confession, roused the displeasure of the venerable
company of pastors, as the ecclesiastical government was called-a circumstance which ended in
the suspension of the former from his clerical
functions. At the same time, M. Merle d'Aubigne and MI. Galland arrived in Geneva, who,




SOCIETY.               203
sympathizing with M. Gaussen, united with him
in the formation of the Socibte Evangelique de
Genevse, the most influential religious body now
in that city.  Their place of worship is the Oratoire, where the congregation is large, and the
gospel preached with earnestness and simplicity;
and connected with it is a theological school, of
which M. Merle d'Aubign6 and M. Gaussen are
professors.
The religious awakening at Geneva soon spread
over other cantons, and in 1824 evangelical
Churches were formed in the canton de Vaud,
and places extending to Neuchatel.  Laxity of
discipline in the national establishment was among
the chief causes of their secession, and the ecclesiastical organizations which have sprung out of
the proceeding have been remarkable for the
strictness of their rules respecting admission to
the Lord's table.  The purity of their doctrine
and the earnestness of their piety have been
equally conspicuous; and in some of the early
stages of their history, when they had to suffer
much for conscience' sake; there were afforded
among them beautiful examples of Christian constancy and heroism. Not only had they to suffer from unjust laws and tribunals, bhut popular
fury was let loose against them, and their houses
were attachled and their persons assailed with




204             SWITZERLAND.
cruel violence. B. Tuvet was banished, and from
exposure to cold, insult, and privation, from imprisonment and ruthless attacks by savage mobs,
hie became so enfeebled and diseased that life was
cut short, and in the prospect of his departure he
prayed for his persecutors, and said to Dr. Malan,
who asked him  whether he was happy in the
prospect of death, " I-ow can I do otherwise than
rejoice in the expectation of so soon beholding
Him who has so loved me?"  In 1847, a free
evangelical Church was established in the canton
de Vaud, adopting an organization which seenls
to blend together both Presbyterian and Congregational elements.  About forty societies have
adopted this constitution, and the whole number
of members reported in October, 1850, was three
thousand one hundred.
Other religious communities in Switzerland
have of late years appeared, of varied character,
including not only Independents, Baptists, and
Wesleyans, but congregations of the Plymouth
brethren, followers of the late Mr. Irving, and
persons holding what is called Lardonism, from a
minister of the name of Lardon, who, in endeavoring to adhere to apostolic usage, adopted some
curious peculiarities, such as refusing to shave,
and always sending letters by hand instead of
through the post.




SOCIETY.               205
In the national Churches, of late, there has
been an improvement. The clergy of the canton
de Vaud are now generally orthodox.  The same
may be said of the ministers of Neuchatel, where,
though more life is wanted in the pulpit, yet it
is pleasing to notice that extra meetings are held
for religious edification during the week, attended
in some cases by large congregations.  The weekly meeting in the town of Neuchhtel sometimes
numbers as many as five hundred persons.  In
several villages there are meetings, where missions
and other evangelical methods of usefulness are
brought before the people.*  Geneva, too, has
made some advance in the right direction.  The
company of pastors have dropped their old opposition to evangelical truth, and have become
active in promoting the better observance of the
Sabbath, in establishing deaconries to aid pastoral
work, and in instituting an evening service.  The
last accounts we have seen from  Geneva, and
which are so late as February 17, 1853, confirm what we have stated on the authority of
Professor Baup, and  even furnish  additional
* These notices are taken from the work before
quoted, published by the Alliance. The paper relates
only to French Switzerland. It gives by no means an
encouraging account of Berne, but mentions a zealous
and active pastor la-boring in Frihourg




206              SW'ITZERLAND.
grounds of hope.  A memoir has recently been
published by a student of the national academy
of Geneva, which presents a glowing report of the
present condition of the Genevese Church.  But
a writer in the "Christian Times," (March 4,
1853,) more moderately observes, in reference to
the subject:"'I joyfully  acknowledge that the Genevese
population are characterized by greater seriousness; that the present, and still less the past state
of things satisfies nobody; that the necessity is
felt of having positive doctrines; that greater
freedom is allowed in the choice of subjects for
the pulpit; that the conisistory and the company
of pastors make laudable efforts to remedy the
existing evil-to awaken life in their flocks; that
this latter body has divided itself into several
committees, which propose to' develop the knowledge of the religious life by various means;' that
they have established Sunday evening services;
that they have'regulated religious instruction;'
that they have laid down the rule' that the pastors shall henceforth undertake the instruction of
their catechumens;' that' religious literature' has
been enriched with several works, which give indications of improvement," etc. And lihe further
adds what, coming from  a person on the spot,
and one who evidently plos.esses a discrimninating




soCIE'r.               20 7
mind and a Christian judgment, is very encouraging:" I am, then, gratified to be able to agree with
the author of the Memoir," 1. That the number of serious Christians in
the national Church is dayly increasing, and that
they will at length make themselves heard, unless
they should be pressed into the ranks of dissent,
as was imprudently done in former cases.
" 2. That the clergy are endeavoring to awaken
and maintain a certain Christian activity, which
will grow in depth and in beneficial results, in
proportion as they occupy themselves less with
their own interests as a body, and more exclusively with those which relate to the Church of
Christ at large.
"3. That we must acknowledge all the good
they are instrumental in accomplishing, and regard it as the dawn of better days, praying with
all fervor that He who has commenced the good
work will finish it, for this he alone can do.
" 4. While cherishing the most sincere desire
for the realization of the hopes of our young
friend, the author of the Memoir, with respect to
this Church in travail, and which we all love, in
every direction prayer is ascending to Him who
holds the hearts of men in his hand, and turns
thenm as rivers of' crater, that the real Christians




208            SWITZERLAND.
who, in less auspicious days, took refuge in free
and dissenting Churches, may have their hearts
increasingly enlarged toward their brethren from
whom they are for a while separated; that they
may be drawn toward them by their common
affections and sympathies, and by the loving
evangelical spirit of the Master to whom they belong; that they may forget the past, with its unhappy associations; and that they may, without
hesitation, hold out the right hand of fellowship
to those whom they see embracing their convictions that there remains something to be achieved
in this respect; and that it should be remnembered that if, with some of their own number, the
truth which saves was revealed in a moment;
many-and indeed most-have had their eyes
opened to the light by degrees, and the truth has
only reached them' line upon line, and precept
upon precept.'"
With this imperfect notice of the religious con —
dition of some parts of Switzerland we must close
this volume. Art and society, certain developments of which we have described in this second
part of our work, afford illustrations of the presence and power in our world of the everlasting
God, and should inspire devout reflections in the
mind of the reader and the traveler. We look
through the intermediate agencies, voluntary




sOCiErcT.             209
though they be, which have fashioned the forms
of art, and have worked out the results of society,
to the recognition of Him who has given to man
the wisdom and the will to produce so much that
is fair, wonderful, and grand. We must confess
that in traveling, as we look on fine buildings, and
ramble through the streets of busy cities, and investigate ingenious contrivances, and inquire into
modes of government, and listen to various kinds
of human speech, we are deeply impressed with
the idea of a divine cause as the basis of the
busy working of human causes. The element of
conscious and free action only heightens our adoring wonder at the ways of Him who can make,
and preserve, and multiply a world full of agents,
such as human beings are. The crowds working
with thought and will, are still in the very act
of executing their own designs, subservient to the
accomplishment of the purpose of Him who created
them, and are among the wonderful manifestations of his power and glory. Subject as men
are to the government of the Most High, as having conscience, as being amenable to laws, and
as standing with the prospect of another world
before them, how clearly does religion appear to
be absolutely needful to give completeness to
their character, safety to their condition, and happiness to their future existence! As fallen and
14




210             SWITZERLAND.
degenerate beings, which observation and Scripture prove them to be, what but thc remedies
provided in the gospel can replace them in the
right relation to the Lord of the universe, and restore in their hearts the fealty and love they owe
to him? These remedies are all-suffcient. Man's
nature is corrupt; but the gospel reveals a scheme
for its renewal, through the regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit, fieely imparted to all
who aright seek them.  Is he exposed to the condemnation of a violated law, which demands a
perfect obedience? The gospel points to One
who has fulfilled that law, and who, having
wrought out a perfect righteousness, now calls on
men everywhere to repent, and to receive the remission of sins through faith in his blood? Are
man's affections depraved and selfish?  The gospel proclaims a mode in which they may be restored to their proper objects.  Justified by faith,
the soul has peace with God and joy in the Holy
Ghost, and walking in the path of holiness, is
renewed in the image of its Lord and Saviour.
Thus, delivered out of the state of confusion, contradiction, and falsehood, which results from sin,
the mind will take "fresh interest in art and
society, because these things will then be seen in
new and higher relations, and connected with
vaster and nobler issues."




SOCIETY.              211
But we cannot complete our volume on Switzerland without falling back upon thoughts of its
glorious scenery, which makes so much more
powerful an impression upon the traveler than
either its forms of art or its modifications of society. Perhaps no country in the world is so
crowded with objects beautiful and sublime. It
is not only here and there, but almost everywhere,
that one meets with something to arrest attention
and inspire delight; and the remembrance of the
whole, till the parts are arranged and grouped
into order by a careful patient memory, is full of
bewildering magnificence and glory.
The things that artists strive to paint and
poets love to praise-the emerald-paved valleys, and the wild-flowing streams, and the firmantled hills, and the diamond-dusted snows,
and the azure-tinted glaciers, and cloud-wrapped
lofty solitudes-all these, and many more, come
sweeping before the imagination  in glowing
vision, as one sits and muses over by-gone
rambles in that land of beauty, power, and
wonder.
And then over all is seen the shadow of that
Hand which molded the mountain, and scooped
out the channel of the river, and planted the
forest, and dappled with rich colors the field and
the meadow, the rock and the cloud.




212             SWITZERLAND.
And, moreover, images are left in the mind
"which exist not by themselves, but are sanctified by many a holy association."
The idea is well and forcibly expressed in the
following passage taken from  a work entitled
"Scenes in Other Lands, with their Associations," by John Stoughton:"They embody the ethereal; they give color
to the spiritual; they form the setting of precious
thoughts, which come not from nature, but from
the word of the Lord of nature.  Ours is a marvelous world in this respect as well as othersthat it is so framed as to become suggestive, illustrative, and monumental of the facts, and laws,
and principles of the spiritual universe. What
of divine truth is there that has been ever discerned by the reason of man, either as revealed
in the constitution of nature or on the pages of
the Bible, but it has found its symbol, type, and
picture in material things? The whole material
creation, if we may repeat what we have indicated before, is a sublime allegory. Earth, and
seas, and skies are covered with hieroglyphics.
The prophecies and songs of the Bible, the parables of our Lord Jesus Christ, point to this.
Many a valley and hill, many a rock, and how
many a flower and bud, once seen, remain to us
forever after a sign and note of a thought




SOCIETY.                 213
higher than itself, like the remembered vision
of the Cloud Bridge, which a poet has thus described:"
"Saw ye that cloud which arose in the west,
As the burning sun sank down to his restHow it spread so wide, and tower'd so high
O'er the molten gold of that glowing sky,
That it seem'd-O! it seem'd like some arched way,
As it beam'd and gleam'd in that glorious ray,
Where the spirit, freed
From its earthly weed,
And robed in the white
Of the saints in light,
Might pass from the waves of sin and woe,
To that world where ceaseless pleasures flow?
" Ye saw that cloud-how it tower'd alone,
Like an arched path o'er the billows thrown;
How its pillars of azure and purple stood,
And mock'd at the dash of the angry flood,
While it beam'd-O! it beam'd from its battlements
high,
As it gleam'd and stream'd in that western sky
Such a flood of mellow and golden light
As chain'd and fix'd the ravish'd sight,
And pour'd along our dark'ning way
The peace and joy of celestial day.
"Such, as we haste to our heavenly home,
Saviour! such be the sights that come,Thus, while the visions of time flit by,
And the fashion of earth grows dim to our eye,




214             SWITZERLAND.
Thus let the light-O! the light of thy love,
Beam bright on our sight from the mansions aboveRending the gloom
Which inwraps the tomb,
And guiding our eye
To that world on high
Where the people who love Thee forever shall share
The rest thou hast purchased, and gone to prepare."
THE END.




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