Having got so far, we are prepared for further inquiries, not unmixed with incredulity. It is hard for us to realise that a battle has been fought in Switzerland during the last fifty years. One can almost as easily imagine a battle in England as in that prosperous little country, which many of us look upon as almost an appendage to England, and associate with nothing more serious than holidays and hotels and mountain-rambles. The better-informed have heard of cantons, and probably think that they are something equivalent to English counties or French departments; while they suppose that the country called “Switzerland” has always been much where it is now, with the same frontier and the same territory. How many, we wonder, realise when they cross the well-known Gemmi Pass from Leukerbad to Kandersteg that they are passing from one sovereign State, with its own laws, into another, and that while the State into which they are going, Bern, has been part of the Confederation which is now called Switzerland for more than 500 years, the one which they are leaving, Valais, only became so at a date when Mr. Gladstone was already six years old? So it is, however, and men much younger than Mr. Gladstone can remember a time when Bern and Valais were actually at war with each other, just as, a few years later, Pennsylvania and Louisiana were at war. Happily, in the case of Switzerland the war was quickly finished, lasting hardly as many weeks as the greater conflict lasted years, and involving, as we shall see, a far smaller loss of life and property than many wars which have had far less important results. It is probably not too much to say that had the battle not been fought where it was, or had the issue been different, there would now be no Switzerland at all on the map of Europe. * * * * * Before describing the battle, we must give some account of the events which led to it. The years of peace which followed the battle of Waterloo, were by no means years of domestic tranquillity for most of the Continental States. The various absolute governments had been thoroughly frightened by the events of the French Revolution, and ruled more absolutely than ever. The rearrangement of Europe also, which followed the fall of Napoleon, had, in many cases, produced much discontent; and, in one way or another, every country was going through a critical period. Kings were driven from their thrones; men were constantly punished for the mere expression of their opinions; secret societies were formed, and assassinations were frequent.