Events now began to move rapidly. In May, 1844, fighting took place in Valais, not far from the spot where tourists now go to see the “Gorge of the Trient,” and the Liberals, who had been in power until the previous year, were driven out, not without bloodshed; the leaders only escaping by swimming the Rhone. About the same time Lucerne called in the Jesuits to direct education in the canton. There has always been in Switzerland a good deal of suspicion of this order, who have been, rightly or wrongly, believed to exercise a considerable underhand influence in politics; indeed, the recent conflict in Valais was thought to have been instigated by them; and though they already had a footing in some cantons, their introduction into what was at this time the leading State of the Federation was viewed with alarm, even by many Catholics and Conservatives; while it grievously offended all the cantons in which there was a Liberal majority. Matters were not improved when the Lucerne Government seized and imprisoned its leading opponents. In the following winter and spring armed bands of irresponsible volunteers from Aargau, Bern, and other cantons, with some exiles from Lucerne, made attempts to invade that State. In the second and more serious of these 3,600 men, under Colonel Ochsenbein (who, a year or two later, was President of the Diet), succeeded, on March 31st, 1845, in getting within a few miles of the city of Lucerne, but were beaten back by the cantonal troops, with a loss of 140 killed and 1,800 prisoners. Herein they got no more than they deserved; but the Lucerne Government put itself in the wrong by the extreme severity, amounting to a Reign of Terror, with which it now proceeded to treat its opponents, and by the undisguised manner in which it promoted the organisation of the separate league. The Government also began to intrigue with foreign powers, especially France and Austria, obtaining arms from the former and money from the latter. Three thousand muskets with ammunition which the Austrians attempted to forward from Milan, were impounded by the authorities of Canton Ticino; and so audacious were the Lucerne Government grown, that they actually complained of this as a violation of State rights.