The sympathies of Metternich and of all the absolute Courts were necessarily on the side of the _Sonderbund_.[919] The continental Cabinets were agreed that it would be highly dangerous, in the unsettled state of Europe, to allow the league of the Catholic and Conservative Cantons to be dissolved by their Radical neighbours. Federal unity, Metternich maintained, was clearly the object for which the democrats were striving, and it was on that account that they desired to undermine cantonal independence. But any revision of the _Federal Pact_ would, he argued, release from their engagements the Powers which had guaranteed the neutrality and independence of Switzerland, and would justify them in intervening. Louis Philippe and M. Guizot, although fully disposed to endorse his views, dared not venture to employ French troops to fight the battle of the Jesuits. They, accordingly, insinuated that, if Austria were to take the first step, public opinion in France might be reconciled to the notion of a French intervention. This ingenuous proposal was promptly declined. Metternich had no idea of incurring the odium of invading Switzerland and of allowing France to declare that similar action on her part had been rendered necessary by the aggressiveness of Austria.[920] Thus in Swiss, as in Italian affairs, M. Guizot and Prince Metternich, notwithstanding the harmony of their sentiments, found it impossible to devise any practical plan for concerted action. England, as a party to the settlement of 1815, had an unquestionable right to be consulted in any arrangement tending to alter the political position of Switzerland in the European system. But, owing to her geographical situation, she was less directly concerned than France, Austria or Prussia in the internal condition of the Confederation. The British government was, consequently, in a position to regard the question from a more detached and impartial standpoint. Moreover, the letters of Mr. Grote,[921] the historian of Greece, to the _Spectator_, supplied the English public with far better information about Swiss politics than was to be obtained in the official press of continental States. Palmerston had no intention of discussing the questions as to whether the alliance of the Catholic Cantons should be looked upon as an infraction of the _Federal Pact_, and as to whether the action of the Radical majority in the Diet, in decreeing the expulsion of the Jesuits, constituted a violation of cantonal sovereignty and independence. It is clear that, from an early date, he adopted the view, propounded by Mr. Grote, that, whereas the so-called Radical Cantons represented the wealth, the intelligence, the industry, the population and the progressive elements of Switzerland, the Cantons of the _Sonderbund_ were, in every respect, the stationary and backward portions of the Republic. From these premises it followed logically that, although it might be possible