Enlightenment and liberal opinions spread also gradually over Switzerland, and twenty years after Henzi's melancholy death, a disposition was again shown to oppose the tyranny of the oligarchies. In 1792, Lavater and Fuszli were banished Zurich for venturing to complain of the arbitrary conduct of one of the provincial governors;[4] in 1779, a curate named Waser, a man of talent and a foe to the aristocracy, was beheaded on a false charge of falsifying the archives;[5] in 1794, the oppressed peasantry of Lucerne revolted against the aristocracy; in the same year, the peasantry in Schwyz, roused by the insolence of the French recruiting officers, revolted, and, in the public provincial assembly, enforced the recall of all the people of Schwyz in the French service, besides imposing a heavy fine upon General Reding on his return. In 1781, a revolt of the Freiburg peasantry, occasioned by the tyranny of the aristocracy, was quelled with the aid of Berne; in 1784, Suter, the noble-spirited _Landammann_ of Appenzell, fell a sacrifice to envy. His mental and moral superiority to the rest of his countrymen inspired his rival, Geiger, with the most deadly hatred, and he persecuted him with the utmost rancor. He was accused of being a freethinker; documents and protocols were falsified; the stupid populace was excited against him, and, after having been exposed on the pillory, publicly whipped, and tortured on the rack, he was beheaded, and all intercession on his behalf was prohibited under pain of death. Solothurn, on the other hand, was freed from feudal servitude in 1785. The popular feeling at that time prevalent throughout Switzerland was, however, of far greater import than these petty events. The oligarchies had everywhere suppressed public opinion; the long peace had slackened the martial ardor of the people; the ridiculous affectation of ancient heroic language brought into vogue by John Muller rendered the contrast yet more striking, and, on the outburst of the French Revolution, the tyrannized Swiss peasantry naturally threw themselves into the arms of the French, the aristocracy into those of the Austrians.