Within Berne itself, tranquillity was with difficulty preserved by Steiger, the venerable mayor, a man of extreme firmness of character. A French force under Brune had already overrun Vaud, which, under pretext of being delivered from oppression, was laid under a heavy contribution; the ancient charnel-house at Murten was also destroyed, because the French had formerly been beaten on this spot by the Germans. But few of the Swiss marched to the aid of Berne; two hundred of the people of Uri, arrayed in the armor of their ancestors, some of the peasantry of Glarus, St. Gall, and Freiburg.[10] A second French force under Schauenburg entered Switzerland by Basel, defeated the small troops of Bernese sent to oppose it at Dornach and Langnau, and took Solothurn, where it liberated one hundred and eighty self-styled patriots imprisoned in that place. The patriots, at this conjuncture, also rose in open insurrection in Berne, threw everything into confusion, deposed the old council, formed a provisional government, and checked all the preparations for defence. The brave peasantry, basely betrayed by the cities, were roused to fury. Colonels Ryhiner, Stettler, Crusy, and Goumores were murdered by them upon mere suspicion (their innocence was afterward proved), and boldly following their leader, Grafenried, against the French, they defeated and repulsed the whole of Brune's army and captured eighteen guns at the bridge of Neuenegg. But a smaller Bernese corps, which, under Steiger, the mayor, opposed the army of Schauenburg in the _Grauen Holz_, was routed after a bloody struggle, and, before Erlach, the newly- nominated generalissimo, could hurry back to Berne with the victors of Neuenegg, the patriots, who had long been in the pay of France, threw wide the gates to Schauenburg. All was now lost. Erlach fled to Thun, in order to place himself at the head of the people of the Oberland, who descended in thick masses from the mountains; but, on his addressing the brave Senn peasantry in French, according to the malpractice of the Bernese, they mistook him for a French spy and struck him dead in his carriage. The loss of Berne greatly dispirited them and they desisted from further and futile opposition. Steiger escaped. Hotze, a gallant Austrian general, who, mindful of his Swiss origin, had attempted to place himself at the head of his countrymen, was compelled to retrace his steps. In Berne, the French meanwhile pillaged the treasures of the republic.[11] Besides the treasury and the arsenal, estimated at twenty-nine million livres, they levied a contribution of sixteen million. Bruno planted a tree of liberty, and Frisching, the president of the provisional government, had the folly to say, "Here it stands! may it bear good fruit! Amen!"