victorious over the masses of peasantry, but a body of three or four thousand French, which had penetrated further down the vale, was picked off by the peasantry concealed in the woods and behind the rocks. A rifleman, stationed upon a projecting rock, shot more than a hundred of the enemy one after another, his wife and children, meanwhile, loading his guns. Both of the French corps coalesced at Stanz, but met with such obstinate resistance from the old men, women and girls left there, that, after butchering four hundred of them, they set the place in flames.[12] The sturdy mountaineers, although numerically weak, proved themselves worthy of their ancient fame.--The four _Waldstätte_ were thrown into one canton, Waldstätten; Glarus and Toggenburg into another, Linth; Appenzell and St. Gall into that of Säntis. The old Italian prefectures, with the exception of the Valtelline, were formed into two cantons, Lugano and Bellinzona (afterward the canton of Tessin). The canton of Vaud also finally acceded to this arrangement, but was shortly afterward, as well as the former bishopric of Basel, Pruntrut,[13] and the city and republic of Genoa, incorporated with France. The levy of eighteen thousand men (the Helvetlers, Galloschwyzers or eighteen batzmen) for the service of the Helvetian republic occasioned fresh disturbances in the beginning of 1799. The opposition was so great that the recruits were carried in chains to Berne. The Bernese Oberland, the peasantry of Basel, Solothurn, Toggenburg, Appenzell, and Glarus rose in open insurrection, but were again reduced to submission by the military. The spirit of the mountaineers was, however, less easily tamed. In April, 1799, the people of Schwyz took four hundred French prisoners; those of Uri, under their leader, Vincenz Schmid, stormed and burned Altorf, the seat of the French and their adherents; those of Valais, under the youthful Count Courten, drove the French from their valleys, and those of the Grisons surprised and cut to pieces a French squadron at Dissentis. General Soult took the field with a strong force against them in May and reduced them one after the other, but with great loss on his side, to submission. Twelve hundred French fell in Valais, which was completely laid waste by fire and sword; in Uri, stones and rocks were hurled upon them by the infuriated peasantry as they defiled through the narrow gorges; Schmid was, however, taken and shot; Schwyz was also reduced to obedience; in the Grisons, upward of a thousand French fell in a bloody engagement at Coire, and the magnificent monastery of Dissentis was, in revenge, burned to the ground. The beautiful Bergland was reduced to an indescribable state of misery. The villages lay in ashes; the people, who had escaped the general massacre, fell victims to famine. In this extremity, Zschokke, at that time Helvetic governor of the Waldstatte, proposed the complete expulsion of the