"What your interests require," said Napoleon, at this time, "is: 1. Equality of rights among the whole eighteen cantons. 2. A sincere and voluntary renunciation of all exclusive privileges on the part of patrician families. 3. A federative organization, where every canton may find itself arranged according to its language, its religion, its manners, and its interests. The central government remains to be provided for, but it is of much less consequence than the central organization. Situated on the summit of the mountains which separate France, Italy, and Germany, you participate in the disposition of all these countries. You have never maintained regular armies, nor had established, accredited agents at the courts of the different governments. Strict neutrality, a prosperous commerce, and family administration, can alone secure your interests, or be suited to your wishes. Every organization which could be established among you, hostile to the interests of France, would injure you in the most essential particulars." This was commending to them a federative organization similar to that of the United States, and _cautioning them against the evil of a centralization of power_. No impartial man can deny that the most profound wisdom marked the principles which Napoleon suggested to terminate the divisions with which the cantons of Switzerland had long been agitated. "These lenient conditions," says Alison, "gave universal satisfaction in Switzerland." The following extract from the noble speech which Napoleon pronounced on the formation of the constitution of the confederacy, will be read by many with surprise, by all with interest.