the great council, composed of delegates from all the cantons, the conflicting opinions of parties caused an incessant wordy warfare. Out of doors the same parties abandoned parliamentary weapons, and asserted their discordant creeds with arms in their hands. New and old laws and regulations were perpetually coming in collision. While the state was often without the most indispensable means for its maintenance, and even for the daily pay of its functionaries, the French plenipotentiaries, leaders, and subalterns, rioted in shameless superfluities at the cost of the country, and sent to France the surplus of their plunder. The discontents of the people were considerably aggravated by the murmurs and manœuvres of the ci-devant authorities; of the monks who apprehended the abolition of all monasteries; of the priests who had suffered diminution of the stipends, and of the traders and artisans in the towns who no longer enjoyed the sweets of corporations and monopolies. They trusted to the approaching renewal of war between France and Austria, and prepared to support the emperor for the expulsion of the French. When the whole population was summoned, in July, 1798, to take the oath of allegiance to the newly formed constitution, disturbances and revolts took place in many districts.[c] FOOTNOTES [1] Ludwig Meyer. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. SWITZERLAND SINCE 1798 CHANGES OF CONSTITUTIONS AND ADMINISTRATIONS War with France was at length renewed by the emperor of Austria, and a division of his army entered the Grisons. A signal defeat sustained by the French troops near Stockach, in Swabia, the victorious advance of the Austrian army into Switzerland, and the removal of the seat of the Helvetic government from Lucerne to Bern, seemed to inspire the conflicting parties with renewed animation and fury. Swiss fought against Swiss under the banners of France and Austria; tumults and revolts took place on account of the French conscription or in favour of the Austrian invasion; battles were fought between foreign armies in the valleys, on the Alps, and on the banks of the lakes; and horse and man clambered over heights which had formerly been only known to the chamois hunter. The Grisons and the mountainous lands as far as the St. Gotthard were alternately won and lost by French and Germans. The victorious banners of Austria were carried on the left as far as Zurich and the St. Gotthard, on the right up to the banks of the Rhine, supported by the Russians under Suvarov. Switzerland had never sustained such desolating inroads since the times of the Romans, Alamanni, and Burgundians.