When the throne of Napoleon sank under the power of the allies, the public-spirited part of the Swiss nation fondly imagined that the hour was come in which their country’s honour and independence might be established on a firmer footing than ever. To preserve the benefits gained to the land by his act of mediation was the wish of a large majority of the people. If the Swiss had sometimes felt, along with others, the iron arm of that formidable despot (who had, however, spared them more than any neighbouring population), yet his gift of a constitution had become deservedly dear to them. It had dried up innumerable sources of discord. Under it a fellow-feeling, never before experienced, had been diffused in the same degree as individual pride had been humbled. The cessation of a state of subjection, wherever it had before existed, had decupled the number of confederates, and all restraints on free communication betwixt one canton and another had been removed. The cantons sent their contingents for the protection of the frontiers, voted extraordinary imposts for their maintenance, and a diet was assembled at Zurich with unanimous instructions from its constituents. This body declared with one voice its resolution “to observe a conscientious and impartial neutrality with regard to all the high belligerent powers,” expressing, at the same time, its full anticipation that “the same would be acknowledged upon their part.” It addressed itself as follows to the confederates: “The great and only end of all our endeavours is to maintain this neutrality by every means in our power; to protect our country’s freedom and independence; to preserve its soil inviolate, and to defend its constitution.” The senate of Bern expressed itself as follows: “Our object is to guard the pacific borders of our country inviolate from the march of foreign armies; we are unanimously resolved, however, at all events, to maintain tranquillity, order, and security in our canton by all the means which stand in our power.” Such was the general sense of the Swiss people. Not such, however, was the sense of the great families in the once dominant towns of the confederation. Many of these wished to see their country invaded by foreign armies, by aid of which they hoped to restore the old league of the thirteen cantons, with all its hated appendages of sovereignty and servitude, which had vanished from the face of the land in 1798.