Although only the son of a hotel keeper, without instruction in the classics, but gifted with prompt and pleasing intelligence, he presented himself unembarrassed before an assembly wherein the heads of the two parties dividing Switzerland were sitting, and at which the majority of ministers from foreign powers assisted. Frankness characterised his discourse. Foreseeing a European crisis--“Our modern world,” said he, “rests on worm-eaten columns, on institutions that have for support only the powers of habit and interests, a construction that the slightest storm will make a ruin. Well, this storm approaches; the colossus is quite aware of it. He sleeps a dangerous sleep.” Descending from these heights to questions of the moment, the president of the diet proclaimed the right of the majority, whom Switzerland had always recognised. When this majority had been declared, he courteously invited all the cantons to join with it. Callame, a Neuchâtel deputy, exposed in language firm and untouched by passion the gravity of events that had given place to a separate alliance, and demanded that they should leave those who had concluded it the time to convince themselves that it was no longer necessary. In reality, the vote of the majority meant a declaration of war. The diet adjourned so as to give the parties time either to unite or to finish their preparations for hostilities. It reassembled on the 18th of October. Two delegates, envoys of peace, were sent from each of the Sonderbund cantons, but they met with scant welcome: one-half wanted war. _Colonel Dufour is Made Commander of the Army_ On the 29th of October the deputies from the seven cantons left Bern, and on the 4th of November it was decided that the decree ordering the dissolution of their alliance should be executed by arms. The diet put on foot fifty thousand men, and entrusted the command, with the rank of general, to Colonel Dufour, of Geneva. No name in the army was more respected, none had more weight. Dufour did not belong to either side. In sympathy he was conservative, but was none the less a man of progress. He had been in the wars and published writings on military science, fruits of a long and wide experience. No chief knew as he did the canton militia, over whose manœuvres he had for a number of years presided in the camp at Thun, as chief instructor of the engineering corps. To these warlike qualities he united the virtues of a man of peace. He was occupied in the elaboration, on a plan he had conceived, of the fine map of Switzerland which bears his name, when he was called to quit the pursuits of the student for the field of battle. He comprehended the danger to his country. He clearly perceived his duty, and he thought only of accomplishing it.