The territory of the Swiss Confederation had been increased by the Treaty of 1815; but this had by no means led to such a complete strengthening of Switzerland as the most patriotic Swiss would have desired. The aristocratic party had been restored in several of the cantons, and the customs duties on the frontiers of the separate cantons had been renewed. But what specially alarmed the Liberals of Switzerland was a clause, which the Papal Nuncio had introduced into the Treaty of Vienna, giving the monasteries of Switzerland an independent position. It must be remembered that the early struggles of the Swiss cantons against the House of Austria had been connected with the throwing off of the influence of the monks, who had been patronized by the Hapsburgs; and in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the combination of the Roman Catholic cantons had tended to strengthen the influence of foreign Powers in Switzerland, and in some cases had even endangered the unity of the Confederation. The extreme Roman Catholic party in Switzerland were, therefore, naturally inclined to oppose reform, and to weaken the Confederation. And after the July Monarchy of France had begun to show its Conservative tendencies, the Liberals of Switzerland began to fear that their reforms might be checked by outside influence. As early as the year 1831, Metternich, already alarmed at the Polish and Belgian risings, as well as at the movements in Italy and Germany, remarked that there was still another question to which the Cabinets must devote their attention, "the moral anarchy which reigns in Switzerland." And the expedition of Mazzini in 1833-4 increased the alarm of the Austrian Government. In the steady-going canton of Bern there was always an element of moderate Conservatism, which led the Government to shrink from sympathy with the insurrectionary plans of other parts of Europe; and they even called upon the other cantons to assist them in suppressing the revolutionary movement. But the sturdier Liberals of Zurich protested against this circular, and led the way in internal democratic changes, in which they were followed by several other cantons. Utterances like those of Metternich tended to draw the reformers together; and in March, 1832, while Metternich was no doubt meditating the Frankfort Decrees, which he carried out a few months later, the seven Liberal cantons formed a league in which they bound themselves to stand by each other in case of an attack on their freedom.