The religious strife of Villmergen in 1656, which ended in the defeat of the Protestants, cannot be gone into here. Suffice it to note that this defeat was fully repaired by the second war of that name in 1712. A more important matter was the Peasants' Revolt, in 1653. It promised to grow to alarming dimensions, but was put down by the Government. This rising, however, is noteworthy, as marking the vast chasm which had formed between the labouring and the governing classes. The peasantry were now in a state of complete subjection, and patiently awaited the dawn of a brighter day, which nevertheless came only with the French Revolution. What they claimed was the restoration of their old liberties, relief from the excessive taxation, and the general improvement of their material interests. But many of the governing classes, councillors, _landvögte_, and others, had served abroad at foreign courts, and had drunk in the spirit of absolutism, and were as much imbued as any James I. or Louis XIV. with notions as to the "divine right" of the privileged classes to govern. They claimed seats on the administration as a right. From their superior positions they looked down on the labouring classes, and had little or no sympathy with them. Except in name the Swiss cantons were as absolutely governed by aristocracies as France was by Louis XIV. Nothing is more ludicrous, or more clearly shows the affectations and narrow pedantries of the age, than the childish delight in long or high-flown titles, by which the Swiss "regents," as they were called, were wont to address each other, and be addressed even by foreigners. "Leurs excellences," "noble-born," and so forth, were as common amongst Swiss republicans as in any monarchy.[72] Nor were they behindhand in the adoption of court fashions, wigs, frills, and the like; whilst they hunted eagerly for patents of nobility, and placed the "von" so unblushingly before their names that the higher classes, and really well-born for the most part dropped it for a time.