while accepting the enthusiastic welcome offered by Basel and Vaud, he declined altogether to respond to that of Bern and Solothurn. Peter Ochs enjoyed Napoleon's full confidence, and was by him summoned to Paris, and charged with the drafting of a new constitution for Switzerland, on the lines of the Directory. La Harpe and Ochs thus worked towards the same end, though the motives of the two men differed greatly. [Illustration: LA HARPE.] Vaud hailed with delight the French Revolution, and celebrated the fall of Bastille in the most ostentatious manner; Bern, on the other hand, looked with dismay on the march of events, and, in Jan. 1798, sent Colonel Weiss with troops into the province. France replied by immediately sending men to occupy the southern shore of Lake Geneva. This was done at the request of the Helvetic Club, which gave as a pretext an old treaty of 1564, by which France guaranteed her support to Vaud. In vain did Weiss issue manifestoes; Bern was irresolute, and Vaud, feeling herself safe under the ægis of France, proclaimed the establishment of the "Lemanic Republic," with the seat of government at Lausanne (Jan. 24, 1798). A simple accident which resulted in the death of a couple of French soldiers was by their general magnified into an _attentât_ of the "Bernese tyrants" against a "great nation." The French troops marched on Weiss, ousted him without the necessity of striking a blow, and then charged Vaud with a sum of £28,000 for services rendered. Such proceedings struck terror into the hearts of the Swiss, and many of the cantons--Basel, Schaffhausen, Lucerne, &c.--set about reforming their governments. With matters at this pass the Diet ordered that the national federal oath should be sworn to, a proceeding which had been neglected for three hundred years. But this pretence of unity was a mere sham, as indeed were all these hasty attempts at reform. They failed to avert the coming storm, as the rulers failed to read aright the signs of the times. The Tagsatzung distracted and helpless dissolved on Feb. 1st.