Indescribable misery was the consequence of the foreign wars, and it was intensified by the French occupation, and especially by the disgraceful system of spoliation practised by the French generals and agents, Mengaud, Lecarlier, Rapinat, &c. A few examples of the treatment Switzerland received at the hands of the French "liberators" may be given. Urserenthal, one of the Uri valleys, was called upon during the year Oct. 1798 to Oct. 1799, to provide food for a total of 861,700 men, and a pretty hamlet in Freiburg for twenty-five thousand, within half a year. During four months, Thurgau spent one and a half million francs, and the Baden district well-nigh five millions, in provisioning French troops within a year. All protestations of inability on the part of the inhabitants were useless; Rapinat[89] and others, like vampires, sucked the very life-blood out of the unfortunate Swiss. The "Helvetic Republic" had its noble side, it is true, but the French occupation, by which it was maintained, and which indeed was the outcome of it, caused the Helvetic scheme to be regarded by the people at large with disgust and hatred. The brightest side of the "Helvetic Republic" was seen in the remarkable efforts of noble patriots--foremost amongst them Rengger and Stapfer--to mitigate the effects of all these calamities by promoting, in spite of all difficulties, or against all odds of the time, the material and ideal interests of the people. Both Rengger and Stapfer were highly cultivated men, and both were ministers of state, the former holding the portfolio of finance, the latter that of arts and sciences. Rengger directed his efforts to the improvement of trade and agriculture; one of his practical efforts being the introduction of English cotton-spinning machines. Stapfer, on the other hand, worked for the spread of popular education. "Spiritual and intellectual freedom alone makes free," he maintained. He himself had been born in one of the new enfranchised subject lands, it may be noted parenthetically. He drew up a remarkable scheme of national education, a scheme embracing the child in the primary school, and the young man in the National University. This dream of a national university, by the way, is still unrealized,[90] but Stapfer intended that it should crown his whole system of national education, and should combine German depth with French versatility and Italian taste. Most of Stapfer's grand scheme remained untried through want of means and time, but it was a very remarkable scheme for that day. Yet much was done. Numerous schools sprang up, and every canton had its educational council and its inspector of schools. Lucerne, which had hitherto been quite behindhand in these matters, now founded schools in all its communes (by 1801), and Aarau established a gymnasium. Some four thousand children from the wasted and ruined country districts were brought into the towns and educated; whilst numerous journals were