force was defeated at Avenches by the Federalists, who pushed on to the Leman city, when an order to lay down their arms reached them from Paris. Through the medium of General Rapp, Napoleon offered his services as "mediator" in the civil troubles of Switzerland, and at his heels followed Marshal Ney, with an army of forty thousand men to enforce order. FOOTNOTES: [86] The utter failure clearly shows how little such a centralization of government, leaving the cantons no scope for action, could suit the separate states of the Confederation at any time. The name "canton" was first used in French treaties with Switzerland, and became thenceforward the general term. It had not come into use even so late as the Helvetic. [87] He was a native of a large village in the Zurich district. [88] He lingered on suffering from his wound for a whole year, and then died, distinguished to the very last by his love for all mankind, and for his country especially. [89] The following lines, common in men's mouths afterwards, tell their own tale:-- "La Suisse qu'on pille et qu'on ruine Voudrait bien que l'on decidât Si Rapinat vient de rapine, Ou rapine de Rapinat." [90] And not very likely to be realized, as the respective cantons cling to their four universities and two academies, which are their pride. [91] In German, _Centralisten_ or _Unitarier_. XXXI. THE MEDIATION ACT AND NAPOLEON. (1803-15.) From a constitutional point of view this period--the mediation period (1803-13)--is the most satisfactory portion of the epoch between the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830. It suited Napoleon's fancy to assume the position of a directing providence to the Alpine lands. And, finding that the federalists and the centralists of Switzerland--the _laudatores temporis acti_ and the progressivists--were quite unable to agree upon a compromise, it pleased him to give the country a new constitution. He stopped their squabbles by summoning the "Helvetic Consulta" to Paris. Sixty-three deputies, of whom but fifteen were federalists, obeyed the call, many of the foremost statesmen among them. Those who disobeyed the summons, like Reding and his party, were arrested (Nov., 1803). In the official gazette Napoleon was pleased to speak of the Swiss nation as one that had "always stood out in history as a model of strength, courage, and good manners," and he expressed a wish that the Swiss should "aim at good government, and should sacrifice their party feelings to their real interests, to glory, and independence." Thus complimentary was his language, and the painstaking care and thoughtful consideration he brought to bear on the reorganization of Swiss affairs presents the great despot under a singularly amiable aspect; and the Mediation Act which he drew up would, but for the selfish _arrière pensée_ running through it, be one of his noblest and most beneficent political acts.