Yet all was not smooth in the little Swiss state. Switzerland was compelled not only to enter into a close defensive alliance with France, but to keep the French army constantly supplied with sixteen thousand Swiss soldiers. So great was the drain of this "blood-tax," that in some cantons even the prisons had to be opened to enable the levy to be made up. Switzerland was made an _entrepôt_ for English contraband goods; and the decree of Trianon, in 1810, ordered the confiscation of these, and placed a tax on English goods of half their value. All this weighed heavily on Switzerland, and the Landammann's touching representation to Napoleon, that twenty thousand families were rapidly becoming breadless, passed unheeded. In 1806 the despot gave Neuchâtel to his favourite general, Berthier, and in 1810 he handed over Ticino to Italy, on the pretext that that district was harbouring English contraband goods. The same year he joined to France the Valais district, where he had a few years earlier (1802) constructed the famous Simplon road into Italy. The Swiss naturally protested against these mutilations, but he threatened to annex the whole country, and D'Affry and Reinhard, who stood in favour with him, had much ado to calm his temper. When, however, the impetuous Sidler, of Zug, and the heroic Reding, defied him, and advised an armed resistance at the Diet, Napoleon sent word to Reinhard that he would march fifty thousand men into the country, and compel the Swiss to unite with France. But the tide was beginning to turn; Napoleon had passed his zenith. The fatal Russian expedition, into which his pride and reckless ambition tempted him in 1812, was followed by the terrible disaster of Leipsic, "the battle of the nations." The allied armies marched to Paris, and compelled the abdication of the emperor. This turn of events naturally affected the position of the Swiss very greatly, but, quite content with their new constitution, they declined to join the allied states. At the command of the Landammann, Von Reinhard, General von Wattenwil placed his scanty forces, numbering some fifteen thousand men, along the frontier to enforce neutrality if possible. But on the approach of the allied forces Wattenwil saw that resistance would be madness, and gave orders to his men to withdraw, and be careful not to provoke hostilities. About Christmas time in 1813, the combined Austrian and German troops--Alexander was for sparing the Swiss--to the number of one hundred and seventy thousand, marched right across the country on their way to the French capital. On the whole little material injury was done to the country, but the Mediation Act, by the very reason of its origin, was bound to fall. On the 29th of December the Diet was compelled to decree its own extinction. The Peace of Paris, on the 31st of May in the following year, guaranteed Switzerland its independence. A new constitution was to come later on.