The Cantons of Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus, and Appenzell declared that they would not accept the laws which had been forced upon them, and leagued together to resist. These refractory Cantons were overpowered and coerced, but so gallantly did they maintain their ground that the French general declared, “that every Swiss soldier fought like a Cæsar.” It was then ordained by the French that an oath of allegiance to the new government should be taken in every Canton. Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Zug refused obedience to this ordinance. It was forced upon them and upheld by a costly army, which practised intolerable exactions and haughty and insolent domination. Geneva at this time was annexed to France. Lavater styled this epoch “the first year of Swiss slavery.” The atrocities of the French invasion of Switzerland excited great indignation in Europe. All that tyranny the most oppressive, rapine the most insatiate, cruelty the most sanguinary, and lust the most unbridled, could inflict did that devoted country experience. The effect on the friends of freedom may be judged of from the following indignant lines of Coleridge, once an ardent supporter of the Revolution, in his “Ode to Freedom,” written in 1798: “Forgive me, Freedom! oh, forgive those dreams; I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, From bleak Helvetia’s icy cavern sent; I hear thy groans upon her blood-stain’d streams; Heroes, that for your peaceful country perish’d, And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain snows With bleeding wounds, forgive me that I cherish’d One thought that ever bless’d your cruel foes; To scatter rage and traitorous guilt, Where peace her jealous home had built; A patriot race to disinherit Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear.” When Switzerland became the battle-field of French and Austrian armies, by the treaty of Lunéville, between the Emperor of Austria and the French Republic, the independence of the Helvetic Republic, and the right of the people to adopt whatever form of government they pleased, were guaranteed; but the irreconcilable dissensions of the French and National Swiss parties prevented the adoption of any constitution generally acceptable to the people. The withdrawal of the French troops in 1802 led at once to a revolution in almost every Canton. Again Napoleon, First Consul of the French Republic, in contravention of the treaty, interfered, and subdued the movement. Forty thousand French troops took military occupation of Switzerland. Deputies were ordered to assemble at Paris, and after long discussion with them, Napoleon, on the 2d of February, 1803, transmitted to Switzerland what is known as the Act of Mediation, under which he assumed the title of “Mediator of Switzerland.” In some cases, what had been subject lands were incorporated into the league, and to the thirteen old Cantons six new ones were added,--St. Gallen, the Grisons, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, and Vaud.