The Model Republic. A history of the rise and progress of the Swiss people

Front matter

NOTICE. H. S. Nichols & Co. respectfully beg. to call the attention of purchasers to the fact that all Books issued by them are intended to be sold at the net advertised prices without' deduction, and that they are supplied to Booksellers' on terms which will not allow of any discount being given by them to the public. HISTORY OF THE SWISS PEOPLE a /://y/v/»vv/ esftrmttul in n*ltntr.s hv fP.J:. t h.. I'/i/istfi'/t , Edinburgh <!■ London, THE MODEL REPUBLIC A HISTORY OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE SWISS PEOPLE BY F. GRENFELL BAKER LONDON H. S. NICHOLS & CO. 3 SOHO SQUARE and 62A PICCADILLY W 1895 All rights reserved Printed and Published by H. S. NICHOLS AND CO., 3, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. IN LOVING AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S To whose advice " The Model Republic " owes its origin, and by whose help and encouragement during three years of close companionship it was completed, the author dedicates this volume.

When Richard Burton, by right of his life's record. entered the Valhalla of the heroic dead, the age lost one of its foremost scholars, linguists, explorers, scientists, and poets ; it lost a high-minded gentleman, an honourable and gallant man. The United Kingdom was honoured by being his birth-land ; the best and bravest of all countries claimed him as a compatriot. CONTENTS PAGE Prehistoric Period , i Early Inhabitants of Helvetia and Rhætia 15 Helvetia under the Romans .... 3° The Allemanni and Btjrgundians 43 Switzerland under the Franks 52 The Incorporation of Switzerland into the German- Empire 72 Switzerland a Part of the German Empire . 84 Foundation of the Swiss Confederation . Ir9 Growth of the Confederation and Wars with Austria 148 Civil Wars and Political Changes of the Confederation of the Eight States 174 The Burgundian, German and French Wars . ig6 Causes of the Reformation 222 The Reformation and its Leaders ..... 238 The Reformation in the French-speaking Divisions of Switzerland ......... 260 The Catholic Reaction and the Overthrow of the Old Confederation ....... 286 The Graubunden or Gkisons 299 Civil and Religious Wars 326 Switzerland's General Condition before the French Invasion, between 1715 and 1798 355 The Swiss Revolution 383 The Helvetic Republic 421 Switzerland under the Act of Mediation 443 Restoration of the Federal Pact 462 Democratic Reaction 474 Switzerland of To-day

Chapter I

prehistoric period Although no historical records exist earlier than about a century before the Christian era regarding the people of Switzerland, yet the vast stores of long-hidden material brought to light in recent years through the patient researches of native and foreign archæologists, afford ample evidence that at very remote periods the country contained numerous inhabitants. So complete, indeed, are the sources of information, that we are now able to determine the social and domestic habits of the ancient Swiss, and to form a fairly accurate idea of the progress of civilisation made by them long before classical writers brought them on the pages of au thentic history. To Ferdinand Keller, of Zurich, belongs the great honour of being the first to investigate thoroughly, and arrange systematically the materials bearing on this important and interesting subject.

His attention was I Lake Dwellings. directed to the possibility of the existence, at some remote epoch of the world's being, of a large population occupying the Swiss valleys, by finding scattered in great quantities over the country what were evidently man-made implements of domestic toil, and manu factured weapons of war and the chase, none of which were known to be in use during historic times. Many of these possessed the peculiarity of being fashioned out of stone instead of metal, and were evidently primi tive prototypes of articles used within historic periods. During the exceptional dry seasons of 1853-4 the water of Lake Zurich receded to a very unusual extent. It was then noticed, at a spot close to the town of Ober meilen, that a number of half-decayed wooden posts studded the Lake bottom.

On removing several of these they were found to be roughly sharpened at their buried ends, as if by scraping or burning, and to be supported by masses of clay, stone and bundles of wood. Amidst the latter were discovered a quantity of stone implements like those already found inland. Shortly afterwards similar collections were met with at many places in the other Swiss lakes, and a sufficient number of relics were brought to light to demonstrate conclusively the previous existence of large villages, built entirely of wood and supported on piles, at short distances from the shore. Thousands of examples of the actual articles used by the dwellers in these primitive artificially-constructed villages, as well as portions of almost every part of their houses, have been recovered by Keller, and the many investigators who followed in his steps.

From the results of their labours, it is probable that the following represents the chief general appearance and condition of one of these lake-dwellings as it existed many hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. A spot being chosen in some lake where the water was fairly shallow at a short distance from the shore, a number of straight tree-trunks were cut or burned down from the neighbouring forest, which, after being sharpened at one extremity, were then firmly driven into the lake-floor, leaving the projecting ends several feet above the water. Where the bed was soft and muddy greater support was afforded to the piles by placing masses of wood, stone and clay around and between them. The materials were carried in canoes fashioned from the trunks of thick trees, similar to those employed by savages at the present day, that are known as monozyles or dug-outs, and measuring in some instances as much as 40 feet in length by 1 1 feet in breadth, of which several specimens are still preserved in the various Swiss museums.

On the tops of the projecting supports a platform was next built of stout transverse beams, either dove tailed into the substructure, or pinned on to it by wooden pegs, though in some few cases the whole platform-support was made up of fascines, stones and clay, with occasional stakes to afford greater security. Upon the platform thus made the huts were constructed, being built of rough planks or stems, having the inter stices filled with branches and clay, the latter being also spread in a thick layer over the floor. These huts were mostly quadrilateral in shape, divided into two rooms, and clustered closely together, averaging about 23 feet by 17 feet in size ; others were circular, and it is uncertain whether they had windows or whether the door was the only aperture for admitting light.

A trap in the 1 — HISTIJORY OF THE SWISS PEOPLE floor communicated with the lake, and through this the general refuse of the abode was cast. The roofs consisted of thatch composed of rushes, leaves and straw. Communication with the shore in the great majority of the villages was maintained by means of a long, narrow bridge, supported in the same manner as the platforms, and in some instances sheds were erected close to the huts for the cattle and sheep, though these were usually left on the shore. From the nature of the relics found amid the debris on the sites of these ancient lacustrine settlements, it would seem that the huts contained all the necessary accommodation for a family, with the needful cooking and other domestic utensils for lessening labour, and subjugating and utilising nature's products.

Every village had its mill to grind the corn and other cereals that were largely grown on the neighbouring land, where also the sheep and cattle were pastured. Weavers' looms and spinning-wheels were largely used, and skins, linen and woollen fabrics prepared for clothing by the women ; whilst the men fished, hunted, or hoed their fields. The lake-dwellers lived an isolated existence, having little or no communication with the outside world till a much later period, when we see bronze and iron introduced amongst them. The finding of relics made of these latter metals marks distinctly a great advance in general culture, as also in time ; they must have been brought from countries other than Switzer land, she herself being singularly barren in iron, copper and tin. Many of the settlements were evidently of great extent, occupying sites equal in area to five or six English acres, and requiring as many as 100,000 piles for their support.

That on the Lake of Bienne covers a space equal to more than six English acres ; that at Robenhausen is of equal size, and is calculated to con tain 100,000 piles ; whilst opposite the little town of Morges, on Lake Leman, one existed measuring 1,200 feet by 150 feet. Other large settlements were erected in various parts of Lake Leman (where the remains of twenty-four distinct villages are seen), and in the lakes of Neuchatel, Zurich and Constanz, as well as in the smaller sheets of water. In Lake Constanz thirty-two, and spread over that of Neuchatel more than fifty, have been found. The reason for building these water habitations has been much disputed, but there can be little doubt that it was in order to afford the inhabitants greater protection against the vast numbers of savage animals that tenanted the forests which, in those early times, covered the greater part of the country, as well as a defence against incursions of neighbouring hostile tribes.

It is impossible from existing evidence to speak with any degree of certainty as to the antiquity of the earlier stations ; but, from the difference in quality of the materials used in the manufacture of the relics, and the improved and more artistic fashion of those evidently belonging to a later date, we arrive at a division into three successive epochs. These correspond with the ages when stone, bronze, or iron formed the chief material in use. This division is practically useful, and gives, moreover, a general idea of the length of time that must have elapsed since that far distant date when primæval man was little, if at all, removed in intellectual development from the higher forms of brute beasts. " When man wandered in the dark forests, he was nature's serf ; he offered tribute and prayer to the winds, and the lightning and the rain, to the cave-lion, which.seized his burrow for its lair, to the mammoth, which devoured his scanty crops.

But as time passed on he ventured to rebel ; he made stone his servant ; he discovered fire and vegetable poison ; he domesticated iron ; he slew the wild beasts, or subdued them ; he made them feed him and give him clothes.1 The trees of the forest were his flock, he slaughtered them at his con venience, the earth brought forth at his command." — (" Martyrdom of Man.") In some of the village debris all the relics found are fashioned entirely of stone, bone, or horn ; in others, in i This division into Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages is, of course, purely arbitrary (each age must have merged by slow degrees into the succeeding one) ; but from our present knowledge it is impossible to be more scientifically exact, though many authorities have attempted to be so. Before the introduction of the general use of stone, there certainly existed a period when primæval man did not possess the slight knowledge the fashioning of this material involved, and when his only weapons were sticks, and half-fashioned pieces of wood and horn.

In some countries, where stone is scarce or hard to procure, as in the more remote regions of Greenland, the natives still employ wood and bone to make their weapons and domestic utensils, sharpening and fashioning them by burning or boiling, and the great manual dexterity they possess. Numerous fragments of nets used by prehistoric man have been found in the remains in the Swiss lakes, many being made with very large meshes, often two inches or more square. From this circumstance it has been conjectured that they were manufactured at a time when the fish in the various lakes were abnormally large. As, however, the Swiss lakes contain quantities of large fish, as the ferras, this hypothesis falls to the ground. A theory accounting for the long preservation of these nets in the water has been propounded, which, if not true, is at all events ingenious.

As most of the lacustrine villages were built of pine wood, and nearly all perished by fire, it is thought that the heat of the several conflagrations caused the pine resin to exude, and this, falling into the water, covered portions of nets, and so preserved them. Stone Age addition to those materials, bronze is present ; whilst in a third set iron appears to have almost entirely superseded both stone and bronze. In the latter period the nature and form of many of the articles show their manufacture to be contemporaneous with that of the Roman era, but doubtless iron was used by the primi tive Swiss many centuries before Rome extended her influence beyond the Alps. Though the materials at different periods are thus found to be different, no differ ence is apparent in the construction of the dwellings themselves, which have been built practically in the same manner through countless ages.

This early period, which is sub-divided into the paleolithic, or rough stone, and the neolithic, or polished stone, ages, is well seen in the remains of the water settlement that once existed in the Lake of Mooseedorf, in Canton Bern. The village, which measured some 70 feet by 50 feet, appears, from the charred condition of the wood that composed it, to have shared the fate that so often befel these structures, and been burnt to the water's edge. Numbers of the upright wooden stakes still remain, amongst which were discovered many large stone axe-heads, fixed in stag's horn and wood hafts, sharpened flint arrow-heads, spears of horn, and a finely serrated flint saw, together with fish-hooks, awls, and piercing instruments made from bone. A curious, and probably unique, relic found here was a skate fashioned out of one of the long bones of a horse's leg ; coarsely-made pottery cups, and cooking vessels, showing a very primitive mode of manufacture (several still bearing the impress of the fingers of those who made them) also came to light.

The animal remains were bones of the ox, swine, sheep, goat, bear, horse, Bronze Age Iron Age bison and elk. Many similar lake - dwellings have elsewhere been found where the early Swiss were unacquainted with the use of metals, and a still larger number in which bronze also makes its appearance ; yet the materials of the earlier epoch greatly preponderate, showing a transitional condition when the old order was changing. Of the many stone implements dating from this epoch the minerals most frequently used were flint, sandstone, mica schist, diorite, and porphyry. The ancient lake village, situated near where Auvernier now stands, on the shore of the Lake of Neuchatel, furnishes many specimens of the bronze age, as do several other sites in different localities. Many of the specimens show a high degree of artistic skill in their manufacture, and indicate a great advance in mental culture on the part of those that made them.

Bronze spear-heads and swords, an anvil, chisels, knives, plain and ornamental rings for personal adornment, gold studded brooches, and a large quantity of pottery, beautifully shaped and finely made, are some among the many articles that have been recovered. On this same Lake of Neuchatel, at a settlement near Marin, iron takes the place of bronze and stone in most of the articles brought to light ; and, from the still greater beauty and perfection shown in their pro duction, this village must have been of a much later date than those in which bronze or stone alone were in use. Many iron swords, contained in iron scabbards, here came to light ; and these, from their form, greatly resembled, and were probably identical with, early Gallic weapons. Whilst the excavations were in pro gress, the bones belonging to eight human skeletons Mixed Ages were discovered.

This is interesting, as being one of the very few instances where the actual remains of the ancient lake-dwellers have been found. Both Gallic and Roman coins were mixed with the iron swords, spear-heads, ornaments, and other debris forming the remnants of this village, which thus brings the record of lake-dwellings up to historic times. p\t Robenhausen, the curious discovery has been made, in the peaty bed that was once occupied by the Lake of Pfaffikon, of the remains of three distinct villages, superimposed on one another, and clearly divided by layers of sedimentary deposits, marking three separate epochs. The first, or lowest, was evi dently destroyed by fire, and amidst its carbonised piles implements of bone and stone only were discovered. Over this stratum lay a deposit of sediment nearly 3 feet in thickness, and here a series of partially burned piles were buried, together with pottery and articles of stone, horn and bone, more artistically finished than those below.

Above came another layer of sedi ment, through which were driven a number of split oak trunks. These show that the workmen possessed better tools than those of their predecessors, who were able to use only pine or other soft wood for the stakes supporting their abodes, and were capable only of scraping or partially cutting even these with their primitive flint knives. Many highly-finished articles were also found in this upper layer, including well made plates, tubs, spoons, clubs, bows, fishing-tackle, a thrashing flail, and many varieties of cloth, both plaited and woven. Besides these, a dug-out canoe, 12 feet long, came to light, together with many axes and arrow-heads of stone. Although no articles Land Dwellers, Religion made of bronze were here discovered, several crucibles containing traces of that amalgam attest its presence, and show, moreover, that it was made in the settlement and not wholly imported in its finished state.

It is now pretty generally conceded that the people who occupied the Swiss valleys in prehistoric times were essentially identical with those living on the lakes. Both the design and material of the weapons and domestic implements found belonging to the former precisely correspond with those possessed by the latter. Little is known for certain of the religion, language, or race of the early Swiss people, though a great probability exists that they were made up of Kelts who migrated into the land. There seems no real reason to doubt that the lake-dwellers were of the same ethnic descent as the Helvetians who first appear in history, and that in spite of the prevalent view that is now held. As with other ancient races, the Swiss were pagans, and amidst their hosts of deities probably placed the moon in a very exalted position.

Many lunar-shaped relics have been unearthed at Ebenberg and at Brienne. " In the period of Thing-worship every brook, tree, hill and star is itself a living creature, benevolent or malignant, asleep or awake. In the next stage, every object and phenomenon is inhabited or presided over by a genius or a spirit. " As the reasoning powers of men expand, their gods diminish in number and rule over larger areas, till finally it is perceived there is unity in nature — that everything that exists is part of one harmonious whole. When the poet invokes in his splendid frenzy the shining spheres of heaven, the murmuring fountain, and the rushing stream; when he calls upon the earth to hearken, and bids the wild sea listen to his song ; when he communes with the sweet secluded valleys and the haughty hills, as if those inanimate objects were alive, as if the masses of brute matter were endowed with sense and thought, we do not smile, we do not sneer, we do not reason, but we feel.

A secret chord is touched within us ; a slumbering sympathy is awakened into life. Who has not felt an impulse of hatred, and perhaps expressed it in a senseless curse, against a fiery stroke of sunlight or a sudden gust of wind ? Who has not felt a pang of pity for a flower torn and trampled in the dust, a shell dashed to fragments by the waves ? Such emotions and ideas last only for a moment ; they do not belong to us ; they are the fossil fancies of a bygone age ; they are a heritage of thought from the childhood of our race. For there was a time when they possessed the human mind. There was a time when the phrases of modern poetry were the facts of ordinary life. There was a time when man lived in fellowship with nature, believing that all things which moved or changed had minds and bodies kindred to his own.

To those primæval people the sun was a great being who brightened them in his pleasure and who scorched them in his wrath. The earth was a sleeping monster ; sometimes it rose a little and turned itself in bed. They walked upon its back when living ; they were put into its belly when they died. Fire was a savage animal, which bit when it was touched. The birds and beasts were foreigners, possessing languages and customs of their own. The plants were dumb creatures, with characters good and bad, sometimes gloomy in aspect, malignant in their fruit, sometimes dispensing wholesome food and pleasant shade." This quotation from the late Winward Reed's great work is Historical Lake- Dwellings, inserted, as it embodies within the compass of a few paragraphs more suggestions of the truth concerning the mental development of primæval man than is to be found in all the many treatises that learned specialists have written on the subject.1 No date can be assigned to the period of the lake-dwellers, though of necessity it must be a very remote one.

Before closing this short outline of the prehistoric times in Switzerland, it may be interesting to glance at our knowledge of lake - dwellings in other countries. p\lthough Helvetia affords the greatest number of examples of these settlements, similar collections have been in existence for vast ages scattered over the world down to the present time, though it would appear not to any great extent. The earliest historical references to this subject are found in the writings of Hippocrates and Herodotus, some 400 years before the Christian era. The former describes the people of Phasis, in Asia Minor, as living in wooden homes built upon piles driven into the marshy ground of the country, and as using boats made from a single tree. Herodotus, speaking of the people of Lake Prasias, tells us they built homes on platforms, supported by upright stakes driven into the bottom of the lake, and communicated with the shore by means of a long bridge ; and that in the interior of the huts was a trap-door leading down to the water. 1 It is also inserted as a tribute to the memory of one who combined in his character the greatest instincts of the greatest poets, who possessed a knowledge of ancient and modern learning perfectly phenomenal, and whose originality of thought was only exceeded by the tones of the vividly beautiful word-pictures in which he embodied his ideas.

Death cut short the promise his brilliant, though short, career conveyed of a life destined to mark an era in English thought, knowledge and culture. Modem Lake- Dwellings. When this door was open the children were prevented from falling out by means of a lanyard tied to one leg. The fishermen of the district, according to the account given by Sir John Lubbock, still continue to live in similar structures over the water. Coming to much later times, we find Abulfeda, the celebrated Mohammedan geographer and historian of the 13th century, describing a community of Christian fisherman who formed a settlement on Lake Apamæa, in Syria, living on pile-supported houses over the water. During the Irish wars of the 16th century many of the chieftains built their strongholds in the midst of the lakes on artificially-constructed islands of stones and wood, called crannogs.

Similar lake-forts were built by the Kelts after the Roman era, and up to mediæval times. In most of the many lakes scattered through Austria, Italy, and Savoy, and other European countries, there is abundant evidence to show that at some remote period they were occupied by lacustrine dwellers. In many of the more uncivilised portions of the world the natives are found in the present day to be partially in the age of stone, many in that of iron, using stone implements for domestic purposes, war and the chase ; and in other ways living identically the same life as that pursued by the early ancestors of the Swiss and other nations. Even in Great Britain, in some of the more remote parts of Scotland and the Shetland Isles, stone spindle -wheels, ironing, smoothing, and heating stones, stone sinkers for fishing nets, as well as rude pottery vessels, and many other articles not to be dis tinguished from those of prehistoric man, can still be seen in actual daily use.

More than this : lacustrine villages, apparently precisely similar in their mode of construction to those that were once tenanted in the Swiss lakes, are yet found in many localities. In his highly interesting and instructive work, " Across Africa," Commander Lovett Cameron describes the appearance of such a village that he discovered in the heart of the Dark Continent on Lake Mohrya. Speaking of this settlement, he says, " The huts were built on platforms raised about six feet above the surface of the water, supported on stout piles driven into the bed of the lake. Some were oblong and others round, the former usually having a projecting roof over the door. Underneath the platform canoes (dug-outs, some 25 feet long) were moored, and nets hung to dry." Many similar lake-dwellings also exist in the Gulf of Maracaibo and the estuaries of the Amazon and Orinoco.

Venezuela owes its name — little Venice — to its resemblance in construction to the most famous of all water-dwellings, the Queen of the Adriatic. D'Urville has given an account of four villages he found in the Bay of Dorci, and others have been met with in Borneo, Siam, the Straits Settlements, the Celebes and the Caroline Islands. Sir Richard Burton, whilst engaged in his important mission to the King of Dahomey in 1864, discovered a large settlement on the West Coast of Africa of natives of Dahomey, who, fleeing from the cruelty of the native rulers, had erected a number of wooden huts, firmly supported on piles and platforms, within the extensive lagoons that occur between Whydah and Lagos. The Helvetii

Chapter II Early Inhabitants Of Helvetia And

RHÆTIA To Roman historians we are indebted for our first authentic knowledge of the early inhabitants of Switzer land. According to these, about a century before the Christian era the country was thickly populated with numerous semi-savage Keltic tribes, chief of which were the Helvetii and the Rhæti. The Helvetii inhabited the plains lying between Lake Leman, the Alps, and the Jura, and the southern borders of the Boden Sea (Lake of Constanz), this tract being then known as Helvetia, and distinct from the districts that make up modern Switzerland. The name Helvetia, or Elvetia, has been derived from the Keltic, signifying a high mountainous region.1 The country was divided into four principal pagi, or cantons ; two are cited by Cæsar as Tigurinus and Verbigenus, or Urbigenus ; Strato refers to a third under the name of T oy genus ; whilst from the frequent references to the Ambrones, in connection with the Helvetii, it is possible they formed the people of the fourth pagus — (Watchæner).

Essentially agricultural and pastoral, the Helvetii were a wild and warlike race, constantly engaged in I Helvetii, of which the old form was Elvetii, or Helvii, probably comes from the Keltic el, il, high, na land, dæe man ; that is, highlander. Ptolemy writes the word Eluetoi, Strato Eluettion, and by the Romans the u became converted into v. feuds amongst themselves, or plundering expeditions against their neighbours, more especially against the Germans across the Rhine. Cæsar greatly extols their bravery, and remarks on the rapid progress they made in population. According to his computation, in his own times, they numbered 300,000 souls, and lived in 400 villages and 12 towns. The latter were somewhat larger than the other settlements, and were fortified by stockades and trenches. The people of the four pagi, like the Gauls, formed a Federal Republic, over which annuallyelected magistrates, called Vergobrets, chosen by universal vote, presided and administered whatever laws were authorised.

Their power was, however, more nominal than real, as the several tribal chiefs and heads of powerful families frequently set their authority at defiance, and ruled supreme and absolute within their own districts. Though acquainted with the use of iron and bronze, the Helvetii knew not the art of tempering steel, and were consequently placed at a great disadvantage when fighting the Romans. They affected personal adornment, and, according to their condition, wore ornaments, many being beautifully worked, of gold, silver, bronze, etc. Of the many coins found, other than Greek, Roman, or Gallic, the greater quantity has been discovered at Aventicum (Avenches), and these coins usually show the head of a goddess or chief, and on the reverse a cock, a wolf, or a bear. Of their language little or nothing is known, except a few names they gave to their towns and mountains, as Alps (Alb, white).

What little civilisation they possessed they probably learnt, as they did the Greek alphabet, from the occasional visits of merchant pirates from Marseilles. In religion they were pagans, like all early races, worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, and the number less forces of nature that so lavishly exhibited their presence in the country. Indeed the topographical peculiarities of Helvetia — the surrounding lofty and snow-covered ranges of mountains, the impenetrable gloom of the seemingly endless forests, the sudden and weird roar of the falling avalanche, and the many other inexplicable phenomena — were specially likely to create or perpetuate a barbarous and unreasoning worship so apparently evidenced by every surrounding object, to a nation in but the early youth, if not the childhood, of its career.