Vaud, Switzerland GenWeb

Grievances of the Pays de Vaud. — Resistant of Morges against an arbitrary tax. — Beginning of the French Revolution; the enthousiasm it produced. — The aristocrats and the democrats. — Club of the Swiss in Paris. — Measure of Their Excellencies against the propaganda of the clubs. — F.-C. de la Harpe; his Lettres de Philanthropus. — The 14^th of July celebrated at Rolle in 1790. — Complaints of the officers from Vaud against the military services in France et Holland, supported by the cities of the Pays de Vaud and rejected by Their Excellencies. — Troubles in the Bas-Valais; expulsion of the gouverneurs from the Haut-Valais; plantings of Liberty Trees. — Sympathy of the Vaudois for the revolutionaries of the Valais. — The Vaudois troops sent into the district of Aigle, they hesitate, but discipline prevails. — Bernese commissaires in Valais. — The state of the political parties in the Canton of Bern. — Influence of the emigrees. — The pastor of Mézières, denounced as a revolutionary, is removed and taken to Bern. — Progress of the French Revolution. — Flight of Louis XVI; manifestations of joy by the aristocrats, tumultuous joy of the patriots, at the news of the arrest of the king. — Celebrations of July 14 at Le Jordil and at Ouchy. — Banquet of the Abbayes de l'Arc on July 14 at Rolle, and tumultuous demonstrations. — Bern raises troops against the Pays de Vaud. — Camp at Perroy. — A High Commission is sent to Rolle. — Inquest into the celebrations at Ouchy and Rolle. — Arrest of the district assessor Rosset and of Captain Muller de la Mothe. — Tumult at Lausanne. — Protests of the Councils of Lausanne against the acts of the High Commission. — Arrival of the German troops at Lausanne. — More arbitrary arrests. — Humiliations inflicted by the High Commission against the deputies from the cities of the Pays de Vaud. — Condemnations pronounced by the Two Hundred of Berne. — August 10, September 2; reaction against the French Revolution produced by these massacres. — Savoy invaded by the French. — Montesquiou menaces Geneva; he is thwarted by the battalions of the Vaudois who charge into this city. — The war party prevails in the Councils of Bern. — A Bernese army menaces the Pays de Gex. — French victories give the edge to the party of neutrality. — Simultaneous retreat by the French and the Swiss. — Death of Louis XVI. — The Swiss Confederation recognizes the French Republic. — The Bernese government expells the French refugees; the Vaudois welcome them.

The works of the intellectuals, pupils of the philosophical school of Jean-Pierre de Crousaz and of de Loys de Bochat, the historical publications of Abraham Ruchat, the writings of our economists, the brothers Bertrand of Orbe, Messieurs Bourgeois of Yverdon, Loys de Cheseaux, Muret of Vevey, and Seigneux of Correvon; the studies of our scientific and literary societies; the writings of our novelists; and finally the spirit that directed the literary journals of Lausanne and Yverdon: — all of these circumstances together tell us, for the last half of the 18^th Century, something about the general tendency of ideas in all the classes of the Pays de Vaud. However these ideas, which, by the effect of the political nullity to which Their Excellencies of Bern had condemned all the Vaudois, remained sterile with respect to the prosperity and the liberty of the Pays de Vaud. They had no other result than to attract the attention of a few philosophical and enlightened minds, just at the moment when, taken up by men of action, the latter sought to apply them, first to restore to the Pays de Vaud its rights, and then, to give it independence.

The grievances of the Vaudois, already signaled by Davel in his manifest, then by Gibbon, in his letter written 40 years after Davel's enterprise, these grievances had only augmented in proportion to the abuses that succeeded them without end.

These abuses were numerous... As we have reported in the course of our work, Bern, during its long administration, had sought to stiffle all feelings of Vaudois nationality, and had succeeded in isolating the districts, inciting the jealousy of the cities among themselves, and the hate of the villages against the cities. The Assemblies of the "Four Good Cities", this unique souvenir of the Estates of Vaud, existed in name only; and, when in 1728 these assemblies wanted to meet, Their Excellencies forbade these voluntary meetings, even for judicial affairs. In 1733, the "Four Good Cities" received the prohibition of citing in their own interest any charters that Their Excellencies had not already recognized as authentic. In 1738, when the Lords-Justices and the vassals of the Pays de Vaud wished to enter into an act of association to guarantee their rights, Their Excellencies annulled this act, making the following declaration:

"It is for us alone, as the government established by God, to rule on the differences that arise between our subjects and other parties... These sorts of extraordinary assemblies and declarations are forbidden throughout. We will never recognize that the Lords-Justices and the vassals comprise a legal entity¹."

Not satisfied with extinguishing all national spirit, Bern, by intrigues of all sorts, arrested the progress of agriculture, that of the arts, of commerce, and of industry. The request of the "Good Cities" to re-establish the old price of salt, so necessary for agriculture, was repulsed with arrogance by the Sovereign Mandate of December, 1738. An ordonnance of the same year prohibited all subjects of the Pays de Vaud from possessing wine barrels with the capacity of more than three chars, and decreed that, in the case of the sale of wine, a Vaudois was only entitled, in the default of a Bernese, to the sum of 250 francs.

But what galled more than anything else, was the coldness and arrogance of certain Baillifs, remarkable for their ardor in enriching themselves, and by their haughty severity. These Baillifs were invested with immense power, since they had jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters, the administration of justice at the superior and inferior levels, and the oversight of the church and the military.

As an impenetrable secrecy surrounded all the acts of Their Excellencies, the revenues that they extracted from the Pays de Vaud were unknown; nevertheless, their revenues could be estimated and their expenses could be computed. Thus, one could estimate that the 12 Bailliages of the first class would render to the 12 Baillifs, during six years, more than 2,000,000 livres tournois; that the 12 Bailliages of the second class would bring in more than 1,500,000 livres; that the 32 Bailliages of the third class would accrue as well in six year more than 1,600,000 livres to their Baillifs. One could calculate as well that the 67 empoyees of the first class, and the 94 of the second class would receive in 10 years, the first group an average income of nearly 1,500,000 livres tournois, and the second group, an average income of more than 1,000,000². It was noted also that 299 patricians, chosen from the 76 patrician families, alone composed the Two Hundred, which alone supplied all the members of the Senate and the various departments of the administration, all the Baillifs, and all the upper-level employees; that the postal concession was in the hands of a single patrician family; that all of the offices of the Chancelry and the administration had devolved, without exception, to the members of the Two Hundred, or to the 236 families of the burgers of Bern; that three quarters of the companies and the employees of the four regiments that Bern furnished to France, to the Estates General of Holland, and to the King of Sardinia, were filled exclusively by the burgers of Bern. It was seen, finally, that in the Pays de Vaud, not only had the patriciate invaded everything, but that it had also managed to make itself inviolable, having managed to insert into the Coutumiers the exception that the burgers of Bern were in no way subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of justice in the Pays de Vaud for personal causes.

In effect, according to this exception, which to us today seems incredible, if a patrician refused to execute an agreement, in order to obtain redress, it would be necessary to appear before a tribunal in Bern, staying in this capital, taking up residence there, or else investing someone with power of attorney, and having recourse to a Bernese lawyer. Was the honor of a Vaudois attacked by a burger of Bern? It was to the judges of this city that he must have recourse. Did a burger of Bern commit an infraction of local laws in the Pays de Vaud? The authorities in the Pays de Vaud would never dare to charge him: to the Baillifs alone was reserved the investigation of offenses committed by a burger of Bern. Did a burger of Bern commit some offense, a crime? The Vaudois magistrate was powerless: the privileged criminal was transferred to Bern and brought before a Bernese judge, who alone directed the proceedings, pronounced sentence, and had it executed, not at the site of the crime, but in Bern. This exceptional jurisdiction was brought to the attention of Europe by the celebrated French lawyer Loyseau de Mauléon, in a memorandum that he wrote, in the middle of the 18^th Century, in favor of the Count de Portes, Seigneur de Genollier. This brave soldier, have attempted to prevent the dilapidation of the estate of the young Desvignes, Seigneur de Givrins, brought suit against the Secrétaire-Baillivale of Nyon, guardian of this minor and a protégé of the Baillif of Nyon. The intervention of the Baillif in favor of his secretary forced Monsieur de Portes to initiate an action against the Baillif in the tribunals of Bern. But the influence of the patriciate took the side of the Baillif of Nyon. Monsieur de Portes, whose freedom was threatened, had to expatriate himself; but, to avenge his outraged honor, he published the exposé of his defender, which revealed to Europe the inequity of the Bernese legislation³.

However, in the midst of the general submission, the arbitrary acts of Their Excellencies finally encountered some obstacles in the firmness of the city of Morges, which, by its resistance, awoke the attention of the Vaudois to their liberties.

"The State of Bern", says Monsieur Cart⁴, "wishing to rebuild the roads of the Canton, took many years for this task; no uniform standard was either announced or followed to this end; in certan places the government required no contributions, in others it required them; here it rebuilt at its own expense the walls of the vineyards crossed by a new route, there it left this expense to the owners. Elsewhere, those whose properties were damaged, whether by the removal of stones, or otherwise, received payments for damages; in another place, they received no compensation. In a word, an absolutely arbitrary authority was developed on this occasion, as for so many others. The work was done only partially and slowly, the interest that this work might have produced followed the same progression and could not be manifested in a general and imposing manner. The turn of the district of Morges finally arrived. In 1781, Bern required each commune in this district to submit a plat of its properties, without announcing how they proposed to use this informaiton. On April 29, 1782, Bern, by its own authority, assessed them for a tax, ranging from 10 batz per pose down to a lesser sum. Their Excellencies fixed neither the number of times this tax would be assessed, nor during how many years it would be due. The order to pay was announced with a hard and humiliating tone, far more appropriate for irritating than for calming. The Baillif declared by his mandate of Febrary 6, 1781 that if he discovered any inaccuracy in the lists of real property that had been provided to him, he would rectify the errors at the expense of the city of Morges and would bring the matter before Their Excellencies. Soon after, he threatened executive action if they did not comply immediately.

"The city of Morges dared to resist this dangerous innovation and the indirect threats. It deputized two of its councillors to go to Bern. These deputies presented a request with the fundamental charters of our public law; they proved that in general, the Two Hundred of Bern, successors of the Dukes of Savoy, Barons of Vaud, had no right to impose an obligation that their predecessors could not themselves have imposed. These deputies proved, for the particular case, and among others, by a charter of February 27, 1430, that the Pays de Vaud was obliged to pay tolls to the ancient Barons, on the condition that these would maintain the roads and assure at their own expense the safety of travelers; and that the State of Bern had itself recognized this by an act of September 2, 1575. They based their case on a method that carries the greatest weight among all peoples, on several centuries of precedent, or so remote in time that it was impossible to fix the date.

"How did they respond to this? One would not believe it", adds Monsieur Cart, "posterity would not want to believe it, but I have the proof in my hands, — their reply: Pay, and you can give us your reasons later!... Appalled at first by the idea of a forced tax, what impression would not this perverse maxim make, set in motion by the first department of the State; there only remained to us the recourse of the feeble and the just, that of the law... We implored them thus: our deputies returned to Bern, they demanded to be heard before being obliged to pay; they requested, in a word, a directive to begin legal proceedings... They would never obtain it.

"However, eight years passed, and during these eight years, nothing was done, neither for the promise that had been made to examine our charters, nor for our often repeated claims, nor for the payment to which we were condemned while awaiting a judgement. Our advances for the territory of Morges mounted to 9.394 florins, paid by the city, which did not want to impose an arbitrary tax, and this was only until the route east of the city was finished, when the tax was nearing its end, when Their Excellencies affected to announce an examination, the point, based on law and conscience, where they should have started. Their Excellencies of the Senate, on February 6, 1790, rendered the following decree: "

However, the Councils of Morges, seeing the fermentation that prevailed then, not only in the Pays de Vaud, but in all of Switzerland, at the spectacle of the astonishing revolution that had just broken out in France, and fearing that the discussion of the rights of the Pays de Vaud might occasion a violent commotion, the Councils of Morges declined the right that Their Excellencies offered, and, in the following letter, proposed to let the question of the road tax pass:

The firmess of this response, and the dignity of its style, as well as the absence of all the servile expressions with with the subject had hitherto addresses Their Excellencies, irritated them to the highest degree. Thus, the Senate addressed, April 24, 1790, the following missive to the Councils of Morges:

Nevertheless, this missive remained without effect. Their Excellencies of Bern, as well as all of the public, nobles and bourgeois, citizens and subjects, urbanites and peasants, – all were preoccupied by the unprecedented events that unfolded in France, where a monarchy of fourteen centuries was shaken to its roots, by the realization of the doctrines of the philosophers and economists.

Louis XVI, as he mounted the throne in the year 1774, found his finances exhausted and credit wiped out. Taxes amounting to 365 millions were unequally distributed. The "dimes", the feudal rents, the payments of the serfs, the rents to the State, exceeded the tax; the clergy had exempted itself by "free donations", while it enjoyed a fifth of all the harvests of France. The noblility paid the tax, but the government trusted their word as to the amount due. The clergy and the nobility were exempt from the poll tax, to which the other classes of society were suject. The indirect contributions were collected by the Farmers General who, for this purpose, obtained powers often arbitrary and despotic. Other charges weighed on the people, such as the "corvées" for roadwork. Everything in industry was a monopoly, everything was entangled in regulations; the provinces were separated from each other by tarif lines; in some provinces one paid 8 livres tournois for a quinal of Salt, 16 livres in others, and as much as 62 livres in others. Louis XVI wanted to remedy these abuses, and called Turgot to the ministry. Turgot, who professed the principles of the economists, issued a mass of edicts in which he proclaimed the freedom of commerce and industry; her reduced the use taxes, reducing them to a single tax, from which were exempt neither the clergy nor the nobility. He abolished the "corvées", he suppressed several monasteries, and would have turned them over to the Protestants, enfranchised civil and ecclesiastical authority, reformed public instruction, and produced a civil code for France. But a storm raised itself against Turgot, whom the young kind had to sacrifice to the clamors of the privileged. Disorders and prodigalities sprang up more than ever, and to control them, the king placed the banker Necker, from Geneva, at the head of his finances. It was at this epoque that the war of independence broke out in the English colonies in America. Franklin brought the Cabinet of Versailles in on the side of liberty; the young nobility, imbued with the principles of philosophy, responded to the call of a nascent republic, and, after a war in which the French armies took part, the independence of the United States was recognized, in 1783, by Europe.

However, the American war had augmented the shortfall of the finances. Called restore them, Monsieur Necker proposed equality of charges as the method. But the nobility and the clergy, who wished to remain exempted, caused the removal of M. Necker, who was replaced by M. de Calonne. The latter convoked, in 1787, the Assembly of the Notables, to which he proposed the territorial subsidy, a direct tax that would be paid without privileges or exemptions. But the Notables, composed exclusively of the privileged classes, were opposed to this tax, resulting in the fall of the minister. M. de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, called to replace him, tried to have the Parlement of Paris enregister a territorial tax. But the Parlement rejected this tax, and proposed the convocation of the Estates General. In order to appease the Parlements, the ministry came up with the project of divising the realm into bailliages, and creating a Plenary Court, composed of the great functionaries, and destined to enregister the edicts. But the Parlement of Paris protested. However, the financial distress increasing, Louis XVI, in 1788, recalled M. Necker and convoked the Estates General. But the Parlement refused to enregister the edict of convocation of the Estates General, if it were not in the form specified in 1614, which contained new guarantees for the privileged classes, while annulling the rights of the Third Estate. At that, the philosophers, the scholars, the men of letters, and a mass of publicists, declared a war of pamphlets against the privileged classes. The nobles made common cause with them in this war, they having for their chief the Duc of Orléans and the gentlemen who had returned from America. In his book, What is the Third Estate?, the abbé Sieyes demonstrated that it was responsible for the prosperity of the realm. "However", he said, "the Third Estate has been struck with a prohibition, and it has been told: Whatever may be your services, whatever your talens, you may go just so far and no further; it is not good that you should be honored. The rare exceptions are nothing but bluster, and the language used for such occasions is even more insulting. The Third Estate was nothing; it wants to be everything; it should be everything."

It was in the midst of this general ferment that the elections began, and that in imitation of what was done in England political clubs were formed to direct the elections. The deputies of the three orders forming the Estates General assembled on May 5, 1789 at Versailled. There the deputies of the Third Estate received all the humiliations of protocol. The deputies from the Clergy and the nobility did not enter the meeting hall for the verification of powers, and after useless entreaties for the meeting of the three orders, the Third Estate, finding the meeting hall occupied by an armed force, had its deputies assemble in the card room of Versailles, where, under the presidency of the astronomer Bailly, they convened in a National Assembly, and swore not to adjourn until after they had accomplished the political regeneration of France. A part of the nobility and the majority of the clergy joined the National Assembly. However, a reaction manifested itself within the councils of the kind, Necker was dismissed, and twenty thousand men marched on Paris. The National Assembly asked in vain for the withdrawal of the troops; a skirmish took place between a foreign regiment and the people of Paris. The latter, supported by the French Guards, took the Bastille, which they razed down to its foundations. The terrified court recalled Necker; the people named Bailly mayor of Paris, and the Marquis de Lafayette the head of the National Guard. The two brothers of the kind, who, under the name of Louis XVIII and Charles X, would reign over France, joined the party of flight and thus gave the signal for emigration. As to Louis XVI, he braved the storm and presented himself before the National Assembly without bodyguards or train, then, acceding to the wishes of the people, he went to Paris, followed by a crowd of people from the countryside, passed through a hundred thousand National Guards, to cries of Vive la nation, was received at the city hall by the mayor Bailly, and took up the tricolor cocarde. All the powers thus gave way before the National Assembly, which declared itself "Constituant". In the forever-memorable night of August 4, 1789, the Constituant, after having listened to an enumeration of certain rights of the privileged classes, rights, it is true, that had fallen into disuse because of the progress of civilization, decreed equality between the nobles and the plebians. A fever of generosity swept over the deputies of the nobility and clergy, who renounced, they as well, their feudal rights and charters.

These events, which succeeded each other with an unbelievable rapidity, struck with astonishment everyone in Switzerland. Even at Bern, numerous patricians shared the enthusiasm caused by the realization of the doctrines of the philosophers and the principles of Rousseau's social contract; at Bern, the "limited citizens", forgetting, they also, that they had privileges, applauded the arrival of the abolition of privileges.

In our Pays de Vaud, the enthusiasm was greater still.... Many a gentleman soon saw himself as equal in power with the burger of Bern. Certain magistrates of our little aristocracies of the cities and countryside saw the arrival of the moment when they would inherit a part of the power and the honors, shared only by the Lords of Bern. Our men of law, our lawyers, saw the arrival of the moment when, from the height of the national tribune of the Estates of Vaud, they would proclaim the rights of the country. The youth of the cities, always turbulent and excitable, held forth in the cabarets, and repeated the patriotic refrains of the emancipated France. As to the peasants, always reserved and cursing, they began to be moved by the idea that the feudal rights might well be abolished one day⁵. "Soon", said M. de Rovéréa, "we saw in our countryside and in our cities the formation of a royalist party and a republican party, improperly labeled at that time as "aristocratic" and "democratic": the first, exaggerating the prerogatives of the crown, and the other, profaning the rights of libery; the one welcoming with transports of joy the fugitive nobility, while the other affected to humiliate them in their distress. Many people, seduced by the sophisms of the partisans of the new system, identified their passions or their interests with the success of this cause⁶."

Some of the Swiss, exiled and taking refuge in Paris, propagated among their compatriots the principles of the revolution. Some from Geneva, exiled in 1784, and of which several seconded the work of the National Assembly, such as Duroveray, Clavière, Dumont, and Reybas; the Fribourgeois who had escaped the prohibitions that followed the initiative of Cheneaux in 1781, Castela, Rey, and Guisolan; the Vaudois, animated against the domination of Bern, reunited the Swiss, always numerous in Paris, and spread the new principles in their own country, by their correspondence, their brochures, and their journals⁷. Since in these pamphlets and handbills the subjects were called upon to revolt, and as proposals for a constitution were sent to them, the Council of Bern issued a warning, on December 16, 1789, to Zurich, and invited Zurich to take measures against the circulation of these writings. On August 10 and 13, and September 17 of the same year, the Council of Bern warned the Baillifs to watch over the press in the Pays de Vaud, and to try to discover the author of a revolutionary passage in the Etrennes Hevétiennes by Monsieur Bridel. In January, the booksellers were ordered to return all the revolutionary writings that were sent to them, and accused the Baillif of Lausanne, who, in August, 1789, had allowed the printing, at the shop of Jean Mourer, of the "Project of a declaration of the rights of man and of the citizens" by Monsieur de Servan. Finaly, "the seizure of publications and correspondence, their suppression, and then the violation of the secret of letters, became the usual means⁸."

One of the writings that gave the most disquiet to Their Excellencies was due to the pen of a man destined to play a large role in the independence of his country, Monsieur Fréderic-César de la Harpe, to whom the Emperess of Russia had confided the education of the Grand Dukes, her grandsons. M. de la Harpe published, in 1789, in the English newspapers, the "Letters of Philanthropus on a revolution occuring in the Canton of Bern."

Among the oligigarchies in Switzerland that were menaced by a complete fall, said the first letter, none had taken such a terrible blow as that of Bern, whose territory was divided into three leagues, namely: the league of the Argau, centered at Bern; the league of the Oberland, based at Thoune; and the Lémanic league, or the Vaudoise, based at Moudon, formerly the meeting place for the Estate of Vaud. — The new state of things, added Philanthropus, was founded on the following basis: Independence of these three leagues, relative to their administration, with the exception of monies and the military; guarantee of laws and customs; the three leagues would form a single political unit; they would be each be governed by a Representative Assembly; every citizen of one of these three leagues would acquire the right of citizenship in the other two leagues, by a residence of six months; he could vote and would be eliglble. In a second letter, Philanthropus provided a new constitution for the Pays de Vaud, decreed by the Representative Assembly, and preceded by an enumeration of the grievances of the Vaudois.

Meanwhile, the French Revolution made progress in France, and, on July 14, 1790, anniversary day of the taking of the Bastille, the festival of the Federation was celebrated. The National Guards and deputations from all of France united at the Champ de Mars, where a number of foreigners, among which we count our compatriots, asked, in the name of human kind, to be admitted.

The infatuation with what was happening in France was such that, throughout the neighboring countries, this anniversary was celebrated. In the Pays de Vaud, the Sociétés de l'Arc held a banquet, at Rolle, on the day of the anniversary of the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and the clergy in France. Impassioned speeches, patriotic toasts, processions, raising the hat of William Tell on a pike, enlivened this festival, which annoyed Their Excellencies and their adherents to the highest degree. "Some people", said M. de Rovéréa, "seized the occasion of this new anniversary to stir up political questions and accompany them with allusions and allegories at least reprehensible, appropriate for raising the curtain on the dangerous tendencies that the agitators sought to excite... At Bern the consequences of the ferment in the area could be foreseen; the authorities hesitated as to the means to secure their position. It was a question of raising a corps of volunteer soldiers: the project failed when opposition was raised against it by the younger members of the Two Hundred, most of them imbued with liberal ideas that they had picked up in the universities of Germany. They limited their response to prohibiting the entry of the French newspapers, at that time full of diatribes against the Bernese aristocracy, and to immunize the people against these diatribes,by instructing them on the paternal views of the government by a proclamtion that had a great success in the rural areas⁹."

However, the revolutionary spirit won over the army in France, and reached our regiments. At the end of the month of August, 1790, the regiment of Chateauvieux, formed of Vaudois, Genevois, and Neuchâtelois, took an active part in Nancy in a popular uprising. The Cantons demanded of the king the punishment of the guilty, and that he supress the seductive activities of the Swiss clubs in Paris. One soldier of the Chateauvieux regiment was put on the wheel, twenty-two were hanged, and forty-one sent to the gallères. Already after the taking of the Bastille, some soldiers from the regiment of the Swiss Guards abandoned their flag to join the Guard of Paris, and 348 of them, having resigned their commissions, took up arms with the Parisian people¹⁰.

During this same period, in 1790, the Vaudois officers in the foreign mercenary services protested against the inequality of their rights of advancement. Three quarters of the companies and the officers in the four regiments that Bern supplied for France, Holland, and the king of Sardinia, belonged exclusively to the burgers of Bern. Thus, in France: the regiment of Ernst had 18 companies, of which only six were open to the non-burgers of Bern; some companies of the regiment of the Guards, but only one company for the non-burgers of Bern. In Holland: the regiment of May, with 12 companies, had only four captains who were not burgers, while the burgers had the right to lead eight companies; the regiment of Gomoëns, with 12 companies, was only open to the burgers of Bern; three companies in the Guards, of which only one was open to the non-burgers. In the service of the king of Sardinia: the regiment of Stettler, previously Rochmondet, had 12 companies, of which three were open to the non-burguers of Bern. Further, it was necessary to be a burger of Bern to become a colonel in the regiment of Ernst, or to reach certain grades in the general staff. It was even worse in the service of Holland, because the rank of colonel, the general staff, and all of the captains of the regiment of Goumoëns were necessarily burgers of Bern. However, the perils and the tasks were the same, but the burgers of the capital were constantly preferred over their fellow citizens of the subject caste. The Vaudois officers in these regiments were supported in their complaints to Their Excellencies by the councils of their native cities, which presented numerous petitions. But they remained without answer. However, the order to transfer the matter to the war council for insubordination by anyone who dared to complain again, and the certitude of being condemned by the council, whose members had a personal interest in maintaining the monopoly, stiffled the voices of the officers of the Pays de Vaud.

Their Excellencies tried, however, to calm the agitation that grew from one day to the next, and, toward this goal, send commissaires into the Pays de Vaud with the overt mission of visiting the communes, listening to their concerns, and inviting requests that might bring abuses to light. But the real mission of these commissaires was to win over influential persons, making them hope for favors, and to form a party that, if needed, could support the projects of the government. The commissaires promised much, but the government did nothing. "The march of events was such", said one author opposed to all innovation, "that the State of Bern had no time, or else judged it too dangerous to undertake the ameliorations that it had planned in such circumstances. By following a system of moderation, it thought to provide a measure of security for itself and a stake in its paternal intentions. This course was seen as a sign of weakness; it did nothing but embolden the leaders of the revolutionary party, who felt they were supported by France...¹¹"

Nevertheless, neither the measures that the governments of Switzerland took against the invasion of revolutionary ideas¹², nor the redoubled guard at the frontiers, nor the surveillance of the French, and of the Swiss returned from France, of foreigners in general, or of their own citizens, nor their secret vigilance to discover the emissaries of the Swiss clubs, nor the correspondence undertaken at great expense in Paris and elsewhere, stopped the revolutionary torrent. A new spirit manifested itself by a general ferment. In the Canton of Schaffhouse, at Unter-Hallau, in 1790, the inhabitants rejected the title of subjects of the city of Schaffhouse, calling themselves instead free confederates. But the armed intervention of Zurich overcame them, and the bannishment of the leaders brought an end to this first revoultionary mouvement. In the summer of the this same year, a great number of the inhabitants of Arau rose up, demanding from the councils of this city a free market for their produce. In the tumult, there were several musket shots; Bern cracked down, and the movement was crushed. In the Bas-Valais, a more serious movement broke out, threatening to spread into the Pays de Vaud, and gave Bern the occasion to deploy an imposing military apparatus.

The portion of the Bas-Valais extending from St. Maurice to St. Gingolph had been Savoyard until the invasion by the Bernese in 1536, after which it became prey to the districts of the Haut-Valais. "The Bas-Valaisans became the subjects of the districts of the Haut-Valais, who ruled them without written laws, exempting them, it is true, from direct taxes, but abandoning them, for the purposes of law and order, to the arbitrary rule of the châtelains elected by the sovereign assembly of the people, who put these positions up for the highest bidder. Now, their term being only two years, and their salary minimal, the magistrates who served under them felt authorized to indemnify themselves, by their venality, in the same was that was done to them. The authority to put a price on infractions was a great resource for them. To this type of exaction they added others. Thus the châtelain of St. Maurice was accused of charging a fee for permission to smoke tobacco; the châtelain of Monthey with favoring the Savoyard traffickers in contraband, by selling them salt, and then denouncing them to the Sardinian authorities, in order to obtain a part of the confiscated goods. The Bas-Valais was not able to obtain justice for these iniquities¹³." Thus, this unfortunate country had no hope except for revolt. The first outbreak took place at Monthey and at St. Maurice, September 18, 1790. The châtelains took flight, without having been mistreated. In a few hours, the whole country was wearing the French national cocarde, and liberty trees were planted everywhere. A few notables called to the head of his movement prevented excesses. The Council of Bern, informed of these events, sent two deputies to St. Maurice, Messires Fischer and de Watteville, and authorized the raising of 2,600 men, and held ready twice that number, to defend the gouverment of Aigle against any revolutionary moves, and, if needed, to contain the uprising in the Bas-Valais.

This uprising had a great resonance in the Pays de Vaud. The joy of the Patriots, as all partisans of the reforms were then called, was at its peak; the terror of the Aristocrats, as the partisans of the Bernese institutions were designated, excessive. At Aigle, at Vevey, at Lausanne, in the majority of the cities, symptoms of revolt were manifested. One can judge by the following passages from the Mémoires of M. de Rovéréa, one of the military chiefs sent to Aigle, and devoted partisan in his heart, his principles, and his actions of Their Excellencies of Bern.

"A courier brought me the order to rejoin the deputies. (Monsieur de Rovéréa was Major of the military department of Aigle.) I reached them during the night at Vevey, where the necessary preparations were being made to join up with some troops at Aigle, where we hastened. The governor, or baillif, Monsieur de Diesbach, was worried by the rumor that had spread among the citizens, and that might have manifested itself, if there had been any delay in containing it. The unexpected appearance of the deputies from Bern, the respect that they were shown, reassured the ordinary people, calmed the hot-heads, and intimidated the factious. Nevertheless, the crisis was real. An incident could aggravate it. The companies from Lavaux, a district reputed to be very loyal to the government, had been mustered. These companies suffered, during their march to Vevey, all sorts of seductions, in order to pursuade them from taking up arms against a cause that, they were told, was going to become their own. — The soldiers held firm; but several officers let themselved be swayed, and excused themselves from serving. Their superiors used a sort of misplaced condescendence against them. — These companies thus, incomplete, took the road to the Château de Chillon, where new attempts at corruption awaited them. Disorders were committed against them, half-heartedly resisted, and it was only with great pains that they managed to pass through. — A false rumor reached Aigle, no doubt sown purposely, that these troops had revolted and disbanded. The danger in this state of things required that everthing be risked in order to remedy the situation. Thus placing aside all fear, I departed alone from Aigle at 9 in the evening, and met up with a weak detachment, led by an officer from headquarters. They were all drunk. The officer affirmed that the bulk of the men, worn out with fatigue, were resting along the length of the route. A halt was called, I dismounted and gave some good words to the men who were present, while awaing the lagards. Once about a hundred were assembled, we resumed our march and the remainder followed. — In this manner, we entered Aigle at midnight, the drum beating, to the astonishment of the public, who supposed these troops had disbanded, and to the great satisfaction of the governor, Monsieur de Diesbach, who thought his district already overrun. — The next day, I raised two companies, organized them, exhorted and held them, awaiting those from the Pays-d'Enhaut, who had been summoned, and on whose fidelity we could depend, emerged from the mountains. They arrived in good order, at the agreed hour, and gave confidence to the others. The same evening, this batallion entered Bex, and there caused as much surprise to the inhabitants as dismay to the insurgents, by interrupting all their communications with our country. — From that point, order and discipline were established, and the service functioned as it should. A chain of guard posts from the bridge of St. Maurice to Chillon assured tranquility in the interior; the revolt in Vallais subsided, and the spriit of sedition that had started to erupt in our area was thus stiffled without harsh measures¹⁴."

The insurgents from the Bas-Valais, seeing that the revolutionay movement in the Pays de Vaud had been compromised by the presence of the Bernese commissaires and the troops, begged for intervention from Bern, and at the first meeting, not only did they suppress the signed of the insurrection that they had adopted, but they even denounced the authors of their troubles. Several of these were arrested, hanged, or banished. An agent from the French clubs, the Count Charles de Perrigny, was turned over to the Bernese commissaires and transfered to Bern, where he was condemned to an imprisonment of several years. "From his side," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, "the Diet of Valais having asked for mediation by Bern, the Senator Fischer received the exposé of the grievances that the deputies from the insurgents presented to him. The secret wish of these insurgents was to fall under the domination of Bern... But at Bern, opinions were split on this proposition. One party proposed to offer an ultimatum to the Diet of Valais for the purchase of the districts of the Bas-Valais; while the other held that the insurgents should be required simply to submit to the arbitrary authority against which they had rebelled."

This last party prevailed, and Their Excellencies were content to refer the insurgent leaders to the mercy of the loyalist leaders. However, adds Monsieur de Rovéréa, the commissioners from Ber, "instead of attaining the goal that had been established for them, to sound out the intentions of the Bas-Valaisans, only succeeded in agitating them and in spreading the seeds of defiance, or the desire for innovations, and thus revealing, to the probing eyes of the dissidents, the unease of the government, that the dissidents aimed to destroy." From the admission of Monsieur de Rovéréa, so perfectly instructed as to the plans of the Bernese oligarchy, the arrival at Bern of the Count of Artois and the Prince de Condé, was the cause of the line of conduct that the Bernese commissioners followed in the Bas-Valais. "The Count of Artois," he says, "and the Prince de Condé, were intent on causing the Swiss, and above all the Canton of Bern, to enter into a coalition that was being formed in support of the position of the monarchy. The Overseer Steiguer leaned that way, and that, perhaps, as much from personal ambition as by that valorous patriotism that was later so gloriously illustrated. But knowing the repugnance of his colleagues for an enterprise, according to them, too daring, and of which the goal would be in any case contrary to some of them, the Overseer Steiguer took pride in keeping them involved, by prolonging the troubles in the Valais, which, by requiring the maintenance of some militia in the field, would gradually makehisthese antagonists, penetrating his plans, hastened to foil them, suddenly (December, 1790) withdrawing the occupying troops, even though new indications of unrest in the vicinity of Aigle still made their presence useful¹⁵."

This coalition mentioned by Monsieur de Rovéréa, a coalition that developed in Switzerland and in Germany, had for its cause the enmity of the kings and of all the governments toward the revolutionary dogmas, the declaration of the rights of man, the abolition of the aristocracy, the restrictions brought against royal power, and the national representatives, which in France absorbed all power. A mass of emigrees left France, not due to individual interests, but in solidarity. Some of the emigrees had their headquarters at Coblentz, near the brothers of the King and the Prince de Condé, where they monitored intelligence from France. Others, placing their faith in their swords, organized in the Piedmont, in Spain, in Switzerland, to penetrate into France, arms in hand. In their blindness, the emigrees saw themselves already masters in France and the restorers of the monarchy, and meddling in the affairs of the countries that gave them asylum, they poured scorn on whoever dared to manifest the slightest sympathy for the popular cause, declaring themselves the adversaries of whoever saw in the principles of the revolution a means of obtaining the recognition of his rights as a citizen. There resulted in the Pays de Vaud a profound scism. The country was split into two parties. Whoever came out in favor of a reform in the Bernese system of government was no longer a patriot, but a jacobin, in the eyes of one party, while anyone who cursed the excesses of the revolution was, in the eyes of the other party, an aristocrat, an enraged, a vile supporter of tyrants. Even in the Two Hundred of Bern, in the Senate of this republic, someone who proposed concessions in favor of the subjects was soon considered in the oligarchy as a jacobin, a "sans-culotte". Thus the members of the councils of Bern who favored making some concessions in the spirit of the moment, were reduced to silence; moderation was replaced by violence. The pastor at Mézières was the first victim along this deplorable path, on which Their Excellences would soon follow.

This pastor, Monsieur Martin, at the instigation of the consistory, considered with some of his parishioners the pretentions that Monsieur de Diesbach, Seigneur of Mézières, had raised to extend the feudal tithe, the dîme, on the harvest of potatoes, and concluded that "because the potato is not a grain, it is not subject to the dîme." The secretary of the consistory, the châtelain Reymond, denounced pastor Martin for this to the Seigneur of Mézières, Monsieur de Diesbach. Accused of the crime of high treason, pastor Martin was arrested in the middle of the night by a squadron sent from Bern, thrown into the prisons of that capital, and taken away from his proper jurisdiction. Some independent voices in the Two Hundred denounced this arbitrary act; it was criticized among the public in Bern, but above all it caused a sensation in the Pays de Vaud. The councils of Yverdon, of Morges, issued complaints regarding respect for the law and its guarantee. After four months of captivity, the Two Hundred recognized the innocense of Monsieur Martin, and assessed him damages of 100 louis. The Vaudois celebrated his return with joy. At Lucens, at Moudon, at Bressonaz, he was received with speeches, refreshments, festivities, and artillery salvos. His parishioners arranged for a cart from Lausanne to transport the musicians of the Hoffmann family to make the festival more brilliant. The accuser of the pastor was censured and sacked. The interest that Monsieur Martin inspired, the severe pronouncements that were made by the cities and the clergy of the Pays de Vaud, show how much public opinion ran against Bern. "This act of violence, this process that had never been seen until now," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, "excited the troublemakers, raised defiance between the governed and the government, and left in the country numerous traces of discontent."¹⁶

While the parties were from moment to moment dismayed or exalted by the vicissitudes that accompanied the French Revolution in its menacing march, unexpected news gave way, in the Pays de Vaud, to some significant manifestations.

The unfortunate Louis XVI, abandoned by his family, by the nobility, captive in the Château des Tuileries, deprived of the love of a people led astray, and that the violence of the factions had rendered furious, took flight, not for his own sake, but for that of his wife the queen, and for his young children. The news of the flight of the royal family caused transports of joy among the partisans of the monarchy and those of the privilegd classes. "The contrast between the dread that this evasion caused among the partisans of the new order, and the happiness to which those of the old order were given," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, "the sudden reversal occasioned by the arrest of the unfortunate monarch at Varennes, could only inflame the spirits of the party, already running so high. This ominous tendency was felt at Bern and in the Pays de Vaud. People were given over without measure to joy at the deliverance of the king; they appears thus to taunt the consternation of the adherents of the Revolution, who, in their turn, celebrated the captivity of the unfortunate prince with festivals that insulted their antagonists, and notably the Bernese government¹⁷."

"The insulting joy of the emigrees," says a writed of the revolutionary party,¹⁸, "the inconsiderate menaces that escaped them in this first moment against the partisans of liberty, and the certainty of a bankruptcy that would ruin the families whose fortunes were invested in French funds, had spread alarm, in the the Pays de Vaud, when the news of the arrest of the king gave their spirts a contrary impulse. At first they could not believe it, it must be some sort of plot by the aristocrasy, they were afraid they would be disappointed. Then a watchmaker named Jequier ran ahead of the courrier from Paris, and came back to Lausanne with a newspaper whose content was heard with a joy even more boisterous, because the mails were being held by the postal service."

The Council of Lausanne, invited by the Baillif to crack down against the authors of this demonstration, took the following deliberations: "On the occasion of the noise, gatherings and cries, firecrackers and rockets, which took place in this city last night, we have not felt we should order an investigation in order to identify the authors of the said noise, gatherings and cris, which we feel were only caused by excessive joy that those interested in the affairs of France felt because of recent events. But we will appoint a commission in order to have a conference on this subject with our Magnificent Lord-Baillif" (Registers of the Council of Lausanne, 125, July 1, 1791.)

It was at this moment of enthusiasm that, in the Pays de Vaud, the 14th of July was celebrated, anniversary of the seige of the Bastille, in imitation of the celebration that had taken place the preceding year at Rolle. One of these celebrations, held near Ouchy, attracted an unusually large crowd.

In a grove of chestnut trees at Le Jourdil, the country estate of the banker Dapples, 150 persons, magistrates from the councils of Lausanne, feudal Seigneurs, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, officers of the militia, landlords from Lausanne and the neighboring towns, took their places, on July 14, at a banquet arranged around a stand crowned by the hat of William Tell. Artillery shots opened the festivities. The son of professeur Durand, a bookseller at Lausanne, delivered a discourse in which he invited the assembly to affection, to union, and to observe law and order. "The pleasure of a meeting of which Lausanne had not yet offered such an example," wrote Monsieur Rosset to the Baillif, who had invited him to supply an account of what had happened in that gathering, "we were moved by a gaiety that the strongest rain could neither subdue nor interrupt. This gaiety was boisterous, but without excess or disorder. The healths of the Swiss of the Canton of Bern, the cities and communities of the German and French districts were toasted. That of the cities and communities excited the most lively enthusiasm and was drunk in the round from a cup with the motto Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. More toasts ended the repast, after which the partygoers, preceded by the Hoffmann band, paraded two by two to Ouchy, where a barge was waiting for them. The spectacle of fireworks and of an immense crowd that the desire to witness this meeting of friends and compatriots had attracted to Ouchy, this spectable was beautiful and imposing. The fireworks finished, we landed at 9 PM, by the light of torches and in the midst of an immense crowd, which I think without exaggerating was 3,000 souls. The idea of dancing one more round was only put into execution for an instant, because of the crowd, which was such that one risked being smothered. And so after many shouts of joy, in which the people joined us, or rather shouted spontaneously by themselves, with an inconceivable ardor, we took the road toward the city accompanied by the crowd. The greatest difficulty was still ahead of us. That was to keep this prodigious crowd, about to enter the city with torches and music, from disturbing the sleep of the inhabitants who had not been able, or had not wished to take part, by the excess of their joy. It was to this end that some among us came to a halt, stopping the procession at the crossroads with the road to Morges, about 600 paces from Ouchy, and there taking the torches from the hands of those who carried them, and sending the musicians back with their instruments in their pockets or on their backs."¹⁹

While this boisterous celebration enlivened the area around Lausanne, the patriots of Vevey were celebrating July 14, and their bonfires answered those that shone over the waters at Ouchy, and they announced that the celebrations would continue the next day at Rolle, where the Abbayes de l'Arc had scheduled their meeting.

At Rolle, the gathering was numerous and composed of people from the two parties. Monsieur de Bonstetten was seen there, Baillif of Nyon, Monsieur de Kirchberguer, Baron of Rolle and of Mont, the lieutenant-colonel Arpeau and Monsieur Desvignes, Seigneur of Givrens, and other persons devoted to Their Excellencies of Bern. After the shooting contest, the contestants gathered under the linden trees along the promenade of Rolle, at a banquet given by Monsieur Amédée de la Harpe, Seigneur of Yens and of Les Uttins. The hat of William Tell was hoisted at the end of a pike; patriotic toasts were given; the cup of Fraternity, which, the evening before, had figured at the banquet at Le Jourdil, circulated beneath the lindens of Rolle. The famous ça ira was intoned, the refrains Glorious times, to live free or die. The young Durand repeated his discourse from the previous night, and harangued the children, to whom he announced that one day the would be free men and soldiers of liberty; the lawyer Marc-Antoine Miéville gave a toast to the great nation. Delirium overcame the assembly and the immense crowd that surrounded it. Some calm men, or rather the timorous, protested by their silend against these exaggerations; the Baillif of Nyon and the partisans of Their Excellencies withdrew, indignant. Soon, the partiers who remained at the banquet got up and went in a procession to the Château of Les Uttins, the residence of Monsieur de la Harpe, who gave them the flag of the Abbaye, surmounted by the hat of William Tell, oranmented with tricolor ribbons; some officers, in uniform and with drawn swords, surrounded this trophy and led a processiont that, to the cries of Long live Equality, criss-crossed the city, pausing only to dance and to indulge in the most turbulent demonstrations of joy. In the evening, this celebration was completed by a ball.

These boisterous manifestations disturbed the Councils of Bern, and they decided to take more rigorous measures to stiffle, in the Pays de Vaud, these symptoms of the next revolution.

Acting on a proposal of the Secret Council, the Two Hundred of Bern, in their session of July 21, decreed rigorous measures and conferred extended powers to the Secret Council and the War Council. All celebrations of foreign events were prohibited under the most rigorous penalties; 45,000 francs were appropriated from the treasury for war expenses; all troops of the republic were on alert; eight elite companies from the Pays de Vaud, a squadron of dragoons, and one of artillery, were activated, and to support them if necessary, a camp was formed near Bern for 2,500 men, raised from the German districts, and commanded by the General d'Erlach from Hindelbank. The troops from the Pays de Vaud, chosen, the infantry from its seven military districts, the marksmen and the dragoons, called up from the district of Yverdon, and the artillery, from that of Aigle, were placed under the command of Colonel du Fès from Moudon, having under his orders: Major de Loës from Aigle, for the artillery; Major Rusillon from Yverdon the for dragoons; Captain Pillichody for the marksmen. General de Gumoëns was commander in chief. Their Excellencies notified at the same time the court at Turin and the French government that this armament had no other goal except the maintenance of internal calm²⁰.

However, Senator Fischer, vested with extended powers, traveled to the Pays de Vaud and summoned to him Major de Rovéréa, whose devotion during the affairs of the Bas-Valaid and those at Aigle had won him nomination to the upper bourgeoisie of Bern. "I accompanied Senator Fischer to Bex," said this officer, "where a plot of insurrection with the Bas-Valais was suspected. Heads there were effectively inflamed, and peaceful means insufficient to calm them: the presence of an armed force contained them."

General de Goumoëns joined Monsieur Fischer at Bex, and followed him to Lausanne to confer there with the Baillif on what measures to take, Monsieur d'Erlach, recently vested with responsibility for security and command in the Pays de Vaud. But instead of waiting for the results of the conference in Lausanne before taking a decision, the Two Hundred appointed a commission of four of its members, Messieurs Fischer, Haller, Tscharner and Frisching, to make an inquest into the disorders committed in the Pays de Vaud. "This innovation was displeasing," admits Monsieur de Rovéréa. "The sane part of the public would have preferred that these inquests had been entrusted to the ordinary tribunals. The Baron d'Erlach, Baillif of Lausanne, proposed that to these commissaires be added an equal number of commissaires from the Pays de Vaud, but at Bern they objects, for fear of exposing them to recriminations."

This military demonstration, the arrival of the High Commission, the menaces expressed by the partisans, and even by the Bernese government, struck terror into the rural communes. A great number of them sent addresses to Their Excellencies. As in the times of Davel, the Four Parishes of Lavaux disavowed the revolutionary manifestations at Le Jourdil and Rolle, "and protested against the spirit of factionalism and independence, savoring, they said, "the liberty which they enjoyed and the happiness of living under a sage government, for which they were prepared to spill their blood to the last drop." The deputation from Lavaux presented, on July 23, this address to the Baillif of Lausanne, and proposed to celebrate at Cully the jubilee of the founding of Bern, sovereign city of the Pays de Vaud. Their Excellencies daigned to accept this offer, and accorded a kindness to the faithful subjects of Lavaux. The anniversary day arrived, the Baillif, Baron d'Erlach, arrived in Cully to oversee the preparations for the festival, to which the patriots and aristocrats had been indiscriminantly invited. But the zeal of the devotees of Their Excellencies nearly led to a conflict. These devotees propose anti-patriotic toasts; the patriots of Lavaux, feeling they had been insulted, replied with insults that were followed by a brawl, where blows were not spared, and from which the Baillif himself, Monsieur d'Erlach, barely escaped²¹.

However, the troops of General de Goumoëns, after having left feeble garrisons at Bex, Chillon, and Lausanne, camped at Perroy, from which they provided a numerous guard for the High Commission, which took up residence at the Château of Rolle, and began the inquest into the events of July 14 and 15 (1791). At this same moment, the Baillifs published the following notification to each of the Councils in their districts:

The High Commission began its inquest by interrogating in secret the partisans of Their Excellencies, and thus employed part of the month of August, nevertheless, without ordering a single arrest. However, on August 16, a wagoner, Jean-Pierre Coendet, arriving from Paris, was accused of having distributed an Address by the Society of friends of the Constitution, meeting at Dijon, to the people of Lausanne, and arrested by order of the Baillif. This arrest caused an urgent rumor and a tumultuous gathering with the intention of delivering Coendet, and even, according to Monsieur de Rovéréa, burning down the château. But this gathering was soon dispersed by the intervention of the magistrate from Lausanne, and Coendet, sequestered from his normal jurisdiction, was transferred to the prisons of the château of Rolle, by virtue of the orders of the High Commission. Shortly, 20 members of the magistrates of Lausanne presented a request to the Council of 25, requesting that the Two Hundred be convoked "To be deliberated by them: Whether the seizure and incarceration of Coendet was within the law or not?" This demand having been taken under consideration, the Two Hundred met on the 24th, with the goal of naming a commission that would give an opinion on the 29th.

The news of these symptoms of resistance arriving at Bern, Their Excellencies ordered General d'Erlach of Hindelbank, commander of the German division, to take up a position at Payerne and to march on Lausanne, at the first news of any resistance whatever to the orders of Their Excellencies.

Meanwhile, the High Commission, under the presidency of Senator Fischer, continued its operations and summoned to Rolle the persons accused of having taken an active part in the events of July 14 and 15. Several among them, foreseeing the rigors that menaced them, took flight, among others Messieurs de la Harpe, Seigneur of Aubonne. The district lieutenant Rosset-Cazenove, having received in the mail an anonymous letter couched in these terms: "Depart, or you are lost! Don't lose an instant and heed this warning: all is revealed," turned over this letter to the Baillif d'Erlach, and, full of his innocence of any plot against the state, offered to be held prisonner. But the Baillif answered him: "Don't pay any attention to that!" Nevertheless, on August 29 Rosset and the Captain Muller de la Mothe received from the Baillif of Lausanne summons to appear August 31 before the High Commission of Rolle.

"I confess I am highly satisfied," says Monsieur Rosset²², "to see this summons arrive, as a means of making all the rumors and allegations to which I have been so long the object to cease. Ask anyone who saw me on the 29th and 30th: never was I so happy and full of joy; I regard this citation as a positive for me, and I can't conceive how it could be seens by many of my friends as something bad. Thus on the 31st, presenting ourselves at Rolle, Monsieur Muller de la Mothe and I, we congratulated each other on being able, at last, to clear up everything concerning us. Arrived at Rolle, I was told that a detachment had been ordered, that they were going to arrest someone, they offered us a way to flee. But, far from thinking that this military apparatus could be intended for us, we refused these offers, and at 8 in the morning we presented ourselves at the château.

"Shortly after I was interrogated by Monsieur the councillor Fischer about the festivals of July 14 and 15, about what had happened, about the buttons I was supposed to have distributed, about my trip to Pontarlier, about my supposed affiliation with the club in that city, and finally, about the ribbons in the national colors that I was accused of having given to the innkeeper at Echallens. This interrogation lasted an hour and a half. I was led to a room where I did not find Monsieur de la Mothe. After a wait of more than two hours, someone came to take me before the High Commission. Monsieur the Senator Fischer told me that he was disappointed, following my declarations and those of others, to be obliged to arrest me as a prisoner of the state. He asked for my sword, which I placed on a table. I wanted to protest my innocence, to declare that I was not involved in any plot or association... Monsieur Fischer imposed my silence, and I was led back to the room where I had passed several hours alone. An instant later I was taken out. I found Monsieur de la Mothe in the corridor in the midst of soldier who formed two lines. We were placed between these two lines equidistant from each of them and thus conducted to the shore of the lake. We entered with a detachment of about 40 men into a ship, on which a dozen sailors were awaiting our arrival in order to set sail. They made us descend into the bottom of the boat, where we found, at the two extremities of the hold, some straw to serve as a bed. A sentinel separated us, and we were forbidden to speak. Monsieur de Tavel and Monsieur Pillichody, commanding the detachment, did all they could within their orders to make the crossing the least unpleasant as possible. Nevertheless, it was dreadful. The idea of a dear wife suckling a baby of six months; the fears of the revolution that could not help but break out around her, at such a critical moment, from the news of my arrest, — this idea, the fears, set me in despair! The menacing shouts by which the boats that approached us by chance or curiosity were warned off, added to the horror of our situation. No! Never will I forget those 24 hours. For, thanks to a flat calm, it was not until Friday, September 1, at 1 in the afternoon, that we arrived at Chillon. The garrison was armed and the crowd considerable. I was conducted into cell No. 12. The three doors of this cell were closed. I had barely enough light to see the interior. It was vaulted and tiled, 12 feet by 8 feet. A bed, a wooden chair, and a chamberpot, that was all it contained. To read, I had to climb up and stand on my chair, to capture the little light that came through a little grille about 10 inches long by 3 inches high, at the base of the vault. Two hours after my arrival they brought me something to eat, but it was useless: I couldn't eat. Finally, deprived of light, and in spite of the horror of my situation, I slept without interruption for nearly 9 hours. On September 4, I was allowed an hour to walk in the courtyard, with the officer of the week to accompany me, and sentinels to watch over me. On September 11 I had permission to write to my wife, in the presence of the officer of the week who took my unsealed letters to Monsieur de Joffrey, commander of Chillon, who had them send both to Monsieur the Baillif of Vevey, as well as to the High Commission."

The news of the arrest of Messieurs Rosset and Muller, arriving during the evening of August 31 in Lausanne, produced a sensation there. A numerous crowd formed on the Place de la Pont, a place where people gathered when they got off work. Menacing shouts were heard. A cry To arms! to the château! to the Signal! was heard. An exasperated crowd ran through the streets, headed toward the bell tower to sound the alarm. But the Bailif had taken precautions and had the doors to the bell tower occupied by troops and closed the gates of the château. The magistrates lectured the crowd, ordered them to disperse, promissing them that the Two Hundred, to convene the next day, would take measures to assure that justic would be done for the two citizens who were victims of an arbitrary arrest.

The next day, September 1, the Two Hundred of Lausanne, after a stormy debate, in which the most energetic protests were raised by the minority, took the following decision:

Communication having been received from the Seigneurs of the Council of 25, of the orders they received yesterday, through the channel of the Baillifs, from the Seigneurs of the High Commission, meeting at Rolle, relative to Monsieur the district assessor Rosset and to Monsieur Muller de la Mothe, our co-citizens and members of our noble body of the Two Hundred, of their arrest, incarceration, and other actions to which they were subject; taking the case under serious consideration, we have found that as our rights and privileges may have been infringed on this occasion, and that we are in ignorance in this regard, because the the warrant issued to these Messieurs did not contain the subject for which they had been summoned, it was indispensable to make a separate declaration, distinct from the representations that we resolved yesterday to address to Their Excellencies concerning Coendet, to pray them that in the case where the facts for which our two co-citizens were incarcerated happened within the boundaries of our jurisdiction, Their Excellencies would deign to maintain us in the benefit of the privileges of our criminal justice. And finding it necessary to support this representation with our own commissaires, we have named Messieurs Seigneux, Banneret de Pont, Henri Pollier, councillor, Juge de Saussure, Louis de Saussure, who should depart without delay for Bern, relying on their zeal and their intelligence for the success of this affair.

As to the seizure and the arrest of J.-P. Coendet, considering: 1 that Monsieur the Bourgmaître, having authority for seizure in grave cases, etc., has no authority to approve transport out of the jurisdiction; 2 that Monsieur the Bourgmaître has even less authority when the said Coendet, at the moment he was seized, to arrest him, since the tribunal had already arrested him and taken jurisdiction over the case; 3 that whatever infraction that the said Coendet might have committed within the jurisdiction of Lausanne, should be investigated and judged by the tribunals of Lausanne, whether by virtue of our Constitution or Plaict-Général, or by the special instructions that Their Excellencies provided in their orders of April 15, 1723, which held, on the occasion of the case of Major Davel, that the crime, even of high treason, does not constitute an exception to this law 257 of the Plaict-Général. We have determined that, without citing the case of the said Coendet, there is however cause for making respectful representations to Their Excellencies to ask them for a determination that the present case will not constitute a precedent, etc.

It is understood, also, that the transcript of the representation of Monsieur the Captain Meyn, Seigneur de Vennes, and member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, containing the text of the disclaimer that was made for the conservation of our rights, in appearing before the High Commission, and which transcript was given to him on Augst 17, 1791 before he responded to his interrogation, we have ordered that his representation and this transcript of reservations, for which we witness our satisfaction to the said Monsieur Meyn de Vennes, be inserted in our registers, and be made also part of the representations that our commissaires, according to their prudence, may make to Their Excellencies.

Monsieur the district lieutenant, acting on the part of the baillifs, having exposed to us, that by reason of the gathering of which he was aprised yesterday, in the Place du Pont, that the said Seigneur Baillif thought he should take precautions to prevent all disorder, and in consequence he had ordered a military guard, etc.; but that he was ready to revoke these precautions, on condition that we make ourselves guarantors of his personal security, and of the security and tranquility of the city. As also that no one will be able to access the bells. Thanking the Seigneur Ballif, etc., etc., we declare to him that we are disposed to consider ourselves guarantors etc., and we refer to the care of the Seigneurs of the Council to employ the means they consider appropriate to maintain security and tranquility, and to prevent all gathers and tumult²³.

Meanwhile, the High Commission, disquieted by the manifestations of the people of Lausanne, sent Major Rovéréa to visit the Baillif of that city. "Everything being calm there," he says, "I went to give my report to the president of the High Commission regarding the state of things and the desire of the Baillif, that the situation not be aggravated by having the German division advance. — I had hardly finished my report when I was dispatched to General d'Erlach of Hindelbank, at Payerne, to have him stop there. He listed to me attentively, appeared to be convinced by the assurances I gave him: — that the critical moment had passed; that there existed at Lausanne at most 600 troublemakers; that they were restrained by the wealthy class; that they dreaded the present of a body of troops who, if they were to advance in a country though to be under revolt, might, under this pretext, give way to excess. — All the while feigning to follow this manner of seeing things, the general could not conceal his impatience to march on Lausanne, excited besides by some of his principal officers, who held that a demonstration of armed force was indispensable to stiffle the revolutionary spirit entirely in the Pays de Vaud."

However, the deputies of the Two Hundred of Lausanne arrived at Bern, and there protested against the arbitrary procedures of the High Commission. "This deputation," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, "the noble and decent tone that they took, made a sensation. It was inferred that the Pays de Vaud was resolute, opposing force against force... Two members of the Secret Council were charges to go concer with the High Commission on the complaints of Lausanne, and to examine the work of the High Commissaires: work that was long from having the general assent of the souvereign Council, where the minority attempted to subdue opinion, rather than to bring about a consensus. The danger of this principle was evident; our malcontents were too assured of finding prompt support and a refuge in France." (Mém., I. 70).

Nevertheless, the violence of the minority prevailed in the Council of Bern; General d'Erlach left his quarters at Payerne on September 15, and the next day, at daybreak, the thunder of the discharges of 60 pieces of artillery, in battery on the heights of Montagibert, and the fire from the batallion, announced the approach of the Germans, who entered LAusanne as if into an enemy city. The arrogance, the uncouth behavior, the brutality of the Bernese officers, knew no bounds. Everyone was supposed to stop, hat in hand, at their passage. Colonel Morlot, Quartermaster General, rudely insulted a passer-by who did not salute him. But this passer-by was not a Vaudois: it was the minister from England to the court at Turin. Thus, Monsieur Morlot, returned to his other duties, was replaced by Monsieur de Rovéréa.

But we shall pass under silence the outrages that the inhabitants of Morges and Lausanne had to endure from the part of the soldiery of the camp at Perroy and from the German division, exacerbated by their officers, and follow the High Commission in its arbitrary procedures. It left Rolle on September 19, and came to convene at Le Champ-de-l'Air in Lausanne. There, in this city submitted to the military regime, it continued its inquests and arrests, fearlessly employing threats and even harsh measures to extract denunciations from the unfortunate against their friend, or against their masters. Finally, the High Commission terminated its mission, and crowned with deplorable acts which it had no fear of employing, attempting to implicate in the eyes of their co-citizens the councils of Lausanne, of Vevey, of Morges, of Moudon, of Yverdon, of Cossonay, of Rolle and of Nyon. "The High Commission," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, eluded the promise of making its "prcedure public, which gave rise to evil interpretations that aggravated the impolitic ceremony ordered by the government, which, on this occasion, forgot that outraged pride never pardons."

In effect, on September 30, the deputies of the cities of the Pays de vaud, summoned to Lausanne, assembled there, 27 in number, at Le Champ-de-l'Air, which the High Commission, surrounded by a military apparatus, had left to go to the Château in the midst of a double line formed by the two divisions of de Goumoëns and d'Erlach. Soon, the deputies of the cities of Vaud followed this same line of soldiers, "but with heads bare, preceded by Bernese guards, exposed to the insults of the peasants and the soldiery, while artillery discharges, repeated from minute to minute, announced far and wide the insulting triumph of the oligarchy, and the subjugation of the Pays de Vaud... After this scandalous procession, of which the shame, F.-C. de la Harpe later wrote, "of which the shame could only be washed away by the punishment of those who had ordered it, the Bernese guards, with their accustomed brutality, introduced the deputies at the Château, where, in the presence of the officers of the army, the Revolutionary Tribunal (High Commission) ordered its clerk to read a Bernese despatch, full of invectives and threats²⁴..." "These deputies," writes Monsieur de Rovéréa, some 30 years later, who was present at this humiliating ceremony, "these deputations were severely admonished regarding the disorders and the insulting provocations against the sovereign authority, that had taken place in their jurisdictions, threatening them, in case of recidivism, with punishment that would be a warning to others... None of the 27 deputies replied, nor uttered a single word... But all went away with, and transmitted to their colleagues, a sense of bitterness, of which the memory has still not been erased." (Mémoires, II. 76.)

To top off this humiliation, the Council of Lausanne had to turn over the hall of the Two Hundred to the generals and officers of the two divisions to end this sinister day, as Monsieur de Rovéréa calls it, with a splendid and noisy banquet, for which the Council of Lausanne had the weakness to offer the wines, that this Council further dared to call "wines of honor".

The next day, the army of occupation was disbanded; but the officers and the soldiers of the Pays de Vaud were kept on at half pay, in order to be ready to muster again at the first signal.

The High Commission, on its return to Bern, submitted its findings to the Two Hundred, who, without having heard the defendants, pronounced condemnations of which we recall here the main ones.

Amédée-Emmanuel de la Harpe, Seigneur of Yens and of Les Uttins, member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, captain of the militia, currently a fugitive, condemned to be executed from life to death by the sword, in the case that he could be apprehended, and his fortune confiscated to the profit of the treasury. Any person or persons who turned over the said de la Harpe to justice will receive 2,000 écus of reward (Decree of July 6, 1792). Monsieur de la Harpe was accused of being "the author and instigator of a pernicious political system; of having sought by contemptible propositions against his legitimate sovereign to destroy the love for it of its faithful subjects; of having by means of a public celebration, where several had undertaken to bear signs of sedition and insurrection, of having sought to engage and seduce others of our faithful subjects; of having taken part in plans that intended to separate the Pays de Vaud from its sovereign, or to overthrow the legitimate government; of having spread and made others a part of these plans, and having organized and himself formed associations sworn for the success of these plans."

Ferdinand-Antoine-Henri Rosset, citizen and member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, captain of the militia, district assessor, condemned to be dismissed from all of his civil and military offices, and to be imprisoned in the Château d'Arbourg for 25 years, at his expense, and to pay the expenses of his trial. (Decree of March 19, 1792). Monsieur Rosset was accused "of having allowed to remain unknown projects that were dangerous and prejudicial to our Constitution, of which he had knowledge; that far from stopping at this omission of his duties (as district assessor), he shared in preparations for the gathering at Ouchy on July 14, the crime of those who had notoriously convened it in the design of attacking by words and by deeds the authority of our government, and which attempted to mislead our faithful subjects, by distributing before their eyes signs of revolt, and by spreading seditious songs; that the next day of the said month of July, the said Rosset attended at Rolle a similar gathering, but much more tumultuous; that he took a most active part in projects that would be executed there, namely in the insults that were made there against our authority, and that he himself distributed signs of revolt and insurrection; that while attempting to protect the flight of two implicated persons (Messieurs Lardy and Durand), he attempted to shield two guilty persons from justice; that the said Rosset has gone to Pontarlier and has associated with a club of which the principal instigators were not unknown to him; that on his return, he did not fear to wear and to distribut in our country certain seditious signs that he had brought from Pontarlier²⁵." (Decree of March 19, 1792).

George-Albert Muller, Seigneur de la Mothe, member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, captain of the militia, condemned to the same penalty as Monsieur Rosset and for the same reasons.

NB: 20 voices pronounced the death penalty against Messieurs Rosset and Muller; 132 for detention; 57 for detention for life; 107 for 25 years; 63 for the confiscation of his estate; 80 against.

Samuel de Martines, Seigneur de St.-Georges, citizen and member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, condemned to be dismissed from his place as a member of the Two Hundred, to submit to 6 years of detention in the fortress of Arbourg, and to pay the cost of his trial and detention (Decree of May 4, 1792). Monsieur de Martines was accused of having taken part in the celebrations at Le Jourdil and at Rolle, and of having sung seditious songs, without having wished to say that he was the author of these songs, nor that he had them."

Victor Durand, bookseller at Lausanne, condemned to 4 years of house arrest and costs of his trial (Decree of June 1, 1792). He was accused of having, at Le Jourdil and at Rolle, "entertained the multitude with a discourse expressly composed for this event, and concurred in proclaiming the toasts that were proposed; that, a little later, it was at a repast at La Rasudaz, below Lausanne, where the participants, himself included, met as a society or club, and were bound by an other to support each other mutually, and also to keep it secret; but that it is true that the said Durand did not want to take part in this union under oath, and that he has confessed his fault. We have benignly pronounced 4 years of arrest, etc."

Antoine Miéville, of Grandson and Moudon, doctor of laws, "Seeing that on July 14 he attended at gathering at Ouchy, etc., etc.; that further he was present at a repast at La Rasudaz, where the participants, himself included, met as a closed society or a club, and were bound by oath, in a very punishable manner, to support each other mutually, and also to keep the secret; but beyond that, the said Miéville allowed himself to be appointed as one of the leaders of this association, and was picked to do the writing on this subject and took it home with him to enter into his protocol; that he even tried to induce other persons to join this society; nevertheless, considering that this writing has been repudiated since the next day, and that the society has been dissolved. We have, for these reasons, benignly pronounced that the said Antoine Miéville should be detained for 5 years at the hospital on the Island, at Bern, at his expense and the costs of his trial." (Decree of June 1, 1792).

Isaac-Auguste Joseph, citizen, member of the Two Hundred and Chief Overseer [of roads] of Lausanne, condemned to the same penalty as the doctor Miéville, and for the celebrations and banquet of La Rasudaz (Decree of June 8, 1792).

Jacques-Antoine Lardy, native of Auvernier, in the county of Neuchâtel, lately a citizen of Rolle and commissioner at Ouchy, condemned to be stripped of his right of citizenship at Rolle, and that of his naturalization, to undergo 6 months of arrest, and then to be banished in perpetuity from the territories of Bern, and to pay the costs of his trial (Decree of June 8, 1792). Monsieur Lardy was accused ot having taken an active part in the celebrations at le Jourdil and at Rolle, and having attended the repast at La Rasudaz.

Charles-Samuel-Jean Dapples, banker, citizen of Lausanne, member of the 60 of Lausanne and acting controller, condemned to censure and two years of arrest in his domicile (Decree of May 18, 1792). Monsieur Dapples was accused of having loaned his country estate at Le Jourdil for the celebration of July 14, and having taken an active part there; "that finally, with a view toward distributing a periodical leaflet in French containing principles dangerous to the tranquility of our country and the security of our government, he passed to the editors of this leaflet a sum to cover free distribution, the letter of Dapples having been inserted into the said leaflet."

Arrest warrant sent to the Baillifs against 11 fugitives, accused of having taken part in the repast at La Rasudaz and at Ouchy.

We, the Overseer, etc.

Most Noble, Dear and Faithful Baillif, greetings!

Continuing the investigation relative to the scenes at Ouchy and Rolle, it has been discovered that there was a conspiratorial association of 15 persons, who, on this occasion, made themselves more or less culpable.

Now, as 11 of these associates have lately taken flight, to wit:

1^o Amédée-Emmanuel de la Harpe, of Rolle, Seigneur of Rolle and of Les Uttins;

2^o Emmanuel Joseph, businessman at Lausanne;

3^o and 4^o The brothers Auguste and Baptiste Penserod, businessmen at Lausanne;

5^o Louis Kuhn, of Treycovagnes, surgeon at Lausanne;

6^o André-Louis David, businessman at Lausanne;

7^o Charles-Emile-Noé Mercier, businessman at Lausanne;

8^o Louis Chabaud, of Paudex, enameler at Lausanne;

9^o Jean-Jacques Jequier, of Fleurier, watchmaker at Lausanne;

10^o Louis Fabre, businessman at Lausanne;

11^o Bouet, distiller at Lausanne;

We enjoin you to watch for them, and with care, not only in your district, but also at the checkpoints that you control on the frontier, and to give orders that if they are spotted, the be arrested as soon as possible and that you be notified without delay.

This requirement should also be observed and executed with regard to the lawyer Jean-Jacques Cart of Morges, and of Boinod of Aubonne, called the American, who have become fugitives, for some time now. God be with you!

Given this May 31, 1792.

Chancelry of Bern.

Accused of having taken part in the gatherings at Ouchy and at Rolle, or in other supposedly revolutionary events, other people were condemned to diverse penalties.

André Crousaz de Prélaz. — "We, the Overseer, Small and Great Council, etc., having heard the report on the investigation that our State Commission, meeting at Lausanne, had carried out against André Crousaz of Lausanne, officer in our Regiment of May in the Service of the Estates-General of Holland, we have seen as a result of this investigation:

"That he is guilty of having written from Bergen op Zoom, under the date of last August 23, to his friend and relative Muller, Seigneur de la Mothe, a letter that the judge opened, because the said Muller had been arrested, and in which he manifested his way of thinking about the military measures that would be taken for the security of our States, in terms that expressed resistance and rebellion, and from a point of view very punishable, and that nevertheless the said Crousaz had attributed this language to erroneous news that had come to his attention with regard to these measures: that is why we have by gracious consideration decreed:

"That the said André Crousaz should be severly censured by our Baillif of Lausanne for this reprehensible act;

"That until his depart for the regiment, he will be subject to the decrees that have been imposed on him by our State Commission on November 12;

"That thereafter, beginning at the time he arrives at the regiment, he will be forbidden to re-enter his homeland, and condemned, in addition, to pay the costs of his trial.

"Given this May 11, 1792.

Chancelry of Bern."

Here is this letter because of which, by order of his colonel, he had to leave Bergen op Zoom to present himself before Their Excellencies:

"The papers tell us about the preparations of the Bernese to make the effects of their anger felt by the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud. This will end up alienating those on whom they depend in such a moment, and who will not support them, I dare to presuade myself, except in a moment of error.

"But what I can't imagine, is that they would allow the troops to approach to watch you and threaten your lives and your estates, and that they would not be driven back by force and by the despair that, if I were in Switzerland, would inspire in me the means of prevailing. I want to believe that things will not turn out as bad for us as they want us to believe, and that perhaps you will take up arms, which would crown your joy, etc.

"Bergen op Zoom, August 25, 1791.

Crousaz, Lieut."

Samson Reymondin of Pully, dit de la Péraudette, clerk in a book shop at Geneva, was turned over to Their Excellencies by the government of that city, as being guilty of having sent to some persons of Lausanne a song on a certain vice of which Messieurs of Bern were accused. Reymondin was condemned to 20 years in irons.

Bachelard of Nyon, condemned to detention for a letter addressed to the Baillif, Monsieur de Bonstetten.

Cand, schoolmaster at Moudon, accused of having copied and distributed papers reputed to be seditious, condemned to 10 years of detention.

Blanc, Chanson and Payard of Bex, condemned to 10 years of detention for revolutionary activities.

Louis Testuz of Nyon, removed from his pastoral functions and condemned to be censured by the Baillif in the presence of the Class of Morges (the pastors of that district) for having taken part in the celebration at Rolle.

The minister Chatelannat, suspended from his functions as accused of the same crime.

De la Fléchère of Nyon, removed from all of his civil and military offices and condemned to two years of arrest for the same crime.

Jean-Marc Gex and Marc Byrde, merchant clerks at Lausanne, condemned to censure for their conduct at the celebrations of Jourdil and Rolle.

Louis Will, native de Heidelberg, citizen of Rolle, and commissioner at Ouchy, condemned to arrest for 3 months, and threatened with banishment for having taken an active part in the celebration at Le Jourdil, and for having carried to Rolle, in his coach, the so-called Liberty Hat, and having taken part in the procession.

François Verdeil, doctor of medicine, citizen and member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, condemned in absentia January 23 1793, to arrest and censure before the assembled district court, for having taken a major part in everything that happened on July 15 at Rolle, both in general, and in particular as one of the members of the Committee on Toasts.

Jean-Abraham Meyn, of Spambroek, Seigneur of Vennes, captain of the dragoons, citizen and member of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, condemned to arrest for 3 months, to censure, and to swearing a new oath of fealty, for having taken a major part in the disorderes of July 14 and 15 at Ouchy and Rolle.

The brothers Alfred-Berthoud Van Berchem, and Jacob-Berthoud Van Berchem, natives of La Brille in Holland, and residing in Lausanne, "convicted of having not only attended with their father on July 15 the celebration that took place at Rolle, but in having taken an active part in it, by bringing French national buttons, and in participating in the processions; the said Van Berchem father and son are banished from the country, with the injunction never to re-enter, seeing that, it is said, they have already left the country²⁶." The colonel Antoine Polier²⁷, son-in-law of Monsieur Van Berchem the father, followed his father-in-law into exile, indignant as he was over the vexations to which the police of Bern exposed the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud.

Many people followed the example of Colonel Polier. "In the time of the dragonnades of 1791," says Monsieur Monod in his Mémoires, there was a standing order to arrest various individuals; most of them being forewarned had time to get out of sight by fleeing; the were exiles, even though there was no judicial or legal act outstanding against them."

These actions plunged into the most profound discouragement those of the Vaudois who had conceived some hope that the homeland would soon re-enter into the enjoyment of the rights that Bern had taken from them. But this discouragement knew no bounds, when the cause of liberty was soiled, in France, by excesses that recalled the worst times of the monarchy: the massacres of St. Bartholomew's Day, order by Charles IX, the persecution of the protestants, ordered by Louis XIV, the dragonnades executed against a peaceful population by their kind Louis XV. But the excesses of these sinister epoques of the monarchy, where, in the name of religion, the kings slit the throats or threw into exile the elite of the French nation, these excesses were surpassed by the furors to which, in the name of a threatened liberty, the people gave themselves over against the enemies of their liberty, against whoever was designated as such, or even was suspected of being. In the times of the persecutions of the protestants, the royal power, all powerful, directed them; the king could arrest them at will; while in 1792, and in the two years that followed, the massacres became more frightful, as the people saw their liberty threatened by the kings of Europe and by the exiled nobility, whose number and influence they exaggerated, and above all the programs of vengeance. Nothing then could halt the bloody fury of the multitude, the worst of all despots. Whoever tried to appease it, soon declared moderate, was sent to his death.

The bloody dramas of the revolution, the events of August 10, in which our compatriots the Swiss guards died as heroes, at the foot of a throne abandoned by all, nobles, clerty and royalists; the massacres of September and the waves of blood that inundated France, caused indignation among the peoples of Europe who, all, had saluted with enthusiasm the dawn of the revolution. This indignation knew no bounds in our countryside, when there appeared there the glorious remnants of our regiments, escaped from the daggers of the assassins.

"Then no more partisan spirit," cries Rovéréa, "the partisan spirit was quiet before a general resentment, of which the noble impulse, if it had been followed, would perhaps have added to the trophies that mark so many pages of our history... But soon this first fire subsided: the governments limited themselves to complaints, requiring impossible reparations..." That of Bern, instead of responding to the momentum of the people, who wanted military action, was content to restore and refurbish the alarm signals. "I was given the care of 62 signals in the Pays de Vaud," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, "I learned thus in a tour that took me 6 weeks, I learned to judge the general exasperation that had been excited by the bloodthirsty troublemakers of the catastrophy of August 10."

Meanwhile, a formidable coalition formed against France. The sovereigns who were related to Louis XVI, first, declared war. France responded by energetic measures. 300,000 men took up arms and raced to the frontiers. While in the north, these improvised soldiers contested with the old bands of Austria, and an army of emigree officers, the entrance to French territory, the King of Sardinia directed his army on the middle of France, where, as the emigrees who packed the Sardinian command assured, the population was only waiting for a signal to rise up en masse in favor of the royalty. But, vain illusions, the Sardinian army was chased out of Nice, and Savoie was invaded in its turn.

The alarm soon spread through all of Switzerland. Already in September 24, 1792, the Baillif of Lausanne, Baron d'Erlach, learned, from a French emigree, that General Monesquiou, commander of the French army in the Alpes, strong with 40,000 men, had just received the order to take the Faucigny and the Chablais, and to assault Geneva. Immediately Monsieur d'Erlach, charged since the recent events with the command of the Pays de Vaud, put all our troops on alert, elite and reserve, and ordered 4 batallions from the districts of Morges, Nyon, Vevey, Aigle, and Moudon to be at Nyon on September 29.

What would they do, these Vaudois batallions, these officers of the Pays de Vaud, these jacobins, these sans-culottes, as Messieurs of Bern used to describe them to their German peasants? What would these Vaudois revolutionaries do, these Welches, ready to open to the French the doors of Switzerland? They ran in arms to defend the frontier. And the councils of the cities, forgetting the insults that had received from the High Commission, in September of 1791, these councils furnished the first needs of the Vaudois army... But let's let Monsieur de Rovéréa recount the conduct of our batallions, over which he then served in the high command:

"These batallions received the order from the Council of War to muster the first of October at Nyon... But their zeal accelerated their formation, these batallions forcing their march, were there by the evening of the 29th at Nyon... There was not a momento to lose. The reports of the emissaries, despatches from Savoie, agreed in affirming that the French army was approaching Geneva with no resistance, offering the prospect of the pillage of this opulent city. – A numerous emigration preceded this army, and, passing through Geneva, brought the terror to its peak. Thus, the route from Versoix to Lausanne was covered with fugitives of all ages and sexes. Some carried their precious effects; others were mired in misery: a spectable not likely, assuredly, to dispose our men to be trapped in a place almost abandoned by its inhabitants, and which, in fact, was foreign to us. We were not without worries about the submission of the troops, when our destination was announced, and much less when they preceived no help, no support behind them: the corps that was coming from the German part of the Canton, and those promised from other Cantons, were still far away. We thus busied ourselves immediately on how to convince our men to undertake to confront the perilous hazards of a seige. — Circumspect opinions were discarded. The troops, though harassed, were assembled on Sunday, September 30, at 2 in the morning, and at 5 they were ready to go, on the prairie near the Château of Coppet.

"The day began to dawn; a profound silence reigned, and might have intimidated seasoned leaders to crack down on the contrary fault. — Baron d'Erlach, Baillif of Lausanne, presented Colonel de Watteville as the commander of the expedition. The latter, in a short and manly harangue, showed his soldiers a threatened Geneva that implored their assistance against the murderers of the Swiss Guards... I read the oath. Suddenly, unanimous shouts resounded: I swear it! At this instant the sun appeared behind the peaks of the mountains, as if to lend its seal to this act of devotion, worthy of the high deeds of our ancestors. — 16 boats awaited on the shore... We set off in good order; the sails were raised, to the acclaim of an astonished and emotional crowd. A breeze took us to the port, at the moment when, by the chance of a happy omen, the bells sounded for the religious service, which, doubtless, was a service of thanksgiving for a salvation, penance for unexpected good fortune. In effect, the summons that was feared, and before which anyone would flinch, would take place that same evening, the head of the French columns having reached Carouge at the same moment when we disembarked in Geneva...

"I had been ostensibly charged, two days earlier, with examining the place, and, in secret, to sound out the inhabitants. I had found among the citizens, a half-hearted attitude, and little confidence in the means of defense. The authorities, on the contrary, boasted of the courageous devotion of their fellow citizens, talking about hiding themselves, if necessary, under the ruins of their houses. As to materiel, it was defective, the artillery of the ramparts, insufficient, appeared badly maintained. Our men, whom the Genevois should have showered with testimonials of recognition and affection, received little. They were immediately shown to their barracks, and provided with mediocre necessities. However, they made no complaints, showed the best good will, and never wavered in the enthusiasm that had torn them from their families and their occupations to put on their uniforms and fulfull the painful duties of the soldier. The surprise of the French equaled their chagrin, that in spite of the secrecy and rapidity of the invasion of Savoie, the Swiss had anticipated them at Geneva, with a diligence that announced their resolution to stand firm. Now our reputation being still intact, they judged that an assault would be useless, and they awaited new orders, while protesting their pacific intentions toward us²⁸."

Meanwhile, Their Excellencies showed the greatest activity in making their military preparations, and the party that, in the councils of the cantons, wished to make common cause with the coalition and the emigrees, proposed a war whose success they believed infallible. "But in the majority of the Cantons the zeal was already fading, and their government, to excuse their inertia, alleged their penury of funds. In reality, they staked their policy on the success of the coalition that they believed would soon be at the gates of Paris." Zurich and Fribourg made an exception, they sent two batallions each.

The treasurer de Muralt, named commander in chief, established his headquarters at Nyon, and dedicated 4 batallions to the defense of Geneva, with which the sole communication with the Swiss could only be done across the lake, Versoix being occupied by the French. According to the plan decreed by the Council of War, General de Muralt, at the news of an attack on Geneva, was to move rapidly with 14 batallions and his cavalry into the Pays de Gex, to occupy the forst of L'Ecluse that they knew was poorly guarded, and thus to cover the right bank of the Rhône as far as Geneva. This mouvement was to be supported by 12,000 elite men of the districts of Bern, the German and the Vaudois, who were still on active duty in their communes.

While waiting for the moment to act, the army, with two pairs of field artillery and 4 squadrons of dragoons, established its position along the line from Nyon to Bonmont, defended by redoubts, at Eysins and at Chéserex; this line was covered by a chain of outposts on the extreme frontier, between Coppet and La Rippe. A strong detachment and a redoubt closed, at St. Cergues, the pass through the Jura. Finally, two batallions watched over the banks of the lake and of the Rhône, from Rolle to St. Maurice.

However, a new era was announced. The National Convention began its bloody reign, and with resounding cannons from the Argonne to Valmey, on September 22, 1792, it proclaimed the Republic One and Indivisible. Dumouriez, at the head of the French volunteers who were joined by a crowd singing the Marseillaise, responded to the Manifest of the Duke of Brunswick by falling back into the forests of the Argonne, and in defeating at Valmey 80,000 Prussians who were advancing on Paris. The Prussians, discouraged and mowed down by famine and disease, soon beat the Retreat. At Jemmapes, the republicanes braved the cannons of the Emperor of Austrai, defeating his army and invading the frontiers of his states.

This news, arriving blow by blow, consternated the governments of Bern and Geneva. They dispelled their illusions, dashing the hopes of the party of war, which, right up to the eve of these events, demanded with loud cries to make common cause with the coalition. The Bernese command, which also still dreamed of taking part in the conquest of France, was struck with stupor.

"Then," says Monsieur de Rovéréa, "one felt the danger of the situation of our army, the impossibility of holding the defenses, with the enormous disproportion of our forces, with the frontiers open on the side of the lake and dominated by the Jura, which was crossed by three routes between St. Cergues and Ste. Croix, finally, with the front of our operational line separated from Geneva by two leagues of enemy territory. The government of Geneva, with the agreement of the representatives of Bern and Zurich entered into negotiations with Montesquiou. This general, whose personal interests inclined to save Geneva, subscribed to a projet for a convention that was rejected with disdain in Paris." The convention led to accusations against General Montestquiou, and executive power gave General Kellermann, named commander in chief of the army of the Alps, the order to commence hostilities the first of December, if, by that time, the Swiss were still in Geneva. The convention declared at the same time to accord fraternity and assistance to all peoples who wished to recover their liberty. The newspapers announced the imminent arrival in the Pays de Gex of siege artillery, of munitions, and an an army corps. Montestquiou, seeing the threatening storm, and fearing to be blamed, left his army on November 2, crossed Geneva, and took refuge at Rolle at the residence of Monsieur Necker, the former minister of the unfortunate Louis XVI.

Consternation spread through Geneva, and its government, who, when the Duke of Brunswick, in his manifest, announced to Europe his impending entry into Paris, wanted to hide under the debris of the ruins than to surrender, now that the times had changed, "they hastened to get rid of the Swiss batallions." They hastend even more when they received from Paris the most menacing warnings. Their secret agents ordered them, in effect, not to involve themselves in the plans of the Republic to begin hostilities with the Swiss, which would have the result of extending the theater of the war to all the frontiers of the east, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean; but that the French Republic would however not hesitate at all to finish off Geneva and Bern, if a Swiss army continued by its presence to agitate the malcontents in the interior. These threats, however, would not be followed, at that time, by real hostilities, for France, while victorious, had need of all its resources to sustain the war in the lower Alps, in the Pyrénées, in the north, and along the Rhine, and finally to stiffle the royalist insurrections that had broken out in the West and in the Midi. In effect, General Dornac, who, since the flight of Montesquiou, was interim commander in the Alps, received the order to concentrate his army on the middle Savoie, but only after having obtained the retreat of the Swiss army. The overtures of Dornac were hotly supported by Geneva; and the French and Swiss command arrange that, in the two armies, the retreat would commence simultaneously, beginning on December 3. In the middle of this same month, the army of the Alps had terminated its movements, and our batallions were mustered out.

The Pays de Vaud, by its zeal in rushing to the aid of the threatened Geneva, and guarding the frontier, had well deserved praises, not only from Geneva and Bern, but from the entire Swiss Confederation. How was it thanked for its devotion and zeal of it batallions from the vineyards, who, abandoning their harvests and outpacing their orders, saved Geneva, as their ancestors had already done when Their Excellencies of Bern had abandoned Geneva to the Duke of Savoie²⁹? Geneva, if we may judge by the silence of its historians, paid no attention to the Vaudois for their devotion. As to Bern, it acted as it had after Villmergen. "It addressed its thanks to the communes for the devotion they had demonstrated. Two officers, Major Rusillon and Captain Pillichody, were admitted to the patriciate; promotions, medals, and some money, were distributed to other individuals³⁰..." By so doing, Bern committed a fault. Admitting Messieurs Rusillon and Pillichody to the patriciate, based on their blind obediance to the arbitrary orders of the Commission of Rolle, the active part that they had just taken in the arrests of our best citizens, and the enthusiasm that they manifested in full view of the deputies of our cities, humilitated in the assembly of September 30, by the Bernese commissioners, this elevation was a new wound inflicted in our national sentiment.

However, so declares Monsieur de Rovéréa himself, the government of Bern owed to the generality of the county that it occupied a striking debt of gratitude. "Better advised," he says, "it should have seized on this unique occasion to strengthen its position, by conceding to its subjects some of the prerogatives that would have linked them to the principles of the aristocracy, by attenuating what was so mortifying for the great number, the shocking contrast of the bourgeoisie of a city, absolute sovereigns of a people supposed to be free, whose upper classes presented a choice of men, who, by their talents, their birth or their fortunes, could have figured honorably among the first dignitaries of the state. — Sage magistrates, whose opinion carried weight, felt the urgency of such a measure, required besides by the spirit of the century. They floated the idea, spread it, sustained it. But the old prejudices, a bit of arrogance, of jealousy, and a badly calculated personal interest, under the mask of the danger of innovation, caused this propitious moment to be lost, and postponed a decision that might have assured forever the affection and public devotion of which we have just felt the happy influence.

"If a free gesture of magnanimity had then dictated this sacrifice, it is permissible to believe, that not only would the germs of discontent have been stiffled, but that all access to external intriques would have been closed of, which, once again, aided by malicious people within, prepared the dissolution of a body politic, become too incoherent to resist the social commotion that had arisen and that would probably have respected it, if it had been found more in conformity with the maxims that it proclaimed³¹."

Meanwhile, the armies of the coalition, beaten by Kellermann, Dumouriez and Custine, rallied and attempted a new effort. In the interieur of France, the provinces of the West agitated, and famine caused a crowd to rush into Paris, inflamed by bread, blood, and pillage. Then it was proclaimed that the single remedy of all these evils, even invasion, was the death of Louis XVI, which alone could stiffle the insurrections in their midst, and strike the kings with terror. During the winter of 1792, the Convention proceded with the impeachment of the monarch, who, on January 21, 1793, mounted the scaffold and died a martyr to the royal cause. The entire Europe declared war to the death against France. Spain and Holland joined England, Prussia with the empire in Germany, and the king of Sardinia braved all perils to remain faithful to his duty toward his relative, Louis XVI. France accepted the challenge, calling on all peoples to revolt. "Everywhere," says the conventionnel Cambon, "where the arms of the Republic penetrated, revolutionary power was established, the feudal regime and the other abuses were abolished, the sovereignty of the people was proclaimed. No half-revolutions; may everyone who does not want what we propose be considered enemies. Peace and fraternity to all friend of liberty; war to all the vile partisans of despotism; war to the castles, peace to the humble cottages."

Hostilities began in earnest. 24,000 Prussians and Bavarians, Hessians and Saxons, advanced from Mayence. 70,000 Austrians and Prussians appeared on the Meuse, and 40,000 English, Hanoverians and Dutch invaded Belgium. The Convention voted a new army, and the black flag was raised as a sign of danger to the fatherland. The terror, and the enthusiasm of liberty, made 1,200,000 citizens run to arms; science and industry provided, by new technologies, the arms, the munitions, and all the materiel for this immense army. Soon the battle of Hondschoote pushed back the English outside the territory of the Republic; the Germans were repulsed everywhere, and Kellermann chased the Piedmontese back across the Alps, while Toulon was retaken from the English.

However, the Swiss remained immobile in the midst of these catastrophes that turned Europse upside down. As in the times of the wars of Louis XIV, the weakening of the federal linkage that should bind the Cantons to one another, saved the Confederation, but it showed the powers that cantonal egoism made it henceforth impossible to defend the federal territory. France did not forget this, in 1798.

The Convention, entering into conflict with Europe, sent Barthélemi to represent the Republic in Switzerland. This was before the victories of Jemmapes and Valmy. Thus the French ambassador was not recognized at all, and its activites were limited to correspondence with the Burgermeister of Zurich, president of the Vorort. But after the victory of the arms of the Republic, the system changed. Bern, as we have seen, negotiated with France at Geneva, in the autumn of 1792, and withdrew its troops. The majority of the cantons recognized the ambassador appointed by the Convention; but Uri, Swchytz, Unterwald, Fribourg, Soleure and the Valais were opposed. Even Bern, in spite of its earlier opinion, in spite of the horror produced by the execution of Louis XVI, in spite of the efforts of the Overseer Steiger and the ministers of England and Austria to obtain from the Two Hundred a declaration hostile to France, Bern recognized the French Republic, the National Convention, the Committee on National Salvation, and negotiated with Robespierre. "At the end of the month of November, 1793, the English ambassarod, Lord Fitzgerald, called on the Confederation to break all friendly ties with France, then victorious on all fronts. The Vorort, through the Council of Bern, made a neatly evasive response. And when the Swiss had escaped the dangers of this formidable year, 1793, it celebrated in the spring of the following year a religious solemnity for the divine grace. Though disquieted mor than ever by the emissaries from the French clubs, bu the royalist emigrees, and by the diplomatic friction born from their intrigues, it received the communication of a decree from the Convention, dated November 17, 1793, assuring the Swiss cantons the maintenance of their treaties with France, and the friendship of the French people. Measures were taken against the French emigrees. Toward the end of the year 1794, the cantons withdrew a good part of their groops from the frontier at Basel. Before that, the Diet had admitted Geneva and Neuchâtel to the benefit of neutrality. Lord Fitzgerald left Switzerland in the first days of 1795. Ambassador Barthélemi concluded at Basel, in the name of France, on April 5, 1795, a peace treaty with Prussia, and on July 22 of the same year, with Spain. Finally, in May, 1796, the minor cantons recognized, only then, the French Republic, thanks to the persistent efforts of Zurich and Bern. The ministers of France and Austria assured the Suiss that their neutrality would be respected, and the Directory, which had succeeded the Convention, declared that it harbored no hostile intentions toward the Confederation³²."

During the rifts of which it was the witness, the Pays de Vaud enjoyed a profound peace, and saw in influx of a hord of emigrants who received in its cities and châteaux due consolations for their misfortune. Monsieur Necker and his daughter, Madame de Staël, in their residence at Coppet, gave asylum to the victims of the Terror. The Duke of Noailles at Rolle, the Gingins de La Sarraz and Orny, the Vasserot of Vincy, the Senarclens of Vufflens, the Mestral of Arruffens and St. Saphorin, exercized the most generous hospitality. Thus the fugitives called them the Providence of the emigrees. But these refugess were no longer those of 1789 and 1790, all nobles and the privileged. By 1793 it was a crowd of every rank and opinion: nobles, priests, bourgeois, workers, peasants, who fled the Terror, the hail of bullets from the revolutionary tribunal of Lyon, and the mass condemnations. Thus, the Vaudois from all classes did what they could for such great misfortunes. Our businessmen, our merchants, our peasants, were seen using their passports to seek out victims in France marked for death, and at peril of their lives, to snatch them from their executioners. Even our contraband runners in the Jura, after their adventurous expeditions in the neighboring départements, led away over the paths that only they knew the women, the children, and the old people condemned by these hideous committees that, in the name of the fatherland in danger, spilled the blood of their co-citizens. These emigrees from all classes, royalists, constitutionnels fro 1791, moderates, terrorists, who, in the canton of Bern alone, numbered 700, caused in this Canton financial difficulties that contiued to mount. "They would never suspect, they would never discover any plot against the Republic," says Monsieru Monnard, "without pretending that it had been concocted or at least known in advance in Switzerland." Each time, new complaints. The growing number of emigrees, their gathering on the frontiers of the Jura, attracted to the Confederation diplomatic notes and even threats. "The Committee on National Salvation can only regard as hostile the asylum that is accorded to the emigrees," wrote Ambassador Barthélemi in May, 1795 to the Vorort, then requesting that "all classes of these foreigners be expelled from Swiss territory, as dangerous as they are for the tranquility of France as well as that of Switzerland, even those who by a false pity have been tolerated until now, as well as those who have only recently taken refuge." To these demands, to these threats, Bern responded with new assurances as a good neighbor, and sent back more than 500 refugees.

"The fear of the evils that had befallen the redoubtable Republic," says Monsieur Monod in his Mémoires³³, "brought the people and the sovereigns together, and at the same time the former showed themselves more docile, the latter had to show themselves less absolute. But Berne did not follow this path. It had promised reforms, ameliorations; it had appointed a commission to study that; but that commission never met, and did nothing. The excuse was given, that to make concessions at a time when the arms of the sans-culottes struck terror everywhere, would only increase the fear and make the people insolent. However," adds Monsieur Monod, "the Convention had its reverses, and the retreat of the French across the Rhine was regarded by the Swiss as the forerunner of the submission of France. Thus, I thought I might profit from this opinion by telling a member of the Bernese government, Monsieur Thorman, Baillif of Morges, whom I knew to be dispassionate and whose views I knew well, that if Their Excellencies had the intention to remedy the abuses that the Vaudois complained about, it appeared the moment had arrived." Monsieur Monod presented to Monsieur Thorman the danger of delaying any longer the legitimate aspirations of the Vaudois, and of prolonging even longer the exile of some of them, who, like Monsieur de la Harpe of Yens, shone in the republican ranks, while an amnesty would call them all home, making them forget the pain of exile. Monsieur Thorman agreed with the views of Monsieur Monod; he asked the commission of revision to fulfill its mission, and make a report. But this move only attracted the most bitter reproach. The oligarchs of Bern hoped that their reign would soon be affirmed by the triumphs of Austria; that patriots of Vaud, on their side, hoped only for the triumph of France.

It was in the midst of these hopes, so opposite, that there appeared on the fields of battle in Italy, a young general who would soon bring triumph to France, and begin a new era in history.

¹May 6, 1738. Letter to the Baillifs of Moudon, Yverdon, and Nyon..

²When, after the Revolution of 1798, the State Archives of Bern were rendered more accessible, the revenues and expenses of Their Excellencies with respect to the Pays de Vaud could be evaluted in a more certain manner. Here is what we read in this regard in the Mémoires of Monsieur Henri Monod.

"The revenues of Their Excellencies in the Pays de Vaud consisted of:

1^o In Commodities:
3675 muids of wheat, at 22 1/2 batz per quarter muid.	Fr.	396,900
2415 muids of mixed wheat and rye, at 12 1/2 batz per quarter muid.		144,900
4415 muids of oats, at 6 1/4 batz per quarter muid.		132,480
736 casks white wine, at 180 fr. each (average price in the vignoble of Mont).		132,480
39 casks of red wine, at 120 fr. each.		4,680
2^o In Salt:
19349 quintals, product of the salt works, at 4 fr.		77,398
3^o In Cash:
Transfer fees and sales.		187,860
Grazing fees, use fees.		11,500
Police assessment, wine tarrifs.		7,827
Rents from farms, domaines, and fisheries.		38,873
Tolls, less expenses.		100,129
Salt trade.		60,000
Post, one third of the concession.		25,000
Monies.		8,000
Incidental sources : fiscal defaults, unpaid labor, etc.		22,003
	___________
	Fr.	1,350,000

"To this sum paid by the Pays de Vaud, should be added annual interest on princial of 948,648 fr., due to the State of Bern by various public entities or individuals of the Pays de vaud; revenues from forests, the domaines of the Baillifs and the perquisites of which they were not required to give an account; finally, the expenses of the communes for the military: the sum amounting to at least 50,000 francs.

"To these these revenues, should be added the feudal rights due to the cities or to individuals, amounting to the sum of 284,800 francs. En summary, the Pays de Vaud paid annually 1,800,000 francs, of which about 1,400,000 went to the profit of the State and more than a million on lands.

"As to annual expenses, they amounted, approximately, to the sum of 500,000 francs, namely:

Church and public education.	Fr.	240,000
Poor relief and assistance.		50,000
Military, buildings, bridges and highways.		100,000
Justice, police, tax collectors, collection of taxes.		110,000

"Thus," adds Monsieur Monod, "we got back a little more than a third of what we paid; the surplus, amounting to 900,000 francs, served for the embellishment of the capital, was buried in the caves under city hall, or was distributed among the members of the State and their families...... 400,000 francs was thus retired annually by individual Bernese out of the 900,000 francs paid by the Pays de Vaud."

³Loyseau de Mauléon, Défense apologétique du comte de Portes. Vol. III of his Plaidoyers et Mémoires.

⁴Jean-Jaques Cart. Lettres à Bernard De Muralt, trésorier du Pays de Vaud, sur le droit public de ce pays, etc. Paris, 1795.

⁵"The questions about money seem only to have only arisen in the countryside: they were only concerned about the feudal rights with which they were burdened." (Monod, Mémoires, I, 75.)

⁶F. de Rovéréa, Mémoires, 2 vol. in-8^o. Bern, 1848. Tome I, page 46.

⁷Ch. Monnard, Hist. de la Conf. Suisse, bk. XIV, ch. VIII. — Tillier, Hist. de la Ville et Rép. de Berne, V, 481-483.

⁸Ch. Monnard, Hist. de la Conféd. Suisse, bk. XIV, chap. XII.

⁹F. de Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 38.

¹⁰Jounral of the Council of Bern, September 17, 1789. — Monnard, Bk. XIV, ch. VIII.

¹¹G.-H. de Seigneux, Précis historique de la révolution du Canton de Vaud, etc. Lausanne, 1831, vol. in-8^o. T. I, p. 94.

¹²A Vaudois, a soldier from the regiment of Chateauvieux, made some dangerous remarks in the Pays de Vaud; he was imprisoned. — The Baillif of Lausanne sent the Countess of Genlis, whose subversive opinions were well known, to the frontier. "Her principles are too dangerous to tolerate her." — Their Excellencies gave 1,000 francs per month to Monsieur Mallet-Dupan for his correspondence and 4,000 francs to an agent in the Pays de Gex. (Ch. Monnard. Hist. de la Conf., bk. XIV, ch. VIII. — Archives of the Secret Council of Bern, 1790.)

¹³F. de Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 42.

¹⁴Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 42-46.

¹⁵Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 50.

¹⁶Monnard, Book XIV, ch. XII. — Tillier, 489. — Cart. Lettres à B. de Muralt, 143-149. — Rovéréa, I, 57. — Précis de l'arrivée de M^r Martin. — Protocol of the Secret Council of Bern.

¹⁷Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 59.

¹⁸F.-C. Laharpe, Essai sur la Constitution du Pays de Vaud.

¹⁹Rosset: Unpublished memoirs. Letter from the district assessor Rosset to the Baillif of Lausanne, July 18, 1791.

²⁰Archives of Bern. — Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 61-63.

²¹F.-C. Laharpe. Essai sur la Constitution du Pays de Vaud, I, 153. — Baron d'Erlach of Spiez, senator of Bern. A ses amis, sur les écrits du colonel de la Harpe. Bern, 1797, 6-7.

M^r J.-J. Cart, in his Lettres à Bernard de Muralt, trésorier du Pays de Vaud, page 151, speaks in facetious terms about the banquet at Cully. "We celebrated willingly in the Pays de Vaud," he says, "and we celebrated July 14 at Vevey, at Lausanne, at Rolle and at Coppet... The aristocrats wanted to have their turn; they showed up in great numbers at Cully; like us, they dined in public. The made toasts to the aristocracy, and more than one wore the white cocard; but what we didn't do, they ended up fighting. One of the party-goers, without malice, and jesting about the two parties, proposed a toast for the patriots; he neigbor, a courtier, responded with a blow of his fist. That was the signal for combat. Soon, fists, canes, sabers, everything was in the air: everyone gave as good as they got; the former punched his neighbor and threw him in the lake, while Mylord the Baillif d'Erlach, president of the celebration, got up on the table, harangued and harangued in vain. His voice was lost in the tumult, and, the table having overturned during the fracas, added to all these regrets that of having no more to drink. The prognostics were not good for the aristocrats."

²²Unpublished memoirs.

²³Journals of the Two Hundred of Lausanne, August 31 and September 1, 1791, 63-65.

²⁴F.-C. la Harpe, Essai sur la Constitution du Pays de Vaud, II, 115.

²⁵M^r Rosset shows in his Mémoires the falsity of these accusations. He had not attended the club at Pontarlier, where he arrived in the morning with Monsieur Muller, and left the afternoon of the same day, and that it was after his arrest, that the police had seized from the mails in Lausanne literature from the members of the club of Pontarlier, addressed to Messieurs Rosset and Muller by the lawyer Bon. As to the supposed signs of insurrection, they consisted in tricolor ribbons, purchased at Pontarlier, where everyone was obliged to wear them to avoid being insulted. Messieurs Rosset and Muller gave these ribbons to the innkeeper Paschoud, at Echallens, and to Madame de Biolay, in the château where they spent the day. As to the buttons, they were purchased in a shop at Morges where they were openly offered for sale.

²⁶See, for the sentences reported above, the Register of Mandates and Sovereign Ordonnances; the Registers of the Two Hundred of Lausanne; the District Archives deposed at the State Archives of Vaud.

²⁷see pages 313-314 of this volume on Colonel Polier.

²⁸Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 88-94.

²⁹see pages 175-180 of our second volume.

³⁰Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 126.

³¹Rovéréa, Mémoires, I, 126-127.

³²Ch. Monnard, Hist. de la Conf. Suisse, bk. XIV, ch. VIII, 466-469.

³³H. Monod, Mémoires, I, 92.

History of the Canton of Vaud

By Auguste Verdeil (1795-1856)

(Lausanne, Martignier and Co., 1849-1852)

BOOK FOUR

Chapter XXI.

National Awakening.

1790-1797.