1 They are no longer perfuaded that a hundred thousand Ruffians are marching towards the Rhine, or that the caufe of oligarchies is the caufe of God. They feel that they are men, and recollect that their ancestors and themselves have done every thing for us, and that we have done nothing for them. They have discovered that they want a guarantee for the future, and that this guarantee can only be found in the equality of political rights, a constitution refting on that bafis, and, above all, new elections. Our fecret council has, indeed, written to me, that our subjects defire to remain as they are; but I cannot easily believe that men of common fenfe, provided they are free to fpeak what they think, would feriously manifeft the defire of remaining hereditary fubjects, and that in a kind of subjection of which there exifts not even any example in the monarchies of Europe. Besides, I have received addreffes which demonftrate the contrary: they remind me of the opinions which I have always profeffed, and conjure ine to feize, like a real tribune of the people, the favourable opportunities for emancipating the petitioners. I have alfo been correctly informed of the progrefs which the minority of the magiftrates have fucceffively made, and which for fome time feemed to be decifive. I have experienced from this inexpreffible joy; but I learn with regret that much valuable time is loft in deputations, commiffions, and frivolous conceffions, wished to be made with principles: that a mental reservation prevails; that hopes are entertained of continuing in place, and, in a word, that a new influence appears to have arifen from the diet of Arau; a diet which completely deceived the expectation of every -true. Swifs as well as foreigners; a diet which, during the three weeks it has been affembled, has fet itself against every thing it ought to have performed. Again, and for the laft time, I fpeak to you on the real interefts of the country. I tell you, that the light of fimple common fenfe, the force of circumstances, the regeneration of primitive ideas, the public and general good, an infinite number of political confiderations, and particularly the principles of eternal juftice, impofe upon you the duty of acquiefcing, without delay, in the wishes of your fubjects, and in the councils of the magiftrates and citizens who have proved themfelves their defenders. Declare, then, by a formal decree, ift. That there are no longer any fubjects. 2d. That each village, burgh, and fection of towns, fhall form a primary affembly, and immediately elect reprefentativesone for each fifty perfons who have reached the age of twentyfour years. 3d. That these representatives, affembled at Bafle, fhall form a particular conftitution, to remain in force until the fentiments of the other parts of Switzerland be known. 4th. 4th. That they fhall establish, in the mean time, while the conftitution is preparing, fome provifional committees for maintaining order, and managing the prefent business; and, finally, that each of you charge yourfelves to prefent to those appointed for the above purpofe, the act of refignation of all your places, without any reserve whatever. I am anxious to be before you in this tranfaction. I declare, therefore, that I renounce every hereditary privilege; that henceforth I confider our fubjects as fellow-citizens; and that I am ready to depofit in the hands of the reprefentatives of the people every power, authority, command, prefidency for life, or otherwife, with which I am invefted. The influence which a declaration fo precife may have in the prefent circumstances, will, perhaps, fill up the meafure of the complaint which the aristocracy have been accumulating against me fince the 14th of July 1789, expecting the great day of their vengeance. I am not ignorant of their malevolence; but the more the aristocracy hate me, the more I love myself. Citizens, (Signed, &c.) MANIFESTO. OUR UNION FORMS OUR POWER. The Citizens of the Country to the Burgeffes of the Town of Bafle: January 18, 1798. YOU know that the people of the country require their li berty. It is a right which they derive from God and nature. During an age, this right has been a stranger to the country inha bitants of the canton of Bafle, and we have been obliged to remain filent. We have been compelled to bend our heads under an aristocratic yoke, which the burgeffes of the town of Baile have impofed upon us. How painful this must be to every true Swifs! We well know that your pretended rights are supported by alienations and titles. We know that the town of Balle purchafed its fubjects from ruined princes or fanatical priefts: but can you perfuade yourselves that the rights of man are alienable? You know as well as we do, that claims and contracts rest folely on the right of the ftrongeft, and on the force of arms, and that fuch pretenfions have no reality but in the power of maintaining them. Your rights are not hereditary: we never fubfcribed your title-deeds; we never confented to them. We expect that our demand will receive your approbation. You will not oppofe a confederation, which has for its only object the general good, and which may even extend the limits of your civil liberty. If fome muft lofe, others muft gain. Such is the fate of all revolutions; and none ought to refufe the making of flight facrifices to procure important advantages. We know the fecret of revolutions as well as the force of arms: we know the means of propagating our principles-we leave you to think the reft. For ages it has been our only wish to defend our country, at the expense of our, blood-be not aftonifhed, then, that we feek our liberty at the fame price. Such is the manifefto which we address to you, and to all the univerfe. It depends only on you to favour the fuccefs of our enterprise. Reflect on the fpirit of the times, and you will be convinced that an imprudent refiftance will occafion more violent means to be used, and excavate the abyss which must swallow up our unhappy commune. Declaration of the Sovereign Council of Berne, on the 31st January 1798. WE being affembled this day, upon oath, to deliberate upon the measures to be taken for the fafety of the country, have perfonally bound ourselves by a folemn oath, and have firmly refolved to defend the country at the price of our property and our blood, to the last extremity, and with all our power against any enemy whatever, and to employ to that end all the means dependent upon us, in concert with our dear and faithful burghers. Mefuge of the Executive Directory to the Council of Five Hundred, on the 9th Pluviofe (Feb. 5). Citizens Reprefentatives, THE HE Helvetic oligarchy, which, fince the commencement of the revolution, has taken so active a part in all the fecret machinations against liberty, and in all the plots formed for the deftruction of the French republic, has now filled up the measure of its crimes by violating, in the perfons of feveral of our brave brethren in arms, the most facred laws of the right of nations. The Executive Directory, in conformity with the 328th article of the conftitution, muft acquaint you with every thing that has paffed, and with the measures it has taken. The people of the Pays de Vaud, detached from Savoy in 1530, have for a long time groaned under the defpotifm of the governments of Berne and Fribourg. That country, originally difmembered from France, formed under the Savoifian government a feparate province, governed by the ftates, in concert with a ducal bailiff, whofe prerogatives were circumfcribed by conftitutional laws. Thefe laws, even in 1530, were defpifed and trod under foot by VOL. VII. R the the patricians of Berne and Fribourg. In 1544, the Duke of Savoy renounced all pretenfions to that country, but he formally ftipulated that its conftitution fhould be preferved; and on the 26th of April 1565, the French government constituted itfelf guarantee of this treaty, and confequently of the political rights of the Pays de Vaud. It is well known with how little delicacy the governments of Berne and Fribourg conftantly violated the focial contract formed between them and the Vaudois, by thefe new treaties. The Vaudois, at different periods, remonftrated against that oppreffion to which they were victims; but force for a long time impofed filence on the multitude, and thofe among them who difplayed more courage than the reft were profcribed. One of these was the brave General Laharpe, who, adopted by the French republic, became one of its molt intrepid defenders, and fealed with his blood, in the plains of Italy, the attachment which he had fworn to it. Liberty, however, was fupported in the Pays de Vaud by numerous and ftrenuous friends, who at length determined to claim the protection due to them from the republic in virtue of the treaties of 1564 and 1565, both as the fubftitute of the ci-devant Duke of Savoy, and as replacing the ancient French government. Scarcely was the report of this claim fpread abroad, when malevolence endeavoured to lay hold of it, and to infinuate in a public journal, that the Pays de Vaud, as a reward for its attachment to liberty, was to be detached from Switzerland, and incorporated with France. These infinuatians, which afcribed to the French republic views of invafion contrary to its good faith, had evidently no other objec than to alarm the Vaudois refpecting the confequences of thofe fteps which they might take for the recovery of their ancient rights. The Executive Directory took the first opportunity, therefore, of proving the falfity of them by a decree of the 27th Frimaire, which prohibited the journal that contained them, and by notifying what it had done to all the Helvetic cantons. On the 8th Nivofe following, the minifter of foreign affairs gave an account to the Executive Directory of the claims which had been addreffed to it, for re-establishing the Vaudois in the political rights hitherto guaranteed to them in vain by the treaties of 1564 and 1565; and the Directory the fame day passed a decree, charging the minifter of the republic to the Helvetic cantons, to declare to the governments of Berne and Fribourg, that the members of thefe governments fhould be perfonally anfwerable for the individual fafety and property of the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud, who fhould or might in future address themselves to the French republic, to obtain by it its mediation to be maintained or reinftated in all their rights, according to ancient treaties. This determination was the more urgent, fince the government of Berne, as it has itf.lf acknowledged by its answer to an off cial remonftrance made to it by the Directory through its diplomatic agent, had already ordered a levy of militia to march against the French troops affembled in fome places of the department of Mont-Terrible, and had even caused to be arrested the deputies of those communes who had refused to take up arms against the republic. The government of Berne had even proceeded farther. It had publicly enrolled emigrants, and given fhelter to French requifitionaries and deferters; and it did not diffemble its defign of employing them to fupprefs by force the claims of the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud, and to direct them against the republic. These hoftile difpofitions were a fufficient warning to the Directory to take proper precautions. Orders were given for a divifion of the army of Italy, which had acquired fo many laurels under General Maffena, to march on its way to France through Carouge, in order that it might proceed thence to the departments of l'Ain, Jura, and Doubs, for the purpose of watching the motions of the troops of Berne and Fribourg, and to be always prepared to repel every aggreffion. The event juftified this precaution: on the 28th Nivofe laft, the general commanding at Carouge was informed by an official difpatch from the committee of Nyon, invefted with full powers by the council of that town, that fourteen battalions, with the neceffary artillery, were about to fet out from Berne, against the country of the Pays de Vaud; and that, over and above, levies of troops were privately ordered in all the villages on the frontiers of that country, contrary to the pofitive promife which had been made to that committee. Immediately after this notice, the divifion under General Maffena arrived. Menard, general of brigade, who commanded in the absence of the general of division, informed the Executive Directory, by a dispatch of the 8th Pluviofe, that there could be no doubt refpecting the movements made by the cantons of Berne and Fribourg to filence the claims of the Pays de Vaud; and that General de Weiss, invested with full powers from thefe cantons, under the title of commander in chief of the troops of Berne and Fribourg in the Pays de Vaud, had established his head-quarters at Yverdun, and was on the point of committing hoftilities. The fame day General Menard, agreeably to the inftructions which he had received from the Executive Directory, fent a fummons to General Weifs to draw off his troops, and to leave to the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud the free exercife of their rights, claims, and applications, declaring, at the fame time, that, in case of a refufal, he should be obliged to repel force by force, to put an end to refiftance, and to purfue the authors of it. General Menard charged his aid-de-camp, Citizen Autier, to carry this fummons to General Weifs, at Yverdun, and the aidde-camp was accompanied by two huffars, whom the patriots of R 2 Moudon |