ADOLPHUS’S HISTORY OF FRANCE. 71 
and Italy. These numerous and splen- 
did conquests, whatever gratification 
they afforded to the national vanity of 
the French, were attended with little in- 
ternal advantage ; the plunder of other 
countries enriched not their own, whilst 
so many thousand hands were taken 
from agriculture and manufactures to 
supply the ranks, at once of victory and 
death. 
The history of Bonaparte’s campaign 
in Italy, was written at the time by a 
eneral officer. We remember an anec- 
dote there related, which, in honour of the 
Venetian senate, we shallrepeat: ‘ A few 
days before General Massena had taken 
possession of Verona, that place was 
the asylum of Lewis Stanislaus, brother 
to the last king of France, and his little 
court of emigrants, to whom the Vene- 
tians had kindly afforded protection. 
Their generosity, however, soon gave 
way to their fears; and the senate of 
Venice, with a shameful policy, had al- 
ready determined to transfer to the vic- 
torious Bonaparte all the regard it had 
formerly displayed towards the majesty 
of the king of Verona. The podestat ac- 
cordingly received orders to declare to 
this fugitive prince, that it was neces- 
sary for him to leave its territories, 
although when France had formerly 
thought proper to complain of this re- 
ception, the senate had answered, that 
Lewis being a noble Venetian, in that 
quality had a legal title to inhabit the 
dominions of the state; but the repub- 
lican legions had not at that time crossed 
the mountains. By way of reply to this 
embassy of the podestat, the pretender is 
said to have demanded that the golden 
book, containing the list of the nobles, 
should be sent to him, in order to erase 
the name of his family, and he at the 
same time required the sword which his 
ancestor Henry 1V. had presented to 
the republic. The magistrate, without 
any respect to the misfortunes and past 
grandeur of the pretender, replied, that 
the senate, on his demand, would make 
no scruple to grant the exclusion of his 
name; and as to the sword, it should be 
instantly restored, provided he would pay the 
sum of twelve millions of livres still due by this 
same Henry; “an answer,” observes the 
historian indignantly, ‘indecent on the 
part of the government of which he 
_ was the organ, and only worthy of a 
pawnbroker.’’? To return to Mr. Adol- 
phus. In the account which is given of 
the most foul, infamous, and diabolical 
invasion of Switzerland; which account, 
from the list of references, is unques- 
tionably drawn from the most authentic 
sources, it will scarcely be credited, that 
the name of that immortal patriot, 
Axoys RrpinG, ts not once mentioned, 
no notonce! Has Mr. Adolphus never 
heard of such a man? does not he recol- 
lect some such name in the Histoire de 
la Destruction, &c. par Henri Zschokke ? 
what an extraordinary and unaccount- 
able omission then! The French would 
not have had so easy a conquest over 
the Swiss, had half that boasted happi- 
ness and harmony subsisted among them, 
of which we have heard so much: their 
history abounds with instances of intes- 
tine discord, arising from civil jealousies 
and religiousintolerance. ‘The Helvetic 
confederacy, incoherent in its parts, had 
long been threatened with dissolution ; 
“ different kinds of intestine disturbance,” 
says Mr. Zschokke, whose narrative is 
written ina very temperate and careful 
manner,* “ different kinds of intestine 
disturbance,” says he, “the remon- 
strances of the governed, the blind 
haughtiness of the governors, the mu- 
tual rivalship between the cantons, all 
united in the work of destruction.— 
France, seeing with pleasure the dissen- 
tions which tore the confederates, did 
not delay to profit by them; she fo- 
mented the discord, fed the hatred and 
the hopes of parties, excited the cantons 
against each other, and thus made way 
for the revolution in Helvetia which was 
soon to break out.”’ “~ 
Berne, Zurich, and Basil took an early 
alarm, and Zurich, the first canton of 
the Helvetic league, invited them to a 
conference for the purpose of mutual 
co-operation and protection; Schwitz 
acceded to the confederacy, and sent to 
the canton of Berne, in quality of its de- 
puty, the ancient landamman, Charles 
Reding, with the-view of preserving, by 
conciliatory means, the tranquillity of 
that canton, and of the whole Helvetic 
body. 
Berne, “on which the salvation of 
Switzerland depended,” says Mr. Adol- 
phus, although it appears that Schwitz, 
under Aloys Reding, made the stoutest 
and most heroic resistance; Berne was 
* A translation of ithas been lately published, from which we have taken the liberty’ of 
copying the paragraph marked with inverted commas.—Rey,. t 
