ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



495 



advocate and protector, Charles the 

 fifth, publicly declared to them, 

 that if their lives had been less re- 

 proachable, they would never have 

 had to contend with a Martin 

 Luther. 



In Chap. VII. which brings 

 down the affairs of Helvetia to the 

 present century, we learn that, 

 after the agitations of the Reforma- 

 tion had subsided, the following 

 became the religious state of the 

 cantons : 



' Four of the cantons, and among 

 these the two principal of them, 

 had adopted the Reformation ; seven 

 remained firmly addicted to the faith 

 of their ancestors; and two admit- 

 ted both religions into their coun- 

 try as well their senates. Of the 

 three-and-twenty subject districts, 

 only Morat and Granson became 

 wholly protestant ; sixteen retained 

 their former creed, and five became 

 mixed. Among the allies, Geneva, 

 Neuchattel, Bienne, Mulhausen, 

 and the town of St. Gallen, re- 

 nounced the doctrines of Rome; 

 while the dirainutis'e republic of 

 Girsau, and tlie abbey of Engelberg, 

 persisted in their former worship. 

 In the Grison leagues, after great 

 disturbances, and many fluctuations, 

 both creeds were at length admitted 

 by public authority. The Reforma- 

 tion had at one time made consider- 

 able progress in the Valais, the 

 Valteline, and the Italian baili- 

 wicks : but popery at last prevail- 

 ed; and at Locarno, those who re- 

 fused to adhere to the established 

 doctrines were compelled to quit 

 the country ; on which occasion no 

 less than sixty families, among 

 whom were several of considerable 

 note, withdrew to Zuric, and con- 

 tributed essentially to promote both 

 the commerce and manufactures of 



that already prosperous city. This 

 religious separation was by no 

 means, in all cases, topographical ; 

 the inhabitants of different per- 

 suasions in many places living pro- 

 miscuously together, andmanylarge 

 families having divided into branch- 

 es, whose contradictory belief and 

 stern fanaticism have frequently 

 proved the source of destructive 

 feuds and great calamities.' 



The affair of the Valteline, men- 

 tioned in this chapter, was an 

 event in the history of Europe on 

 which much depended. It is not 

 to be thoroughly understood with- 

 out an intimate acquaintance with 

 the state of the court of France 

 during that period; many of the 

 proceedings in which are only to be 

 comprehended by connecting them 

 with the bigotry of the queen mo- 

 ther, with the weak counsels which 

 prevailed in the early part of the 

 reign of Lewis XIII. and with the 

 employment furnished to the great 

 statesman Richelieu, by hostile 

 courtiers, and the ever-restless 

 protestants. 



In the succeeding pages, we have 

 an account of the horrible massacre 

 of the Valteline; from which it ap- 

 pears that the disciples of modern 

 French philosophy have not greatly 

 surpassed in excesses the disciples 

 of a better cause, though the sta- 

 bility of the cause, supported by 

 the former, is an event hitherto un- 

 paralleled in history. 



Speaking of the peace of West- 

 phalia, the author ascribes to the 

 Helvetic States an active interfe- 

 rence, in order to obtain an ac- 

 knowledgement of their indepen- 

 dence. Other historians say that 

 these states did not move in the bu- 

 siness, till they were excited by the 

 Swedes and French, who insisted^ 



