COMPOUND POLITICAL HEADS. 383 



eventually became the cantons of Schweitz, Uri, and Unter- 

 walden, originally having but one centre of meeting, but 

 eventually, as population increased, getting three, and forming 

 separate political organizations long preserved complete in 

 dependence. With the spread of feudal subordination 

 throughout Europe, they became nominally subject to the 

 Emperor; but, refusing obedience to the superiors set over 

 them, they entered into a solemn alliance, renewed from time 

 to time, to resist outer enemies. Details of their history need 

 not detain us. The fact of moment is that in these three 

 cantons, which physically favoured in so great a degree the 

 maintenance of independence by individuals and by groups, 

 the people, while framing for themselves free governments, 

 united on equal terms for joint defence. And it was these 

 typical &quot; Swiss,&quot; as they were the first to be called, whose 

 union formed the nucleus of the larger unions which, through 

 varied fortunes, eventually grew up. Severally independent 

 as were the cantons composing these larger unions, there at 

 first existed feuds among them, which were suspended during 

 times of joint defence. Only gradually did the league pass 

 from temporary and unsettled forms to a permanent and 

 settled form. Two facts of significance should be 



added. One is that, at a later date, a like process of resist 

 ance, federation, and emancipation from feudal tyranny, 

 among separate communities occupying small mountain 

 valleys, took place in the Grisons and in the Valais : regions 

 which, though mountainous, were more accessible than those 

 of the Oberland and its vicinity. The other is that the more 

 level cantons neither so early nor so completely gained their 

 independence; and, further, that their internal constitutions 

 were less free in form. A marked contrast existed between 

 the aristocratic republics of Berne, Lucerne, Fribourg, and 

 Soleure, and the pure democracies of the forest cantons and 

 the Grisons : in the last of which &quot; every little hamlet 

 resting in an Alpine valley, or perched on mountain crag, 

 \vas an independent community, of which all the mcmbeis 

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