The National Council

[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 165, 10 December 1848]

Bern, 6 December. Who cares about Switzerland in these times of European storms? Apart from the Imperial authority, which scents a highwayman-like freebooter behind every bush on the left bank of the Rhine from Konstanz to Basel, certainly hardly anyone. And yet Switzerland is an important neighbour for us. Today constitutional Belgium is the official model state; with the stormy weather we are having, who will guarantee that tomorrow republican Switzerland will not be the official model state? Anyway, I know more than one wild republican who has no higher wish than to carry the Swiss political conditions, with their large and small federal, national, cantonal, and other councils, across the Rhine, to make out of Germany a Switzerland writ large, and then, as Grand Councillor or Landammann of the canton of Baden, Hesse, or Nassau, to lead a quiet and restful life in all godliness and respectability.

Switzerland therefore certainly concerns us Germans, and what the Swiss think, say, do, and pursue can very soon be held up to us as a model. It can therefore in no way harm us if we already familiarise ourselves to some extent beforehand with the customs and the people the twenty-two cantons of the “Eidgenossenschaft” have produced in their federal republic.

It is fitting that we first consider the crème of Swiss society, the men whom the Swiss people themselves have appointed as their representatives, I mean the National Council in the Town Hall at Bern.

When one steps onto the tribune of the National Council, one must be astonished at the variety of figures that the Swiss people have sent to Bern for the deliberation of their common affairs. Anyone who has not already seen a good part of Switzerland beforehand can hardly grasp how it is possible that a country of a few hundred square miles and not two and a half million inhabitants can bring together such a motley assembly. And yet it is not to be wondered at; Switzerland is a country in which four different languages are spoken—German, French, Italian (or rather Lombard), and Romansch—and which combines within itself all the different levels of civilisation, from the most highly developed machine industry down to the most unadulterated pastoral life. And the Swiss National Council combines the crème of all these nationalities and levels of civilisation, and for that reason looks anything but national.

In this half-patriarchal assembly there is no question of designated places or separate parties. The Radicals made a weak attempt to sit on the extreme Left, but it does not appear to have succeeded. Everyone sits wherever he pleases, and often changes place three or four times in a sitting. However, most members have certain favourite seats which they eventually always resume, and so the assembly divides into two fairly sharply separated sections. On the foremost three semicircular benches one sees sharply chiselled faces, quite a lot of beards, carefully groomed hair, modern clothes cut in the Parisian fashion; here sit the representatives of French and Italian Switzerland, or, as they say here, the “Welsche,” and from these benches French is rarely spoken otherwise. Behind the “Welsche,” however, sits a curiously mixed company. One sees, to be sure, no peasants in Swiss national costumes, but on the contrary, nothing but people over whose costuming the hand of a certain civilisation has passed; here and there even a more or less modern tailcoat, to which usually a respectable face also belongs; then half a dozen Swiss officer types in civilian clothes, one like the other, more solemn than warlike, somewhat antiquated in face and dress and reminiscent to some extent of Ajax in “Troilus and Cressida”; and finally the mass, consisting of indescribably physiognomied and costumed, more or less elderly and old-fashioned gentlemen, each one different, each a type unto himself and mostly also a caricature. All the various varieties of the philistine, the campagnard endimanché and the petty-canton oligarch are represented here, all equally worthy, equally dreadfully serious, with equally heavy silver spectacles. These are the representatives of German Switzerland, and this mass of the company has been supplied by the smaller cantons and the outlying districts of the larger ones.

Facing this assembly, the presidential chair is occupied by the well-known Dr. Robert Steiger of Lucerne, who was condemned to death only a few years ago under the Siegwart-Müller regime, and is now president of the Swiss Federal Assembly. Steiger is a small, stocky man with pronounced features, to which his white hair, brown moustache, and even the inevitable silver spectacles lend no poor relief. For the rest, he exercises his office with great calm and perhaps a little too much moderation.

As with the physiognomy, so with the discussion. The “Welsche” are the only ones who speak in a fully civilised, rhetorical form, and even not all of them. The Bernese, who among the German Swiss have adopted the “Welsche” manners the most, come closest to them. With them one at least finds some fire. The Zurichers, these sons of Swiss-Athens, speak with the gravity and measuredness befitting a cross between a professor and a guildmaster, but always “cultivated.” The officers speak with solemn slowness, with little skill and substance, but instead with a decisiveness as if their battalion stood ready for action behind them. The mass of the company, finally, produces more or less well-meaning, circumspect, conscientious speakers, weighing up right and left and yet, in the end, always stepping onto the side of their cantonal interests; moreover, almost all of them speak in a very halting manner and at times according to their own grammatical principles. When the cost point comes up for discussion, it is always first raised from here, especially from the original cantons. In this respect Uri has already earned a well-deserved reputation in both councils.

The discussion is therefore on the whole dull, calm, mediocre. The National Council numbers very few rhetorical talents that would also achieve successes in larger assemblies; I know so far only two, Luvini and Dufour, and perhaps Eytel. To be sure, I have still not heard several of the more influential members; but neither their successes in the assembly nor the reports of their speeches in the papers are such as to warrant brilliant expectations. Only Neuhaus is said to speak brilliantly. And how would it be possible for oratorical talents to develop in assemblies that represent at most a few hundred thousand people and have to concern themselves with the most pettifogging district interests! The late Tagsatzung was, anyhow, more a diplomatic than a legislative assembly; there one could learn to twist instructions and to make loopholes plausible, but not to sweep an assembly along and to dominate it. The speeches of the national councillors therefore mostly confine themselves to reasoned votes, in which each speaker sets forth the facts that induce him to vote this way or that, and therefore with the greatest dispassion calmly repeats everything that has already been repeated to the point of insufferability before him. In particular, the speeches of the mass have this patriarchal frankness about them. And once one of these gentlemen has the floor, it goes without saying that on that occasion he also blabs out his opinion about all the incidents of the discussion, no matter how long ago they have been disposed of. Between this confidential chatting of the worthy men, a few principal speeches then laboriously hold the thread of the debate together, and when the session is over, one confesses to oneself that one has rarely heard anything more boring. The philistinism that lends something original to the physique of the assembly, because one rarely sees it in this classic form, does not cease here either to be flat and soporific au moral. Of passion there is little, of wit nothing at all; Luvini is the only one who speaks with sweeping, mighty passion, Dufour the only one who impresses by genuinely French clarity and precision. Frey of Baselland represents humour, to which occasionally Colonel Bernold makes not unsuccessful attempts. French wit is completely lacking in the French Swiss. So long as the Alps and the Jura stand, no passable calembour has ever come into being on their backs, no quick, striking repartee been heard. The French Swiss is not merely sérieux, he is grave.

The debate that I intend to describe more closely here is that on the Ticino affair and the Italian refugees in Ticino. The matter is known; the so-called intrigues of the Italian refugees in Ticino provided the pretext for unpleasant measures on the part of Radetzky; the Vorort Bern sent federal representatives with extensive full powers and at the same time a brigade of troops to Ticino; the insurrection in the Valtellina and in the Val d’Intelvi prompted a number of refugees to return to Lombardy, which they succeeded in doing despite the vigilance of the Swiss border posts; they crossed the frontiers, though unarmed, took part in the insurrection, and after the defeat of the insurgents of Val d’Intelvi, again came back onto Ticino territory, likewise unarmed, and were expelled by the Ticino government. In the meantime Radetzky intensified his reprisals on the border and redoubled his complaints to the federal representatives.

These demanded the expulsion of all refugees without distinction; the Ticino government refused; the Vorort confirmed the representatives’ measures; the Ticino government appealed to the Federal Assembly, which had meanwhile convened. On this appeal and on the factual allegations brought forward by both sides, which related especially to the conduct of the Ticinese towards the representatives and the Swiss troops, the National Council had to decide.

The majority of the commission appointed for this purpose moved the expulsion of all Italian refugees from Ticino, their internment in the interior of Switzerland, prohibition on allowing new refugees to stay in Ticino, in general the confirmation and retention of the measures taken by the Vorort. Its rapporteur was Herr Kasimir Pfyffer of Lucerne. But by the time I had forced my way through the dense masses of listeners on the public tribune, Herr Pfyffer had long since finished his rather dry report, and Herr Pioda had the floor.

Herr Pioda, State Secretary in Tessin, who by himself constituted the minority of the commission, puts forward his motion for the expulsion of only those refugees who took part in the last uprising and against whom a positive reason for intervention therefore existed. Herr Pioda, major and battalion commander in the Sonderbund war, despite his gentle blond appearance, had at that time held himself very bravely at Airolo and, facing a troop corps that was more numerous, better trained, and better equipped than his own and also occupied a more advantageous position, held his post for a week. Pioda speaks as softly and feelingly as he looks. At first, since he speaks French perfectly, both as regards accent and command of the language, I took him for a French Swiss and was astonished when I heard that he was an Italian. But when he came to speak of the reproaches made against the Tessiners, when he portrayed by contrast the conduct of the Swiss troops, who almost acted as if they were in enemy country, when he warmed up, he developed, to be sure, no passion, yet that lively, thoroughly Italian eloquence, which applies now antique forms, now a certain modern, at times exaggerated rhetorical pomp. I must say to his credit that in this latter respect he knew how to observe measure and that these passages of his exposition were of very good effect. On the whole, however, his lecture was too long and too sentimental. The German Swiss possess the *aes triplex* of Horace, and against their bosom, as broad as it is hard, all the fine sentiments, all the noble feelings of the good Pioda rebounded without effect.

After him rose Herr Doctor Alfred Escher of Zurich. *A la bonne heure!*, that is a man *comme il en faut pour la Suisse!* Herr Doctor Escher, federal representative in Tessin, vice-president of the National Council, son – if I am not mistaken – of the well-known mechanic and engineer Escher who canalised the Linth and founded an enormous machine factory near Zurich. Herr Doctor Escher is not so much a Zuricher as a “Swiss Athenian.” His frock-coat, his waistcoat are made by the premier *marchand tailleur* of Zurich; one sees the laudable, and in places not unsuccessful, endeavour to meet the demands of the Paris fashion journal, but one also sees the hereditary sin of the imperial city, which ever and again led the cutter’s hand back into the old familiar petty-bourgeois rut. Like the frock-coat, so the man. The blond hair is very carefully cut, but dreadfully bourgeoisly cut, and the beard likewise – for our Swiss Alcibiades naturally also wears his beard, a caprice which, in a Zuricher of “good family,” is highly reminiscent of Alcibiades the First. When Herr Doctor Escher mounts the president’s chair to relieve Steiger for a moment, he executes this manoeuvre with a mixture of dignity and elegant nonchalance of which Herr Marrast might envy him. One sees clearly how he utilises the few moments to rest his back, which has grown weary on the hard bench, in the soft upholstery of the armchair. In short, Herr Escher is as elegant as one can be in Swiss Athens, and besides he is rich, handsome, of powerful physique, and not more than 33 years old. The ladies of Berne may beware of this dangerous Alcibiades of Zurich.

Herr Escher speaks, further, quite fluently and as good German as is only possible for a Swiss Athenian: Attic idiom with Doric accent, but without grammatical errors, and that is not granted to every National Councillor of German Switzerland – he speaks, like all Swiss, with awful solemnity. Herr Escher in his seventieth year could not strike a more solemn tone than he did the day before yesterday – and he is one of the youngest in the assembly. In addition he possesses yet another un-Swiss quality. Every German Swiss, namely, has for all his speeches, on all occasions, for the duration of his life, only one gesture. Herr Doctor Kern, for example, extends his right arm sideways, raised at a right angle from his body; the various officers make exactly the same grip, only that they hold the arm straight before them and not sideways; Herr Tanner of Aarau makes a bow at every third word; Herr Furrer varies between front, half-right, and half-left; in short, if one takes the whole German-speaking National Council together, one gets a fairly complete telegraph system. The gesture of Herr Escher consists in his stretching his hand straight before him and imitating the movement of a pump-handle with it in the most deceiving fashion.

As for the content of Herr Doctor Escher’s speech, I need to repeat this enumeration of the representatives’ complaints the less, as these complaints have almost all found their way into most German papers by means of the *Neue Zürcher Zeitung*. The speech contained absolutely nothing new.

After the Zurich solemnity, Italian passion: after Herr Dr. Escher, Colonel Luvini. Luvini, an excellent soldier, to whom the Canton of Tessin owes its entire military organisation, who directed the revolution of 1840 as military chief, who in August 1841, when the overthrown oligarchs and priests invaded and attempted a counter-revolution from Piedmont, stifled the attempt in a single day by his swiftness and energy, and who in the Sonderbund war was the only prisoner only because the Graubündners abandoned him – Luvini sprang up with great rapidity to defend his countrymen against Escher. That Herr Escher’s reproaches were delivered in the stilted, but outwardly calm, language of a schoolmaster took nothing from their bitterness; on the contrary, everyone knows that doctrinaire wisdom is in itself unbearable and offensive enough.

Luvini replied with all the passion of the old soldier and of the Tessiner, who is Swiss by accident, but Italian by nature:

“Is a proper reproach cast here upon the Tessiners from their ‘sympathy for Italian freedom’? Yes, it is true, the Tessiners sympathise with Italy, and I am proud that it is so, and I shall not cease, morning and evening, to pray to God for the liberation of this country from its oppressors. Yes, despite Herr Escher, the Tessiners are a quiet and peaceable people, but after all, when they must see daily and hourly how the Swiss soldiers fraternise with the Austrians, with the minions of a man whose name I can never utter without a bitterness that comes from the deepest soul, with the hirelings of Radetzky – are they not to become embittered, they before whose eyes, as it were, the Croats perpetrate the most hideous atrocities? Yes, the Tessiners are a quiet and peaceable people, but when Swiss soldiers are sent to them who side with the Austrians, who in places behave like the Croats, then indeed they are not!” (Follows an enumeration of facts about the behaviour of the Swiss troops in Tessin.) “It is hard and sad enough when one is subjugated and enslaved by foreigners, but one endures it in the hope of the day when one will drive the foreigners away – but that my own brothers and confederates should enslave me, should, so to speak, lay the rope around my neck, truly …”

The president’s bell interrupted the speaker. Luvini was called to order. He spoke a few more sentences and closed rather abruptly and morosely.

The hot-blooded Luvini was followed by Colonel Michel of Graubünden. The Graubündners have, from time immemorial, with the exception of the Italian-speaking Misoxers, been bad neighbours to the Tessiners, and Herr Michel remained true to his patriotic traditions. In a most solemn, upright tone he sought to cast suspicion upon the statements of the Tessiners, indulged in a long series of inappropriate invectives and tittle-tattle against the people of Tessin, and was even clumsy and ignoble enough to reproach the Tessiners for (rightly) holding his, Michel’s countrymen, the Graubündners, responsible for their defeat at Airolo. He concluded with the affectionate motion to burden the Tessin government with a part of the costs of the border occupation.

On Steiger’s motion the debate was thereupon adjourned.

The next morning Colonel Berg of Zurich first took the floor. Herr Colonel Berg – of his outward appearance I do not speak, for, as I have said, the German-Swiss officers all look alike – Herr Berg is commander of the Zurich battalion stationed in Tessin, of whose arrogant behaviour Luvini had given a host of examples. Herr Berg naturally had to defend his battalion, and since he was soon done with the factual assertions advanced for this purpose, he indulged in a series of the most immoderate personal attacks upon Luvini.

“Luvini,” he said, “ought to be ashamed to bring up the subject of the troops’ discipline and, what is more, to cast suspicion on the discipline of one of the best and most orderly battalions. For if what happened to Herr Luvini had happened to me, I should long ago have handed in my resignation. What happened to Herr Luvini is that in the Sonderbund war he was beaten with a superior army and to the order to advance replied: it was impossible, his troops were demoralised, etc. Incidentally, I wish to speak a little word with Herr Luvini about this matter, not here, but elsewhere; I like to see the white of my opponent’s eyes.”

All these and innumerable other provocations and insults were delivered by Herr Berg in a tone half dignified, half blustering. He evidently wanted to imitate the *fougueuse* rhetoric of Luvini, but achieved only a complete fiasco.

Since the story of Airolo has already appeared twice in my report and will appear again, I will briefly recall the main circumstances.

In the Sonderbund war, Dufour’s plan was: while the main army attacked Freiburg and Lucerne, the Ticinese were to advance over the Gotthard, the Grisons over the Oberalp into the Urseren valley, liberate the liberal population there and arm them, and by this diversion cut off Valais from the original cantons and compel the Lucerne main army of the Sonderbund to divide. The plan was frustrated, first, by the occupation of the Gotthard by the Uri and Valais troops even before the opening of hostilities, and secondly, by the lukewarmness of the Grisons. The Grisons did not call up the Catholic militias at all, and even the troops that were called up allowed themselves to be prevented from advancing further by the Catholic population in the high-court district of Disentis. Ticino was thus entirely alone, and if one considers that the military organisation of this canton is still very young, that the entire Ticinese army numbers only about 3,000 men, one understands the weakness of Ticino vis-à-vis the Sonderbund. The Uri, Valais and Unterwalden troops had in the meantime reinforced themselves to more than 2,000 men with artillery and on 17 November 1847 descended the Gotthard with their entire force into Ticino. The Ticinese troops were echeloned from Bellinzona up to Airolo along the Leventina valley; their reserve was in Lugano. The Sonderbund forces, concealed by a thick fog, occupied all the heights around Airolo, and when the fog lifted, Luvini saw that the position was lost even before a shot had been fired. He nevertheless put up resistance, and after a fight lasting several hours, in which the Ticinese fought with the utmost bravery, his troops were thrown back by the superior enemy. Initially, the retreat was covered by some detachments; but, taken in flank from the heights and fired upon by artillery, the Ticinese recruits soon fell into the greatest disorder and could not be brought to a halt until eight hours’ march from Airolo, behind the Moesa. Anyone who has travelled the Gotthard road understands the enormous advantages possessed by an army advancing from above, especially when it has artillery, and understands the impossibility for an army fleeing downhill to re-form anywhere and deploy its forces in the narrow, fiery valley.

Besides, the Ticinese who actually came into action were by no means superior to the Sonderbund troops, but the reverse. The guilt for this defeat, which incidentally had no further consequences, therefore lay not with Luvini but first with his meagre and untrained forces, secondly with the unfavourable terrain, thirdly and chiefly with the non-appearance of the Grisons, who allowed themselves a taste of Valtellina wine in Disentis instead of being on the Oberalp, and who finally came to the aid of the Ticinese over the Bernardin pass with two battalions—post festum! And this victory of the Sonderbund in the only place where it had superior strength is cast as a reproach at the Ticinese, shamefully left in the lurch, by those who left them in the lurch or who at Freiburg and Lucerne, fighting three against one, gained cheap laurels!

As you know, these effusions of Berg against Luvini were followed by a duel in which the French Swiss soundly thrashed the Zürich man.

But to return to the debate. Dr. Kern of Thurgau rose to support the majority motions. Mr. Kern is a tall, broad-shouldered figure of a Swiss, with a not unpleasing, pronounced face and somewhat theatrical hair, rather as a worthy Swiss might imagine Olympian Jupiter to look, somewhat scholar-like in his dress and, in his glance, tone, and gesture, of unshakable resoluteness. Mr. Kern is considered one of the ablest and most acute jurists of Switzerland; “with his characteristic logic” and in a highly asseverating manner the President of the Federal Court went into the Ticino question, but soon became so tedious to me that I preferred to go to the Café Italien and drink a Schoppen of Valais wine.

When I returned, after Kern, Almeras of Geneva, Homberger, Blanchenay of Vaud and Castoldi of Geneva had spoken, more or less local notabilities whose federal renown is only just budding. Eytel of Vaud was on his feet.

Mr. Eytel, in Switzerland, where men are big in the same proportion as ordinary cattle, may pass for a slenderly-built man, though in France he would pass for a very robust young man. He has a handsome, fine face with a blond moustache and blond curly hair and, like the Vaudois in general, reminds one more of a Frenchman than do other French Swiss. I need hardly add that he is one of the mainstays of the ultra-radical, Red-Republican Vaudois. Moreover, he is still young and certainly no older than Escher.

Mr. Eytel spoke with great animation against the federal representatives.

“You have behaved in Ticino as if Ticino were not a sovereign state but a province which you had to administer as proconsuls; truly, if the gentlemen had appeared in a French-speaking canton in that fashion, their stay would not have been of long duration! And the gentlemen, instead of thanking God that the Ticinese have so quietly put up with all their domineering whims and fantasies, still complain of a bad reception!”

Mr. Eytel speaks quite well but a little too long-winded. He is like all the French Swiss: they have lost the art of the point.

Old Steiger also spoke a few words from the presidential chair in favour of the majority motions, and then our Alcibiades Escher rose for the second time to tell, for the second time, his story, which he had already told once. This time, however, he attempted a rhetorical close that could be seen for three miles around to be a school exercise.

“Either we are neutral, or we are not; but whatever we are, we must be it wholly; and old Swiss fidelity demands that we keep our word, even if it is given to a despot.”

From this new and striking thought, Mr. Escher’s tireless arm pumped forth a torrent of solemn peroration, and when it was completed, Alcibiades sat down again, visibly satisfied.

Mr. Tanner of Aarau, President of the High Court, who now rose, is a small, thin man, who speaks very loudly, and about very indifferent things. His speech was basically nothing but the hundredfold repetition of a single grammatical error.

He was followed by Mr. Maurice Barman from French Valais. One would not think to look at him that in 1844 he fought so bravely at the Pont de Trient, when the Upper Valaisans, led by the Kalbermatten, the Riedmatten and other Mattens, counter-revolutionised the canton. Mr. Barman has a quiet, bourgeois, yet not unpleasing exterior; he speaks deliberately and somewhat haltingly. He rejected the personalities that Berg had levelled against Luvini and spoke for Pioda.

Mr. Battaglini from Ticino, who looks somewhat bourgeois and might remind a malicious observer of Dottore Bartolo in “Figaro”, read out a longer French treatise on neutrality in favour of his canton, which admittedly contains quite correct principles but was listened to very superficially.

Suddenly the chatter and running about in the assembly ceased. The greatest stillness set in, and all eyes turned to an old, beardless, bald-headed man with a long, curved nose, who began to speak in French. This little old man, whose simple black clothing and thoroughly bourgeois appearance made him resemble a scholar more than anything else and who only attracted attention by an expressive face and a mobile, penetrating glance, was General Dufour, the very man whose circumspect strategy stifled the Sonderbund almost without bloodshed. What a contrast with the German-Swiss officers of the Assembly! These Michel, Ziegler, Berg, etc., these worthy blades, these pedantic moustaches, cut a most characteristic figure compared with the small, insignificant-looking Dufour. One sees at the first glance how Dufour was the head that directed the whole Sonderbund war, and these dignified Ajaxes were only the fists that he used to carry out his decisions. The Diet had indeed chosen correctly and hit upon the necessary man.

But when one hears Dufour speak, one is astonished indeed. This old general of genius, who all his life has done nothing but organise artillery schools, draw up regulations, and inspect batteries, who never pushed himself into parliamentary negotiations, never spoke in public, comes forward with an assurance, speaks with a fluency, an elegance, and a precision, a clarity that are admirable and unique in the Swiss National Council. This maiden speech of Dufour’s on the Ticino affair would, in terms of form and delivery, have caused the greatest sensation in a French Chamber and far surpasses in every respect the three-hour speech by which Cavaignac made himself the leading advocate of Paris—if one may judge from the reprint in the “Moniteur”. The beauty of the language, however, deserves double recognition in a Genevese. The national language of Geneva is a Calvinist-reformed French, broad, flat, impoverished, toneless, and exhausted. But Dufour did not speak Genevese, but real, genuine French. And besides, the sentiments he expressed were so noble, so soldierly in the good sense of the word, that they brought out all the more glaringly the bread-and-butter jealousies, the petty cantonment narrow-mindedness of the German-Swiss officers.

“I am glad that neutrality is on everyone’s lips,” said Dufour. “But what does neutrality consist in? It consists in our undertaking or allowing to be undertaken nothing by which the state of peace between Switzerland and the ...

neighbouring states. Nothing less, but also nothing more. We therefore have the right to grant asylum to foreign refugees; it is a right of which we are proud. We regard it as a duty that we owe to the unfortunate. But on one condition: that the refugee submit to our laws, that he undertake nothing that endangers our internal and external security. That a patriot driven out by tyranny should strive, even from our territory, to recover the freedom of his fatherland, I find understandable; I cast no reproach upon him for it—but then we too must see what we have to do. If, therefore, the refugee sharpens his pen or takes up his rifle against the neighbouring government, very well, we shall not expel him, that would be unjust, but we shall remove him from the frontier, intern him. Our own security, our regard for the neighbouring states, bids us do so; nothing less, but also nothing more. If, on the contrary, we proceed not only against the free-shooter who has invaded foreign territory, but also against the brother, the father of the free-shooter, against him who has remained quietly at home, then we do more than we must, then we are no longer impartial, then we take sides with the foreign government, with despotism, against its victims." (General applause.) "And just now, when Radetzky, a man with whom certainly no one in this assembly sympathises, has already demanded of us this unjust removal of all refugees from the frontier, when he supports his demand with threats, indeed with hostile measures—just now it least of all befits us to comply with the unjust demand of an overpowerful opponent, because it looks as though we had yielded to superior force, as though we had adopted this resolution only because a stronger power demanded it of us." (Applause.)

I regret that I cannot give more of this speech and cannot give more literal excerpts. But there are no stenographers here, and I must write down from memory. Enough: Dufour astonished the whole assembly as much by his gift of oratory and the unpretentiousness of his delivery as by the striking arguments he advanced, and he sat down amidst general applause with the declaration that he voted for Pioda. I have otherwise never heard expressions of applause in the National Council during the debate. The matter was decided; after Dufour's speech there was nothing more to say; Pioda's motion was carried.

But the cantonal champions, shaken in their consciences, were not served by this, and to the call for closure they replied with 48 votes for the continuation of the debate. Only 42 voted for closure; the discussion therefore went on. Herr Veillon of Vaud proposed referring the whole matter to the Federal Council. Herr Pittet of Vaud, a handsome man with French features, spoke for Pioda, fluently but broadly and doctrinairily, and the debate seemed to have fallen asleep when at last Herr Federal President Furrer rose.

Herr Furrer is a man in his best years, the counterpart to Alcibiades Escher. If the latter represents Swiss-Athens, then Herr Furrer represents Zurich. If Escher inclines towards the professor, Furrer inclines towards the guild master. The two together represent Zurich completely.

Herr Furrer is naturally a man of the most unconditional neutrality, and when he saw his system mightily threatened by Dufour's speech, he had to exert the utmost means to assure himself of the majority. Herr Furrer had indeed been Federal President for only three days, but notwithstanding that he proved that he understands the politics of cabinet questions in spite of Duchâtel and in spite of Hansemann. He declared that the Federal Council was enormously eager for the decision of the National Council, because this decision would give the decisive turn to the whole policy of Switzerland, etc., and after some embellishment of this captatio benevolentiae he gradually proceeded to set forth what his opinion was and the opinion of the majority of the Federal Council, namely, that the policy of neutrality must continue to hold good and that the view of the majority of the committee was also that of the majority of the Federal Council. And all this he said with such solemn dignity and such impressive voice that the cabinet question confronted one from every syllable of his speech. Now one must know that in Switzerland the executive power is not, as in the constitutional monarchy or the new French constitution, an independent power alongside the legislative, but is merely the emanation and the arm of the legislative power. One must know that here it is not at all the custom for the executive power to resign when the legislative assembly decides something other than what it wishes; on the contrary, it is wont to carry out this decision most obediently and to wait for better times. And as the executive power likewise consists of an elected council that also contains various nuances, it is not of such great consequence if the minority in the executive council has the majority in the legislative council on many questions. And here at least two Federal Councillors, Druey and Franscini, were for Pioda and against Furrer. This appeal by Furrer to the assembly was therefore, according to Swiss custom and way of thinking, quite unparliamentary. But no matter! The weighty voice of Herr Federal President gave the cantonal champions courage again, and when he sat down, they even attempted a dying-away "bravo" and shouted for closure.

Old Steiger was, however, fair enough first to give Herr Pioda, as rapporteur of the minority, the floor. Pioda spoke with the same calmness and the same dignity as before. He once again refuted all the objections by briefly summing up the debate. He warmly defended his friend Luvini, whose fougueuse eloquence had perhaps carried him too far this time, but who, on an earlier occasion, one should not forget, had preserved his canton for Switzerland. At last he came to Airolo, and regretted that this word had been brought up here, that it had been brought up by a side from whom he had least of all expected it.

"It is true," he said, "we suffered a defeat at Airolo. But how did that come about? We stood alone there, our small, sparsely populated canton against the whole weight of the Forest Cantons and the Valais, which threw themselves upon us and, after we had defended ourselves bravely, crushed us. It is true, we were beaten. But does it befit you" (turning to Michel) "to cast reproach upon us for that? You, gentlemen, you are to blame for our being beaten; you were supposed to be on the Oberalp and fall upon the Sonderbund men's flank, and who was not there, who left us in the lurch—that was you, and therefore we were beaten. Yes, you came, gentlemen, but when it was too late, when everything was over—then, at last, you came!"

Furious and with a face as red as a lobster, Colonel Michel sprang up and declared this to be a lie and a slander. Called to order by loud murmuring and the President's bell, he continued somewhat more calmly. He knew nothing of his having been supposed to be on the Oberalp. He only knew that, when he was called, he came to the Ticinese's aid, and he first of all.

Pioda replied as calmly as before: it had not occurred to him to attack Herr Michel personally; he had only spoken of the Grisons in general, and it was indeed a fact that they were supposed to have supported the Ticinese from the Oberalp. If Herr Michel did not know that, it was easily explained, since at that time he had commanded only a battalion and the general dispositions of the campaign might well have remained unknown to him.

With this intermezzo, which still led to various private dealings between these gentlemen outside the assembly hall and was finally settled by declarations satisfactory to both sides, the debate closed. The vote took place by roll-call. The French and four to five Germans voted with the Ticinese; the mass of the German Swiss voted against; Ticino was robbed of the right of asylum, Radetzky's demands were granted, neutrality at any price was proclaimed, and Herr Furrer could be satisfied with himself and with the National Council.

Such is the Swiss National Council, the flower of Swiss statesmen. I find that they are distinguished from other legislators by only one virtue: by a greater patience.