rald of his omnipotence, published a decree of the French directory, by which Rapinat was invested with all powers, civil, political, and financial; with undisputed supremacy over the operations of the general and the army; with authority to depose and banish from the Swiss territory all disobedient administrators, commissaries of war, and others, whose conduct was undeserving the confidence of the French government; and he was likewise enjoined to make diligent search, and bring to justice all plunderers and robbers, of whatever rank or description. The former part of this directorial mandate filled Switzerland with consternation; it was difficult to penetrate. the whole of the mystery; but the latter clause was more intelligible; and, lest Rapinat should be misled in the object of his researches, the Swiss directory pub. lished a decree in aid of that part of the mandate, ordering the municipal officers of every commune, and every individual who had charges of plunder and oppression against the French, to address them to the minister of justice, clothed with the necessary formalities, that they might be laid before the commissary, and likewise be sent to Paris. Whether this fraternal protfer of assistance proceeded from contemptuous indignation, or republican simplicity, Rapinat undertook to repress their insolence, or correct their errors. The correction was rude, but it was inflicted with the band of a master. At the nod of this creature of the French directory, the dreams of sovereignty and national independence, which the assembly had cherished as substantial blessings, dissolved and disappeared. A stroke of Rapinat's pen at once annihilated both le

gislative and executive powers in Switzerland. Of the Helvetic directory, two members were deposed; ministers and secretaries were swept away, and the representation of the people menaced with mutilation and ostracism. To the stupefaction which this act of pro-consular violence occasioned, succeeded a general cry of indignation from every quarter; and so unequivocally was it expressed in Paris, that the leading members of the French. legislature, who had hitherto beheld, in constrained silence, the abuses of directorial power in the conquered countries, awoke these governors from their delirium of despotism, and menaced them with an inquiry into the conduct of their civil agents in Switzerland. Whether these remonstrances might have made due impression on the minds of the directors, or whether their own apprehensions were awakened by the fear of a general revolt against their tyranny in the country where it was so atrociously exercised, and universally execrated, they took advice of their better thoughts, and promised instant reparation. Ashamed, not of the tyranny, but of the ill success which attended their endeavours, they shifted the criminality of the attempt from themselves on the instrument of their orders; and, by a formal and public decree, commanded Schawenbourg to write to the Helvetic assembly, disavowing the conduct of Rapinat, and recalling him from his post. But, though foiled in endeavouring to accomplish the object they had in view by violent means, the directory did not relinquish the attempt. The French general, the constituted organ of the directory, was instructed to communicate to the council, that, although the nomination made by Rapinat of Ochs

and

and Dolder to the directory, in the room of the members he had deposed, was annulled, yet, the general observed, that the French directory rendered justice to the patriotism and talents which had led their commissary to raise these personages to this distinguished office; thereby intimating that they expected from the complaisance of the council that this recommendation on their part should meet a suitable return, and that the directors of Rapinat's choice, though not raised to that dignity by the most constitutional means, were the personages most honoured with their approbation, and therefore best qualified to fulfil the duties of this important station. This fraternal invitation was prefaced by an observation, that the conduct of the French directory, disapproving that of Rapinat, furnished a new proof of its attachment to republican principles, and its consideration for the constitution which Switzerland had chosen. The council, instead of displaying a dignified conduct by consigning this, as they had done a former letter of the French directory, to the archives, and by confirming the election of their directors, Bay and Pfyffer, whom Rapinat had deposed, decreed a solemn festival to commemorate this event, which, if it were really an instance of attachment and consideration on the part of the French direc tory, was the first that had occurred in the annals of their new republic. The assembly had only one act more of degradation to perform, which was the nomination of Ochs to the directory; and Ochs was named. This humiliation was softened into a peace-offering with the French government; but, whilst they bent their minds to this complaisance, so much the more to be

reprobated, as their former rejection of Ochs proceeded from the abhorrence in which they held his conduct, as the passive instrument of the French directory, they contented themselves with manifesting a spurious kind of independence, by the rejection of the other candidate for directorial dignity, whose elevation to this post Rapinat had likewise decreed; and by the nomination of colonel Laharpe.

Amongst those who had beheld with the most lively indignation the conduct of the French directory towards Switzerland, and who had been most persevering in remonstrances against their multiplied acts of tyranny, was Laharpe; a kinsman of the general of that name, who had been condemned to death for the part he had taken at the celebration of the anniversary of the French revolution by the high commission in the Pays de Vaud. Laharpe, having found an asylum in the French armies, had so distinguished himself, that he was raised to the rank of general, but perished by the mistake of his own soldiers in Italy, during the career of the victories of Bonaparte. As he had been convicted of treason, and his property confiscated, he had bequeathed to his relation colonel Laharpe the charge of vindicating his honour, and protecting his numerous family, if the chance of war should be adverse to himself. The mediation of Bonaparte with the magistracy of Berne had restored the confiscated property to the widow and orphans; the task of vindicating the memory of the general was undertaken by his friend. This vindication led Laharpe to the minute examination of the question, not only respecting the legality of the general's condemnation, but also of the titles by which the go

vernment

vernment of Berne held the Paysde-Vaud. The government an swered the charges of usurpation, by placing the colonel on the list of proscription; and here the controversy would have rested, had not the French directory, in their discussions with the government of Berne on other subjects, stumbled on their right of intervention in the guarantee of the privileges of the Pays-de-Vaud. So powerful an auxiliary as the French directory prompted Laharpe to push the inquiry; and the directory, satisfied with the result, proceeded to menace the canton with its interposition, if the articles of the treaty were not complied with. But.the arrival of Ochs at Paris with the plan of a general revolution, which had something more of magnificence in the sound than the meeting of provincial states in right of antiquated privileges, for which alone Laharpe had pleaded, appear ed an object more worthy of the attention of the directors, and Ochs became the confidential friend of Rewbell, the moment that the latter was presented with the perspective of patrician confiscation. The hypocrisy of the chancellor of Basil had for a considerable time blinded Laharpe respecting his ambitious projects, who, unsuspecting the nature of the alliance which had taken place between Ochs and the directory, aided him with his counsels, and took part even in his disgrace, when the assembly, who were better acquainted with his intrigues in Switzerland, refused his nomination. During the invasion, Laharpe continued at Paris, and joined himself without remission with the Helvetic minister in remonstrances to the directory against the inquisition carried on in Switzerland; but finding remonstrances ineffec

tual, and seeing his country given over to plunder and despotism, he withdrew from Paris into a distant province, as soon as he had received intelligence of the dismemberment of the government by Ropinat. He was recalled from thence by his unexpected nomination to the Helvetic directory; but, having refused that office at the first election, he was less disposed to accept it when it had lately been tainted with so much degradation. The earnest representations of the leading members of the assembly did not shake his resolution, till he had received from the French directory such explicit and public declarations respecting their future views, and the conduct of their respective agents, as led to the assurance that the inde

pendence of Switzerland should not again be attainted, that the mandates of extortion should be recalled, and that the late system of proconsular rapacity and military coercion should entirely cease.

It required no extraordinary exertion of self-denial in the French directory to adhere to the terms of this treaty, since the Helvetic assembly had compounded with its independence in the nomination of Ochs, and since little more was to be taken where plunderers had robbed without controul. The French troops were for the most part withdrawn; those that remained were kept at the expense of the French government; the payment of Rapinat's fines was remitted, and the hostages sent into France set at liberty. A treaty of alliance offensive and defensive was concluded, the general tendency of which was, as usual in such treaties, the mutual co-operation of the contracting parties to assist each other in case of attack: but, lest the vacancies which the French commissaries had made