The Helvetic Republic 675
geois in the city, so that the conservatives yielded, equality of town and country
was proclaimed, French intervention was forestalled, and an assembly met to write
a constitution. In the following weeks there were revolts in other cantons and sub-
ject districts. In the Vaud a party of patriots captured the chateau of Chillon, and
proclaimed a Lemanic Republic independent of Bern. Elsewhere the violence met
with more resistance. The situation was especially turbulent at Zurich, where the
rural subjects of the city, and the large population of the adjoining district of the
Thurgau, many of whom were normally employed in weaving and other household
crafts under management by Zurich business men, rose in a revolt that had strong
economic as well as political implications.^12
The French, who at first hoped that the Swiss would stage their own revolution,
soon concluded, and were pressed by La Harpe to believe, that the Swiss oligar-
chies would not yield without a struggle. It was decided to finish off quickly—to
get a decision of some kind. The Directory in February ordered General Brune,
one of the most ardent republicans among French commanders, to occupy the city
of Bern. Brune, modeling himself on Bonaparte in Italy, sent an ultimatum to
Bern, demanding a changement démocratique within three hours.^13 He occupied and
“revolutionized” the city in March, ordering the abolition of such titles as baron
and bailli, elections in primary assemblies open to all resident men over twenty,
and an end to tithes and manorial dues, on terms to be considered in a future Hel-
vetic Republic. Meanwhile the civilian commissioner Mangourit superintended
revolution in the Valais, where there was a good deal of intestine conflict which
Mangourit’s own intransigence did nothing to pacify. On one occasion the French
and the revolutionary Valaisins killed 400 “insurgents,” at least according to Man-
gourit’s perhaps boastful report. “Almost 400 enemies have been bayoneted,” he
wrote to Paris. “These fanatics fought like tigers; they died without a sigh, clutch-
ing their rosaries and their relics.... Eight priests bit the dust (ont mordu la
poussière).”^14 And he proposed to send the bishop of Sion to Paris “in the same cage
with the bears from the Bern zoo.” The Directory soon transferred Mangourit to
Naples.
The Directors in Paris could neither agree with each other on the disposition of
Switzerland, nor find out what the Swiss themselves might agree on. Nor, if all the
subject districts and common lordships were to become “independent” of the for-
merly dominant cantons, was it at all obvious what political configuration should
ensue. By March 1798 there were some parts of Switzerland in which revolution-
ary leaders preferred the constitution drafted at Basel, which allowed for a measure
of “direct democracy” and cantonal or local autonomy, and others where the revo-
12 On the actually revolutionary uprisings of 1798 see, in addition to basic works already cited: W.
von Wartburg, Zürich und die französischen Revolution (Basel, 1956); A. Custer, Die Zürcher Unter-
tanen und die französischen Revolution (Zurich, 1942); F. Brullmann, Die Befreiung des Thurgaus ( Wein-
felden, 1948); M. Salamin, Histoire politique du Valais sous la République helvétique, chez l’auter (Sierre,
1957); Soc. vaudoise d’hist. et d’arch., Documents inédits sur la Révolution vaudoise de 1798 (Lausanne,
1948).
13 The correspondence of Brune in this connection is published in Archiv für schw. Gesch., XII
(1858), 233–496. See p. 265.
14 Quoted by Godechot, Commissaires, II, 115.