better. Your history, moreover, proves that your civil wars have never
been finished unless by the efficacious intervention of France. I shall
therefore be mediator in your quarrels, but my mediation will be an active
one, such as becomes the great nation in whose name I speak. All the
powers will be dissolved. The Senate alone, assembled at Berne, will send
deputies to Paris; each canton can also send some; and all the former
magistrates can come to Paris, to make known the means of restoring union
and tranquillity and conciliating all parties. Inhabitants of Helvetia!
revive your hopes!" At the same time Bonaparte said to Mulinen, who had
already escaped to Paris, "I am now thoroughly persuaded of the necessity
of some definitive measure. If in a few days the conditions of my
proclamation are not fulfilled, 30,000 men will enter Switzerland under
General Ney's orders; and if they thus compel me to use force it is all
over with Switzerland. It is time to put an end to that; and I see no
middle course between a Swiss government strongly organized, and friendly
to France, or no Switzerland at all."

On the 15th October, 1802, General Ney received orders to enter
Switzerland, and publish "a short proclamation in simple terms, announcing
that the small cantons and the Senate had asked for the mediation of the
First Consul, who had granted it; but a handful of men, friends of
disorder, and indifferent to the evils of their country, having deceived
and led astray a portion of the people, the First Consul was obliged to
take measures to disperse these senseless persons, and punish them if they
persisted in their rebellion." At the same time, after an imperious
summons, the chiefs of the Swiss aristocracy, Mulinen, Affry, and
Watteville, joined the radical deputies in Paris. There could be no long
discussion, as the plan of the Helvetic Constitution was decided upon in
the mind of the First Consul. He had recognized the inconveniences arising
from the "unitary government:" he next abolished the old independent