]
As to Switzerland, it is a country whose long union, rather than its
possible division, is the matter of wonder. Here I know they entertain
very sanguine hopes. The aggregation to France of the democratic Swiss
republics appears to them to be a work half done by their very form; and
it might seem to them rather an increase of importance to these little
commonwealths than a derogation from their independency or a change in
the manner of their government. Upon any quarrel amongst the Cantons,
nothing is more likely than such an event. As to the aristocratic
republics, the general clamor and hatred which the French excite against
the very name, (and with more facility and success than against
monarchs,) and the utter impossibility of their government making any
sort of resistance against an insurrection, where they have no troops,
and the people are all armed and trained, render their hopes in that
quarter far indeed from unfounded. It is certain that the republic of
Bern thinks itself obliged to a vigilance next to hostile, and to
imprison or expel all the French whom it finds in its territories.
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