Page:History of Freedom.djvu/134

 9 0

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

defeated Martignac, and brought in the ministry of extreme royalists that ruined the monarchy. In labour- ing to transfer power froin the class which the Revolution had enfranchised to those which it had overthrown, Polignac and La Bourdonnaie would gladly have made terms with the working men. To break the influence of intellect a d capital by means of universal suffrage, was an idea long and zealously advocated by some of their supporters. They had not foresight or ability to divide their adversaries, and they were vanquished in 1830 by the united democracy. The promise of the Revolution of July was to reconcile royalists and democrats. The King assured Lafayette that he \vas a republican at heart; and Lafayette assured France that Louis Philippe was the best of republics. The shock of the great event was felt in Poland, and Belgium, and even in England. It gave a direct impulse to democratic movements in Switzerland. Swiss democracy had been in abeyance since 181 5. The national \vill had no organ. The can tons \vere supreme; and governed as inefficiently as other govern- ments under the protecting shade of the Holy Alliance. There was no dispute that Switzerland called for extensive reforms, and no doubt of the direction they would take. The number of the cantons was the great obstacle to all improvement. It \vas useless to have twenty-five govern- ments in a country equal to one American State, and inferior in population to one great city. It was impossible that they should be good governments. A central power was the manifest need of the country. In the absence of an efficient federal po\ver, seven cantons formed a separate league for the protection of their own interests. Whilst democratic ideas \vere making way in Switzerland, the Papacy \vas travelling in the opposite direction, and show- ing an inflexible hostility for ideas which are the breath of democratic life. The growing democracy and the growing Ultramontanism came into collision. The Sonderbund could aver with truth that there was no safety for its rights under the Federal Constitution. The