come free in the Capitol where you have so often defended the rights of the people, and added new glories to the Roman republic! The defcendants of the Gauls, with the olive in their hand, now repair to this auguft fpot to reestablish the altars of liberty erected by the Elder Brutus. ---And you, people of Rome! who have regained your lawful rights, call to remembrance the monuments of glory that furround you ;---resume your antient greatness, and emulate the virtues of your ancestors!"

Inftead of loud acclamations, as might have been expected, this fpeech, and the proclamation which preceded it, were heard in profound filence.

During this ceremony the pope was celebrating mafs in the Sistine chapel, it being the anniversary of his acceffion; in the midst of which Haller, the French commissary general, entered the chapel, and announced to the fovereign pontiff that his reign was at an end. A provisional government was fubftituted, under the popular appellation of a confulate, confifting of fix members-of which Rigault, a lawyer of eminence, was named prefident. The prefence of the holy father was judged by the newly-erected government to be incompatible with the franquillity of the ftate. Early therefore on the morning of the 20th of February he left Rome, and foon after arrived at Sienna, where he was received into the monaftery of St. Barbe--the monks forrowfully welcoming him at their gates, and offering all that their convent could beftow, to console him for his fallen honors. On the 26th he reached Florence, retiring to a Carthufian convent within two miles of that city; where he seemed, in a beautiful and fequeftered refidence, to forget his misfortunes; and found in his folitude. an unwonted and dignified tranquillity, which commanded respect, and even approached to happiness. Nor could it be deemed wonderful, however exceptionable fome parts of his conduct, that he was unable to weather the storm,

in

in which the bark of St. Peter would have funk with a pilot much abler than himself.

The temporal power entrusted by the French general to the provifionary government was at length confirmed by a regular conftitution, made at Paris, on the model of the French; but in which the names of confuls, fenate, tribunes, quæftors, and other claffic titles, superseded the vulgar appellations of commiffioners and councils. But the real power was, under this fpecious veil of liberty, vefted in the French commander, to whom an express claufe of the new conftitution allowed a veto in the formation of laws for ten years,

:

By the thoughtless prodigality of the papal government, and the recent exactions of the French, every legitimate fource of wealth was exhausted: recourse was therefore had, without hesitation, by the protectors of the new republic, to every species of pillage and plunder. The Vatican and Quirinal palaces were ftripped of the rich and coftly furni ture—and the former even of a great part of its literary treasures also those at Monte Cavallo, Terracina, and Caftel Gandolfo. The facerdotal vestments of the Siftine, Pauline, and other pontifical chapels, were burnt for the gold and filver of the embroidery. And this fyftem of devastation extended to the generality of the churches, and fome noble manfions of obnoxious individuals. The Villa Albani in particular, unrivalled for exquifite works of art and the beauty of its fituation and architecture, was laid in ruins a melancholy monument of the Vandalism of the eighteenth century. Yet was the conduct of the French troops, both officers and men, to the inhabitants in general, orderly and exemplary; and private property and perfonal liberty were refpected in a degree which feems scarcely compatible with their public rapacity. And in the fyftem of police now enforced a ftriking contraft was exhibited to the feeble yet direful dominion of Pius VI. under whofe reign each individual became the arbiter of his own wrong,

and

and in whose pontificate it was reckoned that 18,000 perfons were murdered in public and private quarrels in the ecclefiaftical state alone.

On the 20th of March the ceremony of the inauguration of the new government was performed in the middle of the great piazza of St. Peter's. The confuls, ftretching out their hands over the altar there erected, fwore eternal hatred to monarchy, and fidelity to the republic. This folemn tranfaction was accompanied with bands of mufic and the firing of cannon, and at night the dome of St. Peter's was illuminated: but there was no fhouting, no voluntary marks either of approbation or disapprobation. The people of Rome had lost every idea of liberty, and appeared to regard themselves as mere fpectators of the scene, and to feel no emotion beyond that of stupid and ignorant surprise.*

The next victim fingled out by the rapacity of the directorial government of France was the antient and celebrated republic of the Helvetic confederacy. The name of Switzerland cannot be pronounced without emotion by those who have witneffed the happy effects of the rude and imperfect system of liberty enjoyed by the inhabitants of this fecluded country, when compared with the oppreffion and mifery resulting from the horrid defpotifm by which she was every-where furrounded: "La habite," fays an elegant writer, M. de Mehegan, "d'un peuple fimple, bienfaifant, brave, ennemi du faste, ami du travail, ne cherchant point d'esclaves, et ne voulant point des maîtres."

On a furvey of the conftitutions of the feveral ftates which compofed the Helvetic union, itself founded on the right of refiftance to tyranny, it must excite no little furprife to find that the government of the greater cantons, whether Catholic or Proteftant, was that of aristocracy, tempered and moderated indeed by a partial representation at Zurich; but at Berne, Lucerne, Friburg, and Soleure, without

• Vide DUPPA's Account of the Subverfion of the Papal Government.

a

without the smallest mixture of democracy. On the other hand it is equally remarkable, that the fmaller cantons, Glaris, Schweitz, Underwalden, Appenzel, Uri, and Zug, were democratic, without the flightest mixture of ariftocracy--Bafle and Schaffhaufen alone of this clafs incli ning to the conftitution of Zurich. In the cantons purely democratic the inhabitants at large met annually in an open field or plain to choose their magiftrates; and the question was then put publicly to them, whether they chose to continue for another year the laws of their canton ?

This political intermixture of the different cantons was extremely conducive to the happiness of the whole and although the governments of the greater cantons were in themselves unfavourable, the established laws, manners, and customs of the country, were decidedly favorable to civil freedom. The ariftocratical canton of Berne in particular, by far the largest and most powerful of the union, governing its fubjects with paternal mildness and wisdom, the general effect produced was the public happiness; and the people felt themfelves fecure in perfon and in property. They were therefore content and satisfied, wishing not for changes, nor thinking of reforms. The just and moderate fpirit of government, by gaining the affections of the people, ftrengthened the barriers of their own authority, and erected the image of a free conftitution on the incongruous. bafis of political defpotism. "The magiftrates of Berne," fays a celebrated writer, " must reign with prudence and equity, fince they are unarmed in the midst of an armed nation."

At the commencement of the French revolution the attention of all countries, and particularly of those which bordered upon France, were turned to the fubject of government; and in Switzerland above all others—the inha bitants of which were astonished on reflection, to find that they

GIBBON.-Vide alfo Coxx's Travels, and Woon's Hiftory of Swit

zerland, &c. &c.

they had fo long fubmitted, and fo tamely, to fuch defective forms of government. The aristocracy of Berne now began to feel its own weakness; but, far from introducing fome voluntary and feasonable melioration of their own defpotic constitution, they exerted every poffible effort to crush in their birth those new principles of liberty which, however abused in practice, muft ever be acknowledged in theory beautiful and juft. "It is certain," fays a writer of great authority on this point, "that the republic of Berne thinks itself obliged to a vigilance next to hostile, and to imprison or expel all the French whom they find in their territories."* This being the cafe, it would naturally follow that the French government muft regard that of Berne with an eye no lefs jealous and refentful; and symptoms of this reciprocal animofity in a very short time began to manifeft themselves.

In the autumn of 1789 feveral literary and scientific focieties established at Berne, Lausanne, Bafle, &c. tranfmitted congratulatory addresses to the French Convention upon the attainment of the national liberty: and in the fimilar focieties of Zurich and Lucerne a very revolutionary spirit early displayed itself, which required the utmost wisdom to regulate, as it was impoffible in the nature of things it could in the actual circumstances be extinguifhed. They had recently feen the natural and unalienable rights of man formally and publicly recognised by the most powerful nation upon earth---a nation with which their own was closely connected by contiguity and alliance; and, as is forcibly obferved by a celebrated writer, "the formal recognition by the fovereign power of an original right in the subject can never be fubverted, but by rooting up the radical principles of government, and even of fociety itfelf."+

BURKE'S Memorial on the State of Affairs, 1791.

† BURKE'S Speech on the India Bill.

In