THE SWISS QUESTION.
Larras
IT has already been stated, in the preceding letter, that the Cantons of Soleure and Argau were destined to a revision of their political constitu- thms (both established in 1831) during the course of 1840, in like man- ner with Lucerne. Soleure is entirely Catholic : Argau is a canton of parity, divided between Protestants and Catholics in the proportion of about three-fifths to two-fifths, but recognizing equality of political rights between the two confessions. In both these cantons the same Ultramontane tendencies as in Lucerne had been active since 1831 : " Catholic unions," formed throughout most of the villages as well as in the Catholic portion of Berne, were worked through public meetings and the press, as well as by the pulpit and the confessional, to inculcate the religious duty incumbent on Catholics of liberating the hierarchy from civil control, and aggrandizing them at the expense of the civil power; and so impatient did this feeling become, that the Catholics near Poren- tru in Bern; and those in the neighbourhood of the Convent of Muri in Argau, actually rose in armed rebellion against their Governments in the course of 1835. Both movements were put down by mili- tary force, and in both cases the parties concerned were treated with remarkable mildness. Proceedings by violence were thus re- pressed; but the Ultramontane agitation still continued, and reached its height during the year 1840, appointed for revision. On that occasion, the party might well hope to obtain their purpose by pa- cific means ; and as they bad been completely successful in the elec- tions in Lucerne during the first half of that year, so they were encouraged to anticipate the like result in Soleure and Argau during the last half. At that time, there were eight monasteries in the Canton of Argau—four of nuns, and four of monks ; two of the latter, Muri and Wettingen, both rich. These convents were, throughout 1840, the great seats of the politico-religious agitation then going forward. While the leaders from the three Cantons held meetings and concerted their measures there, the ample funds of the convents were not spared for the movement ; which was impressed upon the neighbouring population as a religious cause in the strictest sense, and enforced as well by the strongest appeals which the Catholic faith and the authority of the priests and monks could fur- nish, as by unmeasured cries of irreligion against opponents.
Notwithstanding these strenuous efforts, however, the movement was not successful either in Soleure or in Argau. In both of them, the re- vising assemblies proposed projects of amended constitutions, containing neither that extension of Catholic privilege as compared with Protestant, and Catholic church-power as compared with lay-power, nor that intro- duction of direct appeal to the people in veto or referendum, which the leaders in this triple Cantonal agitation demanded : their projects were submitted to the votes of the general body of citizens, and sanctioned by large majorities. Respecting the Canton of Argau, two circumstances deserve notice—First, that the constitution of 1831 (then under revision) not only placed the Catholics under no political disadvantages as com- pared with the Protestants, but even gave them more than reasonable privileges ; for, in spite of their inferior numbers, and their still greater inferiority in wealth, industry, and intelligence, it secured to them a nu- merical half of the members of the Great Council. Secondly, although there were thus no real political grievances of Catholics to be removed, nevertheless the revising Council was at first so influenced by the pow- erful agitation going forward, that they proposed a scheme of constitution in which a portion of the Catholic claims were conceded ; and this scheme, on being submitted to vote, was rejected, not merely by Protestants, who thought the concessions unreasonable, but also by the Catholics them- selves, who despised then, as insufficient, and thought that a second trial with persevering efforts would extort more. But they were disappointed : the attempt at conciliation having failed, the second scheme which was proposed made no unreasonable concessions to Catholic demands, pro- ceeded upon reason and justice, and was accepted by a large majority of the citizens on the 5th January 1841. Even this constitution, however, (the one still subsisting,) though it did not grant the Catholic demands, is still politically such as to favour Catholics at the expense of Protest- ants. For the Argovian Executive Council consists of nine members, of whom four must be Catholics and four Protestants ; the ninth may belong to either confession. The Supreme Judicial College is divided in the same manner. Considering the inferiority of the Catholics in number, (not to mention other points of inferiority,) the constitution, even as it now stands, thus gives them justice and something more. It is right to add, that these revisions were, on almost all points, material improvements on the constitutions as they had stood before, both in Ar- gait and Soleure.
These two votes, both in Soleure and Argau, took place nearly at the same time; and the disappointment as well as exasperation of those who guided the systematic agitation which pervaded both Lucerne and these two Cantons was extreme. Not choosing to acquiesce in the pacific solu- tion which had gone against them, they had recourse to arms : simulta- neous risings took place both in Soleure and Argau, with the instigation and concurrence of the brother agitators in Lucerne. In Argaa, the rising took place among the Catholic population of the Southern districts, or Freien Amter, near to the borders of Lucerne : it was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Convents ; whose inmates fomented it in every way —their buildings having been made places for the concealment of arms and munitions, their funds employed to distribute money, wine, and brandy, among the insurgents—and their armed servants and dependants in the foremost ranks of the latter. The purpose of the insurgents was to march directly upon Aarau, the chief town of the Canton, to overpower the Government, and to erect their own portion of Argau into a separate Canton apart from the rest—a little Catholic neighbour and appendage, of
Lucerne. They also did what they could to provoke a simultaneous rising among the Catholics of the Friokthal (on the Northern side of the Canton of Argan, near the left bank of the Rhine, wherein are Laufen- burg and Rheinfelden). But these latter Catholics remained quiet, and refused to take any part : they were not in the neighbourhood or under the influence of the Convents.
It happened that both the Government of Wean and that of Argan were strong enough to suppress these dangerous risings : the latter, however,
only by the aid of troops from Berne. The Catholic insurgents in the Freien-Amtern were put down and disarmed : the insurgent leaders both from Soleure and Argau, as well as the monks out of the implicated
Convents, fled to Lucerne for refuge : some of the parties seized were trial before the ordinary courts of justice, but neither as to person nor property was any extraordinary severity displayed towards them. As a consequence of this insurrection, the Argovian Great Council was forth- with assembled, and one of its first measures was to decree the suppres- sion of the Convents. Provision for life was made for the existing in- mates; but subject to this deduction, all the remaining conventual pro- perties were consecrated to the religious worship, the instruction, the charitable purposes, and the general welfare, of the Catholic communes in the district around—those very communes most of which had just been engaged in actual insurrection. That this suppression of convents sprang neither from rapacity nor from any feeling hostile to Catholic citizens or the Catholic faith, is suffi- ciently shown by the act of appropriation last-mentioned—the applica- tion made of the property : moreover, the decree was proposed in Coun- cil by one of the leading Catholics in Argau—Augustin Keller, Director of the Catholic Seminary, and received the support of many Catholic members. There is, however, in the Federal Pact an article expressly re- lating to the Convents, guaranteeing their perpetuity as they were found in 1815, so far as the Cantons in which they stand are concerned : this twelfth article is historically known to have been inserted at the urgent instance of the Papal Nuncio, contrary to the wish of most of the Cantons even in their then reactionary spirit. When the Diet assembled shortly after this transaction, the Canton of Lucerne preferred loud complaints against the suppression of the Argovian Convents, as a robbery, an out- rage on the Catholic faith, and a direct violation of the twelfth article in the Pact; the plenary application of which Lucerne invoked at the hands of the Diet—total, unconditional, and compulsory restitution of all the Con- vents and their property. The Deputy of Argan defended the act of his Canton by alleging the flagrant rebellion of which the Convents had recently been accomplices and instigators : such appeal to arms on their part had forfeited their title to the Federal guarantee, and rendered their continuance inconsistent with the security and authority of the Cantonal Government. Though the sentiment of the majority of the Diet was unfavourable to the recent proceeding of the Canton of Argau, they nevertheless did not go so far as to accede to the proposition of Lucerne : the majority passed a resolution disapproving generally what had been done by Argau, and requiring that it should be modified, but without expressly prescribing how. The Argovian Government was constrained to conform to this sentiment, and offered to restore three out of the four suppressed female convents : this compromise, however, was not deemed sufficient to satisfy an entire majority of the Diet, and the question re- mained under long and angry debate during the sittings both of 1841 and 1842—no majority being obtained for any positive conclusion. At length, in the session of 1843, the Canton of Argau enlarged its offer of ,00mpromise by proposing to restore all the four suppressed female con- vents. So enlarged, the offer was held to be satisfactory by the majority of the Diet, and a vote was passed in the session of 1843 to treat the subject as settled : not without the strongest protest, however, from a considerable minority, including Lucerne. The question of the Argovian Convents was thus closed, as far as the ;majority of the Diet could close it; but it has been revived in discussion over and over again ; and even during the present year, M. Bernard Meyer, the Deputy of Lucerne, pronounced it to have been the beginning of all the present evils of Switzerland. He chose to call it a beginning, and to forget the circumstances which had preceded : and your corre- spondent, " A Genevese," in inquiring why the Diet did not interfere to protect the property of the Argovian Convents, appears to treat the sup- pression as if it were a simple question between a robber on one side and a party robbed on the other ; though in reality there is no incident with respect to which it is more essential to observe his own admonition, " not to state an affair as a mere question of law, without reference , to antecedent circumstances." If ever there was a proceeding which grew out of and was imperiously driven on by antecedent circumstances, it was the suppression of the Convents of Argau. In my judgment, the Diet interfered in enforcement of the Pact quite as far as the case justified them, not to say further : they procured the restitution of four convents out of the eight : and if the " Genevese " thinks that they ought to have taken up and executed the demand of Lucerne for total and unconditional restitution, I dissent from his view. To extort the restitution of the Convent of Muri—probably the instigator of the in- surrection among the Catholics around it in 183.5, and certainly the foremost among the rebellious convents in 1841—would have been a blow not merely to Cantonal government, but also to all civil govern- ment as compared with ecclesiastical immunity, more worthy of the time of Gregory the Seventh than of the nineteenth century. In the Catholic .kingdoms of Bavaria and Austria, how many days' purchase would the existence of a convent be worth, if its monks were strongly suspected of having raised a first insurrection, and certainly known to have raised a second ? Estimate Cantonal rights as ow as you will, no reasonable man will believe that the Cantons who signed the Pact of 1815 intended to guarantee the inviolability of convents caught in flagrant rebellion.
As we descend from 1843 down to the present time, we shall find that one party-wrong begets another; and if we are to look for what M. Meyer calls the beginning, we must go back farther than the suppres- sion of the Argovian Convents. Such suppression, under the particular circumstances of the case, may well be contended to have been no wrong at all, but a step justified by the past, and essential as a protection and remedy for the future : if we even admit that it was a wrong, we must at the same time admit that it grew out of a previous wrong—the rebellion of the Convents. That rebellion, con- nected both in time and in origin with the rising against the Govern- ment of Soleure, was the last resort of a widespread politico-religious agitation, and of a string of active "Catholic unions" which pervaded the Cantons of Lucerne, Argau, Soleure, and Catholic Bern; daring the years immediately preceding 1841. These Catholic unions had of
course the fullest right to enforce their views by public discussion and appeal : let us even grant, large as the concession is, that they had a right to resort as they did to an unscrupulous employment of religious hopes and fears, to promise the blessing of the saints and to denounce opponents as heretics beyond the pale of salvation, for the purpose of procuring such changes as they desired in the political constitution—still the votes of the whole people were taken on the subject of this constitution, the decision was against them, and there their rights ended. To take arms against that decision was a political wrong, not only clear and decisive, but =pro- voked, =begotten, by any previous wrong. It was the cry of "Reli- gion in danger " employed to put arms into the hands of Catholic insur- gents, just as the same cry, sixteen months before, had been successfully used by Protestants to overthrow by force the Government of Zurich: and the Capuchin friar who in January 1841 headed the Argovian Ca. tholic insurgents on their march against Aarau, forms a parallel to the Protestant clergyman, M. Hirzel, who on the 6th September 1839 con- ducted the armed zealots of the country round Zurich into that city. The same phamomenon appears in both—the intrusion of direct and vio- lent religious agency into politics ; by the Conservative Protestants, as an antithesis and diversion to political Radicalism; by the Catholic lead- ers, as a nominal reinforcement of popular control, but a real transfer of power from the laity to the priesthood. This ph.Tuomenon mani- fests itself largely throughout the Swiss world towards the period which we are now examining; and it requires to be understood if we would follow the train of events down to the Jesuits and the Sonder- bund. For a certain time, these two movements are in sympathy with one another : leaders at Zurich opposed to Radicalism in their own Canton, were not displeased to see it exaggerated in name but degra- ded into a secondary force and becoming a mere implement of the altar, although by a Catholic hierarchy, in the Catholic Cantons; and in 1841, the Government of Zurich, then presiding Canton, friendly to Lucerne and hostile to Argau, was even displeased with Berne for having furnished those troops to the Argovian Government which enabled it promptly to put down the insur- rection. This sympathy between the Government called Conservative at Zurich, which acquired power by the insurrection of the 6th Sep- tember 1839, and the Ultramontane Government of Lucerne, since 1840, proved after a certain time the cause of the overthrow of the former; the subsequent conduct of Lucerne, as will be hereafter men- tioned, having been such as to alienate the population of the Canton of Zurich.
As to the question of Federal right involved in the suppression of the Convents, the majority of the Diet must be held to be the only competent judges,—unless, indeed, we are to admit the doctrine now laid down by the Sonderbund, that every Canton has a right to interpret the Pact for itself; in which case, the Canton of Argau would of course be as much in the right as its opponents. According to the verdict of that majority, the suppression of the convents of monks must be held to have been justified by sufficient reasons ; that of the other four, not justified. The Govern- ment of Argau, having at first done wrong, made expiation, and put it- self right with the Diet. This is a matter to be recollected when we come to discuss the recent conduct of the Sonderbund.
But, apart from the question of right, how far were the Catholics of Argau gainers or losers by the suppression ? Whoever reads one of the most interesting books published in modern times, the Autobiography of the historian Zschokke, of Aran, will find an authentic account of three out of the eight monasteries as they stood in 1833, seven years before the suppression; especially of the Convent of Mori. Zschokke, together with two Catholic gentlemen, was named Inspecting Visitor of the Mo- nasteries by the Argovian Government. He found the population around the Convent of Muri the idlest, poorest, most barbarous, and most igno- rant, in the whole canton : a long train of able-bodied beggars of both sexes to be seen at the doors of the monastery, dirty and in rags, receiving distributions of soap from the kitchen, but the lowest average both of physical and moral wellbeing throughout the neighbouring villages. Un- questionably, the Catholic population around the monastery has been the real gainer by its suppression: the Cantonal Government has acquired no- thing in a pecuniary point of view, but it has gained unspeakably in re- spect of assured position, by being relieved from a rich establishment always ready to pay for an insurrection among the neighbouring Catholics, on the strength of its assured Federal inviolability, whenever the priestly party in Lucerne might be disposed to give the word. The present sentiment of these Catholic parts of Argau has now be- come much more favourable towards their own Cantonal Govern- ment; and it deserves to be mentioned, that they, as immediate neighbours of Lucerne, were the great sufferers by the severe mea- sures which the Lucerne Government adopted last winter to re- strict the exportation of provisions : they were obliged to throw themselves on their own Government, which made unavailing applications to Lucerne for relaxation. This transaction has tended not only to alien- ate their feelings from Lucerne, but also to throw them into connexion with the markets of Zurich ; a tendency which will probably be farther facilitated by the railway recently opened from Zurich to Baden, the cen- tral point of Catholic Argan. The compromise respecting the Argovian Convents was carried into effect in the spring of 1843: an explanation of that event with its pre- liminary circumstances has been unavoidably necessary, partly because it produced a great effect on Federal proceedings, partly because it ushered in the state of things in 1843, which will be touched upon in the next letter. The Presidency of Lucerne occupies the years 1843 and 1844; and the Presidential conduct of that Canton, (especially in regard to the revolution of Valais, to be hereafter noticed,) constitutes the immediate preliminary to the Jesuits, the Corps Francs, and the Sonderbund.
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