I will give them places and distinctions, but they will hold them from me.
This system of mine has succeeded in France.

See the clergy.

Every day they will become, in spite of themselves, more devoted to my government than they had foreseen." How simple and yet how subtle is this statecraft; simplicity of aim, with subtlety in the choice of means: this is the secret of his success.
After much preliminary work done by French commissioners and the Swiss deputies in committee, the First Consul summed up the results of their labours in the Act of Mediation of February 19th, 1803, which constituted the Confederation in nineteen cantons, the formerly subject districts now attaining cantonal dignity and privileges.

The forest cantons kept their ancient folk-moots, while the town cantons such as Berne, Zuerich, and Basel were suffered to blend their old institutions with democratic customs, greatly to the chagrin of the unionists, at whose invitation Bonaparte had taken up the work of mediation.
The federal compact was also a compromise between the old and the new.
The nineteen cantons were to enjoy sovereign powers under the shelter of the old federal pact.

Bonaparte saw that the fussy imposition of French governmental forms in 1798 had wrought infinite harm, and he now granted to the federal authorities merely the powers necessary for self-defence: the federal forces were to consist of 15,200 men--a number less than that which by old treaty Switzerland had to furnish to France.