Each of the cantons claimed a governmental sovereignty that was scarcely impaired by the deliberations of the Federal Diet.

Besides these sovereign States were others that held an ill-defined position as allies; among these were Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Muehlhausen in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchatel, and Valais on the Upper Rhone.

Last came the subject-lands, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords.

Such was the old Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the masterful genius of Philip.

Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the greatest statesman of the age.
On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the Swiss treasuries.