What, then, was his surprise to find the First Consul increasingly enamoured of federalism.

The letters written by Stapfer to the Swiss Government at this time are highly instructive.[220] On March 10th, 1801, he wrote: "What torments us most is the cruel uncertainty as to the real aims of the French Government.

Does it want to federalize us in order to weaken us and to rule more surely by our divisions: or does it really desire our independence and welfare, and is its delay only the result of its doubts as to the true wishes of the Helvetic nation ?" Stapfer soon found that the real cause of delay was the non-completion of the cession of Valais, which Bonaparte urgently desired for the construction of a military road across the Simplon Pass; and as the Swiss refused this demand, matters remained at a standstill.

"The whole of Europe would not make him give up a favourite scheme," wrote Stapfer on April 10th; "the possession of Valais is one of the matters closest to his heart." The protracted pressure of a French army of occupation on that already impoverished land proved irresistible; and some important modifications of the Swiss project of a constitution, on which the First Consul insisted, were inserted in the new federal compact of May, 1801.

Switzerland was now divided into seventeen cantons; and despite the wish of the official Swiss envoys for a strongly centralized government, Bonaparte gave large powers to the cantonal authorities.