The Holy Alliance And Swi...
The Times, 1824-02-16T00:00:00

It is impossible thae persons who have laid any attentior to the netiork exercised for some years past by the IIoly Alliance over the' Governments of Switzerland,should not have asked thernselvus what are the ettuics of that action. If there did not exist in Switzerlind any jou,pal capable of exercising any influence in neighbouring States- if there did not exist any wvriter occupying himself an the afi'3irs of other cointries, why has the floly Alliance ordered the liberty of the press to be sacrificed in ali the cantons where it was established ? If the men -who soukht an asylum in the lielvetic territory had no connexiion with each other-if they were for the most pavt men liv- ing in obscurity, and incapable of bringing about any political re- sults, either in Switzerland or elsewhere-in fine, if they carried on no dangerous correspondence with their countrymen_if they formed no plots, why have they been proscribed ? Is It credible that Kings and Emperors, each Qf whlom have 30,000,000 or 40,000,0O0 of sub- jects, should league together to persecute some obscure indivitluals, whose names, perhaps, never reached tleir ears? Is it not more na- tural to suppose that these men were forming intrignues in the coun- try whichi afforded them an asvlurm, and that they were preparing in secret new revolutions ? Certainly the latter is the most simple hy- pothesis, and thexcfore we find it adopted by rnen who will not take the trouble of reflection, or who secretly approve of the Holy Alli- ance when they dare not support its principles openly. The Holy Alliance acts in a wianner so unifbrm and so constant,as to give ground tbr believing that all the memrbers who compose it are animated with the same spirit, and tend to the same end. This manner of judging-just in one point of view-would be incorrect in another. There exists in each of the memben of the Holy Alliance, a common will, which tends to maintain dempotisih wherever it is fotnd, and to give it a definitive establishmcat where it has only an incomplete existencec. But in this general tendency there ij in every government a particular inclination which lens to its personal ag- grandizement, or to the satisfaestion of its hated or individual pre- indices. It is from the combination of tlese two wilLs that have sprung all the events of which I have spokei to you in a preceding letter, and'those of which I have yet to speaL Switzerland has not always been what it is now. The German cantons were lonig part of the Austrian lominions: the cantons where the French language is spoken forirerly belonged to Savoy or to, France. In conquerizng its independence, Switzerland did not pass under the yoke of a new master. 'Now it is a fact known in European diplomacy, that the pretensions of the house of Austria never die. It is enough that this Power has once had possession -of a territory, and has recorded this possession in its arclives, to entitle it to claim eternal proprietorship, and to urge it to take all occasions to recover what it had lost. The rivaLship which ex- isted hetween this family and the house of Bourbon served as a gua- rantee to Switzerland, so long as the old diplomacy of Europe pre- vailed; but this family rivalship having beeni weakened by the prin- ciples of the Holy Alliance, each Power endeavours to turn to ad. vantage this suspension of royal hatreds and antipathies. Austria, in the mean time, desires to create an occasion for exercising her pretensions to tbe greatest portion of Switzerland. On her side, Savoy has not forgotten that she was once mistress of Geneva, and the canton of the Pays de Vaud. Ir is known that she has already announced her pretensions to the city and the territory of the first of these cantons. She founded these pretensions partly upon her former possession, and partly on the necessity of opposing a strong barrier to the aggrandizement of France on the side of Savoy. To this motive of ambition are added the hatred which a Government always preserves towards a population which has shaken off its allegiance, and the antipathy of a Catholic and bigotted Court towards a republic which was the cra-Ile of the reformation,to. gether with all the prejudices of an ignorant Government against an enlightenedpeople. This hatred of the Sardinian Governmentagainst Geneva is such, that it even shows itself in the laws of the country, and thlat privileges which are granted by Savoy to persons of all other nations are specially refused to the inhabitants of Geneva. The French Government appears to form no pretensions to any part of the Helyetic territory, but its prejudices and the different ca- tastrophes which it has undergone make it regard with a sort of terror the existence of a people who have not a master. The vicinity oq Austria and Savoy may excite its fears for the invasion of a part of its territory-a misfortune, however, which it does nsot seem much to dread; but the spectacle of a people who can live without commo. tion,without taxes,and without an expensive Court,inspires it with a more serious alarm. The men, therefore. of whom this Government is composed, do not conceal their fears with respect to Switzerland. One of them, who has always enjoyed the favour of the Monarch, who has just been raised to the dignity of a Peer, and who appears never to have been foreign to the secrets of the Court, has not hesi- tated to publish in a ministerial journal, " that the Governments of the Svwiss Cantons are only great municipalities, which exist by the tolerance of the Holy Alliance, and that the legitimate power over this country belongs to the Alonarcbs of the neighbouring States." This kind of manifesto against the independence of Switzerland in- spired at first all the citizens who have any foresight of the future with a terror which is not yet extinguished. But of all the motives which have brought about the persecutions that have recently taken place in the llelvetic territory, the principal, doubtless, is the wish cherished by each member of the Holy Alli- ance to extinguish withir. his own diminions every idea of liberty, and every feeling of independence. whocrer ,wiLa, ;iuy d grce of attention observes the events which are occurring on the continenit of Europe, will be convinced that in the greater number of States there no longer exists any kind of guarantee for those who dare to express opinions contrary to the official opinions of tse Government under which they live. It is not merely by legal prosecutions and judicial judgments, by sentences of death, or by confiscations, that the means of reaching thera are found. They are also attacked indirectly in their children, who are deprived of education; in their relations, who, are dismissed from any offices they may happen to fill; in their for- tunes, if they have any property to lose. But such persecutions would be insufficient, if there existed n the centre of Europe a ter- ritory in which an independent roan, unjustly persecuted, could find an asylum for himself and his family. The object of the Holy Al- liance is to prove to all the world that there is no sanctuary on this earth for any one who dares to thiAk and to say that absolute power is not the first of blessings. 'What matters it, according to this system, whether the men who are persecuted in a foreign territory are innocent or guilty-whether they do or do not exercise an influence over their cotemporaries- whether they be young or old, healthy or infirm ? The persecu- tions which they experience have for their sole object to prevent the mischief which it is supposed they nightcause. The intention is to terrify aU men on the continent who possess any feeling of indepen. dence. The choice of the victims may therefore be made at hazard, or abandoned to the passions and caprice of inferior agents. Ac. cordingly, were it worth the while to explore the particular motives for placing on the list of proscription the greafer number of the men who have been banished from Switzerland, it would be found that almost in every case, those motives have no connexion whatever with the policy of the Governments composing the Holy Alliance. In one canton, for example, the father of a numerous faniily wvill be proscribed, because, though born a Catholic, he allows his children to be brought up in the religion of his Protestant wife, which the priest is sure to regard as sinfrn. In another, aged men are pro- scribed solely because among their friends are men whom the agents of the Holy Alliance dislike, but against wlhom they have no means of instituting any personal persecution. While the Holy Alliance thus seeks to intimidate its ov,wn subjects by persecuting them on a foreign territory, somne of the members of that Alliance satisfy their individual passions by humiliating the Governments of Switzerland, and particularly by endeavouring to render them contemptible in the eyes of their own subjects. Among all the transactions which have for several years occurred in this con- try, none are more notorious than the existence of diplomatic notes addressed to the Cantons, to procure the expulsion of certain foreign. ers. - Several of these foreigners were particularly connected with the memnbers of the Governments under which they lived, and some had even been invited by those Govenments to Switzerland. When those menacing notes were carried into execution, and the foreigners had removed, the agents of the Holy Alliance threw aU the odium of the measures on the Governments of the Cantons. Thev de- nied in public notes what they had demanded in secret oues, con- vinced that among all the Governments of the Cantons not one would have the courage to publish the latter notes in its justification. The ultimate objectofaU thosemanctuvres iscasily divined. If this scheme of degrading the Swiss. Governments in the opinion of the people should be successful-if they should be rendered' objects of distrust and hatred-if, on the other hand, the suppression of the liberty of the press should prevent the formation of any kind of pub. lic spirit-finally, if the citizens coula be deprived of every means of knowing the real situation of afTairs-then would the country be. completely prepared for an invasion or a partition as soon as it should appear that such an aggression might be attempted without danger. Before the success of the Holy Alliance in Spain, its ministers acted in a manner somewhat clandettinely in Switzerland. They umerely insinuated their orders in the fonn of advice, anu never re- duced them to writing. If written notes were required from thdm, they said they had not yet received ordera to present them. If their advice was not followed, they indulged in menaces, wIsichwerei also uimwzitten Now they'act more openly. Theirorders and their me- naces are communicated in wr'ting, sand they prohibit the Govern- ments to whom their notes are addressed from publiihing them. The greater part of the Governments which coGppose the Holy Al- liance have had, or stillhave, iL Switzerland, speciaLagents, viho are directedto act crdingtothebtisilarviews of thoGovetmnent Th:e French Goverpment h, for a long time, maintained a Count de D-t and a Marquls de Oh- In Switzerlanin The bualnei of theseagents is to instigte the Itallan exeiL fo undertake any bazardlous entepeise, and to promue them the suippoit of sqne of the principal members of-the French Chamber of Deputies The men so wht5n these prupositiona were to be.addressed,-were far.from wishing to engage in plots against any Goyernhient; but hid they' even cherished the designs imputed to thenm, themisrsson of the X&r quis and the Count would have been equally unsuccessful, for the character of those spies was wel known in SwitzerlAnd before. their arrival. The Sardinian Government has for its sgent a man who was once a captain of cavalry, who put off the cuirass to put on the cassock, and who has added to the boldness of his late profession all the cunning and intriguing spirit of the present. - The character of Catholic priest enables this agent to exercise a powerful iu. fluence over the population. Austria i s erved by a M. de L-., who was born a Protestant, buit who, tbough long incorporated with the Jesuits, was allowed to preserve externaLly the ap. pearance of his fonner religion. le did not publicly embrce the Catholic religion until he was unmasked by a Professor of Law in the Grand Council of Berne, of which he was a member. The Prussian agent is f. B- -, who was for 25 years the ageni of the Bourbons. His intrigues have so completely covered him with disgrace, that whdn the Prussian Government wiihed to give him a publlic mission in Switzerland, the Cantons re. monstrated against receiving hin. Russia has employed some of he. colonels but the men who come from that country are so coam. pletely objects of distrust, that their missions are not of long con. tinunnce, Such are some of thie least obscure of the subaltehn agents of the Holy Alliance, who have been employed in the preparation of pro. [scription lists-lists which the M1inisters have adopted without giving tfemsel'es any farther trouble, except that of adding any new names whlicih lhappened to be particularly odious to some of them. ?HE HOLY ALL!A.CB AND SWITZERLAND. ARAU. FzR. 1.,