The Diet is held this year in Bern and it is now sitting.
I have met with
the two Deputies of the Canton de Vaud, MM. P - - - and M - - -. I am glad to
hear from them that the animosity existing between the two cantons of Bern
and Vaud is beginning to subside. M. P - - - has made a most able and
conciliating speech at the Diet. Still there is a good deal of jealousy
rankling in the breast of the Bern noblesse and the avulsumimperium is
a very sore subject with them. I recollect once at Lausanne meeting with a
young man of one of the principal families of Bern, who had been hi the
English service. The conversation happened to turn on the emancipation of
the Canton de Vaud from the domination of Bern, when the young man became
perfectly furious and insisted that the Vaudois had no right whatever to
their liberty, for that the Canton of Bern had purchased the province of
Vaud from the Dukes of Savoy. "En un mot" (said he), "ils sont nos
esclaves, nos ilotes et ils sont aussi clairement notre propriete que les
negres de la Jamaique le sont de leurs maitres"
A very harsh measure has lately been passed in the Diet, evidently
suggested by the aristocracy of Bern, which tended to fine and punish those
Swiss officers who remained in Prance to serve under Napoleon after his
return from Elba, and who did not obey the order of the Diet which recalled
them.
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