Yet the reason appears simple enough j and this difference may, in some measure,
be accounted for, from the manner in which relief is there administered. The indigent,
or those whom misfortunes have reduced to a state of beggary, are in most parts of
Switzerland assisted by order of the government, or the respective parishes where they
reside, at their own dwellings, when their case is properly considered, and care taken
that the succours sent shall be judiciously shared by themselves and families, .should
they have any. Were they found afterwards in the act of begging, they would be taken
up as vagrants, and punished. Besides, the Swiss inhabitants, paying little or no taxes,
each individual may be said to be the complete proprietor of what he possesses, and
consequently better able to assist his neighbour.
Previously, however, to my quitting Versoix, which is in the French territory, to
re-enter that of Berne, and of course to continue a description of the Pays-de-Vaud,
the most considerable province of that state, I shall here offer some few remarks on its
origin, history,, government, and the manner in which it has passed to its present pos
sessors or sovereigns.
After the conquest of the Helvetii by the Romans, the Pays-de-Vaud made part of
a province at that time called Maxima Sequanorum-, and, by some historians, supposed
to have been the Pagus Urblgenus of Julius Cssar, of which the city of Orbe, or
Urba, still retains the name.
This fine and fruitful country, originally bounded on the west and north-east by the
Jura and Pays-de-Gex; on the east, by the canton of Freyburg and the Valiais; on
the north, by a part of the lake of Neufchatel and Morat; and, on the south, by
the lake of Geneva j is estimated at about sixty-eight miles in length, and sixty in
breadth, containing many cities, villages, and hamlets.
In the time of the Romans, who sent hither several colonies, it appears to have
been in a flourishing state, as may be conjectured from the numerous specimens of
antiquities which have been dug in different places:—of these, the most considerable
are in the city of Avanche, or Avenlicum, where there exist several beautiful remains
of an aqueduct, a triumphal arch, pieces of mosaic, and other similar fragments of architecture,
which, from the taste, the execution, and the highly-finished manner in which
the chapiters of the columns and ornaments of the frize are completed, appear evidently
to have been the works of the Augustan age. But, at the fall of the Roman empire,
this country shared a similar fate to that of Geneva, becoming likewise a part of the
new kingdom of Burgundy, in whose possession it remained till the extinction of ihat
kingdom. It afterwards fell under the German empire, from whence its governors were
sent, with supreme authority, to administer justice in its name. The counts, and since
dukes, of Zeringhen, were however the first who succeeded in making that title
hereditary in their femily ; for, after the elevation of the first, desirous of raising his
family to similar honours, he so nicely managed the good graces of the emperor, that
his descendents soon after obtained the right of advowson over the bishops of Geneva,
Lausanne, and Sion, who were then very powerful : and it was not till after the extinction
of that ancient family, that the counts of Savoy (who already possessed a considerable
part of this province), from having likewise won over the nobles to their
interest, acquired not only the rights, title, and privileges, heretofore held by the counts
or dukes of Zeringhen, but the sovereignty of their house actually acknowledged by
the emperors. This is evident from the cession of that country, in 1285, by Amadeus
the Fifth, count of Savoy, to his younger brother Lewis, whose lineal descendents held
it till 1359, with the ritle of barony, when it again returned to the elder branch of that
illustrious house. At this time Lewis, the then reigning duke, desirous of giving an
apanage to his younger children, divided it among them ; allotting the comté de Romand,
and the northern part of the Pays-de-Vaud, to his son James. But James unfortunately
took arms in favour of Charies the Bold, duke of Burgundy, in his bloody and
cruel contest against the Swiss, which terminated in the entire defeat of the Burgundians
and their ally in 14.76 and 1477, in the neighbourhood of Morat and
Grandson.
Tlie cantons of Freyburg and Berne, in order to punish James, took possession of
his states, and divided them : the remaining part of the barony, which at that epoch
still belonged to the reigning branch of Savoy, remained in their possession till 1536;
when duke Charles, by his continual attacks on the Genevese territory, forced them to
call in the assistance of their allies. The above cantons immediately sent troops, who,
by entering the lower part of the Pays-de-Vaud, not only made themselves masters of
that country, but of the Pays-de-Gex and the duchy of Chablais, also belonging to the
duke of Savoy's dominions, without striking a blow. But, in 1564, these cantons, by
the intervention or mediation of the neutral ones, jointly with the courts of France and
Spain, obtained the restitution of .the two latter ; yet not without a renunciation of the
former, which was then ceded to Berne and Freyburg for ever ; though not properly
! 1
i'i
•ii'j
f ' i '