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In one of the Forest Cantons at this time lived a famous mountaineer named William Tell. He was tall and strong. In all Switzerland no man had a foot so sure as his on the mountains or a hand so skilled in the use of a bow. He was determined to resist the Austrians.
He could remember, he there said to him, that it was only with reluctance, and after repeated orders from Zurich and Bern, that Bremgarten had prohibited the sale of provisions to the Five Cantons that the vengeance of the enemy was sure, and their destruction very probable. Thus also spoke the people of Mellingen, as well as those of the free bailiwicks.
Meanwhile Arnold, his son, is enamoured of Mathilde, Gessler's daughter, and hesitates between love and duty when he is called upon to avenge his father's death. At last duty prevails, and he joins his comrades when the men of the three cantons, who are loyal to Tell, meet and swear death to the tyrant. In the last act occurs the famous archery scene.
On that account also Rome from the very first, with a clear-sightedness and magnanimity perhaps unparalleled in history, waived the most dangerous of all the rights of government, the right of taxing her subjects. At the most tribute was perhaps imposed on the dependent Celtic cantons: so far as the Italian confederacy extended, there was no tributary community.
Perhaps the most distinctive mark of the Swiss reformer's theology was his idea that the Lord's Supper is not a miracle but simply a symbol and a memorial. In 1531 Zwingli urged the Protestant Swiss to convert the five forest cantons to the new religion by force of arms.
But he said that the English idea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and intemperance was an error it has not that effect. He said there was more seduction in the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the confessional protected the girls. I wonder why it doesn't protect married women in France and Spain?
In giving greater freedom of movement to the several cantons, he certainly adopted the only statesmanlike course: but his conduct during the negotiation, his retention of Valais, and the continued occupation of Switzerland by his troops, albeit in reduced numbers, caused many doubts as to the sincerity of his desire for a final settlement.
In view, however, of the fact that the suicide rate of the Protestant cantons in Switzerland is nearly four times that of the Catholic cantons, it seems probable that Catholicism, as a form of religious belief, does restrain the suicidal impulse.
But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated with the view of placing the Loire between themselves and the enemy, but were overtaken on the march and defeated; whereupon the Carnutes and the other revolted cantons, including even the maritime ones, sent in their submission. And in Uxellodunum
But said Cantons are not prohibited from extending the same privileges to citizens of the United States of other religious persuasions.
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