Note (Back) — Chapter XXII

447. The Confederation in the Eighteenth Century.—In the form in which it exists to-day the Swiss Confederation is a product of the middle and later nineteenth century. The origins of it, however, are to be traced to a very much remoter period. Beginning with the alliance of the three forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden in 1291,[579] the Confederation was built up through the gradual creation of new cantons, the splitting of old ones, the reorganization of dependent territories, and the development of a federal governmental system, superimposed upon the constitutional arrangements of the affiliated states. In 1789, when the French Directory, at the instigation of Napoleon, took it upon itself to revolutionize Switzerland, the Confederation consisted of thirteen cantons.[580] With it were associated certain Zugewandte Orte, or allied districts, some of which eventually were erected into cantons, together with a number of Gemeine Vogteien, or subject territories. The Confederation comprised simply a Staatenbund, or league of essentially autonomous states. Its only organ of common action was a diet, in which each canton had a right to one vote. Save in matters of a purely advisory nature, the powers of this diet were meager indeed. Of the cantons, some were moderately democratic; others were highly aristocratic. The political institutions of all were, in large measure, such as had survived from the Middle Ages.