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We've thrown ourselves away with the Frenchmen, isn't that right, Squire, eh, don't I know a thing or two? Eh, he likes our lads, eh, he likes to keep a hold on them and this hungry country! Eh, but he will have our cloth banned! Eh, he's a rascal, I would say it to his face."

Councillor: "Yes, yes, you are right, Debis. But have patience, it's a matter that needs time and patience. Someone will find other outlets, and France changes her opinions as often as her fashions. Maybe before the year's out our cloth wares will roll out there as well as they ever did."

Farmer: "Thats maybe so. But I am still by way of thinking, if the Swiss weren't such fools and stood all together, they could make the Frenchmen know who's master. I'd wager he would have to put that in his pipe and smoke it, if all the Swiss weren't such dolts."

Squire: "Gently, gently, neighbour, the Swiss have always been obliging, upright, honest people, and have always been sought after for their courage, their good faith and their honesty. But the Frenchman does not intend to deal honestly with us. There you're right, Debis, he is a fox like Herod [Luke 13, v 32]. People should not trust him so readily, they should open their eyes a little and watch out for his tricks and dodges. If he did not have the advantage over us, he would not give much for our friendship, would he?"

Councillor (shrugging his shoulders): "Tis so, if you like. Of course France never did have a good reputation for honesty and keeping faith. We Swiss have nevertheless no reason to be sorry for ourselves, as far as that decree is concerned. It affects only a few of the cantons. The majority and the greatest of them can look down their noses at it and not get hot under the collar. For example Bern, Luzern, Freyburg, Uri, Schweiz and so on. They have little or no interest in our cloth wares. If they only get their pensions

149

Farmer: "Exactly! that's just what I was saying. People ought to open their traps on the subject too. The Frenchman must hear all about it. We are a nation too and certainly not the least of them. I would tell him so, the fool, he could stick his nose into the Chronicle and find out what our forefathers were like, and we are no less than they. He could put up with our cloth wares. There's no plague in them. We are not sick, mangy and lousy like the Frenchmen. I say it again, the Swiss are fools because they have made fools of themselves in front of this fellow. We should send all these devilish new fashions back to him, if he wants to steal our cloth ware".

150

I slipped away from there. I saw clearly that these men, just like myself, were not very well informed on the subject. And it was the same further on. Wherever I went, I met with not a single person that I thought was truly well informed on the matter. One held to this opinion, another to that. Everybody likes to speak their mind. And so it will end as it began, my little book began with nonsense and it will finish with nonsense too." [Voellmy, v 3 pp 169-175]

31st Dec. "No days are more sacred, more important and more joyful to me than the last of one year and the first of the next. But since I have stammered out my feelings of thankfulness, happiness and hope in the previous diary, I am much desirous of elaborating a little on my previous very halt and lame dialogue in the land of the dead. The cause: I have recently seen and spoken in a dream with my dear son Jakob. Many of my neighbours, both men and women, have sailed over thence, and many poor fellow human beings lie these days buried alive under ice and snow, stiffened by cold, hunger and frost, for whom death would be a blessing." [Voellmy, v 3 p 263]

149

This may refer to subsidies paid by the French government to some cantons to ensure a constant supply of necessary imports from Switzerland, including mercenary soldiers.

150

This paragraph is in impenetrable dialect.

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