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Questions

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Lead
  • Strictly speaking, yes, it was the nickname attached to the insurgents. In one of the journals held by a local nobleman in 1802, he recounts being threatened by an emissary that if he were not to hand over his archives immediately, the emissary would return with his "paper-burners" and get them by force. MLauba (talk) 23:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Feudal rights were abolished in the canton, and subsequently in the entire country by the Act of Mediation.". This is a little ambiguous. Were the rights abolished in the canton and then later in the country by the Act, or did the Act abolish them both at the same time? --Malleus Fatuorum 23:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Background
  • "In 1800, the by then unitarian government decided to claim back all due feudal taxes since 1798." I'm not sure I entirely follow this. "Claim back" implies that they'd been paid, and the government was asking for them back from whoever they'd been paid to, but as I understand it, the feudal taxes hadn't been paid since 1798. Should this say something like "decided to collect all feudal taxes unpaid since 1798"? --Malleus Fatuorum 21:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is definitely where my English just isn't good enough. What I mean to say was that the taxes weren't merely reintroduced but indeed, the government tried to make it retroactive to 1798, collecting 3 years worth in one stroke, which definitely pissed people off. MLauba (talk) 22:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The geographical location of the Old Swiss Confederacy made it a key transit area during the French Revolutionary Wars." It's not clear to me what the "it" is referring to in this sentence. Basel or the Old Swiss Confederacy? --Malleus Fatuorum 14:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think this is actually useful at this place, while I meant the Old Swiss Confederacy, it a bit borderline OR and doesn't flow with the paragraph. It's gone now.
  • I've moved the last paras from Revolt up into Background and then expanded the account of the revolt proper quite a lot. I think I committed, again, grievous bodily harm against English syntax and grammar, and would again need a helping hand to clear my mess & point out where I don't make sense. MLauba (talk) 14:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A series of attempted coups shook the government and provided several changes between the unitarians, supporters of the Republic idea and the centralized government it had brought, and federalists, many among them representatives of the old aristocracy pushing for a restoration of the cantonal rule." I'm not quite following this, and it's probably trying to say too much in one sentence anyway. It says "shook the government", but wasn't there a series of different governments during this time, formed after each constitutional change? "Cantonal rule" probably needs a word or two of explanation as well. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dreadfully worded, indeed. The governments were not just shaken but overthrown. Cantonal rule refers to the organization of the old Swiss Confederation, which was a very decentralized state model where the Cantons held most of the power and the centralized government was pretty toothless. MLauba (talk) 15:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Under the conditions laid down in the capitulation of the old Swiss Confederation, the Helvetic Republic had to pay for the support of French troops stationed on its territory. In 1800, the by then unitarian government demanded payment of all feudal taxes unpaid since 1798." Are these two things related? Were the feudal taxes reintroduced to pay for the French troops, for instance? If not, then the first sentence is probably in the wrong place. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a bit difficult to settle as the sources do hint at a causality link yet never come straight out and say so. What they all agree on was that the state coffers were empty and that the charges tied to supporting the French troops exacerbated the situation. What I personally read out of the sources was that the government reintroduced the taxes as one of the measures to stem their deficit, a deficit worsened by the presence of the French troops. Too much OR? MLauba (talk) 15:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmm,that's tricky then. It would probably be best to rewrite it along the lines you lay out above, empty government coffers, made worse by the need to pay for the troops, needed to raise some cash.
 Done I split the whole paragraphs, is it more clear now? MLauba (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The prefect Polier was charged by the government in Bern to denounce and arrest everyone involved in the issuance or publication of the address on 24 November 1800." This is a little ambiguous. Was the address issued on 24 November, or was that when Polier was charged to arrest the patriots? --Malleus Fatuorum 16:47, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Revolt
Aftermath
  • Ouch, yes, that's the kind of shortcuts that needs expansion (and proper wording). From the creation of the Helvetic Republic until the final abolition, there were always two way of dealing with the feudal taxes, either to just purely annul them, as France had done during their own revolution, or to "buy them back", in other words, to compensate the aristocrats with a certain lump sum for the titles. In the latter case, there was also an ambiguity about whether it was going to be the peasants themselves who'd have to buy the titles directly, or the cantons. Eventually (but out of scope in this article), it would be the cantons, and the process would drag on until 1815. MLauba (talk) 18:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I get the gist of what you're saying. Here in England of course we just made it clear that we weren't going to pay them any more. :-)
  • I still don't quite get what you're saying here though: "At the same time, he also announced that the value of the remaining feudal titles would be bought back until January 1803." What does "bought back until" mean? Do you mean that there was a time limit, and that after 1803 they wouldn't be bought? If they weren't what would happen then? Or do you mean that the people/cantons had the right to buy them back until 1803, after which that right lapsed? --Malleus Fatuorum 23:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a bit concerned about the use of the word "patriot", as in unitarioan patriot", "Vaudois patriot" and so on. "Patriot" definitely has a positive connotation that may be considered to display a certain point of view. --Malleus Fatuorum 18:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we have indeed a potential issue, the litterature, unanimously, refers to all Vaudois of that time who were in favour of independence from Bern as patriots... But that poses two issues. First, the historians are re-using the terminology of their predecessors, and second, every comprehensive source - Monod, Verdeil, but also Secrétan and others - they are all Vaudois themselves. Litterature written by the rest of the world tends to be sufficiently generic (focusing on the results the Bourla-papey had on the abolition of the taxes or the indirect role they played in bringing about Napoleon's Act of Mediation) that the context is entirely left out and there is no room for characterization of the main movements.

    I can certainly find other Swiss (non-Vaudois) historians to confirm the usage of the term, but we're still in a context where history has been written by the heirs of the unitarian movement (which is strange in a sense, considering the country is now organized as a federal state, but I digress).

    So I don't know what to do with that. What are your suggestions? MLauba (talk) 18:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, it's tricky. I'd certainly prefer to avoid using the word "patriot", as it's got a strong positive connotation in English anyway. Let me have a think. On a similar subject, is is correct to call these Vaudois patriots in any event, as the canton wasn't called Voudois at that time? --Malleus Fatuorum 18:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, on the latter, yes, both MONOD and VERDEIL reproduce various letters from the time, the people were definitely called Vaudois (and self-identified as such) even during those 5 years when their canton was called Leman. MLauba (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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