On March 10th, 1801, he wrote: 

“What torments us most is the cruel uncertainty as to the real aims of the French Government.  Does it want to federalize us in order to weaken us and to rule more surely by our divisions:  or does it really desire our independence and welfare, and is its delay only the result of its doubts as to the true wishes of the Helvetic nation?”

Stapfer soon found that the real cause of delay was the non-completion of the cession of Valais, which Bonaparte urgently desired for the construction of a military road across the Simplon Pass; and as the Swiss refused this demand, matters remained at a standstill.  “The whole of Europe would not make him give up a favourite scheme,” wrote Stapfer on April 10th; “the possession of Valais is one of the matters closest to his heart.”

The protracted pressure of a French army of occupation on that already impoverished land proved irresistible; and some important modifications of the Swiss project of a constitution, on which the First Consul insisted, were inserted in the new federal compact of May, 1801.  Switzerland was now divided into seventeen cantons; and despite the wish of the official Swiss envoys for a strongly centralized government, Bonaparte gave large powers to the cantonal authorities.  His motives in this course of action have been variously judged.  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.

The unionist majority at Berne soon proceeded to modify his proposals, which they condemned as full of defects and contradictions; while the federals strove to keep matters as they were.  In the month of October their efforts succeeded, thanks to the support of the French ambassador and soldiery; they dissolved the Assembly, annulled its recent amendments; and their influence procured for Reding, the head of the oligarchic party, the office of Landamman, or supreme magistrate.  So reactionary, however, were their proceedings, that the First Consul recalled the French general as a sign of his displeasure at his help recently offered to the federals.  Their triumph was brief:  while their chiefs were away at Easter, 1802, the democratic unionists effected another coup d’etat—­it was the fourth—­and promulgated one more constitution.  This change seems also to have been brought about with the connivance of the French authorities:[221] their refusal to listen to Stapfer’s claims for a definite settlement, as well as their persistent hints that the Swiss could not by themselves arrange their own affairs, argued a desire to continue the epoch of quarterly coups d’etat.