W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 347
should be recollected that the original number and superficial
area of the Cantons were alike very limited, and that
in the earlier military movements, in resistance to foreign
aggression, only Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald took up arms.
The Confederation, even as existing and recognised in 1499
and 1648, was therefore apt to find an inheritance of vested
rights in regard to monetary questions among other matters ;
and these were generally left undisturbed where the main
issue and object were the common defence against external
attack, and the public resources were barely sufficient for
that purpose.
While the ethnological associations of the Swiss have
always been German, and the country more properly belongs
to the Teutonic than the Latin group of States, the inhabitants
of this region, since the treaty with France in 1516, have
shown a tendency to favour their French neighbours, and in
1798 placed themselves under the protection of Napoleon.
The Helvetic Republic, as it was termed, lasted from that
date to 1803, and was composed of 19 cantons, exclusively
of that of Sarine and Broye. By the pacte of 1815
the number was carried to 22. In 1833 the decimal
system, and in I 848 an uniform Federal coinage, was adopted.
In 1865 Switzerland joined the Latin Monetary Convention.
Switzerland reflects in its vast and multifarious coinage
its political neutrality. It has borrowed from time to time
the nationalities surround-
types and A denominations from all
ing it. collection of money of the Cantons will be found
to embrace the assis, the batz, the sol, the denier, the parpaillot,
the franc, the centime, the kreutzer, the schilling, the
vierer, the thaler, the piecette [pezzetta], the ducat, the
blutzger, the angster, the pistole, the oirtli, the haller, the
fiinfer, the pfennig, and the grosch.
The numismatic system may be broadly divided into
three periods of very unequal duration: (i) the separate
Cantonal coinage; (2) that of the Helvetic Republic, 1798-
i 804, which was overlapped by a short revival of the former
regime; (3) the new Federal coinage of 1848 on the
decimal principle adopted by Geneva in 1794, and by the