This book is dedicated to the pastor and political activist Johann Jakob Schweizer (1771–1843) and traces through his eventful life the turbulent events of the Helvetic Republic.

Schweizer criticized the authorities of the Napoleonic Swiss republic in pamphlets and as editor of Neues Helvetisches Volksblatt. After publicly calling for parliament to resign in 1800, he was sentenced in sensational trials to two years’ confinement to his parish and banned from publishing. Following the Act of Mediation that dissolved the Republic and restored the Swiss Confederation under French influence, he was removed from his parish in 1804 for “disorderly conduct.”

He continued to work as a parish assistant and Latin teacher. In addition to religious lectures, sermons, and poetry, he published numerous essays and a travel guide.