Hermann Gessler and the Swiss people

Hermann Gessler’s relationship with the Swiss people is a contest over who may command their money, daily habits, and public gestures. Appointed by the Emperor of Austria to govern Switzerland, he treats authority as permission to tax and forbid, while the people’s unsuccessful appeal gives way to rebellion. The hat he orders them to honor becomes the relationship’s defining emblem: first an instrument of submission, then a memorial of liberty.

Appointment and Taxation

The conflict begins with Gessler’s appointment as governor by the Emperor of Austria. The narrative presents him as the Emperor’s friend and says that Switzerland belonged to the Emperor, who could do what he liked with it. Gessler’s government therefore arrives as an imposed authority, not one established by the consent of the people it rules. The account’s comic tone does not soften the imbalance: the governor has the power to set demands, while the people must decide how to resist them.

Taxation makes that imbalance concrete. Gessler taxes owners of sheep, and charges more if a farmer sells the sheep and buys cows instead. He also taxes bread and a range of other goods, including biscuits, jam, buns, and lemonade. The list turns fiscal extraction into an image of government reaching into ordinary consumption and work. The people are described as simple and thrifty, and as objecting to taxes of any sort; Gessler, by contrast, wants to tax everything he can think of. Their disagreement is thus both material and political: his revenue demands become the clearest everyday measure of his rule.

The people choose Walter Furst, Werner Stauffacher, and Arnold of Melchthal to carry their complaint to the governor. Their delegation makes a formal appeal rather than beginning with force. When Gessler asks whether they think there are enough taxes, Arnold of Melchthal answers that there are far too many, naming the levies on sheep, cows, bread, and tea before Gessler cuts him off. The exchange gives the complaint a public voice, but not a means of compelling an answer. Gessler already knows the taxes at issue and directs the spokesmen to get to the point; the people’s representatives can state their grievance but cannot make him accept it.

Petition, Refusal, and Rebellion

Gessler does not grant relief. Instead, he treats the audience as a service for which the petitioners owe payment: he asks Walter Furst and Werner Stauffacher to put money into a tambourine, then requires Arnold of Melchthal to contribute an additional amount for the Imperial boiling oil. The added demand makes the meeting an illustration of the very system the delegation came to challenge. Even the act of seeking an audience brings another charge, and the threat of boiling oil hangs over the extra payment.

Outside the Palace, a crowd of fellow-citizens has been waiting for news. They had listened at the front-door keyhole, but the Hall of Audience lay beyond other doors, stairs, and a passage, so they heard little. Their first questions are about particular taxes, including the tax on jam and the tax on mixed biscuits. When the spokesmen confirm that Gessler will not release them from the taxes, Walter Furst draws a deep breath and says that they must rebel. The movement from petition to rebellion is explicit: the representatives have tried negotiation, the governor has refused, and the crowd receives revolt as the consequence of that refusal.

Gessler’s power reaches beyond taxation into the people’s pleasures. When he cannot think of anything else to forbid, he orders a long pole erected in the meadow outside the city gates, with his oldest hat fixed on top. He summons the people and declares that they must treat the cap as if it were him and bow to it when crossing the meadow; anyone who disobeys is to be arrested by his soldiers. His announced punishments for hecklers—wild elephants, pink scorpions, and trained bluebottles—make the speech absurd, but the arrest threat is real within the scene. The hat turns the governor’s demand for personal reverence into a daily test of obedience, enforced in public space.

The arrangement also reveals how little affection Gessler’s authority commands. He assumes that the people respect and love him and would like to do reverence at his Palace, but they remain silent, and voices in the crowd contradict him. He answers dissent with further threats and orders the soldiers to clear the gathering. The cap is therefore not evidence of loyalty; it is a substitute for it, backed by force. The people’s relation to Gessler has shifted from disagreement over the amount of taxation to resistance against a government that claims power over both their resources and their gestures.

The Hat and Open Resistance

When Gessler rides into the meadow with armed men, the crowd scatters. The people are determined to overthrow his rule, but prefer to do so when he is nowhere near. Their withdrawal makes the danger of open opposition visible: even people who have resolved to rebel protect themselves when the governor arrives. William Tell, however, remains by the pole. Two of Gessler’s soldiers lie on the ground with dented armor, and an arrow has pierced the governor’s hat. Tell’s act has damaged the emblem at the center of Gessler’s command, but leaves him exposed to the governor’s swift punishment.

The people’s response to Tell’s arrest shows the cost of losing a visible leader. His hands are tied, he offers no resistance, and he is led to the lake shore where Gessler’s ship lies at anchor. The crowd groans and tells one another that its last chance is gone, asking where it can look for a leader. Their words register how thoroughly the governor’s power has made resistance depend on particular people, even though rebellion has already been proposed. The episode joins public defiance to immediate vulnerability: the arrow can pierce the hat, but it cannot by itself protect the person who fired it.

Death, Revolt, and the Hat’s New Meaning

Gessler’s death changes the balance. The narrative says that fear of the governor had been the chief obstacle to a rising, although revolt had been brewing for a long time. The people were bound by a solemn oath to drive the enemy from the country, and nobles and peasants had joined in preparations. Once news arrives that Gessler has been slain, meetings take place in every town and the decision is made to begin the revolution without delay. The relationship that began as a governor’s attempt to extract taxes and obedience ends in a country-wide revolt against Austrian rule.

That revolt takes material form in the seizure of Gessler’s fortresses. They are carried by assault on the same night; at the last fortress, people who had been forced to help build it take pleasure in pulling down the stones, and children join them. The reversal is sharp: labor once imposed by the ruler becomes an opportunity to undo his construction. William Tell watches the children and says that, when they are gray-haired, they will remember the night as freshly as the following day. The episode presents liberation not only as a military change, but as a memory shared across generations.

The pole and hat return as the uprising’s most pointed symbols. The hat is still nailed to the pole by William Tell’s arrow when people bring it forward. Some call for it to be destroyed as an emblem of tyranny, but William Tell argues that it should be preserved: Gessler had set it up as a means of enslaving the country, and the people can now make it a memorial of their newly gained liberty. He proposes that the pole mark the spot where the revolution finished. Its meaning has been reversed without erasing its history; the object that once demanded a bow now records the end of the authority that imposed it.

The ending also prevents victory from becoming a simple promise of safety. Arnold of Melchthal asks whether the Emperor of Austria will seek revenge after Gessler’s death and the destruction of the fortresses. William Tell answers that the Emperor may come, but that the people are united and can defend the mountain passes. The uprising has removed the governor and driven out the enemy already present, but the prospect of a new invasion remains. The narrative’s final comic coda sharpens that qualification: after announcing the governor demolished, it adds that taxes are not abolished. Gessler’s rule ends, but the story distinguishes liberation from the disappearance of taxation itself.