Grisons

The largest of all the cantons of Switzerland. The country was anciently inhabited by the Rhætii; it was conquered by the Roman emperor Constant i us in the 4th century, and his camp ( Curia , Chur , or Coire , the name of the present capital) was planted on the Rhine. In the 10th century the country of the Grisons was added to the German empire, and remained till 1268 subject to the Swabian dukes. With the decay of the imperial authority it came to be oppre ed by a numerous nobility, the ruins of whose castles still crown the heights. Against them the people began, in the end of the 14th century, to form leagues in the different valleys. In 1472, these separate unions entered into a general confederation, which then formed an alliance with the Swi cantons, but it was not till 1803 that it was admitted into the Swi Confederation as the fifteenth canton. Grisons was overrun by the French in 1798 and 1799.