34 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



Cremona. 1 As the visitor climbed the Rue de la Cit<, which leads 

 up from the bridges over the Rhone to the Cathedral, he had on his 

 right near the beginning of the ascent a group of handsome houses 

 that at the back enjoy a free view towards the Perte du Rhone. 

 The largest of them was the Lullin mansion, de Saussure's town 

 home . Higher up the street another row of stately edifices lines the 

 ramparts, looking across the flat meadows of Plainpalais to the 

 gap between the Saleve and the Jura, through which runs the road 

 to Annecy. On the top of the slope was the shady terrace of 

 La Treille, where the wealth and fashion of Geneva took their 

 afternoon stroll in face of the winter sunsets, or lounged in summer 

 evenings on the long bench, set with its back to the view, and 

 discussed local politics. Of these there was seldom any lack in 

 a town which habitually did its best to deserve the title, given to 

 it by Alexander von Humboldt, of ' a stormy Athens.' 



Geneva in 1780 was relatively but a small city, not larger than 

 many of the provincial towns of France. Its population, at the 

 beginning of the century about twenty thousand, had according 

 to an official census in 1781 risen to about twenty-five thousand. 

 Its political affairs, however important in the eyes of its citizens, 

 occupied therefore but a small place in the story of European 

 politics. But it had an intellectual life and influence far beyond 

 its material importance. Under Calvin it had become a city of 

 refuge for all the more active spirits whom religious persecution 

 had driven out of France or Italy, and the headquarters of an 

 austere form of Protestantism. In the four months following 

 the massacre of St. Bartholomew over sixteen hundred refugees, 

 in the five weeks after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes eight 

 thousand, entered the town. Many of these immigrants per- 

 manently established themselves, not altogether to the satis- 

 faction of the existing inhabitants, whose industries they invaded. 



Before the eighteenth century the famous fairs which had 

 made Geneva a mart for all Europe had been superseded ; but 

 the city had not lost its ancient industries, and it had added new 

 ones. The chief of these, watchmaking, alone employed six 

 thousand hands of both sexes. The cloth and shawl merchants 



1 The Reformation drove many families from Switzerland and Italy to 

 Geneva. From Lucca came the Burlamaqui, Turrettini, Calandrini, and 

 Diodati. 



