38 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



an exuberance and variety in the ladies' headgear which bears 

 witness to their release from all restrictions. 



By those who held to the old religion, Geneva was reckoned 

 the anti-Rome long before Voltaire had established himself on 

 its borders as an anti-Pope. Of this religious rancour, Lassels a 

 Catholic who travelled as tutor to young English gentlemen in 

 the reign of James I., and produced a sort of embryo Handbook to 

 Italy, a work which can still be read for the sake of some vigorous 

 and picturesque touches may serve as an instance : 



' Geneva,' he writes, ' like a good sink at the bottom of three 

 streets, is built at the bottom of Savoy, France, and Germany, and 

 therefore fit to receive into it the corruption of the Apostates of the 

 Roman Church.' 1 



It did not occur to the ingenious author of this somewhat crude 

 comparison that he had put his finger on the main cause of the 

 activity, both commercial and intellectual, of Geneva. The ad- 

 vantage as a mart given to the town by its natural position was 

 supplemented by its convenience as a city of refuge. Here, as 

 elsewhere, intolerance had its natural effect in transplanting men of 

 independence and energy of mind to a spot where they could enjoy 

 relative freedom. That which is strained out by persecution is 

 apt to be not the dregs but the life-blood of civilisation. The 

 city on the Rhone owes most of its famous names to the immigra- 

 tion provoked by the bigotry of its neighbours, France and Italy. 2 



To the intelligence of the Genevese of the eighteenth century 

 and their relatively high standard of popular education many 

 shrewd observers have borne witness. Of the general character 

 of the citizens, of their pursuits and amusements, and their social 

 habits we have a great deal of contemporary evidence. With a 

 Parisian shopkeeper, Rousseau tells us, you could talk only of his 

 trade ; a Genevese watchmaker would discuss literature or philo- 

 sophy. The ordinary citizen was serious and intelligent ; fond 

 of money, he regarded idleness as contemptible. But in conversa- 

 tion he was apt to be long-winded and disputative. 



1 The Voyage of Italy, R. Lassels, 1670. Lassels describes the government 

 of Geneva as ' a kind of democracy, or rather a kind of aristocracy, a mingling of 

 laymen and ministers.' The lake, he declares, is ' absolutely the fairest he has 

 seen, fairer than either the Lake Major, the Lake of Como, the Lake of Zurich, the 

 Lake of Wallenstadt, the Lake of Iseo, the Lake of Morat, or the Lake of Garda.' 



2 Some of the families of Italian origin have already been mentioned. The 

 Tronchins, the de Candolles, the Jalaberts, and many others were French. 



