GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 39 



'While a Frenchman writes as he talks, these Genevese talk as 

 they write ; they lecture in place of conversing ; they give one the 

 impression that they always want to argue. ... In short, their con- 

 versation is sustained, their speeches are harangues, and they gossip 

 with a pulpit air. The Frenchman reads much, but nothing but new 

 books, or rather he runs through them more to be able to say he has 

 read them than for their own sake. The Genevese reads only good 

 books he reads them to digest them ; he does not criticise them, but 

 he knows them by heart. Women as well as men are given to books. 1 

 It needs all the good sense of the men, all the gaiety of the women, 

 and all the talent both sexes have in common to overcome in the men 

 a touch of pedantry and in the women of preciosity.' 



The picture here drawn by Rousseau, himself by birth a 

 Genevese, shows understanding and sympathy mixed with its 

 criticism of his fellow-citizens. Voltaire, as might be expected, is 

 far less appreciative. Established first at Les Delices, on the 

 right bank of the Rhone close to the gates of Geneva, and after- 

 wards a few miles off and outside its territory at Ferney, he 

 amused himself by watching with a mischievous eye the doings 

 of his neighbours, ready at any moment to make sport of their 

 domestic troubles as far as he could venture to do so without 

 risking his own convenience and social relations. 



He took pleasure in, from time to time, shocking the serious 

 circles of the Upper Town by some literary freak. He found it an 

 agreeable diversion to distract the Venerable Company by casting 

 doubts through the Encyclopedic on its orthodoxy, or to intervene 

 with irritating comments in the strife between political parties. 

 The squire of Ferney was always ready to mock in sprightly rhymes 

 the sober lives and solemn diversions of the citizens : 



' Noble cite, riche, fiere et sournoise ; 

 On y calcule et jamais on n'y rit : 

 L'art de Bareme 2 est le seul qui fleurit ; 

 On hait le bal, on hait la comedie ; 

 Pour tout plaisir Geneve psalmodie 

 Du bon David les antiques concerts, 

 Croyant que Dieu se plait aux mauvais vers.' 



1 The Genevese ladies wrote as well as read. De Saussure's wife and sister 

 both produced novels, which, however, never got beyond MSS. His daughter 

 was a well-known writer, and her work on L? Education Progressive won the 

 highest praise from Amiel. See p. 400. 



8 Barreme (sic) was an editor of Ready Reckoners. 



