GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 43 



remark of his son Theodore, ' Ah, Madame, nous apprenons de 

 bonne heure le metier de nous ennuyer.' l 



It is probable that to our countrymen and countrywomen 

 the social atmosphere of the Upper Town proved more congenial 

 than to visitors from the livelier salons on the Seine. At Geneva 

 they found clubs where conversation was more like that at 

 home, more solid, if less brilliant, than in the boudoirs of Paris, 

 and where ladies were not so powerful and disturbing an influence. 

 Rousseau asserts that English habits were the fashion at Geneva 

 in his day ; Sismondi describes it as a town where French was 

 spoken and written, but where people read and thought in English. 

 In 1773-74, under the auspices of Lord Stanhope, an ' English 

 Club ' was formed where debates, in which many of the leading 

 citizens, including de Saussure, took part, were carried on in our 

 language. 



The criticisms quoted above apply, no doubt, to the general 

 tone of Genevese society, modified in the leading families by 

 frequent connection with Paris and London. But they are more 

 or less borne out by the character of the literary output of Geneva 

 up to the middle of the eighteenth century. This consists in the 

 main of juridical and theological works, or party pamphlets. Of 

 imagination we find little trace ; of poetry there is a complete 

 dearth apart from polemical rhymes. The glaciers of Savoy 

 inspired no Genevese Shelley, or Coleridge, or Byron. The 

 verses called forth by the earliest ascents of Mont Blanc were 

 dull and lengthy squibs written by partisans anxious to assert 

 the superior claims of Paccard, or Balmat, or de Saussure. 



The aristocracy willingly undertook and, on the whole, faith- 

 fully carried out the public offices and duties of the State. But 

 these were not incompatible with abundant leisure. In the 

 absence, until Voltaire's day, of a theatre, social distractions were 

 relatively few, and the upper class of both sexes found relaxation 

 in their clubs and small social gatherings. 



1 Sir J. Shelley of Maresfield Park, Sussex. His wife's statement, though 

 rashly endorsed by her grandson and editor, Mr. Edgcumbe, that ' he had the 

 good fortune to accompany de Saussure in his remarkable ascent of Mont Blanc, 

 is, it need hardly be said, a slip. Lady Shelley records that in 1787 her husband was 

 at Geneva and had Pictet, de Saussure's friend and successor, for his tutor. Sir 

 J. Shelley may possibly have been at Chamonix while de Saussure was staying 

 there in 1787. Unnamed Englishmen are referred to in his and young Bourrit's 

 diaries. See The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley (London, 1912). 



