300 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



city's history, cherished its memory, which is still kept alive in 

 the annual festival of the Escalade. Security was subsequently 

 sought in an alliance with the King of France and the cantons of 

 Berne and Zurich, the latter on the ground of religion taking 

 the place originally held by Fribourg. These States, known 

 in local history as the Mediating Powers, played an important, 

 and in the result a disastrous, part in the history of Geneva. 

 There is no more dangerous defect in a government than a 

 tendency to rely on foreign arms against its own subjects. This 

 blunder the Genevese aristocracy habitually made. In place 

 of strengthening their position by gradually associating the 

 prosperous and growing middle class in the responsibilities of 

 administration and legislation, they persevered in attempts to 

 retain a monopoly of power in their own hands by the aid of 

 alien forces. When France became a Republic the Genevese 

 oligarchy fell pierced by the weapon it had too long relied on. 



During the seventeenth century the democratic elements in the 

 ancient constitution were in a state of decay, while the popula- 

 tion of the town was increasing in number and prosperity. The 

 General Assembly was reduced to practical impotence and its 

 meetings to empty ceremonies. Public opinion, deprived of any 

 practical mode of expression, took the form of incessant criticism, 

 ever ready to ripen on occasion into serious discontent. In 1707 

 new duties levied by the Councils on the import of wine and more 

 restrictive game laws were the sparks that served to set a light to 

 the smouldering ashes. A largely signed petition was presented 

 to the Great Council, claiming that votes in the General Assembly 

 should be taken by ballot, that a limit should be put to the number 

 of members of the same family allowed to sit in the Great Council, 

 and that the fundamental laws of the State, the text of which had 

 been untouched for a hundred and fifty years , and was in some points 

 vague , should be revised and reprinted . This was a demand that was 

 repeated over and over again for many years, and met by a series 

 of postponements and evasions on the part of the oligarchy, which 

 largely contributed to its final discomfiture. The petition was 

 contumeliously rejected and ordered to be burnt by the First 

 Syndic. An extraordinary meeting of the Assembly followed/* 

 stormy debates were succeeded by riots in the streets, and troops 

 were summoned from Berne. An informer alleged that the demo- 



