POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 333 



patricians. Cornuaud, an able demagogue, offered the latter the 

 support of his party in return for the abolition of the restrictions 

 which forbade the Natifs free access to various crafts and pro- 

 fessions. Political rights he for the present made no claim to. 

 The French Resident supported the demands of this strange 

 alliance, but the two Swiss cantons the co -Mediators declined 

 to follow him. 



In February 1781 de Saussure wrote to tell his sister at Mont- 

 pellier the local news. There had been an unfortunate affair in 

 which some Natifs had fired on their allies the Negatives by 

 mistake, and his friend Trembley had had his left hand badly 

 damaged. Disorder had broken out in the city, the Repre- 

 sentants had seized the occasion to assert that the State was in 

 danger. Cannon had been brought into the streets and the town 

 gates closed. De Saussure had had great difficulty in obtaining 

 permission for his father to return to his country home at Frontenex. 



For the moment the popular party held the upper hand. 

 They hastened to outbid their opponents by promising to the 

 Natifs all they asked. The Negatives, surprised and alarmed, 

 gave way, and a few days later the so-called Edit Bienfaisant 

 (10th February 1781) was passed, which granted the Natifs 

 freedom from civil disabilities and a prospect of gradual enfran- 

 chisement. This might have been the first step towards a real 

 democracy. But in May the Councils, recovered from their panic 

 and relying as before on the support of the Mediators, disavowed 

 their recent action on the plea that they had acted under duress. 

 They declined to carry out the Edit Bienfaisant and formally 

 declared that the General Assembly was only one of the several 

 estates of the Commonwealth, and had no claim to the title 

 generally accorded it of ' Le Souverain.' They adjured the 

 citizens of every degree to recognise that the only way to restore 

 peace to the Republic was to await such measures as the Mediators 

 might recommend. The patricians, preferring foreign support to 

 any concession to the bourgeoisie, marched to their doom. 



Party feeling ran high, but de Saussure went on undisturbed 

 with his professorial and scientific work, and felt able to leave his 

 wife in order to make a short trip to Chamonix and Chanrion, at 

 the head of the Val de Bagnes, and view the glaciers Bourrit had 

 been enlarging on in his books. Even in the mountains he found 



