POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 359 



brought to an equality by perpetual levies, as they are in France by 

 confiscation.' 



The report of the Committee on Reform was not presented to 

 the General Assembly until the 15th February 1791. On the same 

 day the town was in uproar and the peasantry of the surrounding 

 villages threatened to break through the gates. Finally, on 

 22nd March, the report, greatly revised, passed the Assembly in the 

 form of an Edict, and the Committee which had prepared it was 

 called on to codify the laws of the Republic. At this point de 

 Saussure and two other members retired. On the 14th November 

 1791, the new code was accepted by the General Assembly. In 

 the opinion of competent chroniclers of the time it removed all the 

 more substantial grievances and was a compromise which, loyally 

 carried out, might have made Geneva a prosperous self-governing 

 democracy. But it was exposed to the danger fatal to so many 

 compromises, that it satisfied the partisans on neither side. The 

 extreme party, the ' Egaliseurs,' true to their name, were eager to 

 level to the ground the ancient institutions of the Republic. 

 Meantime, the state of affairs in France gave warning of the 

 troubles to come, and might well have urged the Genevese to set 

 their own house in order. 



As the present generation has learnt, ordinary life goes on even 

 in the darkest days. In March 1792 de Saussure found time to 

 lecture at the Society of Arts ' On the Lack of any Expression of 

 the Sentiment of Gratitude in Greek Literature .' Gibbon, who was 

 at the time staying with the Neckers, attended the lecture, and sent 

 through M. Necker de Germagny, the brother of the financier and 

 the father-in-law of de Saussure's daughter, a criticism to be read 

 before the Society. Its point, apparently, was a reproach to de 

 Saussure for having questioned, not the expression, but the 

 existence of any sense of gratitude among the Greeks. De Saus- 

 sure's reply to Gibbon is characteristic of his impatience of any 

 criticism he thought misplaced, and of his vigour in controversy. 

 I quote a portion of it : 



' Monsieur I listened yesterday with much interest to your letter 

 to M. de Germagny which was read to our Society. But I was grieved 

 to find that you seemed to attribute to me a desire to establish that 

 the sentiment of gratitude was unknown to the ancient Greeks. I 

 spoke of the word, of the act of giving thanks, the form which ex- 



