THE LAST YEARS 391 



Department. 1 The people of Geneva, whatever their faults, clung 

 to the independence their petulance had endangered and showed 

 no disposition to abandon it voluntarily. Appropriate pressure 

 was accordingly brought to bear on them. The old fable of the 

 Wolf and the Lamb was repeated. The French Resident remon- 

 strated again and again with regard to the smuggling that went 

 on across the frontier ; he complained of petty, or invented, dis- 

 courtesies, he imposed a sort of blockade on the town. A Com- 

 mission was appointed, at his instigation, to consider the situation. 

 While, torn by divided counsels, it hesitated and delayed, French 

 troops entered the city. On the 15th April 1798 the independence 

 of Geneva came to an end. When it was too late the Genevese 

 realised the result of their civil brawls and dissensions. Not only 

 their independence but their commerce was lost. Distress was 

 prevalent, the Society of Arts was reduced to founding a soup 

 kitchen ! 



The political story extending over nearly a hundred years I 

 have here tried to summarise is surely a lamentable one. The 

 whole of the eighteenth century at Geneva was marked by a 

 series of popular outbreaks and fictitious and short-lived recon- 

 ciliations brought about mainly by foreign interference. The 

 patrician oligarchy, honest but slow and obstinate, proved to the 

 end lacking in the political intelligence that might have led it to 

 adapt itself to changing conditions, while the populace recognised 

 only when it was too late that by indulging the passions they 

 had imbibed from France they had wrecked their country's inde- 

 pendence. A constitution no longer adapted to the times could 

 not resist the external pressure of the French Revolution. 



The charming Genevese writer, Amiel, has pictured his native 

 city as she appeared in his patriotic eyes : 



' Geneva is a caldron always boiling over, a furnace of which the 

 fires are never extinguished. Vulcan had more than one forge. 

 Geneva is certainly one of the anvils on which most projects have 

 been hammered out. When one reflects that the prescripts of every 

 kind of cause have harboured here, the mystery is partially explained ; 



1 See Felix Desportes et Fannexion de Geneve (F. Barbey, Paris, 1916). It 

 appears that Napoleon was not wilfully deceitful in promising the Genevese that 

 their independence should be respected. The annexation was the work of the 

 Directory in his absence, and contrary to his wish. But he subsequently 

 endorsed it in 1800. 



