392 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUEE 



but the better explanation is that republican, protestant, democratic, 

 learned and enterprising, Geneva has through the centuries shown 

 an aptitude to work out her own salvation. Since the days of the 

 Reformation she has been on the alert and marches on, a lantern in 

 her right hand and a sword in her left.' 



A caldron and a forge we may agree but the heroic attitude 

 of the figure in which Amiel personifies his city must to the foreign 

 observer seem scarcely the most appropriate ! In the annals of 

 Geneva the sword has in truth played no conspicuous part. Setting 

 aside domestic brawls, her weapon has been habitually a pen. 



The Geneva of the eighteenth century, the historian must 

 admit, earned her fate or rather her lesson, for sixteen years was 

 the moderate term of her punishment. Her ' salvation ' was won, 

 less by her own exertions than by the victories of the Allies in 

 1813. It consisted in being permanently attached as a self-govern- 

 ing canton to that remarkable association of peoples of different 

 races and languages, the Swiss Confederation. Politically, this 

 decision was probably the best possible ; and it may be held to 

 have proved, on the whole, successful. But from the intellectual 

 and literary point of view, the sympathies of Geneva turn naturally 

 to the great nation whose language and civilisation she shares. 

 It is from contact with French, not with Teutonic, influences that 

 her literature has been at all times most benefited. Quickness 

 and lightness of imagination and touch are the ingredients of 

 which it has had most need, and these are nowhere to be found of 

 such quality as on the banks of the Seine. 



To summarise : the three main dates to remember in Genevese 

 politics as they affect the life of de Saussure are 1763-6, the period 

 of the protracted struggle of the democratic Assembly against the 

 aristocratic Councils, ending in some advantages for the former ; 

 1782, the oligarchic reaction, when the Councils, by the aid of the 

 Mediating Powers, recovered more than they had lost ; and 

 1789-94, the years of revolution, culminating in the abolition of 

 the old constitution of the State, and finally in 1798 in the annexa- 

 tion of Geneva by the French Directory. 



De Saussure did not long survive the fall of the Republic he 

 had done his best to save. In the first days of January 1799 he 

 was known to be dying in his townhouse. The Society of Arts 

 charged his lifelong friend Pictet to express its sympathy to his 



