REVOLUTIONS
The Transvaal troubles which culminated in the South African War
may furnish an analogy which will help to make the situation clear;
the story being, in fact, a long story of acrimonious relations
between Burghers and Uitlanders. The Burghers were, in the main,
the descendants of the families already possessed of the rights
of citizenship in the half-century following the Reformation; the
Uitlanders were the descendants of immigrants who had settled in the
city since that period. The Burghers enjoyed political rights, and
the Uitlanders did not; the gulf between the two classes was only
occasionally passed by an exceptional Uitlander whom the Burghers
considered ‘fit.’ By degrees, however, the Uitlanders became more
numerous than the Burghers, and a form of government which had been a
democracy became an oligarchy, in which many of the most intelligent
and reputable citizens had no voice.
For a time the system worked well enough, or at all events worked
without any outward signs of friction; but throughout the eighteenth
century friction was constantly occurring, and insurrections, described
by some historians as revolutions, broke out at intervals. There were
revolutions of sorts in 1707, in 1737, in 1766, in 1782, and in 1789,
with minor revolutions intervening. The recognized mode of composing
the troubles was to invite the mediation of foreign Powers, and
more particularly of France. The first step of the French mediator
was generally, as we shall see, to demand that a theatre should be
opened and a company of comedians installed in it for his diversion.
But he also mediated, the result of his mediation being to arrange a
compromise between the rival claims. Each compromise did something
to improve the position of the Uitlanders; but no compromise really
removed their grievances or satisfied their claims.
This brings us to the date of the French Revolution, which, as was
inevitable in the circumstances, had its very audible repercussion
at Geneva. The doctrine that ‘all men are equal before the law, and
ought to enjoy the same political rights,’ was seed which fell there
upon a fruitful soil. As might have been expected, French methods of
propagandism were imitated, and Jacobinical clubs were formed--the
Sans-culottes, the Montagnards, the Marseillais, the Égalité. The
clubmen constituted a party known as the Égaliseurs, or Equalitarians,
and demanded a new constitution, based upon the principle of the
sovereignty of the people, and the admission of all Uitlanders to the
full rights of citizenship. On the night of September 4, 1792, there
was a rising. The gates of the town were seized; the members of the
Government were arrested; a Provisional Government was proclaimed, with
the mission of drafting a new constitution on the approved democratic
lines.
So far, so good. But the account of what follows reads like a burlesque
of the revolutionary proceedings across the frontier. The workmen left
their work, and paraded the streets in red caps, singing revolutionary
songs. The extremists banded themselves into a society styled ‘the
Tanners,’ pledged to ‘tan,’ or assault and batter, the aristocrats,
whom they called Englués, or Stick-in-the-muds, whenever and wherever
they met them taking their walks abroad. Nor did such informal acts
of violence suffice. The next step was to arrest all the aristocrats
who had not fled from the town, lock them up in the Grenier de
Chantepoulet, and improvise a revolutionary tribunal to judge them.
[Illustration: MONTENVERS AND AIGUILLES VERTE AND DRU]
The proceedings of the tribunal were conducted with true republican
_sans-gêne_. The judges sat on the bench in their shirt-sleeves, with
their pipes in their mouths and their pistols in their belts. Happily,
however, as if they were half conscious that their proceedings were
farcical, they were less murderous in their sentences than their
French models. Though 600 aristocrats were condemned, the majority
of them escaped with sentences of fines, imprisonment, or exile, and
the death sentence was only passed upon seven of them. The seven were
shot by torch-light at the Bastions; and then the people began to be
horrified by the atrocities which they had perpetrated. There was a
reaction, a counter-revolution, and a great ceremony of reconciliation
in the cathedral. The leaders of the rival factions shook hands in the
presence of the assembled populace, and swore to forgive and forget and
work together thenceforward for the good of their common country. They
kept their oaths, and all promised well until the French Directorate
cast covetous eyes upon Geneva, found a pretext for its annexation, and
made it the capital of the new department of Leman. It remained
French until the last day of the year 1813, when Napoleon’s misfortunes
gave the citizens the opportunity of throwing off the yoke, and they
sought and obtained admission to the Swiss Confederation.