Permanent ill will was fostered only against the syndic Trembley, commander of the garrison and conductor of the defensive preparations of the council. Whatever this person had done by the instructions of the council was laid to his individual account, and added to the mass of dark imputations which were heaped on him, as the head of an already obnoxious family. He plumed himself on the favour of the confederate ambassadors, and forfeited thus the last chance of retrieving himself in the public opinion. The remembrance of the armed intervention of Zurich and Bern, in 1707, was too recent to admit of their ambassadors doing any good to Trembley’s cause through the medium of pacific intercession. The departure of these embassies removed the only screen of the syndic: he demanded his dismission, which was refused him, in order to deprive him of his functions more ignominiously. No resistance or artifice of a powerful connection could save him: the tumults were renewed with increased fury; and the question soon ceased to regard the person or party of Trembley, and became that of the triumph of the aristocratic or democratic principle at Geneva. In 1737, the council ventured several arrests, and the consequence was that the whole body of burghers rushed to arms, and the council was defeated, not without bloodshed. A garrison from Bern and Zurich was thrown into the town: the ambassadors of these cantons, in concert with the French ambassadors, undertook the office of mediators, and in 1738 framed a constitution which set limits to the assumptions of the council and the principal families, and was gratefully and all but unanimously accepted as a fundamental law by the burghers.
[1762-1768 A.D.]
After four and twenty years of repose and prosperity, occasion was given to new political movements at Geneva by a subject of a nature purely speculative. It pleased more than one government about this time to apply the doom of fire, which had been visited by inquisitors on the ill fated victims of their zealotry, to certain of the more remarkable works of the human intellect—a proceeding highly calculated to draw the eyes of the reading public on productions which seemed worthy of such signal condemnation. On the first appearance of that work of Rousseau which opened views so novel and so striking on the moral and still more on the physical education of man, the parliament of Paris had the work burned by the hangman, and sentenced Rousseau to imprisonment, which he only escaped by flight. Both of these decisions were immediately repeated by the council of Geneva [1762], which improved on them by launching a like condemnatory sentence against the Contrat Social of the same author. It was in vain that Rousseau’s connections demanded a copy of the sentence against him: their reiterated demands, though supported by a large body of burghers, were rejected by the council. The popular party, which vindicated the right of the burgher assembly to bring up representations or remonstrances against the council on any subject under discussion, distinguished themselves by the name of representatives. Their claims were met by asserting a droit négatif, or right of rejection, on the strength of which the council pretended that nothing that should not have been previously consented to by themselves could come before the general assembly. The partisans of the council were called negatives.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778)
The tranquillity of Geneva was once more disturbed to such a degree by passionate discourses, party writings, and manœuvres that the ambassadors of Zurich, Bern, and France again interfered, and pronounced themselves in favour of the council. The representatives rejected their decision, the ambassadors left Geneva, French troops advanced on the town, and all trade and intercourse were suspended. But the French ministry speedily became lukewarm in the cause of the negatives. The latter, when they found themselves abandoned by all foreign aid, apprehending what might ensue, patched up a peace with the representatives. By a compact closed in March, 1768, the burghers acquired valuable rights, and even a third party, that of the so-called natifs or habitans (old inhabitants, excluded by birth from taking part in public affairs), obtained extended franchises, and was flattered with a prospect of participation in all the rights of citizenship.
But on recovery from the first panic, reciprocal hatred soon revived. The negatives were vexed at having made such important sacrifices, and aimed at resuming all their former ascendency. Moreover they found a favourable hearing in the French court, which had long viewed with an evil eye the trade and wealth of Geneva, desired to raise the neighbouring Versoix to a commercial town, and hoped, by encouraging tumult and disorder at Geneva, either to annihilate its industry and opulence, or ultimately to bring it under the sovereignty of France. French emissaries therefore aided the negatives in spiriting the natifs up against the representatives, by promising to confer on them the franchises withheld by the latter. But the representatives flew to arms, took possession of the gates, and speedily succeeded in disarming the unpractised and undisciplined mob of natifs. Well aware by what manœuvres the natifs had been led to revolt, they prudently abstained from taking any vindictive measures against them; but, on the contrary, imparted to them, in 1781, that equality of rights which had been promised by the negatives, and endeavoured thus to win them over permanently to the common cause.
[1782 A.D.]
The council, on the other hand, impelled by French influence, declared the newly conferred rights illegally extorted, and invoked the mediation of Bern and Zurich. But, betwixt representative stubbornness and negative assumption, the ambassadors of these towns could exert but limited influence. They essayed to put an end to disputes by amicable arrangements, but were baffled by the intrigues of the French court, which was resolved to recognise no democratical system on its frontiers, and soon proceeded to open force in support of its secret policy. The first act of aggression was to garrison Versoix; a measure which gave just offence to Zurich and Bern, who thereupon renounced all adhesion to the mediation of 1738, and left the Genevans to their own discretion. France also declared she would mix no more in the affairs of Geneva; the government was overthrown and a new constitution established.