The Helvetic Republic 667
itself as Catholic, made it possible for a few Genevese, despite their Calvinist
background, to see in annexation at least a tolerable idea. In addition, the French
agrarian revolution of 1789 had immediate effects in the territory of Geneva. The
frontier at its nearest point was no more than a mile from the city. The sujets of
Geneva, the rural people who had never had any political rights, and who had
taken no part in the civic struggles of the past, were aroused to a new political
consciousness, not by propaganda but by facts, when they saw peasants a few miles
away throwing off their old obligations, and knew that French villagers were re-
ceiving newspapers from Paris, talking to returned deputies, setting up new mu-
nicipalities, and electing local officers under legislation of the Constituent Assem-
bly. In 1792 Savoy was annexed to France, and received the new agrarian and
municipal institutions. Within revolutionary France, which now reached both
shores of the lake, Geneva was no more than a tiny enclave.
The coming to political life of the rural sujets was the new feature in the civil
struggles at Geneva after 1789. A certain Jacques Grenus, himself of the old ruling
citizen class, having been banished in the counter- revolution of 1782, and having
developed an intense animosity toward the aristocratic party, set himself up as
leader and spokesman for the sujets. What was lacking in Italy became apparent in
Geneva (as in Switzerland proper, especially in the subject districts): namely that
rural people could see an advantage to themselves in the Revolution, and that there
were city men who were able and willing to make use of rural discontent, and in
whose promises the country people could feel some interest and confidence.
The natifs also were aroused by the Revolution in France. The greatest conces-
sion hitherto made to them (in 1768) had been the right by which some of them,
if sufficiently wealthy, could obtain promotion to the rank of bourgeois by the pay-
ment of a sum of money. Additional efforts to extend rights to the natifs had been
blocked by the counterrevolution of 1782. Now the natifs and sujets, under Grenus’
leadership, combined into a new party of protest called the égalisateurs, determined
to abolish the old distinctions altogether. Against this truly popular menace the
two traditional adversaries tended to come together. Making peace with each other
they introduced a few reforms, but not enough to satisfy the new opposition. They
again banished Grenus and annulled his citizenship. When the war began, in
1792, the exiled Grenus was encouraged by the French occupation of Savoy, while
the Geneva government brought in troops from Zurich and Bern to protect its
neutrality—against objections not only by France, but in the Swiss confederation
itself, for it is not to be supposed that the cantons, especially the conservative rural
Catholic cantons, were eager to have Geneva as a member of their league, or to be
responsible for its protection. Troops of both sides were withdrawn from the
neighborhood of the city after negotiations, but in the heat engendered by these
proceedings, in December 1792, at a moment when French revolutionary republi-
canism was streaming into Savoy, Belgium, and the Rhineland, the égalisateurs rose
up at Geneva, displaced the old government, and effected a “revolution.”
The Edict of December 1792 ended the old regime at Geneva. Legal and civil
equality was declared for all inhabitants of the territory. The call went out for a
National Assembly for the Genevese “nation,” some 27,000 persons in the city plus
a few thousands of peasants. Political clubs became very active. In part they merely