668 Chapter XXVIII
continued the old assemblies called “circles,” but some of the clubs modeled them-
selves on those in France, now at the height of its own Revolution, even calling
themselves clubs de la Montagne.
The Assembly produced a constitution in 1794, which was duly submitted to
popular vote, and ratified clause by clause, by majorities which differed for each
clause, but were of the order of 4,300 to 200. In such figures a very high percentage
of adult males was represented. In one way the Geneva constitution of 1794 ad-
hered firmly to Genevese tradition: it gave full political equality only to persons of
the Reformed Religion. In other respects, while meeting demands that were genu-
inely indigenous, it resembled the French constitution of 1793. It was very “demo-
cratic,” for, while it introduced at Geneva the principle of representative govern-
ment, that is the enactment of laws by a legislature chosen for the purpose, it
allowed for a great deal of direct initiative on the part of the citizens in legislation,
which it also made subject to a popular referendum.
Meanwhile the economic situation had gravely deteriorated. The war, though
Geneva remained neutral, was ruinous to its trade; the export of watches declined
drastically. Men out of work frequented the revolutionary clubs. The city was even
cut off from its own agricultural districts, most of which did not adjoin it, but were
enclaves within France or Savoy several miles away. The city itself, as noted, was an
enclave after 1792. With a few boats on the lake, the French could shut it off even
from the neighboring Pays de Vaud. The French complained that Geneva, by its
neutrality and independence, became a nest of smugglers, spies, and speculators in
French paper money. They subjected it repeatedly to blockade and to strict controls
in the movement of goods and persons.
Unemployment, food shortage, and high prices thus afflicted the city, and the
Geneva revolution therefore ran a somewhat parallel course to the French in eco-
nomic as well as constitutional matters. The poor turned against the rich. The
working class revolutionaries of the radical clubs demanded confiscations and
price controls, progressive income taxes, taxes on inheritances and on rents. In July
1794 they revolted again, disarmed and arrested their opponents, and installed a
Revolutionary Tribunal. The Tribunal, under armed popular pressure, decreed ban-
ishment for 94 persons, and the death sentence for 37, of whom, however, 26 were
in absentia. The accused were charged, not incorrectly, with resistance to the popu-
lar will as far back as the “Black Code” of 1782, and with bringing in foreign inter-
vention at that time. A few months later a second tribunal, the political wind hav-
ing changed, condemned several others to death, both “aristocrats” and “anarchists,”
and including some extremists charged with conspiring with France against the
independence of the republic.
In 1795 there was a return to regular government under the new constitution.
Despite all that had happened, despite the intense hatreds aroused over many
years in a small inbred community, the chance for harmony and stabilization
looked promising, if only Geneva could be let alone by outsiders. It was not easy,
however, for the French to let it alone. Geneva was not, after all, an insignificant
place like San Marino, which the French allowed to retain its independence in
1798 on the border between the Cisalpine and the Roman republics. Geneva was
an enclave in France, or rather a cluster of enclaves, not claimed with any enthusi-