A Short Account of the Late Revolution in Geneva; and of the Conduct of France Towards That Republic, From October 1792, to October 1794, in a Series of Letters to an American
London: Printed by T. Spilsbury and Son for P. Elmsley, Strand, and J. Debrett, Piccadilly, 1795. First Edition, First Printing.
An account of how the French Revolution spread to Geneva between 1792 and 1794.
The author, who virulently opposed the Revolution, explains his anguish in three letters and a postscript addressed to an unnamed American.
An unsigned "Advertisement" at the beginning of this pamphlet sets the scene for what follows: "In so short a space of time as eighteen months did the Revolutionary Pestilence reduce the once-happy and flourishing Geneva to a state of anarchy, misery, and depopulation, of which modern History affords no other example. And let not the people of this country forget that the first symptom of the contagion was the adoption and use of the term Citizen; from the familiar establishment of that term, it proceeded to the right of Universal Suffrage..."
Francis D'Ivernois (1757-1842) writes in his first letter that the introduction of universal suffrage led to increasing violence "till it attained its full height of fury and devastation, in 1794, and had completely swept away every rule of social order, and every vestige of social happiness" (page 61).
D'Ivernois wrote from London, having fled Geneva. He became a prolific author of anti-French tracts on behalf of Britain and was even knighted by King George III.
This pamphlet in English, issued in 1795, is a translation and revision of his pamphlet published a year earlier in French, "Tableau de la Révolution Françoise à Genève." The philosopher Jeremy Bentham encouraged the translation into English "as a potentially instructive guide for British government ministers." (See Richard Whatmore's biographical article on d'Ivernois in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.)
A fascinating account of revolutionary upheaval in Geneva from an anti-democratic perspective, a view that was common among property-owning classes. Scarce in commerce.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: Small Quarto (9 x 5.5 inches; 225 x 140 mm), vi, 77, [1] pages, stitched, in printed self wrappers.
CONDITION: Early ink signature to title page, soiling to wrappers, creasing to page edges, pages unevenly trimmed, occasional foxing and marginalia. About Good overall. Item #3042
Price: $250.00