CHAPTER XIV

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

It has been remarked as curious that the Age of Revolution at Geneva was also the Golden Age--if not of Genevan literature, which has never really had any Golden Age, at least of Genevan science, which was of world-wide renown. The explanation probably is that these Genevan revolutions, over which the Genevan historians have spilt such a quantity of ink, were not such very important matters after all. So far as one can make out, the graver of them were hardly more grave than the Peterloo massacre, while the less grave hardly attain to the gravity of the Bloody Sunday Riots. A man of letters who took part in one of them on the losing side might suffer unpleasant consequences. He might have his writings burnt by the common hangman, as Bérenger’s were; he might be driven into exile, as were de Lolme, who went to London, where he wrote his famous work on the British Constitution, and d’Ivernois, who went to Paris and became one of the most pungent critics of republican administration and finance. Such things might happen, and in many cases