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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
This essay will argue that in eighteenth-century Geneva the religion of most of the lay elite followed the French pattern: learning and fashion alike steered them to a relaxed attitude to religious practice, and a mildly sceptical view of doctrine. It will be shown, however, that Geneva’s clergy – not securely within the elite -often tried to resist any softening of Geneva’s strict rules and social constraints even when they were keen to embrace scientific enlightenment; further, no overarching account of popular religion in Geneva can convincingly be propounded. One reason for this is that Geneva’s popular classes, unlike those of France, were dominated by literate, prosperous townspeople, many of whom still self-consciously lived out their protestant heritage, but some of whom found more meaning in radical, almost-secular politics.
1 Jacob Vernes’s short-lived periodical Choix Littéraire wooed its readers by claiming that it would demonstrate to the Christian ‘the accord there is between his reason and his religion’: Jacob Vernes, ed., Choix Littéraire 1 (1755), ix-x.
2 Kirk, Linda, ‘Godliness in a Golden Age: the Church and Wealth in Eighteenth- Century Geneva’, in Sheils, W. J. and Wood, Diana, eds, The Church and Wealth, SCH 24 (Oxford, 1987), 333–46 Google Scholar; ‘A Poor Church in a Rich City: the Case of Geneva’, in Marcel Pacaut and Olivier Fatio, eds, with the collaboration of Michel Grandjean, L’Hostie et le denier: les finances ecclésiastiques du Haut Moyen Age à l’époque Moderne, Actes du Colloque … d’histoire ecclésiastique comparée, Genéve, août 1989, Publications de la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université de Genéve 14, Labor et Fides (Geneva, 1991), 257–67. In the following notes the place of publication is Geneva unless otherwise stated
3 McManners, John, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France, 2 vols (Oxford, 1998), 1: 321–98.Google Scholar
4 For instance, in ‘Eighteenth-Century Geneva and a Changing Calvinism’, in Mews, S., ed., Religion and National Identity, SCH 18 (Oxford, 1982), 367–80.Google Scholar
5 Turrettini, J.-A., Speech Previous to the Abolition of all Subscriptions at Geneva (London, 1748), 171.Google Scholar
6 Gargett, Graham, Jacob Vernet, Geneva, and the Philosophes, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 321 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar; Heyd, Michael, Jean-Robert Chouet and the Introduction of Cartesian Science in the Academy of Geneva (The Hague and London, 1982)Google Scholar; Roney, John B. and Klauber, Martin I., eds, The Identity of Geneva (Westport, CT, 1998).Google Scholar
7 What was contested, and is contested now, especially by Gargett, is how far the clergy were hypocritical in continuing to teach and preach in terms which (we know) they were themselves interpreting with growing flexibility.
8 See n. 4, above.
9 Rousseau, , Lettre à Mr. d’Alembert… sur le projet d’établir un théatre de comédie en [Genève], (Amsterdam, 1758)Google Scholar; Candaux, J.-D., ‘D’Alembert et les Genevois: quelques documents inédits’, Musées de Genève 77–8 (1967), 3–6.Google Scholar See especially Mason, John Hope, ‘The Lettre à d’Alembert and its place in Rousseau’s thought’, in Hobson, Marian, Leigh, J. T. A. and Wokler, Robert, eds, Rousseau and the Eighteenth Century: Essays in Memory of R. A. Leigh (Oxford, 1992), 251–69.Google Scholar
10 Proposition faite en Conseil des Deux-Cent, le Lundi 1 Juin 1772.
11 Reconnaissance d’Action sur La Salle des Spectacles établie à Genève.
12 Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève (hereafter: BPU), Registre Vénérable Compagnie, 9 April, 1 October 1784.
13 Beckford, William, The Travel Diaries of William Beckford of Fonthill, ed. Chapman, G., 2 vols (Cambridge, 1928), 1: 320.Google Scholar
14 Archives d’Etat de Genève (hereafter: AEG), Registre Consistoire, 5 April 1787.
15 In December 1782 safety precautions at the theatre were ordered: fire buckets should stand ready; nobody should throw leaflets about, or try to make a speech; footwarmers should be locked shut so that they could do no harm if overturned.
16 According to Perrenoud, Alfred, La Population de Genève du seizième au début du dix-neuvième siècle, Mémoires et documents publiés par la Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Genève 47 (1979), 291 Google Scholar, around seventy men a year settled in this way through the eighteenth century; but (287) after 1750 French protestants seeking a life amidst co-religionists no longer constituted the majority.
17 Registre Consistoire, December 1788.
18 The vast pamphlet literature which fuelled Geneva’s conflicts tended to address issues in terms of constitutional law, trust, utility and public order. A near-complete listing can be found in Emile Rivoire, ‘Bibliographie historique de Genève au XVIIIe sièclé’, Mémoires et Documents publiés par la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève 26 and 27 (1897), with additions and corrections in 35 (1935).
19 AEG, MS hist., Marie-Pierre Moren, ‘Etude sur Modes d’insoumission du Gouvernement de Genève… seconde moitié de XVTIIe Siècle’, Mémoire, Faculté des Lettres, 1978.
20 As in the Small Council’s response to the Lettres écrites de la Montagne (1764).
21 Reg. Ven. Co., 24 August 1758; 12 March 1788.
22 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Correspondance compléte, ed. Leigh, R. A., 52 vols (various places, 1965-98), 23:3833.Google Scholar
23 Correspondance, 35:6289.
24 Du Roveray to Jain, Correspondance, 27: 6594.
25 Correspondance, 5: 735.
26 Correspondance, 5:Appendix A191.
27 Correspondance, 10: 1663.
28 Luc, Jacques-François de, Observations sur les savants incrédules et sur quelques-uns de leur écrits, 1762 Google Scholar; Creighton, Douglas C., ‘A Genevan Reaction to Diderot’s Pensées philosophiques: Jacques-François de Luc’, in Firtz, P. and Williams, D., eds, City and Society in the Eighteenth Century, Publications of the McMaster Association for Eighteenth Century Studies 3 (Toronto, 1973), 259–80 Google Scholar. Deluc accepted what he took to be the tenets of current scientific teaching. What he could not understand was a critical reading of the Bible, and, still less, atheism.
29 Correspondance, 12: 2051.
28 Le Psautier de Genève, 1582–1865: images commentées et essai de bibliographie, ed. J.-D. Candaux(1986), 161.
31 Even rarer were the cases of criminals overtly unrepentant at execution. Míchel Porret tells of one who shouted at Pastor Picot in 1784, that having lived like a dog, he would die like one: ‘La Biographie des scélérats ou les circonstances de la dangerosité criminelle durant l’ancien régime’, Traverse 2 (Zürich, 1995), 55–64, 62.
32 Küttner, Karl, Briefe eines Sachsen aus Schweiz an seinem Freund in Leipzig (Leipzig, 1785-6), in Candeaux, J.-D., ed., Voyageurs Européens, à la Découvert de Genève 1685–1792 (1966), 118–28, 123 Google Scholar, although Marc Neuenschwander, ‘“Le Livre triomphant”: le cas de Genève dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle’, in Sociétés et cabinets de lecture entre lumières et romantisme. Actes du Colloque organisé par la Société de Lecture … 1993 (1995), 69–97, 70, challenges his view.
33 Beckford, , Travel Diaries, 1: 317.Google Scholar
34 Bonnet, Charles, Mémoires autobiographiques de Charles Bonnet de Genève, ed. Savioz, Raymond (Paris, 1948), 98 Google Scholar; Gür, André, ‘Les Notes de lecture de Jean de Caze [c.1682-1751]’, Revue de Vieux Genève 14 (1984), 32–7.Google Scholar
35 Bonnet, , Mémoires, 137.Google Scholar
36 Aquillon, Daniel, ‘Le Don et l’abandon d’enfants à l’Hôpital au XVIIIe siècle’, in Lescaze, Bernard, ed., Sauver l’âme, nourrir le corps: de l’Hôpital Général à l’Hospice Général de Genève (1985), esp. 217.Google Scholar
37 Watt, Jeffrey, ‘Reformed Piety and Suicide, 1550–1800’, in The Identity of Geneva, 119–22.Google Scholar
38 Moultou, to Necker, Suzanne, Correspondance, 37: 6615.Google Scholar
39 Reqêtes présentées par la famille Pictet… touchant l’ensévilissement de feue Demoiselle, 1774.