The Transvaal troubles which culminated in the South African War may furnish an analogy which will help to make the situation clear; the story being, in fact, a long story of acrimonious relations between Burghers and Uitlanders. The Burghers were, in the main, the descendants of the families already possessed of the rights of citizenship in the half-century following the Reformation; the Uitlanders were the descendants of immigrants who had settled in the city since that period. The Burghers enjoyed political rights, and the Uitlanders did not; the gulf between the two classes was only occasionally passed by an exceptional Uitlander whom the Burghers considered ‘fit.’ By degrees, however, the Uitlanders became more numerous than the Burghers, and a form of government which had been a democracy became an oligarchy, in which many of the most intelligent and reputable citizens had no voice.
For a time the system worked well enough, or at all events worked without any outward signs of friction; but throughout the eighteenth century friction was constantly occurring, and insurrections, described by some historians as revolutions, broke out at intervals. There were revolutions of sorts in 1707, in 1737, in 1766, in 1782, and in 1789, with minor revolutions intervening. The recognized mode of composing the troubles was to invite the mediation of foreign Powers, and more particularly of France. The first step of the French mediator was generally, as we shall see, to demand that a theatre should be opened and a company of comedians installed in it for his diversion. But he also mediated, the result of his mediation being to arrange a compromise between the rival claims. Each compromise did something to improve the position of the Uitlanders; but no compromise really removed their grievances or satisfied their claims.
This brings us to the date of the French Revolution, which, as was inevitable in the circumstances, had its very audible repercussion at Geneva. The doctrine that ‘all men are equal before the law, and ought to enjoy the same political rights,’ was seed which fell there upon a fruitful soil. As might have been expected, French methods of propagandism were imitated, and Jacobinical clubs were formed--the Sans-culottes, the Montagnards, the Marseillais, the Égalité. The clubmen constituted a party known as the Égaliseurs, or Equalitarians, and demanded a new constitution, based upon the principle of the sovereignty of the people, and the admission of all Uitlanders to the full rights of citizenship. On the night of September 4, 1792, there was a rising. The gates of the town were seized; the members of the Government were arrested; a Provisional Government was proclaimed, with the mission of drafting a new constitution on the approved democratic lines.