I

The 1st of July 1782 might have become a memorable date for republicans. On that day, the population of the small city republic of Geneva was reportedly willing to fight to the death for liberty. One inhabitant wrote that ‘the true patriots among the men, women and children are resolved to defend their liberty to the last drop of their blood’.Footnote ¹ Gunpowder had been amassed in the cathedral of Saint-Pierre and placed in the houses of the chief magistrates recently removed from their offices.Footnote ² Beyond the city walls, 9,000 troops from France, Berne, and Savoy were ready to attack in order to crush the recent rebellion in the city. Yet the rebels saw themselves as the true citizens of the republic, with a government elected by the people in the aftermath of a revolution against the unpopular ruling magistrates on 4–5 April 1782. Calling themselves democrats, the rebels united in their opposition to the invasion. They planned for almost three months to defend the city, repaired the walls, and prepared for a siege.

The people of Geneva foresaw a mass sacrifice of republicans at the hands of the invading enemies of popular liberty. Yet despite the support for self-defence, the leaders of the revolution decided, during the night of 30 June and in the early hours of 1 July, to abandon their resistance. Many of their supporters were said to have gone to sleep in the anticipation of an honourable death the following day, only to rise to find the city gates open and the enemy troops in their midst. Most of the leaders of the rebellion fled.Footnote ³ Instead of becoming republican heroes, they became notorious for their cowardice.Footnote ⁴ When the city was pacified, the marquis de Jaucourt, leader of the invading forces, pronounced a general amnesty. Certain citizens and bourgeois could not, however, be forgiven. The twenty-one persons exiled included the pastors Jacob Vernes, Isaac-Solomon Anspach, and Ésaïe Gasc, the merchant Etienne Clavière, and the lawyers Jacques-Antoine Du Roveray and François d'Ivernois.

The significance of the Genevan revolution was that republics, and more especially Protestant powers close to stronger Catholic states, could no longer defend themselves. As a result, they could not maintain themselves as independent states, sovereign and capable of self-defence. Accepting this, some of the leaders of the exiled Genevan rebels sought asylum across Europe and in North America. Many of them initially looked to Britain and Ireland and attempted to move the industrious part of Geneva to Waterford, taking advantage of the protection Britain offered to their liberty. During the French Revolution, when French arms once more threatened Geneva, they sought to establish a republican community in North America. In both cases, one of the major concerns of the rebels was to transfer into free soil what they saw as the most important institution of old Geneva, the Academy established in the aftermath of Calvin's Reformation. As the anti-religious nature of the French Revolution became highlighted across Europe, however, the attempt to transfer the Academy to the United States began to be shaped by explicitly religious rhetoric inextricably coupled with ongoing political aspirations for republican liberty. Thomas Jefferson, who was closely involved in the proposed transfer to the United States, provided his support and identified the Genevan Academy as one of the eyes of Europe, the other being the University of Edinburgh.Footnote ⁵ This article explains why the attempts were initiated, how they differed, and considers the reasons for the failure of the project in each case. The article is not a study in migration history but is rather concerned with justifications of the project, which drew upon ideas about politics, political economy, religion, and international relations. The little-known story of the two attempts to move the Genevan Academy underscores the precarious position of Europe's republics at the end of the eighteenth century, illuminates relations between Protestant communities and the perceived threats to them, and recovers central elements of the debate about the meaning of republicanism and enlightenment and their relationship to religion in the very different contexts of Europe and the United States in a time of crisis.

II

The French author Guillaume-Alexandre de Méhégan, in his Tableau de l'histoire moderne (1766), noted that it was only when Calvin arrived at Geneva in 1536 that the city became a republic.Footnote ⁶ Calvin inspired the people to throw off the yoke of the Catholic bishop of Geneva and of the duke of Savoy, ‘established the new form of worship and introduced the sweets of democracy among [Geneva's] inhabitants’. In consequence, Geneva had ‘ever since preserved the precious privilege of freedom’, with a populace ‘subject only to the laws, happy in their independence, rich by their industry, and revered for their knowledge’. Méhégan's view was commonplace in early modern times, that Calvin was as much a republican legislator as a theocratic leader. The two roles were interconnected because the Calvinist forms of worship ended the perceived religious tyranny of pope, bishop, and priest, just as the foundation of a republic with a popular government ended presumed oppression by a secular bishop and an ambitious ducal family. Calvin's success in winning disciples across Europe made the Genevan experiment an international affair, a Rome for Protestants.

The first Calvinist missionaries left Geneva to establish congregations abroad in the 1550s, and were particularly successful in the German states, England, Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania.Footnote ⁷ Calvin's model of church government, sometimes called ‘the Geneva forms’, became especially popular in France and Scotland, in the latter case through time spent in the city by the admiring John Knox.Footnote ⁸ In 1555, Anglicans who had fled the persecution of Queen Mary founded a church in the city, as congregations of Italian and Spanish Protestants had done before them. On the return of the Protestants to England with the coronation of Elizabeth I, the queen was said to have ‘thanked the city for their protection’. In the 1580s, Geneva was seen to be such a safe haven for religious refugees that Jews emigrating from the German empire sought to establish a colony in the city, although permission was not granted. Oliver Cromwell sent funds to Geneva in 1655 to combat dearth for ‘the common cause of the Orthodox Religion’, and in 1658 the states of Holland partly funded the further fortification of the city. The sense of Geneva as the capital of Protestantism, and as providentially protected, was therefore commonplace by the end of the seventeenth century. It was illustrated by the culminating paragraph of Isaac Spon's well-known history, first published in 1680:

Genevans were proud of the fact that their city aided Protestants across Europe. Genevan subsidies helped to build churches and support émigré congregations in south Germany, Russia, and Turkey.Footnote ¹⁰ The continental success of this theological epicentre was recognized to depend upon the continued independence of the city-state.

Geneva managed to maintain itself, according to many observers, because national independence and democratic government, when tied together by Protestantism, was deemed naturally suited to the growth of commerce. Wealth, brought from trade, funded enterprises, the best known of which was the Genevan Academy. The Academy was established in 1558, with Theodor Beza the first rector. The first chairs in Divinity, Greek, Hebrew, and Philosophy were followed by posts in Church History, Geography, Law, Eloquence, Civil History, and Oriental Languages, providing one of the most rigorous training regimes for Protestant ministry and civil education.Footnote ¹¹ According to the historian Andrew Le Mercier, the Academy ‘hath spread the name and fame of Geneva all over the world, whereas it was before that, hardly known beyond the limits of Switzerland and Savoy … and it has a very good influence over the citizens of the Republic’.Footnote ¹² As William Coxe, another visitor to the city, noted, Calvin, being ‘conscious that religion derives support from every branch of knowledge, liberally promoted the cultivation of science, and the study of elegant literature’.Footnote ¹³

In the eighteenth century, the Academy continued to be a prominent place of learning. It was equally well known for innovation with regard to its teaching curriculum. In 1703, the professor of law Bénigne Mussard taught Hugo Grotius's De jure belli ac pacis for the first time at the Academy. In 1719, this was followed by the establishment of a chair of Natural Law, first held by Bénigne's son, Pierre Mussard. In 1722–3, two chairs of jurisprudence were established to teach natural and civil law and the law of nations, and they were held by Jean Cramer and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui.Footnote ¹⁴ By 1760, there were eleven professors, each elected by the Venerable Company of Pastors: three of Theology and Ecclesiastical history, one of Oriental Languages, two of Natural and Civil Law, one of German Law, two of Philosophy, one of Mathematics, and one of Belles Lettres.Footnote ¹⁵ The culmination of the year was an oration by the rector each June, in which he emphasized the theocratic nature and godly mission of the city and described the independence of the state of Geneva as key to the future of European Protestantism.

Voltaire, in his Essai sur l'histoire universal (1754), enunciated a critical perspective on Geneva and its history, significantly drawing upon a much longer tradition of Catholic criticism of heretical movements. Voltaire held that in securing national independence from Savoy and the Roman church the Genevans swapped political tyranny for a far worse theological despotism.Footnote ¹⁶ The ‘morose’ and ‘forbidding’ followers of Calvin sought ‘to change human society into monasteries’. In doing so, they abandoned the richness of life to be found in Catholic music, in theatre and in leisure, and lived instead under the watchful eyes of their pastors, becoming public censors and enjoying powers to expel Genevans from the church and to remove an inhabitant's civic right to live within the walls of the city. Such an approach naturally questioned the link between Protestantism and political liberty, and equally any relationship between Protestantism, political liberty, and the growth of commerce. National independence might have been won but, as Voltaire wrote, the price was private life and domestic independence, as Calvin ‘deprived men of free will’. Above all, Voltaire questioned whether the city was in any sense special when viewed from the perspective of European or from sacred history. Indeed, he contended that it was following the trend of secular enlightenment and becoming francophone in many of its mores.

It was this claim that became infamous in the article ‘Genève’, composed by Voltaire's disciple Jean d'Alembert, in volume vii of the Encyclopédie in 1757. D'Alembert stated that Geneva's pastors and populace had renounced Calvinism for ‘the perfect Socinianism’, rejecting the divinity of Jesus Christ and the notion of hell.Footnote ¹⁷ The populace of Geneva attended the theatre and had embraced the benefits of the pursuit of happiness and the enjoyment of luxury. D'Alembert's claim was met with national outrage and a campaign of refutation.Footnote ¹⁸ At the same time, D'Alembert voiced the questions that were obvious to external observers, who could see the rise of magistrates within the city increasingly involved with France and increasingly separated from the general populace who lived in the lower town. The problem was compounded, as Herbert Lüthy revealed in his magisterial La banque protestante en France, because large numbers of wealthy Genevans, many of whom served as magistrates, had begun to make fortunes from investment in the French national debt.Footnote ¹⁹ Some lived partly in Geneva, had estates in the Pays de Vaud, and spent a great deal of time at Paris. Calvin had never envisaged an imperial theocracy aspiring to be the fulcrum of a Protestant empire. Nor had he envisaged a Geneva surviving by virtue of its being a French protectorate. Two parties emerged at Geneva. That of the magistrates justified its rule by its adherence to order within the city and by its closeness to France beyond. The party that began to call itself the ‘représentants’ in the 1760s, because its adherents brought representations of injustice to the general council (Conseil générale) of all citizens and bourgeois, was increasingly convinced that liberty was being lost just as manners were corrupted by luxury. Protestantism and national independence were under threat. The war between the magistrates and the représentants reached a peak in 1782 when the latter initiated the popular revolution.Footnote ²⁰ The magistrates used their contacts at Versailles to ensure that the French foreign minister, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, launched the invasion that put an end to the rebellion.

III

While they were preparing to defend themselves against the invaders, the représentants sent emissaries to the major powers of Europe in the hope of generating diplomatic opposition to a French invasion. One of the emissaries was François d'Ivernois, who established especially good relations with John Stuart (Mountstuart), the British ambassador at Turin. After he fled the city on 1 July 1782, d'Ivernois was working within days to establish a new Geneva. His preference was to bring as many exiles as he could to Britain with Mountstuart's help. D'Ivernois had been born in Geneva on 9 April 1757, was educated in law at the Collège de Genève, and became an advocate in 1781. His father, François-Henri d'Ivernois, was a merchant who became well known for his closeness to Rousseau after the latter's Émile and Contrat social were burned in the city in 1762. He was among the prominent représentants who persuaded Rousseau to defend their cause in the Lettres écrites de la montagne (1764). It was undoubtedly through the connections of his father that d'Ivernois created the ‘Société typographique de Boin, D'Ivernois et Bassompierre’, which published the ‘Geneva’ edition of Rousseau's writings between 1778 and 1784. At the same time, d'Ivernois became a major figure among the représentants, then being led by his friends the lawyer Jacques-Antoine Du Roveray and the merchant Etienne Clavière.

A week after his flight from Geneva, on 7 July 1782, d'Ivernois wrote to Mountstuart stating his desire ‘to transplant into England the Republic [of Geneva], or at least the most advantageous part of the Republic’. By this, he meant the watchmaking part of Geneva, which he estimated at ‘half of the city’.Footnote ²¹ The failure of the revolution at Geneva had created ‘fugitives in the mountains’. The représentants had become ‘victims of the most profound and odious machinations that a people has ever been subjected to’. Their desire was to establish ‘a new country’ that would ‘save old Geneva’. They were interested in finding asylum ‘in a great monarchy, in an empire where the rights of man are respected’.Footnote ²² Mountstuart must have acted quickly because d'Ivernois was soon travelling to London, where he stayed with his other English patron Charles Stanhope, then Lord Mahon. Stanhope and Mountstuart pleaded the Genevan cause before the new ministry of Lord Shelburne, serving as first lord of the treasury from July 1782 to April 1783 after the death of Rockingham. D'Ivernois submitted a memorandum to the British government on 27 September 1782. British support was then made public via a report in the Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser on Tuesday 8 October 1782. This announced that the Genevan représentants were being encouraged by the British government to settle in Ireland. They were to establish a colony and bring with them the skills that had made Genevan manufactures renowned:

A large sum of money was reported to have been offered ‘to a number of unfortunate but virtuous citizens of Geneva’ as an inducement.

D'Ivernois negotiated the nature of the settlement with Shelburne and George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, Earl Temple (made first marquess of Buckingham in 1784), who had become lord lieutenant of Ireland in July 1782. D'Ivernois then returned to Neuchâtel to promote the emigration with eight commissioners representing the Genevans. Each commissioner was one of the individuals banished from Geneva by the French: d'Ivernois himself, Clavière, Du Roveray, Gasc, Melly, Grenus, Ringler, and Baumier. D'Ivernois then returned to London with Du Roveray, and joined Clavière, Gasc, Grenus, Melly and Ringler at Dublin. Earl Temple received them at Dublin Castle on 14 February 1783.Footnote ²⁴ They were naturalized as Irishmen. The arrangement between the British and the Genevans was announced on 4 April 1783. Earl Temple issued a warrant for the settlement of the Genevans in accordance with ‘principles truly interesting to justice and humanity’. The will of George III had been confirmed to be ‘to induce the said merchants, artists, and manufacturers, citizens, or inhabitants of Geneva, to settle in Ireland, under the conviction, that by their civil and religious principles, their industry, and their loyalty, they would materially contribute to the advantage of this kingdom’. The warrant confirmed the issue of £50,000, ‘to enable the first thousand emigrants to effect their purpose, of which a sum, not exceeding one half, to be applied to defray the expense of their journey, and the carriage of their effects; and the remainder to be applied in the building or providing houses for their reception.’ A charter was to be drawn up specifying the laws of the colony with regard to politics and commercial life, but the warrant stated that the Genevans would be able to regulate their internal concerns. All emigrants were to be naturalized, given land, and supported in establishing manufactures.

IV

An exchange of letters between the London-based lawyer Samuel Romilly, himself the son of a watchmaker, and his brother-in-law Jean Roget, a représentant living at Lausanne, provides the first evidence that New Geneva was intended to incorporate the Genevan Academy. Romilly, who was close to Shelburne and had clearly spoken to d'Ivernois, revealed at the end of October 1782 that everyone at New Geneva was expected to live together as equals, in the hope of preventing the emergence of a cast of magistrates that might turn themselves into an aristocracy. The Academy was integral to this plan because of the positive role it might play in maintaining civic intelligence and good morals. Jean Roget replied that moving the Academy would be a positive act, because the Academy at Geneva had become lax and no longer distinguished. Like the city, it had been corrupted by luxury.Footnote ²⁵ This aspect of the plan was made public in the spring of 1783. The immigrants were encouraged to follow the model of the Genevan Academy in establishing ‘a school or academy’. The academy was planned for the encouragement of religion, virtue, and science, by improving the education and early habits of youth. Such an establishment was intended to ‘remove the inducements to a foreign education; and being conducted with that attention to morality and virtue which hath distinguished the establishments in that city, may attract foreigners to reside in this kingdom for the like purpose’.Footnote ²⁶ Shelburne, always a friend to dissenting Protestants, was keen on the new educational establishment. Earl Temple, an advocate of a ‘Presbyterian mode of education’, reported that he was ‘full of the idea … of a Genevois College for education’.Footnote ²⁷

As the New Geneva project developed, the plan for the creation of the Academy became ever more central. One reason may have been that it offered employment to some of the leading exiles, including Du Roveray and perhaps also d'Ivernois himself. The most significant reason was that the Academy was expected to be a powerful inducement to Genevans considering resettlement. Having an educational establishment was recognized to be one of the key reasons why New Geneva would be taken seriously. As time passed, and difficulties arose concerning the movement of watchmakers to New Geneva, the Academy became still more important. The idea of a colony of watchmakers was hindered by problems with the supply of gold and more still by the lack of fully qualified labour for each stage of the watchmaking process among the emigrants. In such circumstances, d'Ivernois and Du Roveray asked Earl Temple to make the Academy the centrepiece of New Geneva, and to establish it even if the watchmaking industry remained in abeyance. The point was the Academy would attract ‘persons respected for their knowledge, their talents and their wealth’. Once established, such people ‘would inevitably be followed by artisans and manufacturers’.Footnote ²⁸ Accordingly, they requested commitment to an annual expenditure of £4,244 13 s 8d to cover the costs of the establishment.

D'Ivernois's and Du Roveray's plans were ambitious. They proposed a ‘lower school’ with nineteen tutors. The tutors were to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, English, French, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, and Greek, design, geography, history, dancing, the exercise of arms and fencing. Higher students were to be taught by eighteen professors. Chairs were to be held in Ancient History and Belles Lettres, Modern History and Belles Lettres, Mathematics, Engineering, Rational Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Chemistry, Mechanics, Civil Law, Common Law, Public and Political Law, Commerce, Agriculture, Architecture, Oriental Languages, and Horsemanship. It is noticeable that there were no chairs in theology, and that the Calvinist identity of the Academy was limited to having two pastors and a suffragan. This was undoubtedly explained by the need to fit with the predominantly Catholic Waterford. The Genevans intended to involve the local population, and planned to reduce fees for the poor. Although Earl Temple refused to grant all of the resources, cutting the budget by £500, he nevertheless sanctioned the scheme, as did George III, Lord Sydney, and the duke of Rutland, in February 1784. By this time, between 100 and 200) exiles had arrived at Waterford from Geneva. Buildings were carefully planned and erected, including houses for a professoriat that included rooms for boarders.Footnote ²⁹ The foundation stone of New Geneva was officially laid on 12 July 1784.Footnote ³⁰ By this time, problems had developed. With some of the Genevans leaving Waterford for other exile communities, d'Ivernois and Du Roveray pressed Earl Temple to expedite the opening of the academy, in the hope of persuading people to remain. Earl Temple replied that he could not ‘think this a fit time for the actual establishment of an Academy’ because ‘a sufficient number of inhabitants with their manufactures’ remained the ‘principal object’ of New Geneva.Footnote ³¹

New Geneva failed for a variety of reasons. The main reason was the fall of both Shelburne and Earl Temple from power. Another was the pressure to establish a viable commercial enterprise in a short period of time. It is significant that the Calvinist ministers selected for New Geneva, Etienne Dumont and Ésaïe Gasc, both turned the invitations down. Perhaps they felt that it was altogether an insufficiently Protestant establishment. All of the British and Irish ministers recognized the labours of d'Ivernois and Du Roveray. Both were ultimately rewarded with a pension.Footnote ³² In the aftermath of the failure of New Geneva, d'Ivernois moved to London and became tutor to the children of the banker Samson Gideon. Du Roveray remained in Ireland.Footnote ³³ Yet, as revolution loomed large across the English Channel, new prospects for the future of the project across the Atlantic began to take shape.

V

After the failed attempt to establish the Genevan Academy in Ireland, the European context shifted dramatically with the eruption of the French Revolution in 1789. As French revolutionary armies proceeded to conquer and annex a growing number of territories, the political and religious implications of such actions became increasingly apparent to European onlookers. With the onset of revolutionary terror, the Jacobin insistence that a ‘good Christian’ could not be a ‘good republican’ sought to overthrow a culture still reliant upon religion to ensure social and moral stability as well as the political status quo of European power dynamics. State and historic faith were no longer mutually supportive and rather became antagonistic. Even with the institutional re-establishment of Christianity under Napoleon, religion in France would not regain its ancien prestige.Footnote ³⁴

European governments could not stand immune to the events set in motion by 1789; Geneva was no exception. Up until 1789, France had been one of the main powers that mediated Genevan political affairs, prevented the overturning of its existing hierarchical system, and claimed that it maintained the city's independence. Berne's, Savoy's, and France's desire to have influence over the city meant that each worked to preserve its independence from the other.Footnote ³⁵ Now France was led by those seeking to overturn the political status quo, thereby fanning the revolutionary flame already ignited by the recent political unrest of 1782. Genevans increasingly embraced not only France's revolutionary sentiments but the symbols of the revolution as well, such as the ‘bonnet rouge’.Footnote ³⁶ International relations further shifted when Savoy was annexed to France in 1792 and the balance of power that had once secured Geneva's independence between Berne, Savoy, and France was altered. Geneva turned to the Bernese for support, but her Swiss allies retreated from protecting the city in order to avoid war with France.

In the midst of this external struggle, the Genevan government was caught between the necessity to appease vocal, radical groups within the city that could provoke French intervention and the desire to preserve political independence.Footnote ³⁷ In the end, events in France ushered into Geneva the most aggressive political action of the century as revolutionaries in the city sought to introduce equality during a period of ‘terror’ from 1793 to 1794. As Etienne Dumont wrote, ‘The Academy and the clergy are regarded as crushed since religion and the sciences are perceived as branches of aristocracy.’Footnote ³⁸ Consequently, the 1780s marked a turning point in the affairs of the city that would eventually end with the French annexation in April 1798. Visitors to the city after the 1782 revolution recognized an altered culture. Madame Roland, writing in 1789, remarked, ‘As for the city, of which Voltaire said formerly that the city [of] Calvin had become the city of Socrates and that its inhabitants were a people of wisdom, she is much changed … Geneva is a French city: language and manners, all assimilated to our nation.’Footnote ³⁹

During this volatile period, d'Ivernois became an indefatigable opponent of the French Revolution and an advocate of unrelenting war by Britain upon the First French Republic. Du Roveray became a spy for the British, working across Switzerland from 1792.Footnote ⁴⁰ Arguing against both Shelburne and Stanhope, who remained cosmopolitan friends of peace and free trade, d'Ivernois and Du Roveray advocated a Britain with armies on mainland Europe, ready to defend Europe's small states against attempts by France or other states at universal monarchy.Footnote ⁴¹ When they became uncertain as to whether Britain might be defeated by revolutionary France, and when Geneva was being threatened by egalitarian revolutionaries from both within and without, they set their sights on North America.

Geneva's political climate in 1794 along with the imminent threat of French revolutionary armies led d'Ivernois urgently to develop plans to establish a ‘New Geneva’ in the United States of America. In proposing his idea to America's Founding Fathers George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, a new rationale for the project based upon a concern for religious preservation emerged. The emphasis on religion, lacking in the Ireland project, became a central reason for seeking out the United States as an ideal safe haven. Through this correspondence, d'Ivernois's idea to bring Geneva to America through the transplantation of its educational institution emerges as an example of how religion persisted in holding a central role within Genevan identity post-1789 out of the hope that Genevan Protestantism and Republicanism would find a home together in the land of America.

VI

This was not the first time that Genevans sought to make their mark on North America.Footnote ⁴² During the eighteenth century, the Company of Pastors was in frequent correspondence with New England's reformed church pulpits. Reports on the state of the reformed churches in New York, Philadelphia, and ‘New Scotland’ were sent to the Company,Footnote ⁴³ and the Company helped in filling pulpits, including for the French church in New York.Footnote ⁴⁴ Additionally, Genevan clergy participated in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), a society born chiefly out of the work of Englishman Thomas Bray in 1701. The society sought to enhance churches in the colonies through the Christian education of settlers as well as the evangelism of Native Americans and African slaves.Footnote ⁴⁵ To that end, SPG supplied educated and upstanding Church of England priests as well as funds for clerical books, fare, and clothing.Footnote ⁴⁶ In order to provide these services, SPG was dependent on financial contributions and members' subscriptions.Footnote ⁴⁷ Geneva received notices seeking to appeal to their concern over ‘the despicable plots of the Atheists, Deists, and of the Socinians' who were working to ‘destroy in them, and in others, all the notions of divine things, and of the difference that exists between good and bad.’Footnote ⁴⁸ The Genevan clergymen Jean-Alphonse Turrettini and Louis Tronchin, who were already forging connections with England's Anglican Church over the revision of the liturgy through correspondence with the archbishop of Canterbury, became supporters of the cause and were elected to the society in 1704.Footnote ⁴⁹ Significantly, Geneva would use SPG's model to establish the Chambre des Prosélytes in 1708 in order to aid the Genevan Consistory in the reception of Roman Catholics to the reformed faith.Footnote ⁵⁰ Professor of Theology and Genevan pastor Bénédict Pictet would serve as a member of both SPG as well as a founding member of the Chambre.Footnote ⁵¹

While Genevan pastors forged religious links in these ways with American churches and clergy, others sought investment opportunities, such as Genevan financier Etienne Clavière, who sent J.-P. Brissot to America in the late 1780s in order to gather information regarding the purchasing of debt stock. Undoubtedly, the most famous Genevan to bring his financial ingenuity to the United States was Albert Gallatin (1761–1849). With few prospects for advancement in Geneva, Gallatin emigrated to America in 1780 at the age of nineteen, and he initially served in the revolutionary army and taught French at Harvard University in 1782.Footnote ⁵² Over the course of his successful career, he was elected to the US Senate (1793) and US House of Representatives (1795–1801) before being appointed the secretary of the treasury in 1801. Gallatin served under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison until 1814, which is the longest term ever served as treasury secretary.Footnote ⁵³ Gallatin additionally had a leading role in the founding and chartering of New York University in 1831 as well as serving as the president of the first council of the university.Footnote ⁵⁴ He would prove to be a key proponent of Genevan immigration.

Genevans were not merely seeking the opportunities promised by America. It is well known that Geneva was a key destination for the Reformation educational tour in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Footnote ⁵⁵ Similarly, Geneva became a stop on the Grand Tour during the eighteenth century.Footnote ⁵⁶ A graduate of Calvin's Academy, Albert Gallatin attested to the flow of Europeans and Americans to Geneva's Academy during his time from 1770 to 1780 saying ‘a great many distinguished foreigners came to Geneva to finish their education’, including Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache.Footnote ⁵⁷ Indeed, the Academy's original founder was commended for the way in which he championed learning during the Reformation period:

Gallatin would prove instrumental in assisting Thomas Jefferson's nephew, Richard Terrell, to study in Geneva in 1816.Footnote ⁵⁹ Gallatin recommended Geneva's Academy to Jefferson saying that he ‘found the institutions and professors as good at Geneva as when I had left it thirty-five years ago’.Footnote ⁶⁰

Undoubtedly, this close friendship contributed to Jefferson holding Geneva's Academy in high esteem,Footnote ⁶¹ and Jefferson was frequently complimentary. In a response to J. Bannister, Jr, on 15 October 1785, Jefferson wrote that the best opportunity for the education of youth in Europe was either Geneva or Rome. By 1791, Jefferson claimed that the best school in Europe was in Edinburgh, but that ‘On the continent of Europe, no place is comparable to Geneva. The sciences are there more modernized than anywhere else. There, too, the spirit of republicanism is strong with the body of the inhabitants.’Footnote ⁶² In the end, Jefferson's opinion would go a long way toward providing d'Ivernois with the champion he needed to pitch his project to the highest American political authority of the time, President George Washington.Footnote ⁶³

VII

In his first step toward securing assistance in moving the Genevan Academy to America, d'Ivernois sent a memoir of the project to Vice-President John Adams on 22 August 1794.Footnote ⁶⁴ Therein, d'Ivernois offered a detailed proposal for transplanting the Academy in its totality. Speculating that $300,000 of uncultivated land would be needed, he suggested that Genevan shareholders would advance the amount and serve as the proprietors of the land. Finances were to be arranged so that free public education would be offered following Genevan practice. This was only one of many indications that d'Ivernois did not intend to leave old Geneva behind but to provide a new location wherein ideal conditions would enable it to thrive. Consequently, he suggested that New Geneva reflect ‘old’ Genevan in its environs by residing adjacent to a river and within a similar climate. Moreover, the university would employ the current Genevan professors to take up their position at the new location if they were amenable to the opportunity; notably, this proposal now included three theologians that he commended to Adams for their merit.Footnote ⁶⁵ Finally, teaching would be conducted in French or Latin, though he assured Adams that all of the professors could speak or at least read English.

Although d'Ivernois acknowledged that American hospitality towards émigrés did not typically entail seeking them out or providing financial support, he urged Adams to seek permission and assistance from Congress or a provincial legislature. D'Ivernois speculated that $15,000 would be needed to support the salary of those running the university, and houses would need to be built for the first inhabitants. To make the idea more attractive, d'Ivernois highlighted the benefits of establishing this ‘academic colony’ in the United States. Genevans would not only cultivate the land, but they would provide a university and attract emigrants, which could bring prosperity to the region. With a combination of Genevan capitalists and farmers at work, d'Ivernois did not doubt that New Geneva would become ‘one of the prosperous cities of America’ in a matter of years.Footnote ⁶⁶ Meanwhile, if approved, the legislature would be given the right to establish a sub-committee that would determine the location of the university, its regulations, the number of professors, their function, salary, election, and more as long as it was understood that the colony would be destined for Genevans exclusively at the start. With the prospect of reciprocal benefits, ‘one of the most interesting and ancient institutions’ in Europe would start a new chapter in the new world.Footnote ⁶⁷

While clearly similar to the Ireland project, d'Ivernois's proposal to the United States was distinctive in the emphasis placed upon the religious necessity of the move. The plan to establish a Genevan colony in Ireland in 1782 had not been dominated by religious motivations or discourse and nor did it make provisions for a Bible or theology professor.Footnote ⁶⁸ By 1794, however, d'Ivernois was not only pushing the academy as the primary reason for the colony, he was communicating a more explicit motivation to preserve the traditional Genevan dynamic between religion and politics. This urgency is evident in his first correspondence to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson on 5 September that year wherein he fretted that ‘our country is lost without hope of reparation’.Footnote ⁶⁹ In both letters, d'Ivernois identified the impetus for the project as ‘the alarming crisis that menaces the social order and all of Christianity’.Footnote ⁷⁰ Thus, he wrote, ‘Our wise and tolerant religion as much as its respectable ministers’ all face the prospect of ‘degradation under a populace’ influenced by the banner and excesses of the French Revolution to the detriment of the ‘the old world!’ For d'Ivernois, this was a crisis that menaced both Christianity and European education.Footnote ⁷¹ Such comments indicate that the turn of events in 1794 due to the French Revolution convinced d'Ivernois of the importance of actively protecting the religious identity of a New Geneva in addition to defending free education.

Consequently, in his post-1789 plan, d'Ivernois included three positions for theology. Moreover, he expressly described America as an ideal place to transplant Geneva's Academy because of its religious and political identity. In his words, it would be ‘a Protestant University in a Protestant country’.Footnote ⁷² This was crucial to preserving the Genevan way of life by establishing what d'Ivernois described as ‘a colony of European Protestants and Republicans’ separated from the French revolutionary threat.Footnote ⁷³ Without such freedom, d'Ivernois feared that ‘not only political liberty, but the life, fortune and religion’ of all honest Genevans would be at the mercy of their oppressors.Footnote ⁷⁴ D'Ivernois awaited a response to his proposition to establish the university in the autumn of 1795 and begin teaching in spring 1796.Footnote ⁷⁵

Due to Jefferson's strong support for the advancement of knowledge and his high opinion of Geneva, upon receiving the letter from d'Ivernois, he recommended the plan to Wilson Cary Nicholas on 22 November 1794.Footnote ⁷⁶ Jefferson indicated there that he had met d'Ivernois while the latter was exiled in Paris for his democratic views. Once more, Jefferson was extremely complimentary about the reputation of Geneva's Academy saying, ‘You know well that the colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva, as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe; while Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, and all other countries give it to the latter.’Footnote ⁷⁷ At this stage in the process, Jefferson was mindful of the obstacles facing d'Ivernois's goal, namely expense and the problematic nature of teaching in a foreign language (whether French or Latin). Nevertheless, Jefferson requested that Nicholas consider the proposal and discuss the idea with members of the Virginia Assembly.

Meanwhile, Adams passed on the information to George Washington, who wrote to Adams on 15 November 1794 saying, ‘That a National University in this country is a thing to be desired, has always been my decided opinion.’Footnote ⁷⁸ However, the prospect of complex arrangements and expenses that would be required for transplanting an entire ‘Seminary of Foreigners’, who might not be competent in English, was daunting to him. Rather, Washington regarded the assimilation of emigrants into the custom and languages of America as preferable to seeking to transplant a body of people who would maintain their previous customs, ideology, and language. For Washington, this prevented the country from becoming ‘one people’.

Similar resistance to the project was evident from other political corners. On 6 February 1795, Jefferson wrote to inform d'Ivernois that although leading members of the Virginia legislature were interested in supporting the endeavour, it had not been approved due to obstacles of language and expense.Footnote ⁷⁹ Jefferson expressed his disappointment and hope that Geneva's ‘inhabitants must be too much enlightened, too well experienced in the blessings of freedom and undisturbed industry, to tolerate long a contrary state of things’. Nevertheless, this was not the final word. Behind the scenes, Jefferson continued to make efforts to see the project succeed by contacting George Washington on 23 February 1795.Footnote ⁸⁰ Jefferson stressed the effects of revolution on the Academy: ‘The revolution which has taken place at Geneva has demolished the college of that place, which was in a great measure supported by the former government.’Footnote ⁸¹ Jefferson then suggested some modifications to d'Ivernois's plan. For example, he rejected the idea of a colony of Genevan farmers by claiming that they could not count upon the land to raise money for the project. Rather, negotiating business with ‘monied’ Genevans displaced by their new government seemed more promising to him. Additionally, Jefferson stressed that the school could be useful to the federal city if it were located nearby. Importantly, he was able to offer these suggestions because Washington had first solicited Jefferson's opinion on how to use land shares in the Potomac and James River Companies that had been granted to Washington by the Virginia legislature.Footnote ⁸² It was thought that an academic institution would be the best use of the funds, and Jefferson proposed the Academy of Geneva as the benefactor of that sum.

Washington persisted in his reservations. On 15 March 1795, Washington responded from Philadelphia to Jefferson.Footnote ⁸³ He confirmed that his objective in using the land was to endow a national university wherein men would complete their education while benefiting from proximity to the hub of US government. The donation, however, would only be enough to provide a portion of the cost needed to establish the college and could not support the migration of an entire academy. Yet, this was only one of many issues Washington raised with regard to d'Ivernois's plan. Washington expressed further concern over transplanting the professors as a group, an element of d'Ivernois's project that Jefferson also questioned. Washington wondered whether all were men of good character and could speak English adequately. Like Jefferson, he was also concerned that their presence would prevent the institution from hiring top professors from other places such as Scotland. Moreover, Washington was sensitive to the political implications of d'Ivernois's project. Since the professors were at odds with the political group seeking equality within Geneva, Washington reasoned that it might appear that America was supporting the aristocratic party. Consequently, Washington relayed that Adams was empowered to relay to d'Ivernois his refusal of the project.Footnote ⁸⁴ Instead, Washington intended to move forward with the Virginia legislature to establish an academic institution that would rival Europe's institutions and discourage Americans from completing their education in Europe, ‘where too often principles and habits not friendly to a republican government are imbibed, which are not easily discarded’. Washington's decision ended the matter as far as the American government was concerned. Interestingly, it appears that Jefferson never told d'Ivernois that he had asked Washington and that his effort had failed. Posterity would not forget Jefferson's efforts to secure state assistance for higher education in Virginia, deeming him the ‘Father of the University of Virginia’.Footnote ⁸⁵ Few knew that under different circumstances he could have been the Father of the new University of Geneva instead.

VIII

In the wake of Washington's refusal, d'Ivernois would conclude that the project was compromised by the simultaneous promulgation of a rival plan by Genevans already living in America.Footnote ⁸⁶ Indeed, while d'Ivernois was communicating his plan to America's political leaders, an alternate plan was in process. Alexandre Couronne, and the Genevan pastors Jean-Louis Duby and Pierre-Daniel Bourdillon led the rival group. Revolutionary authorities had reprimanded or punished each of them.Footnote ⁸⁷ Upon landing in America, however, they faced new difficulties. Disillusionment characterizes their early correspondence despite the eagerness to settle among ‘a people moral, hospitable, enlightened, in the breast of religious and political peace’.Footnote ⁸⁸ Negative attitudes toward their foreign tongue and a limited concern for education within the country took them by surprise. Initially attracted by cheap land and economic opportunity, they were faced with the reality of rising costs and increasing competition. Price, proximity to settled areas, and the dangers of Native Americans, not to mention the hardships of weather, proved to be substantial obstacles to their plan to purchase suitable land.

In the end, Gallatin proved to be their greatest asset. Initially, they had been discouraged from seeking his help before their departure due to claims that ‘he had forgotten his country [and] that he had received with the greatest indifference the Genevans who were recommended to him’. He was described to them ‘as an outraged revolutionary, [and an] enemy of Washington’.Footnote ⁸⁹ Upon meeting Gallatin in New York, however, Bourdillon determined that the rumors were ‘absolutely false’.Footnote ⁹⁰ Gallatin quickly won their esteem, particularly when he offered to include them in his and Badollet's plan to settle a new Geneva either in Pennsylvania or New York. A new optimism was born on the basis of Gallatin's American connections.

Like d'Ivernois's plan, the hope was to give asylum-seeking Genevans ‘a new country, where religion, morals, the sciences and arts’ would again flourish as they once had.Footnote ⁹¹ To that end, Gallatin travelled to Philadelphia to present the group with a ‘Plan of Association’ that offered 150 shares of land at $800 per share among Genevans residing in America already, Americans, and Genevans or Swiss abroad.Footnote ⁹² Unlike d'Ivernois and under Gallatin's leadership, the group was more hesitant to pursue the establishment of the Academy in the first instance; this was a goal for the future after the city found some success. Additionally, Gallatin's plan sought a way to establish a colony without reliance upon state funds at all.Footnote ⁹³ It was hoped that through this alternate plan, Genevans would establish a place in America where they could dedicate themselves to commerce, manufactures, and agriculture in addition to education.

D'Ivernois was aware of their efforts as early as September 1794, if not before, when he wrote to the group.Footnote ⁹⁴ He then informed Adams and Jefferson in February 1795 of other Genevans at work to see New Geneva realized,Footnote ⁹⁵ and he speculated that they would gladly combine efforts.Footnote ⁹⁶ By March, however, a sense of rivalry between the projects is evident. D'Ivernois went so far as to write to Gallatin to prevent Bourdillon from travelling to Europe to encourage Genevans to pursue the alternate project. His presumption was that his own plan had greater support.Footnote ⁹⁷ Neither party expected circumstances to change as drastically as they did.

Geneva's political circles lost control of the city after the summer of 1794 due in part to resented taxes. A brief period of Jacobin-like terror followed and government was suspended as anti-revolutionary groups regained control of the city. The situation improved in 1795 due to the Reconciliation of 21 September, which sought to bring all of the inhabitants of the city together. Few were interested in immigrating to America at that point. Jefferson wrote to Marc-Auguste Pictet in October to confirm that the future of the Academy seemed bright.Footnote ⁹⁸ He was still praising Geneva twenty-five years later:

The professors of Geneva remained in Geneva as fears for the future abated. D'Ivernois dedicated himself to the service of the British state and its involvement in mainland European politics.

This was not the end of New Geneva. Albert Gallatin's commitment to the United States did not waver with the change in Geneva's circumstances in 1795.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ In fact, during that summer, Gallatin purchased land around Georges Creek and the eastern bank of the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania known as Wilson's Port. Gallatin's partners provided finances to stock a retail store that would initially serve as the hub of the enterprise.Footnote ¹⁰¹ As houses were built and sold, the town was chartered as New Geneva.Footnote ¹⁰² Soon after, however, Albert Gallatin & Co. faced the financial crisis of 1796 that led Gallatin to seek new avenues for recovering the finances lost to him.Footnote ¹⁰³ The idea of establishing a glass making business in partnership with German immigrants was finally agreed upon and the New Geneva Glassworks was born in 1797.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ The business, however, would not know success until the ownership of the company fell completely into Gallatin's hands through the dissolution of his Genevan partnerships in 1799.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Success was then due in large part to the establishment not of a university, but rather of a gun factory in that year.

IX

New Geneva was, in the end, a far cry from the original hopes of d'Ivernois and Gallatin. Even though the establishment of the city was eventually realized, the striking feature of the project goes beyond its ultimate founding. Rather, what emerges from the story of the effort to transplant one of the educational ‘eyes of Europe’ to America is a vision of an era grappling to preserve religious identity in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

This is evident when looking at Geneva's recovery in 1795. Protestantism as the foundation of citizenship was reaffirmed. Numerous pastors, despite the events of the revolution, continued to be active in politics.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ In April 1795, the Company of Pastors began to address the consequences of the thinning of its pastoral ranks due to depositions by the Revolutionary Tribunal of 1794.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Geneva was picking up the pieces, and despite these considerable setbacks, religion would continue to have a central place in Genevan identity. Although Genevan Protestantism and republicanism were not united in America in the way that d'Ivernois had imagined, his efforts underscore the connection between republican sentiment and religious identity at the end of the eighteenth century and the limits of the secularizing effects of the French Revolution. It would take the annexation of Geneva to France in 1798 to set in motion the eventual separation of Protestantism and politics in the city that was evident by the mid-nineteenth century.