The proceedings of the tribunal were conducted with true republican _sans-gêne_. The judges sat on the bench in their shirt-sleeves, with their pipes in their mouths and their pistols in their belts. Happily, however, as if they were half conscious that their proceedings were farcical, they were less murderous in their sentences than their French models. Though 600 aristocrats were condemned, the majority of them escaped with sentences of fines, imprisonment, or exile, and the death sentence was only passed upon seven of them. The seven were shot by torch-light at the Bastions; and then the people began to be horrified by the atrocities which they had perpetrated. There was a reaction, a counter-revolution, and a great ceremony of reconciliation in the cathedral. The leaders of the rival factions shook hands in the presence of the assembled populace, and swore to forgive and forget and work together thenceforward for the good of their common country. They kept their oaths, and all promised well until the French Directorate cast covetous eyes upon Geneva, found a pretext for its annexation, and made it the capital of the new department of Leman. It remained French until the last day of the year 1813, when Napoleon’s misfortunes gave the citizens the opportunity of throwing off the yoke, and they sought and obtained admission to the Swiss Confederation. 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 did. But there were no such violent or such continual disturbances as need take up the whole of a literary man’s time, or prevent him from getting on with his work.