It was in the latter districts, as might have been expected, that the new ideas gained the greatest currency, and that the first attempts were made for their realisation. Educated and thinking men in the subject towns and territories brooded resentfully on their exclusion from all public posts and dignities. In those cantons where trade and manufactures were most cultivated, it was regarded as an intolerable hardship by the enterprising and wealthy rural proprietor, that he was hindered by oppressive regulations from purchasing the requisite raw materials, or from disposing of the products of his industry in any quarter except to a wholesale dealer of the capital. Similar resentments were excited by corporate privileges. Nevertheless, in the German regions of Switzerland, a longer time elapsed before the new modes of thinking, and the comparisons which they suggested, set the public mind in motion. This took place much sooner in the west, where the French language and neighbourhood made communication easier; above all, in Geneva, where nothing but an auspicious hour was waited for to burst asunder a yoke imposed by foreigners. A rise in the price of bread, which was imputed to the government, gave occasion to the long prepared explosion. On the 26th of February, 1789, the burghers assailed the garrison with everything which could be turned into a weapon of offence. Fire-engines with boiling water supplied the place of artillery: the garrison was put to the rout, and the power of the government overturned the more easily, as its foreign props had now ceased to support it. The ruling class was compelled to throw itself wholly on the citizens, to restore the ancient liberties of the town, and to recall the banished heads of the representatives. But the hour was come for the ruin of Genevan independence. The country people and habitans of the town now demanded an equality of rights with the burghers, on the model of republican France; and the latter power was induced to second their wishes, by the suggestions of the ex-representative Clavière. The malcontents were kept for a while in check by troops from Bern and Zurich; but, on the withdrawal of these in 1792, the country people, habitans and natifs, flew to arms, made themselves masters of the town, deposed the government, and established, on the model of France, a national convention, with committees of general safety and of public welfare.