republic
Switzerland was the single
self-governing democracy in Europe in the later eighteenth century.
Although England sported liberal political ideals as a factor
distinguishing the nation from the rest of Europe, in practice its long
battle against the French and Napoleon had fostered a conservative
reaction in which "republican" and "jacobin" were virtually synonymous
terms of opprobrium. This was particularly the case in the years after
Waterloo when, without an external enemy by which to rally the nation and,
experiencing a severe recession as a result of its rapid and radical
demobilization, the government was fearful of any expression of political
dissent and began to prosecute broadly to suppress it. Although Victor's
emphasis on his family distinction seems a gesture toward the familiar
hierarchical structures of English society, the fact that the first
sentence of the novel as it presents itself ends with so defiant, if
understated, an assertion of liberal political values indicates the
presence of a submerged political viewpoint that observant readers will be
able to detect throughout the novel. That its contemporary readers would
have recognized this aspect of the novel is indicated by how strongly
politics influenced its reviews, particularly the one that appeared in the
conservative Quarterly
Review.
