Meeting Place of the World

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Geneva lost its independence to the French Revolution. France, which almost completely surrounds the city, annexed it in 1798, but after the fall of Napoleon it finally became the 22nd canton of Switzerland. By then it was just a peaceful backwater. Franz Liszt came here after eloping with the Countess d'Agoult, and he composed a piano piece inspired by the city's church bells. "Happy is he who can stay long by these shores," wrote another aristocratic visitor, Lord Byron.

The city's role in modern diplomacy began with the Battle of Solferino in Italy in 1859. A Genevan traveler, Henri Dunant, was so appalled by the spectacle of the wounded French and Austrian soldiers left to die on the battlefield that he wrote an indignant book titled Un Souvenir de Solferino. From that book came the Geneva Convention of 1864, in which 16 nations agreed for the first time on humane treatment for the wounded. From Dunant's protest also came the creation of the International Red Cross.

When the victorious Allies of World War I decided to embody their hopes for peace in a League of Nations, some urged Brussels as the symbolic capital of the world, but President Wilson pressed for Geneva. The Swiss later commemorated his support by naming the quai leading toward the Palais des Nations the Quai Wilson. By the time the sprawling marble palais was completed in 1937, however, the league was so moribund that Geneva was sometimes ( referred to as the City of Lost Causes. (This experience inspired C. Northcote Parkinson to include in Parkinson's Law the thesis that the building of a new headquarters is invariably a symptom of institutional decay.) Very little remains of the old dream, except perhaps the peacocks still strolling serenely in the gardens that surround the palais.

But although the once again victorious Allies decided after World War II to establish the United Nations in New York City, Geneva soon proved indispensable as a European headquarters. For one thing, it was undamaged, and its shops were full of chocolates, cigarettes, watches, all the luxuries that were being stolen and bartered elsewhere in Europe. What better place to stage a conference or two?

Or 30,000. Geneva is still a splendid place in which to discuss the world's ills. The best lakeside restaurants, like La Perle du Lac or the Lion d'Or, serve a magret de canard with a fine bottle from neighboring Burgundy for about $40. Geneva also has good Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Indian restaurants, not to mention modest brasseries that offer a delicious newly caught perch for about $10. Any American who wants to take advantage of the strong dollar (now worth 2.8 Swiss francs, up from 1.7 five years ago) will find the Rue du Rhone lined with windows displaying Rolex and Patek Philippe watches, Gucci and St. Laurent clothes. Booming Geneva is also second only to Zurich as a Swiss banking center.

Foreigners posted here find that the cost of living ranks with the highest in Europe. A three-bedroom apartment near the Palais des Nations rents for $1,500 a month and up, and lakeside villas sell for $1 million and more.