The Geneva Revolution of 1782 (French: La révolution genevoise de 1782) was a short-lived attempt to broaden the franchise and include men of modest means in the republican government of the oligarchic Genevan city-state.
In 1782 the constitution of Republic of Geneva, a small Swiss city-state, limited the franchise to 1,500 well-to-do male burghers, (upper middle class citizens, mostly merchants.)
[1] For two decades the city's politics had opposed the Négatifs, who supported the traditional aristocratic and oligarchical governance by a closed corporation, to the Représantants of more democratic views.
The select legislative body, the Genevan Small Council, baulked at ratifying this token offer of enfranchisement, stalling for over a year before, in April 1782, voting to block it.
Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes decided to extinguish the Geneva Revolution, despite France's concurrent ongoing support for the Patriots of the American Revolutionary War, and also for the Patriottentijd in the Netherlands.