page_title: Hospice général
section_title: Under the Ancien Régime (1535-1798)
hierarchical_section_title: Hospice général / History: from the Hôpital général to the Hospice général / Under the Ancien Régime (1535-1798)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: L’Hôpital général, place Bourg-de-Four, fin du XVIIIe siècle
context_page_description: The Hospice général is the main public assistance office of the Republic and Canton of Geneva. The institution's main missions are: Social support and financial assistance for individuals and families who are without sufficient resources; Welcome and assistance, including financial help, for asylum seekers, along with providing living accommodations; Assistance and housing for troubled young adults; Management of a leisure center and two holiday homes for the elderly; Prevention of and information about social ills for all categories of the population.
  The institution has existed since 1535, when it was founded as a charitable institution to provide assistance to the poor.
context_section_description: On 14 November 1535, by a formal vote of Geneva's General Council, the assembly made up of all of the city's citizens, the seven charitable establishments then active in Geneva were merged into a single entity called the Hôpital général (the General Hospital). The aim was to provide material or financial assistance to “the poor young foundlings, widowed wives, old men and women, poor young girls, and all other manner of people both foreign and private of all nations who come seeking refuge in the aforesaid general hospital.” Taking advantage of the Sisters of St. Clare's departure for Annecy, the city requisitioned their convent in Bourg-de-Four in 1536 and installed the Hôpital général there.
  At the time, public charity was guided by moral and devotional demands. Vagrants leading a dissolute life, for example, were excluded from public charity. The large numbers of beggars drawn to Geneva by the various fairs held there were considered undesirables and only reluctantly granted what was then known as a passade, that is, charity in the form of bread and wine allowed to those who were passing through. The archives from the period suggest that the Hôpital général was overwhelmed by the requests for assistance and that all citizens at one time or another came to beg for food or clothing. Some sheltered there and discipline was strictly imposed.
  This form of repression coupled with charity sprang up again later when beggars were regularly interned, a practice that was widespread in Europe throughout the seventeenth century. In 1631, for example, the Discipline was founded, a correctional establishment for wayward young women, prostitutes and young delinquents. Everyone was put to work, which enabled the Hôpital général to recover some of the expenses incurred. The Discipline later housed a number of “asocial, insane, or slothful persons and difficult children.” However, the number of beggars there gradually diminished (early eighteenth century) as society began to treat them less harshly. During the eighteenth century, the Hôpital général adopted a very modern attitude to its poor charges, essentially granting them financial assistance (40% of the institution's expenses) and thus providing them with help “at home.” The institution itself controlled the stream of beggars in the city, devoting 2% of its annual budget to pay for “beggar hunters” to “rid” the city of paupers born elsewhere.
  During this period, any assistance received was rarely paid back. Outside municipalities and communities saw to providing funds for their own native sons and daughters who had fallen on hard times, generally being informed that if they failed to comply, they would have to take in their poor themselves! Under the ancien régime, persons receiving assistance were deprived of their political rights (about 10% of the electorate) and would march once a year in the streets to show their gratitude for the aid they were provided.
  Finally, all Genevans were not equal in terms of public assistance at the time. The rich bourgeois who had met with financial ruin was awarded greater aid since it was felt that such a man had lost more and thus was suffering more than a pauper who had become completely destitute.
caption: The Hôpital général, place Bourg-de-Four, late eighteenth century
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