Pestalozzi is one of the contemporaries of the Revolution who were scarcely surprised by its outbreak.’ True, authentic testimonies from the beginning are missing. Yet the subject of decline and dissolution of the State’s system had accompanied him since his youth, when he denounced the depravity of late Sparta, while showing the Zurich of his time to the eyes of the reader. But he also had dealt critically with France of the later Ancien Regime, and opposed from time to time in the‘schweizer Blatt’ the unlimited luxury in the upper classes to the exploitation of the peasants. Though he had hopes for enlightened Absolutism, even formally courting it, but doing it in the illusion that he would be able to contribute in the capacity of Minister or at least helper of such a monarch to soften the contrast between rich and poor in the meaning of an established ‘middle class’-this being one of the favourite words in his social vocabulary. His attitude towards the Revolution, when it really happened, was based on such presumptions, and definitely ambivalent. Revolution does not simply mean upheaval, but basically regression, restitution of an order put out of joint. In this respect the word is genuinely related to that of Reform or Reformation. At what time did the old, true order become an Extra-Order is an historic question, which accompanied Pestalozzi’s historical thinking again and again as a ‘leimotiv’. Let us take a closer look. It is well known that Pestalozzi, together with other foreign dignitaries, was awarded honorary citizenship by the Legislative Assembly on the 26 August 1792. The honour conferred was meant for the popular writer, was awarded without any knowledge of the man so honoured at a moment which for him was hardly favourable. The massacre of the Swiss Guard had happened only two weeks before, and had caused a real shock in the Confederation. Therefore one can understand Pestalozzi’s initial hesitation. He pulled himself together only towards the end of the year to send a letter of thanks, though at the time also making advances to the men in power in Paris. ‘In the field of popular education I can offer the light like no other, and as I think that the Fatherland needs knowledge and activities of men connected therewith, who are experienced in this field, in order to provide the blessings of liberty to the small huts in the land, I therefore take the liberty that you, honourable men, will not decline the wish to make my contribution towards this end, as not opportune for the Fatherland in its present situarion.‘2 There remains the remarkable fact in this self-recommendation that Pestalozzi starts his courting exactly where he stopped at the rulers and courts of