The future historian was well educated, but his family wished him to devote himself to commerce rather than literature, and he became a banker's clerk in Lyon. Then the Revolution broke out, and as it affected Geneva, the Simonde family took refuge in England where they stayed for eighteen months (1793–1794). Disliking—it is said—the climate, they returned to Geneva, but found the state of affairs still unfavourable; there is even a legend that the head of the family was reduced to selling milk himself in the town. The greater part of the family property was sold, and with the proceeds they emigrated to Italy, bought a small farm in Pescia near Lucca and Pistoia, and set to work to cultivate it themselves.