Berne is cited as a European city whose political life was controlled by a few families. Its brief appearance places it among societies where concentrated authority and inherited privilege formed part of the institutional landscape that the French Revolution later challenged.

A city under elite control

The book groups Berne with Florence and other cities governed by a small number of families. This concentration of power is presented alongside wider restrictions on economic activity in pre-revolutionary Europe: guilds controlled urban trades, while feudal obligations burdened rural communities. Berne’s mention contributes to a portrait of a continent where political and economic opportunities remained constrained by entrenched elites.

Place in the revolutionary comparison

The discussion uses Berne as one example of the old order that the French Revolution and Napoleon helped overturn across much of Europe. Their reforms dismantled absolutist and feudal arrangements, abolished guilds, and imposed equality before the law. The book does not describe a particular reform in Berne; rather, the city’s significance lies in its place within this comparative account of family control and restricted participation.