The radical agitation of November 21, 1841 in Geneva forced the Representative Council to organize a committee charged with working out a new constitution for the canton. Rodolphe Töpffer compared this event to a 'catastrophe.' Auguste De la Rive persuaded him to be a part of the creation of a journal defending conservative ideas. Töpffer thus fought in the biweekly Courrier de Genève (January 1842 - March 1843) against the radicals and James Fazy. A part of his health would be lost in this combat. The main project that occupied him in 1842 and the first half of 1843 was the publication of his Voyages en zigzag by his Parisian cousin Jacques-Julien Dubochet; this enterprise entailed a continual exchange of passionate letters. The first issues of this work left the press on June 15, 1843, a few days before Töpffer left for Lavey to have his eyes and rheumatisms treated. In addition to all these projects, the author composed his Voyage à Venise in 1841 and organized the last excursion with his students in 1842, which would become the Voyage autour du Mont-Blanc. He also published autobiographical essays and wrote some articles for the Magasin pittoresque, a magazine that had just started in Paris.