3AUSSURE

S ALTS SURE s ALPINE

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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THONON TO TRENT, 1865

TRAVELS IN THE CENTRAL CAUCASUS
AND BASH AN, 1869

ITALIAN ALPS, 1875

THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS,
1896

ROUND KANGCHENJUNGA, 1903
HANNIBAL ONCE MORE, 1914
UNTO THE HILLS (verse), 1914

skrlfli hv exeunt- •-

THE LIFE OF

HORACE BENEDICT

17

DE SAUSSURE

BY

DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD, D.G.L.

WITH THE COLLABORATION OF

HENRY F. MONTAGNIER

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD

1920

All rights reserved

Q
143

PREFACE

THE following pages represent an endeavour to nil an obvious
gap in Alpine literature. After more than a century, Horace
Benedict de Saussure still awaits his biographer. The fact has
been proclaimed by two of his most distinguished successors in the
University (formerly the Academy) of Geneva, the late Professor
Ernest Naville and Professor Borgeaud. But their invitation has
failed hitherto to call forth any local response. I had hoped that
the pious task would be taken in hand by some Genevese man of
letters, who, with all the advantage of local and technical know-
ledge, would do full justice to the part played in life by his illus-
trious fellow-citizen as a man of science and a mountain explorer,
and would at the same time be able to appreciate the political
services he endeavoured to render to the Republic in a tragical
crisis in its history. It was this hope that first made me refrain
when, as long ago as 1878, Ruskin — from boyhood an eager reader
of the Voyages dans les Alpes — instigated by some articles on the
lesser pioneers of the period I had contributed to the Alpine
Journal (vol. ix.), proposed to me that I should write a life of
de Saussure. In later years I found a more practical and con-
clusive obstacle to the acceptance of the tempting suggestion in
the difficulty of collecting the material needful without researches
among the family papers and public archives preserved at Geneva
and Berne, which would have involved a prolonged stay in
Switzerland.

This difficulty has recently been overcome by the kindness
of Mr. H. F. Montagnier, an American gentleman known to his
colleagues of the Alpine Club both as an assiduous climber and an
accomplished student of the literature of mountain travel. Mr.
Montagnier, finding himself resident in Switzerland and debarred
from active service during the Great War, has at his own sugges-
tion employed his leisure in ransacking public libraries and obtain-
ing access to private collections in quest of material bearing on

vi LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

de Saussure's career, scientific, Alpine, political, and social. His
efforts have been singularly successful. I have had brought under
my eyes a mass of private correspondence, including letters between
de Saussure and his scientific contemporaries, letters from and to
his wife and nearest relations, and from his numerous friends in
England and Paris. Mr. Montagnier has further had access to de
Saussure's carefully kept journal of his Grand Tour of France,
Holland, and England, as well as to the rough notebooks of many
of his Alpine excursions, no account of which was included in the
published Voyages. All this for the most part new material has
been at my disposal. I have in addition made use, wherever pos-
sible, of the short biographical notices or eulogies of de Saussure
contributed by his contemporaries Senebier, Cuvier, de Candolle,
and more recently by Forbes, Wolf, Sainte-Beuve, Sayous, Topffer,
Favre, and Naville. Further, in order to realise to some extent
the background against which de Saussure's figure must be set,
I have turned over the pages of many local tracts and journals
of the latter half of the eighteenth century and of some of the
personal memoirs that throw light on the political and social
state of Geneva during the most eventful period in its history :
a period when not only Voltaire, Rousseau, and Bonnet, but
visitors such as Madame d'Epinay and Grimm, Madame de Stael
and Madame Necker, made it a centre of intellectual thought and
activity. On the events of the succeeding years, when the internal
quarrels of the Genevese reproduced on a small scale the miseries
and crimes of the French Revolution, and finally wrecked their
ancient Republic, several recently published volumes have thrown
fresh light. They help to prove that throughout those political
troubles de Saussure played a strenuous and persevering part —
a part that has not as yet been adequately recognised by local
historians. I have done my best to bring out the patriotic
aims of his action, as it presents itself when closely studied
in contemporary memoirs and documents from a point of
view free from all party bias. I have also given some
space to his energetic and persistent attitude as an educational
reformer, a capacity in which he showed a breadth of outlook
in advance of his time, and even, perhaps, of our own. In
short, I have tried to deal with de Saussure's lif e as a whole ;
to present him not only in the two capacities in which his fame is

PREFACE vii

best established as a geologist and Alpine explorer, but also as a
member of society, a citizen and a philosopher — in the wider
eighteenth -century acceptation of that word. It has been no
slight task to examine, set in order, and select from the mass of
manuscript material generously placed at my disposal. But it has
been lightened to me by the pleasure I have had in following de
Saussure as a traveller over ground every step of which has been
familiar to me for more than half a century, and through valleys and
villages, many of which, when I first knew them some sixty years
ago, had lost comparatively little of the primitive character and
charm vividly portrayed in the Voyages. It is a satisfaction to me
to have been able in this volume to pay in part, and to the best
of my ability, a debt which has been long owing to the memory
of de Saussure, not only from the mountaineers who, having con-
quered the Alps and the ' inhospitable Caucasus,' are now wrestling
with the Andes and the Himalaya, but from the great company
of men and women who annually find rest and refreshment of body
and soul in the mountains. I cannot hope to have surmounted
all the difficulties that have faced me. But in so far as I may
have succeeded in carrying out my intention, the credit will be
largely due to the indefatigable aid I have received from Mr.
Montagnier.

I have to thank several of my friends, and in particular
Professor Bonney, Professor Garwood, and Dr. Mill, for their help
with respect to the chapters devoted to de Saussure's scientific
work and achievements. To the published works of the Rev.
W. A. B. Coolidge and Dr. Diibi I have made frequent reference,
and the latter has further aided me with his friendly advice. Mrs.
Rathbone has kindly allowed me to reproduce the drawing of
Mont Blanc made by Mr. E. T. Compton for her father, my old
friend, the late C. E. Mathews.

Among the descendants of H. B. de Saussure and the members
of old Genevese families who have been good enough to place at
the disposal of my collaborator papers from their family archives,
or otherwise to assist in the preparation of this volume, I desire
specially to mention and thank :

M. Horace de Saussure (a great-grandson), and other members of
the de Saussure family in Geneva for allowing me to use the
journals and papers of H. B. de Saussure in their possession.

viii LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

M. F. Louis Perrot (a descendant through H. B. de Saussure's only
daughter, Mme. Necker-de Saussure), for placing at my disposal
letters of H. B. de Saussure to his wife, and miniatures.

Mme. Ferdinand de Saussure, for permission to reproduce several
family portraits in the Townhouse in the Rue de la Cite,
Geneva.

MM. Charles and Henry Turrettini (descendants), for permission
to reproduce the portrait of Mme. Turrettini-Boissier, and the
miniature of Mme. H. B. de Saussure.

M. H. Necker (a descendant through Mme. Necker-de Saussure),
for permission to look over the family correspondence in his
possession, and to inspect H. B. de Saussure's Greek diary.

Dr. Frederic Rilh'et, for allowing me the use of the papers of his
ancestor, Marc Auguste Pictet, de Saussure's friend and
successor.

Dr. H. Maillart-Gosse, for papers relating to the Col du Geant
found among the MSS. of Henri Albert Gosse.

Professor Charles Borgeaud, of the University of Geneva, for
unpublished material, suggestions, and advice.

M. Frederic Gardy, Director of the University Library of Geneva,
M. Theophile Dufour, Honorary Director of the Public Library
of Geneva, and the Directors of various other libraries, for
their unvarying courtesy.

MM. Paul Martin and Charles Roch, Archivist and Assistant-
Archivist of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, for an
immense amount of aid and advice in the task of recon-
stituting de Saussure's political career, verifying dates, etc.,
in the archives of Geneva.

M. Fernan Aubert, Keeper of the Manuscripts of the University
Library in Geneva, for kindly advice and aid in connection
with the splendid collection of manuscript material entrusted
to his care.

Miles. Danielle and Louise Plan, for much help in the difficult task
of deciphering and copying the vast amount of unpublished
material collected for this volume.

DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD.
September 1920.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAOB

I. FORERUNNERS ...... 1

II. GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . . .31

III. YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS . . . . .47

IV. THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) . . . . .91
V. ITALY ........ 121

vi. TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) . . . 142

VII. THE BUET ....... 175

VIII. MONT BLANC . . . . . . .197

IX. THE COL DU GEANT . . . . . .242

X. MONTE ROSA . . , . . . . 262

XI. DISCOURS PRELIMINAIRE, ETC. .... 286

XII. POLITICS AT GENEVA ...... 294

XIII. EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) . . .311

XIV. POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) .... 332
XV. THE LAST YEARS ...... 365

XVI. BONNET AND HALLER ..... 402

XVII. DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE . . 421

A NOTE ON THE METEOROLOGICAL WORK AND OBSERVATIONS ON
DEEP TEMPERATURES OF H. B. DE SAUSSURE, BY DR. H. R.
MILL ........ 457

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED WORKS AND SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

OF H. B. DE SAUSSURE ...... 467

INDEX . 469

ILLUSTRATIONS

H. B. DE SAUSSURE IN 1796
Sketch, by Saint-Ours.

THE GROUNDS AT GENTHOD
From a photograph.

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY .
From an old print.

M. AND MME. NICOLAS DE SAUSSURE

From portraits.

THE COURTYARD AT FRONTENEX .

From a photograph.

THE VILLA LULLIN AT GENTHOD .
From a photograph.

DR. TRONCHIN ....

From a portrait by Liotard.

H. B. DE SAUSSURE AT 18
MME. H. B. DE SAUSSURE AS A GIRL
From miniatures.

H. B. DE SAUSSURE ABOUT 1777 .
From a portrait by Jens Jitel.

MONT BLANC : SHOWING DE SAUSSURE'S ROUTE
From a drawing by E. T. Gompton.

THE ASCENT TO THE COL DU GEANT
From a contemporary print.

MLLE. ALBERTINE DE SAUSSURE .
MME. TRONCHIN, MME. TURRETTINI

From miniatures.

Frontispiece
Facing page

21

32

49
51
52

58

79
79

. 142
. 197
. 252

. 256
. 256

XI

xii LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Facing page

THE DESCENT FROM THE COL DU GEANT . . . .260

From a contemporary print.

THE TOWNHOUSE FROM THE CORRATERIE .... 336
From a photograph.

STAIRCASE AND INNER COURT OF THE TOWNHOUSE . . 346

From photographt.

A PROCESSION IN GENEVA IN 1789 .... 354

From a contemporary print.

H. B. DE SAUSSURE ...... 387

From a portrait by Saint-Ovrs.

NICOLAS THEODORE DE SAUSSURB. .... 395

From a portrait.

DOLOM1EU, AS SUCCESSOR TO DE SAUSSURE . . . 439

From a sketch by Saint- Ours.

MAPS

SKETCH-MAP OF DE SAUSSURE'S ALPINE TRAVELS . Inside front COVer

ROUTE- MAP OF MONT BLANC . . . Facing page 225

CHAPTER I
FORERUNNERS

IN 1740, the date of Horace Benedict de Saussure's birth, a new
period in European history was about to open. A few months
later the disputed succession arising on the death of the Emperor
Charles the Sixth was to involve the Continent in the confused
Wars of the Spanish Succession. England under her Hanoverian
kings could no longer hope to hold aloof from the quarrels of her
neighbours, and Walpole's thirty years of inaction were drawing
to their close. But the Swiss Cantons and the closely attached
Republic of Geneva enjoyed the privilege of small States and were
left outside the struggle, while for four years more England
remained at peace with France. In 1740 young Englishmen of
birth were still free to complete their education abroad, and to
combine with the Grand Tour a course of lectures in the Protestant
Academy on the shores of Lake Leman. There their studies were
not so engrossing but that they found time to play Shakespeare
to the Venerable Company of Pastors, and to reveal the existence
of Mont Blanc and its glaciers to a world which for the moment
found other things to think about.

The publication of Windham's and Martel's modest accounts
of their visits to the glaciers of Savoy was the seed from which,
after an interval of nearly twenty years, was to spring the career
of de Saussure. The fact is emphasised by his contemporary,
Senebier. But there were other local influences, and above all
the general atmosphere of the time, which contributed towards
converting a young Genevese patrician into the first scientific
explorer of the Alps. The latter half of the eighteenth century was
a period of movement, not only in politics, but in thought, in
literature, and in science. It witnessed in every direction the
break up of old barriers. Students came out of their libraries

A

2 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

and sought knowledge and inspiration from direct contact with
nature and with one another. Most of the leaders of that
generation have long since been commemorated by competent
writers. But of one of them, the subject of this volume, no
adequate Life has hitherto appeared. The lack points to a strange
remissness on the part of his fellow-citizens, for de Saussure
is the greatest man of science Geneva can boast, and material
was not lacking in the Public Library and private cabinets of
the town.

De Saussure has two principal claims to our grateful remem-
brance. He took a leading part in raising Geology to its high place
among the physical sciences ; it is mainly to him we owe that
we can count Alpine travel among the pleasures and consolations
of life. These surely are services that called for an attempt to
furnish some record of a career that has added largely to human
knowledge and still more to human happiness. Yet in the words
of his distinguished fellow-citizen, Professor Borgeaud, ' Horace
Benedict de Saussure still awaits his biographer.'

To the general reader of to-day de Saussure is known, if known
at all, as the conqueror of Mont Blanc. But even from this aspect
the part he played in creating the modern taste for Alpine scenery
and travel has been but imperfectly appreciated. It may help
my readers to realise the change in the attitude of men towards
mountains effected by the lad who, at the age of twenty, walked
to Chamonix and offered a reward to the first climber of Mont Blanc,
if, before telling the story of his life, I ask them to cast a glance
backwards, and in so doing to pay a brief tribute to certain of the
rare spirits who in earlier centuries found health and happiness
on the heights. I shall dwell more particularly on the age
immediately preceding de Saussure 's own, the period before his
personal influence had begun to make itself felt, the first sixty years
of the eighteenth century, in which the outstanding figures are
Rousseau and Voltaire in the Suisse Romande and Haller in
German Switzerland.

In the consciousness of simple peoples all waste places, whether
seas, deserts, or mountains, are apt to be objects of religious awe ;
they are regarded as portals to the unseen world. To the part
played by mountains in the legendary dealings of Jehovah with
his chosen people, the books of the Old Testament bear frequent

FORERUNNERS 3

witness,1 and did space allow it would be easy to show a similar
tendency among the nations of Farther Asia, the Chinese,
Japanese, Tibetans, and Indians. But it is in ancient Greece,
where primitive man, outgrowing his childhood with a rapidity
unknown elsewhere, attained at a bound to a unique power of
self-expression, that we recognise the best example of this primi-
tive instinct in its highest development. The human mind abhors
a void. It personifies the forces of nature, finding in solitudes
a home for the supernatural ; peopling the uninhabitable with
creatures of its own fancy. The Greek enthroned the synod of
the gods upon the broad heights and serried crags of Olympus ;
Pan held the wooded spurs of Parnassus ; Apollo and the Muses
its twin peaks. The woods and the streams were the haunt
of a crowd of nymphs and fauns.

Races further advanced in civilisation are found to take a
more practical and less poetical point of view. The characteristics
that impress them most in mountains are that they are difficult,
barren, inhospitable ; our own ancestors summed up their feelings
in a single word, ' horrid.' 2 This was the attitude habitually shown
in Roman literature. Not that there was any dislike or indiffer-
ence to all sorts of natural scenery in the days of Augustus, such
as there was in those of Louis Quatorze. The Roman citizen was
keenly interested in the features of the world he had conquered
and had to administer. Latin poetry is as crowded with place-
names as Milton's, and the singularly appropriate epithets as a
rule attached to each local feature show close and sympathetic
observation. But nature was valued chiefly as a background
and in so far as it contributed to human enjoyment ; it was shunned
from the moment when it began to add to the toils or dangers of
life. Virgil, Catullus, and the younger Pliny celebrated the
Italian lakes or the Etrurian highlands ; Horace his quiet nook in
the hills behind Tibur ; Ovid grew eloquent on the charms of his
birthplace, Sulmo, the remote hill-town surrounded by running

1 In the seventeenth century ' Bible Mountains ' were made the subject of
a long rhymed poem entitled ' Ein lustig ernsthaf t poetisch Gastmal und Gespr&ch
zweyer Bergen, namlich des Niesens und Stockhorns ' (Berne, 1606), by a worthy
Swiss pastor named Rebmann.

8 Horridus in Latin has a primary sense of ' bristling,' and is used of spears,
or woods, or crags. Narrow gorges in the neighbourhood of the Italian lakes
are locally known as Orridi.

4 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

brooks and green meadows in the heart of the tawny Apennine.
As a foreign critic has laid down, amcenitas, pleasantness, is the
keynote to Roman appreciation of scenery.1 We have no des-
cription of the Passage of the Alps or of the Pyrenees from a
picturesque point of view in Latin literature. Livy, Claudian,
and Silius Italicus, when dealing with Alpine campaigns, emphasise
only their disagreeable features.

In the days of the Empire, while the Roman Peace lasted and
Roman roads, with their elaborate system of inns and post houses,
were kept in repair, the Alps were no very serious obstacle. They
could be neglected, if not ignored. But when to the difficulties
of broken tracks were added the dangers from Saracenic marauders
or ordinary outlaws, they began to be looked on with extreme
disfavour. In the tenth century an old English monk, who had
doubtless suffered in crossing the Great St. Bernard on his way to
Rome, wrote of ' the bitter blasts of glaciers and the Pennine
army of evil spirits.' He used this quaint formula more than
once as a malediction against any breaker of the covenants con-
tained in the legal documents he was called on to draft.2 It
should be borne in mind that the mediaeval pilgrims to Rome
generally crossed the passes at the worst possible season, before
Easter, when the late avalanches are falling ; at the moment of
the year when spring is holding her first revel in the lowlands,
and her fingers have not yet spread the brilliant flower -carpet of
an Alpine summer over the higher pastures, where the brown bare
slopes are still flecked with ugly patches of half -melting snow.

Thus the third or modern period, that of ' the love of the
Alps,' was preceded by centuries during which the feeling for
natural scenery was restricted within narrow bounds, and only
such regions as could be put to human uses were brought within
the reach of human sympathies. In the case of the High Alps, the
discovery of such uses was very gradual. It came about mainly
in this wise. As the years went on and the old order broke up,
the Alpine valleys were found to contain retreats serviceable for
the cure both of souls and bodies. The Church took the lead in
familiarising men with mountains by showing that the solitudes

1 Friedlander, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Koms, vol. ii.
1 In some of the later documents a less-travelled scribe, puzzled by Pennine,
substituted for it pemici.

FORERUNNERS 5

they had dreaded as the haunts of demons might serve as refuges
from the turmoil and wickedness of the outer world. She set up
her houses not only on the outskirts, but in the very heart of the
Alps — not only at Oropa, Novalesa, and Varallo, St. Gall and
Einsiedeln, but also at Pesio, Chamonix, Engelberg, and Disentis,
on the bleak crests of the St. Bernard and St. Gotthard and in
the flowery wilderness of the Grande Chartreuse. The monks
collected simples, they attended the sick, and thus the studies of
botany and medicine went hand in hand. Glacier ice was found
to be useful in fevers and ' most pertinacious toothache,' as well
as to cool wine during the summer heats. The Alpine Baths
sprang into repute. In the course of the sixteenth century fifty
treatises dealing with twenty -one different resorts were published.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) mentions the Baths of Bormio,
and Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) visited them. The waters of
St. Moritz were said to supersede the juice of the grape, a quality
the innkeepers of the Engadine have, in recent years, been at no
pains to advertise. To Pfaffers wounded warriors went to be
healed ; and it was reckoned a rival to the Swiss Baden as a scene
of worldly dissipation. At the Baths of Loeche, as early as 1501,
there was a large inn built by the Bishop of Sion, to which the
patients were carried in panniers. Brigue, Tarasp, even remote
spots such as the Baths of Masino, in a side glen of Val Tellina,
Teniger Bad,1 in the Biindner Oberland, had their votaries.

These facts have to be kept in mind in any attempt to ascertain
the origin and growth of men's relations to the Alps . In the Middle
Ages they were no longer traversed only in haste by princes and
pilgrims and commercial travellers, to whom they were mainly
important as an inconvenient impediment on the roads to Italy.
By means of the Alpine monasteries and Baths men of leisure and
of such scientific interests as were alive at the time were brought
into daily contact with the great mountains . Hence there arose
— it is true, in a relatively limited number of cases — among men
of independent and active minds, a certain interest in the
physical aspects and features of the Alps. It manifested itself
differently according to the individual ; the impulse might be

1 Fifty years ago this Badhaus still retained its primitive simplicity. A
series of wooden troughs resembling coffins so arranged as to fit into one another,
head to feet, afforded opportunity for social bathing.

6 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

botanical, medical, or even artistic curiosity ; it might spring
from emotional feeling, or from a zest for climbing. It did not
necessarily involve any love of mountain scenery, but it prepared
the way for the growth of that sentiment. Juxtaposition revealed
or created affinity. It would be easy to multiply instances of these
exceptions to the temper of their age. But space forbids ; more-
over, the roll of early contributors to Alpine literature has been
called over of late years by several distinguished writers, some of
whom have also been members of the craft of mountaineers.

Foremost among the few forerunners to be mentioned here stands
the name of Leonardo da Vinci. The world recognises him as a
supreme artist. The literary or scientific critic knows him as one
of the keenest observers, one of the widest and deepest thinkers
of a great age, a Baconian before Bacon. Up to his day the
scholastic mind had been a closed chamber. The Humanists
remained in books. Physical science lives by original investiga-
tion and experiment, not in a library. In thought and method
Leonardo was a modern ; a mechanical inventor born out of his
time ; a philosopher who brushed aside all orthodox hindrances
and recognised a universe with constantly receding limits.

Leonardo's marvellously varied activities are characteristically
recorded, not in formal treatises, but in notebooks, sketches, and
maps. The multitude of his ideas, his constant habit of verifying
them by experiment, his passion for truth, stood in the way of
any hasty theorising. A system, being, as he held, nothing else
than the inclusion of particular truths in a higher and more
comprehensive truth, could only be the result and crown of a
life's work. In this respect, at least, we may recognise in him a
kindred spirit to the author of the Voyages dans les Alpes, who
left unwritten the volume which should have contained his
' Theory of the Earth.'

Leonardo's interest in the Alps was manifold. He abounds
in practical notes that might serve for a modern guide-book.
He reports that on the Grigna (the grey mountain opposite
Cadenabbia above the Lecco branch of the Lake of Como) are
' the biggest bare cliffs ' he knows ; that Val Sassina (a glen behind
it) is full of the 'cose fantastiche ' he delights in ; that there are
waterfalls seven hundred feet high on the way up to the Spliigen,
which ' it is a pleasure to see ' ; that at the head of the Val Tellina

FORERUNNERS 7

there are Baths (at Bormio) and a group of snowy summits (the
Ortler). He is not above chronicling for how many soldi a day
you can get good living in the village inns, or how in the mountains
behind Chiavenna the hunters pursue on hands and knees deer
(probably chamois), bouquetin, and 'terrible bears.' He was, as
his notes indicate,1 once at Geneva, where he mentions the river
Arve and the fair that was held in the suburb of St. Gervais at
midsummer. It is possible that he may have been consulted on
the project of new fortifications in hand about that date.

But by far the most interesting of his mountain excursions
was the ascent of a mountain he calls Mon Boso. For long it
remained unidentified, and it is to an Italian writer, Signer
Uzielli, that we owe the solving of the riddle. For I cannot but
hold that he has been successful where I and many others had gone
astray. The Italian Ordnance maps show that this name is still
in use for two of the tops of the lofty crest that stretches down
from Monte Rosa and divides Val Sesia from Val de Lys and the
Biellese.2 Leonardo, it may be objected, describes his Mon Boso
as part of the range that divides France from Italy, from the base
of which flow four rivers (identified elsewhere as the Rhine, Rhone,
Po, and Danube) to the four different points of the compass. But
at that date divisions in political geography were vague . Germany
was generally regarded as ending at the limits of the Swiss Cantons
— that is, about the St. Gotthard. The Valais, under its Bishop,
was connected more closely with Savoy than with the Empire.
Again, with respect to the four rivers named, we have to remember
that tributaries were often treated as sources, or rather that the
particular source now recognised was not always that accepted
by early geographers. Thus, for example, the Inn was reckoned
the main stream of the Danube.

There seems good reason to believe that Leonardo touched a
glacier. He reports finding in July ' a huge mass of ice formed

1 The notes are numbered 300, 1030, 1031, 1057, 1060 in Dr. Paul Richter's
Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (2nd vol., London, 1883). One of them is
attached to a sketch. Dr. Richter's translations of notes 300 and 1060 stand
in need of some correction.

2 On a map of Lombardy published in 1749 ' M. Boso Rosa ' (sic) is printed
north of the Val Sesia. This seems to indicate that the two names were either
confused or used indifferently. Rosa (Ruize, Roesa = Glacier) may have been
properly applied to the snows, Boso (Bosco ?) to the woods and pasturages below
the snow level.

a LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

by layers of hail.' This phrase may, no doubt, possibly be taken
to refer to a snowfield. But the words are much more applicable
to a glacier. It seems to me probable, taking into account
Leonardo's remarks about the dark hue of the sky and the bright-
ness of the sunshine, that he may have climbed to a height of
about ten thousand feet above Gressoney or Alagna, on the edge
of one of the glaciers of Monte Rosa.

Leonardo found deeper sources of interest in Alpine scenery.
These were not, as in the case of Petrarch, emotional ; they were
connected with physical rather than with psychical problems.
He was a geologist before geology. He looked to the mountains,
as no one did again for more than two hundred years, for a key to
the story of our globe. He attributed valley formation largely to
the action of rivers. He noted the distribution of rocks and the
frequent correspondence of the strata on the opposite flanks of
defiles. He recognised the true significance of fossils, and denied
the possibility of their being the records of a universal deluge,
which he boldly discredited. He realised that the plain of
Lombardy had once been a gulf of the Adriatic. He no doubt
invoked too frequently the agency of catastrophic floods, but in
this delusion he was to have many followers in future generations,
among them de Saussure himself. Finally, as an artist he was
quick to note the manifold effects of distance and atmosphere
displayed in mountain landscapes, the gathering of the storm
clouds below the naked peaks, the sharp definition of the ridges
on the skyline compared to the relative softness of the lower
slopes, seen through a denser atmosphere.

In the early literature of the Alps no name is more worthy to
be commemorated than that of Conrad Gesner of Zurich (1516-
1565). In a relatively short life Gesner combined an amazing
variety of intellectual activities ; he was in his many-sidedness a
typical figure of the Renaissance. Remembered to-day chiefly
as a botanist, he was also the author of the standard work of the
time on zoology. Cuvier described him as the creator of scientific
botany and the founder of zoology, ' a prodigy of industry, of
knowledge and sagacity.' Despite his labours in natural science,
Gesner was also active as a humanist and a man of letters ; he
edited classics ; he was the compiler of a universal catalogue of
authors and a volume containing an account of one hundred and

FORERUNNERS 9

thirty languages, ancient and modern. He also practised as a
doctor ! But the trait that gives him a place here and endears
him to all mountaineers is that he was the first man boldly to
profess a love of climbing for its own sake, and to enjoy and
depict in the modern spirit the incidents of Alpine travel.

Gesner died at the early age of forty-nine, before he had had
time to write the book on mountains which he tells us he had in
his mind. But it is clear from the letter written in 1541 to a
friend on The Admiration of Mountains? and from the preface to
the account of his ascent of one of the summits of Pilatus in
1550, that the seed he sowed, if it took long to spread abroad
and germinate,2 did not fall altogether on stony ground. Passages
from both have been of late frequently quoted, but they can
hardly be quoted too often. Here is an extract from the
former :

' I have determined, therefore,' writes Gesner to his friend, the
most learned Avienus (his real name was Vogel), ' as long as God grants
me life to climb every year several mountains, or at least one, in the
flower-season, partly for the sake of botanical studies, partly for
honest bodily exercise, and for my own satisfaction. For what, think
you, must be the pleasure, what the delight a mind properly attuned
feels when one gazes with admiration on the bulk of mountains and
raises one's head among the clouds ! The consciousness is in some
vague way impressed by the stupendous heights 3 and is drawn to the
contemplation of the Great Architect. Men of dull mind admire
nothing, sleep at home, never go out into the Theatre of the World,
hide in corners, like dormice, through the winter, never recognise
that the human race was sent into the world in order that through
its marvels it should learn to recognise some higher Power, the Supreme
Being Himself. . . . Let them roll like pigs in their mud ; let them
he stupefied by the pursuit of gain and illiberal studies. Students
of philosophy endeavour to view with the eyes both of their souls and
bodies the glories of this earthly Paradise, and amongst these they

1 Printed as a preface to his Libellus de Lacte. See Coolidge's J. Simler el les
Origines de FAlpinisme for a full translation and comments.

2 Simler, in the letter to the Bishop of Sion which introduces his History of
the Valais (1574), paraphrases the former, and a hundred and thirty-four years
later Scheuchzer started his Itinera Alpina (1708) with a long quotation from
The Admiration of Mountains.

3 Compare Tennyson's

' Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height.'

10 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

count by no means least the lofty and broken ridges of the mountains,
their inaccessible precipices, the vastness of the slopes that rise heaven-
ward, the steep crags, the shady woods.'

In the Pilatus pamphlet l Gesner is equally emphatic. Here
are a few sentences taken from several pages of a eulogy of
mountaineering, wholly modern in the note they strike despite
the trammels of a dead language to which Gesner succeeds in
giving singular vivacity. In one sentence he celebrates the
holiday humours often made a reproach by dyspeptic reviewers
to the writers of Alpine articles. In the next he is anticipating

Shelley's

* . . . deep music of the rolling world,
Kindling within the strings of the waved air
^Bolian modulations.'

But let him speak for himself :

' The agreeable conversation of companions, their quips and jests,
will give pleasure ; then the delicious songs of the birds in the woods,
and finally the very silence of the solitude. Here there can be no
sounds to vex or harass the ears, no city riots or noise, no human
strife. Here in the deep and solemn silence on the topmost crests of the
mountains you mil seem to yourself almost to catch the music, if such
there be, of the heavenly orbs.*

' Let us conclude, therefore, that mountain walks, taken with
friends, so long as the mind and body are capable of profiting by them,
and the weather is suitable, afford the greatest possible enjoyment
and the most delightful gratification to the senses. But there are no
beds, feather mattresses, pillows ! Oh you mollycoddle ! (mollem et
ejfeminatum hominem). Hay will serve for all ; hay soft and fragrant,
a heap of various grasses and fragrant flowers. Your sleep will be
the healthier and more refreshing. You will have hay for a pillow
to your head, for a mattress to your body, and you will even spread
it over you for a coverlet.'

May we not claim Gesner as the spiritual father of all Alpine
Clubs ? What would we give for him to have lived to tell us the

1 Descripiio Montis Fracti, 1551.

8 Auditum suaves sociorum sermones, joci, facetiaeque, oblectabunt: et
avicularum in silvis suavissimi cantus, et ipsum denique solitudinis silentium.
Nihil hie auribus raolestum esse potest, nihil importunum, nulli tumultus aut
etrepitus urbani, nullae hominum rixae. Hlc in profundo et religiose quodam
silentio ex pracaltis montium jugis, ipsam fere coelestium, si quae est, orbium
harmoniam exaudire tibi videberis.

FORERUNNERS 11

story of ' the many and much loftier mountains [than Pilatus] in
different parts of Switzerland which he had wandered amongst ' ?

We may note in passing that the legend of Pilatus supplies an
excellent illustration of the gradual decay of superstition. When
we first hear any mention of the mountain, it is to be told how the
ghost of the Roman Proconsul is doomed to sit every Good Friday
in his red robes of office on a rocky throne in the hollow below
the peaks. The magistrates of Lucerne forbade under pain of
imprisonment and fine any rash intrusion on a spirit who, if
disturbed, might visit the countryside with storms and floods.
At a later date we find special permits given to discreet pro-
fessors and students to visit the locality ' for scientific purposes.'
Finally, incredulous pleasure-seekers throw stones into the dark
tarn beneath whose waters the unquiet ghost once lurked ;
Gesner botanises on its forbidden margin — and nobody is the
worse.

Gesner was by no means solitary in his generation in his
enthusiasm for mountain travel. Hear his friend, Benoit Marti,
a Professor of Classics at Berne. In 1557 he wrote as follows of
the view from his native city :

' These are the mountains which we love and delight in, when we
gaze at them from the higher parts of our city and admire their mighty
peaks arid broken crags that threaten to fall at any moment. On
them we watch the risings and settings of the sun and seek signs of
the weather. In them we find food not only for our eyes and our
minds, but also for our bellies ' ;

and he goes on to enumerate with equal enthusiasm the dairy
products of the Oberland and the happy life of its population.
This worthy man proceeds :

' Who, then, would not admire, love, willingly visit, explore, and
climb places of this sort ? I assuredly should call those who are not
attracted by them mushrooms ; stupid, dull fishes ; slow tortoises '
(fungos ; stupidos, insulsos pisces ; lentasque chelonas).

Having forcibly vented his scorn by these varied comparisons, he
goes on :

' In truth, I cannot describe the sort of affection and natural love
by which I am drawn to the mountains, so that I am never happier
than on their crests, and there are no wanderings dearer to me than

12 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

those among them. . . . They are the Theatre of the Lord, displaying
monuments of past ages, such as precipices, rocks, peaks, chasms,
and never-melting glaciers.'

The foregoing are only a selection from many equally enthusiastic
outbursts.

Nor are their books the only evidence we have of the love
of mountains in these scholars of the Renaissance. The moun-
tains themselves bear, or once bore, records even more impressive.
Most Swiss travellers have climbed to the picturesque old castle
at Thun and seen, beyond the clear flood of the rushing Aar, the
green heights of the outposts of the Alps, the Stockhorn and the
Niesen. Our friend Marti, who scaled the former peak, records
that he found on the summit 'tituli, rhythmi, et proverbia
saxis inscripta una cum imaginibus et nominibus auctoram. Inter
alia cujusdam docti et montium amoenitate capti observare

licebat illud :

t t/-\ « » «

(J T<av opuv

' Inscriptions, rhymes, and old saws carved on the rocks with the
reflections (?) and names of their authors. Amongst others was notice-
able this record of some scholar captivated by the mountain charm,
" The love of mountains is best." ' l

One more example may be taken from the sixteenth century.
Josias Simler, a pupil and the biographer of Gesner, published
in 1574 a Description of Valais and the Alps. In a dedicatory
letter to the Bishop of Sion, which, after the fashion of the time,
serves as an introduction to the dainty little volume, he para-
phrases the passage I have quoted from his master's Admiration
of Mountains. Simler furnishes a great deal of topographical and
practical information, not only as to the high passes then in use,
but also on the precautions taken in crossing them. His readers
find themselves assisting at the birth of the craft of mountaineering
above the snow level. Simler describes in detail the passage of
the St. The'odule, mentioning the employment of guides and the
rope, the alpenstock, crampons, hoops for use on the feet on soft
snow, glass spectacles (vitrea conspicilia), precautions against

1 For further details see Coolidge's Josias Simler et les Origines de FAlpinisme,
a vast volume full of specimens of and particulars relating to the early Alpine
authors, and in particular to Conrad Gesner and Marti.

FORERUNNERS 13

frost-bite. The rope and dark spectacles were not adopted,
either at Chamonix or in the Oberland, until two hundred years
later. On the other hand, the ice-axe was a Chamonix invention,
a combination of the short axe used by crystal-hunters and the
alpenstock.1

The following quotation may serve to show that even at
Simler's date Alpine travellers with a taste for mountain scenery
were not unknown. He writes :

' In the entire district, and particularly among the very lofty
ranges by which the Valais is on all sides surrounded, wonders of
nature offer themselves to our view and admiration. With my
countrymen many of them have, through familiarity, lost their
attraction ; but foreigners are overcome at the mere sight of the
Alps, and regard as marvels what we through habit pay no atten-
tion to.'

After the flood-tide of the Renaissance there was a notable
reaction in Alpine literature. Religious wars and controversies
ravaged Europe and distracted men's minds. The invention of
printing proved far from an unmixed boon to the human intelli-
gence. When the new impulse had spent its force, men's minds
grew less active and less open to fresh, first-hand impressions.
Swiss professors — students of philosophy, they called themselves —
became more bookish, they took facts at second-hand from their
shelves instead of from the direct observation of nature. For
several generations there were no more Conrad Gesners.

The works published during the next hundred and fifty years
paid relatively small attention to the mountain region. Their
authors were more concerned with the towns than with the High
Alps, with political and social statistics than with natural history.
They had no difficulty in swallowing wonders — ' miracles of
nature ' — or in accepting childish explanations of the physical
problems that met their eyes . As late as Simler's day it was still
held open to argument whether crystals such as were found in the
Alpine crags might not be the result of intense and perpetual

1 The cause of the distinction is obvious. Necessity is the mother of inven-
tion. Natives of the Upper Valais who wanted to get to Val d'Aosta had to
cross a glacier pass : the peasants of Chamonix could go round Mont Blanc ;
but they needed a weapon to extract the crystals, the quest of which had de-
veloped into a local industry. (See Evelyn's Diary.)

14 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

frost.1 Marc Lescarbot, a sceptical Frenchman who in 1618
visited Switzerland and borrowed largely from Simler in his
poetical description of the Alps, attacked the vulgar belief in some
very dull lines :

' Ecrivains qui couchez dans vos doctes esprits
Le crystal etre glace, ou 1'avez vous appris ?
Si le crystal est tel, pourquoi dans les val!6es
Les Montagnes de glace en ce temps ecroulees
Fondent-elles au feu ? ' 2

— and so on for several pages . But the superstition was too strong
to be slain by so blunt a weapon as Lescarbot 's verse.

In a volume known from its illustrator as Merian's Topographia
Helvetiae, Rhaetiae, et Vallesiae (1642) we, for the first time, find
the Grindelwald Glacier carefully described and depicted. About
this date a certain number of Swiss students started in pursuit
of a glacier theory and wrote more or less dull treatises. But it
was not until the first decade of the eighteenth century that
glacial problems were taken up seriously. The next landmark
in Alpine literature is afforded by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer's
voluminous works. The best known are Beschreibung der Natur-
geschichten des Schweitzerlands, 1706-8, and the oddly named
">Ovpecn<f)oir'r}<t Helveticus sive Itinera Alpina tria(1708), republished
and enlarged to four volumes in 1723. Scheuchzer (1672-1733) was
by profession a doctor and by taste an energetic pedestrian. He
was also a Fellow of the Royal Society. His rambles extended
beyond the Bernese Oberland to Graubiinden, Glarus, Uri, and
the Valais. His thick volumes of Alpine travel present a strange
combination of topography, legend, and fiction with a sprinkling of
such scientific observation as was current in his day. He not only
called attention to the marvels of the Alps — he added to them !
Yet Scheuchzer was an esteemed writer and obtained full recog-
nition in the most learned circles. We owe to him some of the

1 Strabo, bk. xi. ch. 6, describes how the natives of the Western Caucasus
cross with the aid of snowshoes and toboggans its snows and glaciers. The phrase
used is ' Tac x^vas nal TOVS KpvcrraXAovf.' This is the only reference to glaciers as
distinct from snows that I remember in the classics. That in Greek the same
word serves for both ice and crystal may have helped to create the subsequent
confusion.

2 Tableau de la Suisse et autres allies de la France el hautes Allemagnes, par
Marc Lescarbot, advocat en Parleinent, 1618.

FORERUNNERS 15

first efforts at barometrical determinations of Alpine heights, the
first serious attempt to theorise about such subjects as glacier
motion, ice-caves, periodical winds, and intermittent springs.
Sir Isaac Newton accepted the dedication of one edition of his
work to our Royal Society, and the Fellows of that illustrious
body vied with one another in supplying funds for illustrations,
to which their names were severally attached. In so doing they,
perhaps unwittingly, lent their sanction to a feature that makes
Scheuchzer's travels still sought after — a series of weird images of
prodigious dragons sworn to have been seen, mostly after supper,
by worthy and veracious peasants near their homes. These,
however, were but an ornament to volumes which profess on their
title-page to describe and illustrate ' whatever of rare and note-
worthy in Nature, the Arts, or Antiquity is to be found in the
Helvetic and Rhaetian Alps.' The subjects Scheuchzer most
delights in — after dragons — are botany, Baths, pastoral industries,
and milking utensils.

Scheuchzer was not the first to introduce the Alps and their
glaciers to English men of science. In 1669 the Royal Society had
received a brief communication from a Mr. Muraltus of Berne,
' Concerning the Icy and Crystalline Mountains of Helvetia called
the Gletscher.' Four years later a ' worthy and obliging ' Monsieur
Justel of Paris sent a further and equally brief report, adding
that there was such another mountain near Geneva, and thus
indicating the existence of Mont Blanc.1

Writing in 1685, Gilbert Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salis-
bury, in a letter to Robert Boyle, reported that ' one Hill not far
from Geneva calTd Cursed, of which one-third is always covered
with snow, is three miles in perpendicular height according to
the observation of that incomparable mathematician and philo-
sopher, Nicolas Fatio de Duillier.' 2 In 1709 the Bishop's son,

1 See Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vols. xlix and c. The
reports are quoted in full in Coolidge's The Alps in Nature and History, and in
Alpine Journal, vol. xiv. p. 319-20.

2 N. F. de Duillier (1664-1753). There was much doubt and confusion as to
the height of the Swiss peaks. The Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn were held
the highest in the Oberland, but the St. Gotthard was thought by some to be
still higher, and there was an old legend that Pizzo Stella in Graubiinden was
the highest of all. It figures conspicuously in the corner of Scheuchzer's four-
sheet map of Switzerland (1712), a copy of which is hung in the Royal Geogra-
phical Society's House at Lowther Lodge.

16 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

William Burnet, sent to Sir Hans Sloane, the President of the
Royal Society, a further description of the Grindelwald Glaciers,
and even made an attempt to propound a glacier theory.

Scheuchzer had described his travels both in fluent Latin
and in German. His successor, Gottlieb Sigmund Griiner, wrote
only in German, in itself a significant fact. Unlike Scheuchzer,
he was more of a compiler than a traveller. One of his contem-
poraries calls him a ' chamber philosopher,' and de Saussure
mentions that his bad health and ' certain physical defects '
compelled him to rely mainly on the reports of others. He
employed a number of local correspondents, on whom he depended
for his matter and his illustrations ; as to the latter, the artists
appear to have been far from conscientious.

Griiner was a practical book-maker and he wrote to meet a
need which he was the first to recognise. There was, he saw, a
public eager to read about the mountains and their natural
wonders ; a demand which the many editions of the old ' D61ices
de la Suisse ' of the first half of the eighteenth century (1714 and
later), dealing mainly with the towns and humanity, had failed to
satisfy.1 His own countrymen, and the foreign Milords and Barons
who were now making pilgrimage to the Glaciers of Grindelwald and
Chamonix, wanted something better. These visitors were yearly
growing more numerous. The inn which the pastor had started
at Grindelwald was a profitable concern, and as early as 1748 its
goodwill had been transferred to a peasant landlord. The Due
de la Rochefoucauld had in 1762 followed Pococke and Windham
to Chamonix. The ' Glaciers de Faucigny ' could hardly be left
out, though the only picture of them procurable was certainly
not according to nature, and had subsequently to be apologised
for. Griiner, in writing to Wyttenbach, attributes it to Nicolas
Fatio, who must therefore be reckoned among the early visitors
to Chamonix.

Griiner sets forth his purpose in a modest preface to the first
edition of his work. He begins by asking those who know the

1 It ia true that the author of an edition of 1730 is at pains to argue that,
despite obvious objections, mountains as affording pasturage, game, mines,
good frontiers, and ' a thousand natural rarities and curiosities,' may claim to
be counted among the attractions of his country. But he proceeds to give
thirty-two pages to dragons and only a passing reference to glaciers, with a plate
of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier.

FORERUNNERS 17

Alps for further contributions that may help to give his volumes
greater completeness in future issues. He proposes first to
describe the Alps in history and nature, and then to deal with
the physical problems they suggest, and in doing so to aim at
plain description rather than fine writing — at exactitude rather
than novelty.

The late Professor Bernard Studer, a very competent critic,
passes an impartial judgment on the Eisgebirge.1

' Griiner,' he writes, ' by his industry has done good service to
Natural Science in Switzerland. But, since his information was
mostly indirect, gathered from correspondence or by word of mouth,
and his own knowledge in Physics and the Natural Sciences was super-
ficial, no thorough treatment of his subject must be looked for. Still
his was the first successful attempt to produce a comprehensive survey
of the Swiss Alps.'

Studer goes on to praise Griiner's mineralogical chapters and
to refer to his Theory of Glacier Motion, borrowed from two
earlier authors, Hottinger and Altmann.2 Griiner alleged that
the advance of the ice was caused by its weight rather than, as
had been suggested, by expansion due to summer warmth.
Griiner's generalisations, when he went beyond local details, were
apt to be unlucky ; for instance, he imagined a continuous sea
of ice extending from the Rheinwaldhorn to Mont Blanc. The
topography of the Aar Glaciers was too much for him. Even
nearer home he is badly at fault. The Susten Pass he describes
as too steep for travellers with weak heads ; the Wengern Alp as
dangerous. Lack of method and critical power in the author
result in his failure to weld his material so as to produce a satis-
factory work. But such as they were, his volumes held the field.
Their success encouraged Griiner to produce in 1778 (anony-

1 Physische Geographic der Sckweiz, B. Studer, Bern, Zurich, 1863. B. Studer
was a friend of Professor Forbes, who dedicated to him his work on the Alps.

2 J. H. Hottinger' s tract is entitled Montium Glacialium Hdveticorum De-
scriptio. Ephemerid. Mediate, Physicae, Germanicae Academiae naturae curio-
sorum, Decuriae in., Annus nonus et decimus, Norimburgae, 1706.

J. G. Altmann, in 1751, published, at Zurich, a work with the ambitious title,
Versuch einer historischen und physischen Beschreibung der Helvetischen Eisberge.
The original portion of it consists of the description of a visit to Grindelwald, of
which a recognisable engraving is supplied. He considers the glaciers to be the
outflow of a central ice-sea. His ideas as to the structure of the ice and the
conditions of its movement are very crude.

B

18 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

mously, with the false imprint 'London') a popular edition
under a new title : Reisen durch die merkwurdigsten Gegenden
Helvetiena, in two volumes. It was obviously aimed to catch the
attention and serve the needs of the already rising tide of
visitors to the glaciers.

In this aim Griiner was, on the whole, successful. His work
had no rivals. The best tribute to its position is the fact that de
Saussure set himself to learn German, in order to be able to read
it.1 In the first volume of the Voyages he refers to Griiner in
characteristically generous terms :

' Many Swiss Naturalists or Geographers, Merian, Simler, Hottinger,
Scheuchzer, and others, have dealt with glaciers. But no one has
treated the subject more thoroughly than Monsieur G. S. Griiner.
The descriptions which are the result of the author's own observa-
tions are very accurate and satisfactory, but as he was unable himself
to visit so many mountains he has been obliged to avail himself of
the help of others. . . . M. Griiner's third volume is a treatise on the
origin, nature, and differences of glaciers. In this the author has
exhausted his subject as far as a physical subject can be said to be
exhaustible, and although his opinion may not be shared on all points
by physical inquirers, it would be difficult, as a whole, to give a better
account of the various phenomena presented by these frozen masses.
... As to the engraving which pretends to represent the Glaciers of
Faucigny, I do not know who sent it to Monsieur Griiner, but it
is certain that it bears no resemblance whatever to its alleged
subject.'

These words were published in 1779, the year following the
appearance of the popular edition of Griiner's work, and also of
his death. It is, I think, more than probable that the knowledge
of the forthcoming appearance of the first volume of the Voyages
incited Griiner to reissue his own book.

The typical specimens I have cited from what we may call
pre -alpine literature must suffice for my present purpose. They
may serve to show the nature of the material bearing on the
study to which he proposed to devote his life which lay at de
Saussure's hands, and also to indicate the trend of men's minds

1 Griiner's work was not translated into French until 1770. Writing to
Wyttenbach he describes the translation as very faulty. In 1774 he was pro-
posing to publish a description of the Aletsch Glacier. De Saussure never men-
tions this greatest of Alpine ice-streams.

FORERUNNERS 19

in the century and country in which he was born towards the
natural sciences connected with the history of the earth.

We have seen how the enthusiasm of the old Renaissance
scholars had died out in the denser atmosphere of the succeeding
centuries, how their successors at Berne and Zurich had lived more
in their libraries than on the mountains. The Reformation had,
among its consequences, occupied men's minds with dogmatic
disputes to the detriment of the natural sciences. Theology and
dogma were doing their best to hinder the birth or check the
growth of inconvenient rivals, the Logics that attempt to deal with
ascertained facts. ' New Presbyter is but old priest writ large '—
an ecclesiastical government naturally inclines to despotism, and
Calvin's at Geneva was no exception to the rule. The control
of the Venerable Company lay like a blight on many forms of
independent mental activity. It was not until towards the close
of the seventeenth century, when its tyranny had been relaxed,
that the Republic produced any names that acquired in literature
or physical science a more than local reputation. The chief
agents in this great change, the admission of free inquiry and
toleration in the place of dogma and persecution, were the Cartesian
philosopher and magistrate, Jean Robert Chouet (1642-1731),
and the liberal-minded pastor, Jean Alphonse Turrettini (1671-
1737). Both were active champions of liberty, but of the two
Turrettini was the more influential. His persuasive eloquence
resounded in the pulpits of Geneva and was listened to with
willing ears, and, if his dream of uniting the Protestant churches
in a common bond remains still unfulfilled, he was successful in
freeing his own city from the grosser forms of intellectual bondage
in which it had been too long held. In the clerical oligarchy set
up by Calvin he introduced the principle of individual liberty of
mind of the English Puritans, and thus sowed the seeds which
resulted in Rousseau and the Revolution of 1789.1

The results of this widening of the intellectual horizon were
not, however, immediately manifest among the professors and
the students of the Geneva Academy, at any rate in the field
of physical research. Apart from his uncle Bonnet, it was to
German Switzerland, to Albrecht von Haller and Griiner, that

"- 1 See Professor Borgeaud's review of Vallette's J. J. Rousseau Oenevois,
vol. viii, Annales de la Societe J. J. Rousseau, Geneve.

20 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SATTSSURE

the young de Saussure had chiefly to look for encouragement
and guidance in his special field of investigation.

It is not, I think, difficult to recognise further and adequate
reasons for the relative backwardness of the Genevese in such
branches of physical inquiry as related to their natural environ-
ment. The Swiss Cantons include many mountain districts
united to the lowlands by administrative and other bonds which
bring the dwellers in the towns into frequent contact with their
neighbours of the highlands. But independent Geneva, enclosed
in its narrow plot on the banks of the Rhone, was further encom-
passed by the domains of a dangerous neighbour, the Duke of
Savoy. Its territory was less than a hundred square miles.
Its inhabitants had no practical links with the country districts
that lay beyond a short walk from their walls. Moreover, their
social life and intellectual energies, so far as these had escaped
from the rigid control of Calvinism, were profoundly influenced
by those of the nation whose language they shared, their great
neighbour France. And for a hundred years before the middle
of the eighteenth century, French taste and intellect had turned
their backs on natural scenery and research.

At this date the old towns of France had not yet grown into
cities, they had no manufacturing suburbs, their inhabitants felt
little longing to escape from their surroundings into a purer air.
Persons of wealth and fashion, when they moved, took, as far as
possible, their environment and atmosphere with them. Their
country homes, if of recent date, were Palladian mansions with
pillared porticoes and balustrades. When they were not con-
versing in salons, they were promenading on terraces and lawns,
among elaborate parterres , and down interminable avenues . They
were incapable of taking a rural walk or appreciating a woodland
glade, unless, indeed, they had first dressed up as shepherds and
shepherdesses. They had little indulgence for nature unadorned,
except possibly in the form of a slender cascade. They preferred
her made up and tricked out like a court lady by some gardener
or architect. The feeling as to scenery reflected a hundred years
earlier in the pages of Evelyn's Diary was still predominant up
to the middle of the eighteenth century. For him the Forest of
Fontainebleau was a confusion of ' hideous rocks ' and ' gloomy
precipices.' He was only happy in the walled gardens, among the

FORERUNNERS 21

paved walks, fountains, and ' perspectives/ of which he saw and
described so many.

The generation of Louis Quinze lived physically and morally
in an artificial world. Self-conscious, sentimental, engrossed in
their own social relations, full of personal emotions, which, whether
real or affected, they were at equal pains to cultivate, they had
no eyes for the storm that was already looming on the near
horizon.

It was from England that one of the earliest indications of the
change of feeling that, if still inarticulate,1 was already in the air,
was to come. Formal gardening was among the first formalities
to be called in question. Pope and Addison were active in the
attack on an art the main object of which seemed to be to thwart
and contradict nature at every turn. The founders of a new school,
calling themselves landscape gardeners, responded to their appeal.
Kent and ' Capability Brown,' followed by Repton, led the return
to rusticity. They endeavoured to restore or improve nature,
but on her own lines. They removed the marks of man's labour
by turning fields into parks, hedgerows into ornamental clumps,
boundary walls into sunk ha-has, and straight terraces into ser-
pentine walks. The new taste soon extended to the Continent ;
the grounds of the Trianon remain as one of its more conspicuous
examples. De Saussure, on the lake -shore at Genthod, imitated
on a small scale the parks and gardens he had admired in Holland
and Yorkshire, while a contemporary print shows that Bonnet's
demesne on the hill above remained a specimen of the old style.
Rousseau eagerly fell in with a change which fitted so well his
mental attitude, and his description of Julie's garden at Clarens
proves him a warm advocate of the English style as against French
and Italian formality. We recognise that we are on the way to
the mock ruins, artificial cascades, and shrubberies of the famous
garden at Ermenonville.

Rousseau himself was doubtless a powerful agent in this
peaceable revolution, but he was far from being its originator.
Such changes are not the works of any one man. From age to age
tastes differ and fashion alters, whether in art, architecture, or
gardens. This absence of any permanent standard results partly

1 See in Mr. Gosse's recent volume. Some Diversions of a Man of Letters, the
chapter on ' The Message of the Wartons.'

22 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

from the differing material and social conditions of the times,
partly from the desire, as old as Homer, of each generation to be
better than, or at least other than its predecessor. I have dwelt on
the revolution in gardening because it was a preliminary symptom
of the far greater change that was to follow, the passion for wild
scenery. But it was some time before the taste for artificial
rusticity developed into a love of nature in her sterner moods,
even in a region where she displays them so variously as on
the shores of Lake Leman and in the highlands of Savoy. The
Genevese still employed French architects to build them classical
villas, and laid out formal frog-ponds in front of Mont
Blanc !

How was the greater change brought about ? How was it
that first rural and pastoral and then mountain landscape grew
into popular favour, that the romantic succeeded to the classical ?
I have already alluded, in speaking of landscape gardening, to the
part played by Rousseau. Jean Jacques was one of the many
voices which heralded a return to nature that was already more
or less in the air. He was by far the most eloquent and vibrant
among them. But as regards mountains, his appeal was not the
first, and it had very definite limits. It had been preceded in
Switzerland by another, larger in its scope, which at the time met
with extraordinary success. Albrecht von Haller's poem on the
Alps, first published at Berne in 1732, obtained at once a European
reputation.1 Haller, as I shall point out in a later chapter, was
remarkable in many ways, but his supreme claim to the respect
of all lovers of the Alps is that it was his influence that encouraged
and inspired a young Genevese professor to make the mountains
the study of his life. The conqueror of Mont Blanc looked up
to the Bernese man of science as his beloved master. But if
Haller was a primary agent and precursor in establishing a new
relation between men and mountains, the founder of the cult
was de Saussure. It was mainly through his practical example
and his writings that the High Alps were brought within the scope
of the new interest in natural scenery, that they won for themselves
a place, grudgingly yielded at first, on men's lips as ' Beautiful
Horrors,' and then came to be hailed by poets as the Palaces of
Nature, and accepted by the European public as the Playground of
1 Verauch Schweizerischer Oedichte. Bern, 1732.

FORERUNNERS 23

Europe. De Saussure was the true author of our modern
passion for Alpine scenery, as well as the first systematic
Alpine explorer.

In making this claim I recognise that I am running counter
to the common disposition to credit the creation of the love of
the Alps to Rousseau, a tradition resting to a great extent on
the authority of Chateaubriand, who disliked Rousseau and
the Alps equally, and was delighted to couple them in his
invective.

There were, no doubt, mental links between the author of
the Nouvelle Heloise and the climber of Mont Blanc in their
common appreciation of the virtues of the Alpine peasantry ; and
in such phrases of de Saussure as ' Luxury and the love of money
are the tomb of liberty ' we may seem to catch an echo of
Rousseau's eloquence. But with respect to natural scenery, de
Saussure 's appreciation was independent of and very much wider
in scope than that of the guest of Les Charmettes.

In an attempt to estimate the work of de Saussure it seems
to me essential to reassert this fact, and it is the more essential
since one so eminent, both as a critic and a climber, as Leslie
Stephen has given his support to the popular tradition. In one
of the opening chapters of The Playground of Europe (1871) he
wrote as follows :

' If Rousseau were tried for the crime of setting up mountains as
objects of human worship he would be convicted by any impartial
jury. He was aided, it is true, by accomplices, none of whom were
more conspicuous than de Saussure.'

Such a verdict, I venture to say, could only be returned by
a jury which had not heard the competent witnesses, or had been
wrongly charged from the Bench. Stephen goes on to call
Rousseau ' The Columbus of the Alps, or the Luther of the new
creed of Mountain Worship.' These comparisons are picturesque,
but, I venture to think, unsustainable.

In appealing against them I shall call as witnesses critics of
the highest rank. Lord Morley has put the case fairly enough.
Rousseau's attitude towards nature, he tells us, was closely
connected with his politics and philosophy ; his praise of rustic
or pastoral landscape was in great part inspired by his desire to

24 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUEE

contrast a complicated and corrupt civilisation with an idealised
simple life. But in order to do this, writes Lord Morley, he
did not have recourse to those aspects of nature ' which the poet
of " Manfred " forced into an imputed sympathy with his own
rebellion. Rousseau never moralised appalling landscapes ; the
Alpine wastes had no attraction for him.' Again, 'The humble
heights of the Jura and the lovely points of the valley of
Chambery sufficed to give him all the pleasure of which he was
capable.' l

Sainte-Beuve has defined Rousseau's sphere of influence in
the same sense with admirable clearness and more minuteness.
There are, he points out,2 three zones of Alpine scenery — the
lowlands or foothills, ending at the limit of the walnuts ; the
middle zone, the region of mountain valleys, villages, and pine-
forests ; and the upper zone, that of the high summer pastures
and the eternal snows. 'Jean Jacques' — I quote — 'knew only
the lowlands, the lakes, the gay cottages, and orchards. Les
Charmettes remains his ideal. He never explored, or described
in detail, even the middle zone. . . . The highest regions were in
a sense the discovery and the conquest of the illustrious man of
science, de Saussure.' The great French critic's verdict is definite
and seems to me decisive . But it may be well to add the testimony
of at least one local expert, Professor Philippe Godet of Neuchatel,
an eminent historian of the literature of Romance Switzerland,
whose work has been crowned by the French Academic des
Lettres.3

' Rousseau,' he writes, ' had made his mark as a man of letters
and a describer of scenery, but in his description he had never risen
above the middle zone of our country. With de Saussure, the point
of view is enlarged — the High Alps become the central object of his
studies ; he creates Alpine literature ; before him men talked about
the sublime horrors of regions of which they knew nothing. From the
date of the publication of his Voyages the horrors disappeared, the
sublimity was better appreciated, descriptions in volumes inspired
by the Alps became as numerous as the pictures of which their land-
scapes furnished the motives. By climbing Mont Blanc the Genevese

1 Life of Rousseau, vol. ii. pp. 77-9.

2 See article on Topffer in his Causeries du Lundi, vol. viii.
8 Histoire Littiraire de la Suisse Franfaise, Paris, 1890.

FORERUNNERS 25

writer opened a new path to the human spirit ; a domain of which
Science, Art, and Letters are still far from having exhausted the
riches.'

Again the late M. Valletta, who, in his interesting volume,
Rousseau Genevois (1911), is by no means disposed to minimise any
claim that can fairly be put forward for his client, practically
acquiesces in the view here suggested. He writes, ' To tell the
truth, it is to the middle region of the mountains, among the
buttresses of the Alpine giants, that St. Preux keeps. He pre-
served a respectful distance from the high rocky peaks which he
esteems inaccessible, and the glaciers from which the crags
separated him. Still he was here, too, a forerunner ; he prepared
and made ready the way for Bourrit and de Saussure.'

Contemporary testimony as to the local influence of de
Saussure 's example and teaching on his fellow-townsmen is
afforded by Beckford, the creator of Font Hill. He visited
Geneva in 1782, and on climbing the Saleve found its crest
frequented by holiday-makers, on whom he spends a page of
mild sarcasm.

' The rage for natural history has so victoriously pervaded all
ranks of people in the Republic that almost every day in the week
sends forth some of its journeymen to ransack the neighbouring cliffs
and transfix unhappy butterflies. Silversmiths and toymen, possessed
by the spirit of Deluc's and de Saussure's lucubrations, throw away
the light implements of their trade and sally forth with hammer and
pickaxe to pound pebbles and knock at the door of every mountain
for information. Instead of furbishing up teaspoons and sorting
watchchains they talk of nothing but quartz and feldspath. One
flourishes away on the durability of granite, whilst another treats
calcareous rock with contempt ; but, as human pleasures are seldom
perfect, permanent acrimonious disputes too frequently interrupt the
calm of the philosophic excursion. Squabbles arise about the genus
of a coralite, or concerning the element which has borne the greatest
part in the convulsion of nature. The advocate of water too often
sneaks home to his wife with a tattered collar, whilst the partisan of
fire and volcanoes lies vanquished in a puddle or is winding up the
clue of his argument in a solitary ditch. I cannot help thinking so
diffused a taste for fossils and petrifactions is of no very particular
benefit to the artisans of Geneva, and that watches would go as well
though their makers were less enlightened.'

26 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Beside this may be put the testimony of Mademoiselle Rosalie
de Constant, a friend of Mme. de StaSl. Referring to the eighties
of the eighteenth century, she wrote :

' It was only about this period that the gigantic nature by which
we are surrounded began to be admired. Travellers from a distance
came to Geneva in order to make the trip to Chamonix, which had
only recently become known. Nothing can show more clearly the
influence of faehion. It might seem that the great immovable moun-
tains had only become noticeable since the observations and travels
of Monsieur de Saussure.' 1

A further and striking evidence of the growth during this
decade of Alpine travel may be found in the long list of works
and prints dealing with Switzerland appended to Ebel's guide-
book (1793).

If we turn to the pages of the Alpine travellers who were
Rousseau's contemporaries to ascertain to what extent they were
influenced by his writings, we find that Bourrit's passion for the
Alps took possession of him in 1757, some years before the
publication of the Nouvelle Helo'ise. The typical representative
of the British tourist in Switzerland in Rousseau's and de
Saussure 's day was Archdeacon Coxe. Coxe, whose book went
through several editions, and was translated into French by
Ramond, the well-known Pyrenean traveller, expressly states
that the object of his journey was to study the glaciers of which
he had read so much. He adds a list of the authors he has con-
sulted, which includes most of the principal works of the Swiss
naturalists. To ' anecdotes of Haller ' Coxe devotes a whole
chapter. It was only at the end of his tour in 1776, when he
reached Lausanne, that he borrowed a copy of the Nouvelle
Helo'ise from a circulating library and went over its sites. It
must be obvious, I think, to any attentive reader of his work
that the worthy Archdeacon was first led to the mountains by
the reports about the glaciers, and that he was in no sense a pupil
and follower of Rousseau.

Finally, let me turn to passages in Rousseau's own writings
which have been cited in proof of his taste for mountain scenery.

1 Sec Rosalie de Constant, sa famille et sea amis, par Mile. Lucie Achard,
Geneve, 1902.

FORERUNNERS 27

It is quite true that he professed in youth 1 a liking for ' torrents,
rocks, firs, dark woods, mountains, rough up-and-down -hill roads
with precipices at hand to make me tremble.' But read the
context ; the precipices he trembled at were those he could admire
from a high road protected by a safe parapet, and the enjoyments
he got from them were feeling dizzy and the puerile delight of
dropping stones and watching them shiver before they reached the
torrent below. He once penetrated as far as the Upper Valais.
There he admired the cloud effects, enjoyed the qualities of the
mountain air, and prophesied the air -cure . But he was far more
interested in the Alpine peasantry than in the Alps themselves.
There is nothing to prove that he ever noticed a snow-peak
or admired a glacier. His descriptions of the details of the
mountain landscape remain singularly vague and formless. So
vague indeed are they that among the crowd of commentators on
Rousseau's writings no one has yet ventured to identify the exact
region of his rambles. Yet it seems to me a key is supplied by
Bourrit in his Description des Alpes Pennine^ et EMtiennes (1782).
He tells us how, after visiting Val d'Anniviers, he wandered
on to a group of villages where he met with hospitality similar
to that which had previously been shown to Rousseau by their
inhabitants. The villages he names, Oberemps, Unteremps,
Unterbeck, and Eggen (Bourrit prints Equen), can all be found on
the Siegfried Map — the two first above Turtmann, west of the
Turtmann Thai, the others on the broad brows that overlook the
Rhone valley between Turtmann and Visp.2

It is significant that, despite his many opportunities, Rousseau
never cared to make a second pleasure trip to the mountains, or

1 Confessions, part i. book iv., near end.

2 At Geneva, where Rousseau's memory is still kept alive by a society named
after him, students whose opinion carries just weight are inclined altogether
to set aside the statement of Bourrit quoted above. The grounds, as I under-
stand, alleged for this attitude are the lack of any direct evidence in Rousseau's
writings as to the locality which afforded him material for the description of
Alpine landscape and peasantry he puts into St. Preux's letter, and the habitual
untrustworthiness of Bourrit.

It is, doubtless, true that the only positive evidence in the case is Bourrit's
assertion. But in my opinion considerable indirect support for it may be derived
both from known facts and from Rousseau's language. If we turn to the Con-
fessions (part ii. book viii.) we learn, first, that the descriptions in the Nouvelle
Hiloise were framed on his own experience ; we learn further that Rousseau crossed
the Simplon on his return from Venice in 1744, that the district he described was

28 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

to visit the glaciers. In 1754 he sailed round the Lake of Geneva
with his friend, old Deluc, a radical watchmaker, and his two
talented sons, and in the same year the young Delucs made the
first of their excursions into the Alps of Savoy.1 But it did not
occur to Rousseau, though he boasts himself a stout pedestrian,
to join his friends in any of their Alpine rambles. In all his life
he never crossed any Alpine pass, except the Mont Cenis and
Simplon on his way to and from Italy, and these only of necessity.
Of their scenery he says nothing.

It may help me to emphasise Rousseau's point of view as I
conceive it, if I compare it with that of some of his contemporaries
in our own country. We find parallel instances of the period of
transition in English literature. Take Cowper : to the English
poet, we are told, ' everything he saw in the fields was an object
of interest, he never in all his life let slip the opportunity of
breathing fresh air and conversing with nature.' But when we
look further into his letters it has to be admitted that the dweller
in the fens found the scenery of Sussex oppressively mountainous !
Still, he gave voice to a fresh tendency in the mind of his generation,
he took the lead in setting an example of close and sympathetic
natural observation. He was related to Wordsworth in the same
sense that Rousseau was related to Byron and Shelley. Other
contemporary writers show more or less trace of the coming
change. Addison was but slightly touched by it, yet he antici-
pated Rousseau in appreciating to a certain extent the wilder
aspects of the Lake of Geneva. He found the ' near prospect of
the Alps from Thonon ' affected his mind with an ' agreeable kind

in Haut Valais, and that no highway of traffic passed through it (Nouvdle Heloise,
part i. letter 23). Now the villages mentioned by Bourrit are within the
limits of the Haut Valais, and they lie close to, but well off, the Simplon road.
Another point worthy of note is that, being near the linguistic frontier, French
is understood by at least a portion of their population, and to Rousseau — as well
as to Bourrit — this would be of importance in any attempts at social inter-
course. Further, I find in the Jahrbuch of the Schweizer Alpenklub (vol. lii.
p. 97) a description of these villages and the primitive customs they still
retain, that corresponds very exactly with Rousseau's.

1 Byron, in his letters (April 9, 1817), alludes to the trip. At that date
the elder son, J. A. Deluc, F.R.S., then a nonagenarian, was living at or near
Windsor. Byron had heard from his sister that the old man, having had ' The
Prisoner of Chillon ' read to him, recalled his trip with Rousseau and recognised
the correctness of the descriptions in the poem. See also the Confessions for
an account of the voyage, part ii. book 8.

FORERUNNERS 29

of horror.' Gray was far more seriously impressed. After a
visit to Scotland in 1765 he bursts out, ' The mountains are
ecstatic, and ought to be visited in pilgrimage once a year. None
but these monstrous children of God know how to join so much
beauty with so much horror.' But a quarter of a century earlier
(in 1739) his letters to his mother and West show him to have
been in love with ' cliffs, precipices, and torrents,' and if he shud-
dered on the Mont Cenis we must recollect that he crossed it in
November, and even then, despite the wintry gloom, found ' some-
thing fine ' in the scenery. Mr. Gosse, in his Life of Gray, tells
us, ' In his youth he was the man who first looked on the sublimities
of Alpine scenery with pleasure, and in old age he was to be the
pioneer of Wordsworth in opening the eyes of Englishmen to the
exquisite landscapes of Cumberland.' 1 Cowper and Gray were
sensitive minds, leaders of their generation. But the attitude
of a lady like Mrs. Thrale shows how much the old terror of
rough places was giving way. She expresses herself as pleased
with the Mont Cenis and delighted with the scenery of the asceht
to the Brenner through the Trentino.

The love of mountains, which Conrad Gesner had planted in
Switzerland and Haller had watered, was taking root ; but it was
de Saussure who spread it over Western Europe. Yet Rousseau
must not be deprived of his due. To the sterner aspects of nature
he was blind, to the voice of the mountains he shared the deafness
of his generation. But in his appreciation of the sub -alpine
region, the harmonious landscapes and delicious details of the
Swiss lowlands, their lakes and lawns, their brown broad -roofed
farms, their rich orchards and vineyards and narcissus meadows,
he was a true pioneer. He inculcated and inspired a feeling which
was capable of far wider application than he himself gave it. He
helped to open men's eyes to the call of landscape, and in so
doing he to some extent prepared their minds to take interest in
and understand its more sublime forms. He was in this sense,
but in this sense alone, a forerunner of de Saussure. Rousseau
was the most eloquent of the many voices of the time that ex-
pressed a feeling already in the air, the sentimental regard for
natural scenery, untouched by human needs and incidents.

1 Gilpin's Tours in the Lakes and Scotland were visible signs of the same
spirit of appreciation (circa 1780).

30 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

He was a preacher of the return to nature, but he was no
prophet of the love of the Alps. His bust may be a most
suitable adornment in a sub-alpine resort, it would be obviously
out of place in any Alpine centre. It was de Saussure who
led the nations to lift up their eyes to the eternal snows.
Born and bred within a walk of the cliffs of the Saleve, the
rocky rampart the crest of which overshadows the homes and
forms a playground for the holidays of the Genevese, and
brought up in sight of the glaciers of Mont Blanc, he drew
the inspiration of his life's work from the scenes familiar to
his childhood.1

1 The foregoing chapter makes, I need hardly say, no pretence to be a com-
plete or even a general sketch of the early works more or less connected with
mountains and their writers. Such sketches have been undertaken by very able
hands — by Leslie Stephen in The Playground of Europe, by Sir Frederick Pollock
in the Alpine volume of the Badminton series, by Mr. Coolidge in several of his
scholarly and laborious works. (See Josias Simler el lea Origines de VAlpinisme,
Grenoble, 1904.) Mr. Gribble's volume, The Early Mountaineers, 1899, contains
some curious reprints.

CHAPTER II
GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

IN the preceding chapter an attempt has been made to indicate
the attitude of European culture towards the Alps previous to
the middle of the eighteenth century and de Saussure's travels.
I have endeavoured to show by a few selected examples how far
preceding generations had carried their investigations into the
physical features of mountain structure and the phenomena
of the glacier region, and what feelings the wilder forms of
scenery — the waste places of the world — raised in their
minds.

But any portrait of Horace Benedict de Saussure which
exhibited him only as an Alpine traveller and a diligent pursuer
of several branches of natural science would be sadly incomplete.
From the age of twenty-two this versatile patrician was busy as
a hard-working professor, an educational reformer, and a leader
in social activities, while in middle life he found himself forced
to take a prominent part in the stormy politics of the little
Republic. It seems therefore desirable to supply here as a
further setting to the story of his life some account of the
scenes in which it was lived, of the local aspect and surroundings
of Geneva a hundred and fifty years ago, and of the social and
political conditions that prevailed among its inhabitants.

The point at which the Rhone issues from Lake Leman was
indicated by nature for the site of an important town. An island x
furnishes a convenient opportunity for bridging the impetuous
river at the point where its translucent flood breaks out of the
narrowing western horn of the great lake . A neighbouring height

1 The present L'lle, not the little sandbank now planted and connected by
a bridge which stands out in the lake and has since 1835 been known as the lie
Rousseau.

32 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

on the southern bank offers a ready-made bridge-head, taken
advantage of even in the earliest times. Here, before the Romans
came and the passes of the Pennine Alps had been brought into
frequent use, was the spot where tribes and traders, moving south-
wards from Central Europe and the Rhine towards Italy or
Provence, would seek to cross the barrier of the Rhone. Here, at
a later date, armies issuing from the defiles of the Western Alps
might strike northwards for Central Gaul, or eastwards across the
lowlands of Helvetia and past Aventicum to the Rhine. Caesar
found Geneva ' the farthest town of the Allobroges and the
nearest to the boundaries of the Helvetians ' ; he recognised its
strategic importance and introduced its name into history.1

The Roman and Burgundian towns both kept exclusively to
the high ground on the left bank of the Rhone. But under the
rule of its bishops (1050-1535) the first walls, some of the towers
of which still exist embedded in more modern buildings, took a
wider circuit, and the streets and alleys began to stretch down
to the lake and river-shore. Before the period with which we
are concerned — the latter half of the eighteenth century — these
limits had again been exceeded and Geneva had lost, externally
at least, the mediaeval aspect still fortunately retained by several
of the smaller towns in the low country between the Alps and the
Jura. Its ancient towers and many -gated walls had been replaced
by formidable bastions and broad grassy ramparts in the new
style of military architecture which followed on the use of cannon.
These fortifications, more adequate than the former walls to protect
the citizens from any sudden attack on the part of their formidable
neighbours, the Duke of Savoy or the French king, were planned
and carried out early in the sixteenth century. They encircled
both the city and St. Gervais, a considerable suburb, connected
by bridges with the old town, that had grown up on the
right bank of the Rhone, and in the sixteenth century was
the seat of a famous fair. The lake-front was guarded by
chains, and the river barricaded below the town with piles. In
place of the many issues of the old walls the new ramparts were

1 A long list of Roman inscriptions found in or near Geneva, given in Spon's
History of Geneva (London, 1687), attests the early importance of the town.
One of them, recording the death of C. Julius Caesar Longinus, a freedman of
Julius Caesar, runs thus : ' Praeruptis montibus hue tandem veni ut hie locus
meos contegeret cineres.'

o

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 33

pierced by only three land gates, the Porte Neuve and the Port de
Rive south of the Rhone, leading into Savoy, and the Porte de
Cornavin in St. Gervais, leading to France and Switzerland.
The business quarter lay on the lake or river -bank. If Geneva
lacked the picturesque features of the old towns of the Swiss
lowlands, its architecture had one characteristic of its own.
In many of the streets of the lower town and round the
market, the Place du Molard, broad overhanging penthouses,
known as domes, supported from the ground on huge wooden
pillars, sheltered the walls and windows and gave a cover from
rough weather to pedestrians similar to that afforded elsewhere
by arcades. Many of these structures remained till the middle
of the nineteenth century. At their base between the footway
and the road nestled rows of tiny wooden stalls or booths. One
main street, the Rue de la Cite, or Grand' Rue, and many narrow
lanes, almost staircases, like those of Edinburgh, led up from the
river-bank, the centre of the commercial quarter, to the upper
town, the aristocratic quarter. Here were clustered the Town
Hall with its inclined passage up which the bewigged councillors
could be carried in their sedan chairs, the Arsenal, the Hospital,
the Cathedral, and the ' College,' a public school, the buildings
of which have been little altered. The external aspect of the
public edifices was solid but plain ; they reflected the austerity
of the religion and life of their inhabitants. No gracious
saints, no dancing figures, or grotesque troops of bears, presided
over their fountains and their doorways. Eighteenth-century
Geneva showed little sign of the joie de vivre of the Renaissance ;
it lacked both the homely humour of the Teutonic mind and the
poetical imagination of Catholic legend.

Unlike the modern city, with its pretentious rows of open and
wind-swept quays, old Geneva turned its back on its little port and
the lake and the bleak north-easterly blasts which in winter blow
over it. Its outlook lay towards the south-west and the sunshine.
Early in the eighteenth century, as commercial and financial pros-
perity increased, the more wealthy citizens — bankers and mer-
chants— began to erect fine houses. These were mostly in the
classical style of architecture then in vogue in France — with some
admixture of Italian features, such as internal courts and arcades,
which might recall their old homes to refugees from Lucca or

c

34 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Cremona.1 As the visitor climbed the Rue de la Cit<§, which leads
up from the bridges over the Rhone to the Cathedral, he had on his
right near the beginning of the ascent a group of handsome houses
that at the back enjoy a free view towards the Perte du Rhone.
The largest of them was the Lullin mansion, de Saussure's town
home . Higher up the street another row of stately edifices lines the
ramparts, looking across the flat meadows of Plainpalais to the
gap between the Saleve and the Jura, through which runs the road
to Annecy. On the top of the slope was the shady terrace of
La Treille, where the wealth and fashion of Geneva took their
afternoon stroll in face of the winter sunsets, or lounged in summer
evenings on the long bench, set with its back to the view, and
discussed local politics. Of these there was seldom any lack in
a town which habitually did its best to deserve the title, given to
it by Alexander von Humboldt, of ' a stormy Athens.'

Geneva in 1780 was relatively but a small city, not larger than
many of the provincial towns of France. Its population, at the
beginning of the century about twenty thousand, had according
to an official census in 1781 risen to about twenty-five thousand.
Its political affairs, however important in the eyes of its citizens,
occupied therefore but a small place in the story of European
politics. But it had an intellectual life and influence far beyond
its material importance. Under Calvin it had become a city of
refuge for all the more active spirits whom religious persecution
had driven out of France or Italy, and the headquarters of an
austere form of Protestantism. In the four months following
the massacre of St. Bartholomew over sixteen hundred refugees,
in the five weeks after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes eight
thousand, entered the town. Many of these immigrants per-
manently established themselves, not altogether to the satis-
faction of the existing inhabitants, whose industries they invaded.

Before the eighteenth century the famous fairs which had
made Geneva a mart for all Europe had been superseded ; but
the city had not lost its ancient industries, and it had added new
ones. The chief of these, watchmaking, alone employed six
thousand hands of both sexes. The cloth and shawl merchants

1 The Reformation drove many families from Switzerland and Italy to
Geneva. From Lucca came the Burlamaqui, Turrettini, Calandrini, and
Diodati.

35

were prosperous, and several of them, turning bankers, had
become the Rothschilds of the day and were ready to lend money
even to princes. The citizens held investments in French
securities the annual interest on which amounted in 1780, we
are told, to sixteen millions of francs, and they had also large
holdings in Holland and England.

The society of Geneva, if it fell far short of the brilliancy
and extravagance of the Parisian salons, was very subject
to their influence. With wealth had come more or less leisure
and luxury ; the upper classes were no longer content to
submit to the sumptuary laws issued by a clerical committee.
They assimilated to some extent the fashions of the French
aristocracy and the mental atmosphere of the day. Their
town mansions, though many and spacious, no longer
sufficed them, and since the summer evenings were long and
pleasant on the lake shores, and the city gates were regularly closed
soon after sunset, they established country homes. Stately
villas with terraced gardens replaced in the environs the homely
granges of an earlier time. Their inmates must have seen Mont
Blanc, but they took little notice of its distant snows.1 De
Saussure's contemporaries were not even sure on which side of
Chamonix the ' Monts Maudits ' stood. A party of Englishmen
might set out to investigate certain strange masses of ice hanging
from them, that were said to penetrate the forests and invade
the meadows. But the Genevese were only vaguely interested
in these disagreeable and baleful curiosities . They laughed at their
visitors . It was like Englishmen, they said, to take trouble for such
an object — but perhaps they were really looking for mines ; there
were known to be minerals worked near Sallanches. At any rate
this was the view taken at the time by some of the Savoyard
authorities, who were very suspicious of their foreign visitors.
Modern mountaineers in remote districts have often found
themselves subject to similar surmises. When in 1868 English

1 De Saussure's grandson, the late M. Henri de Saussure, pointed out at a
Conference of Alpine Clubs held at Geneva in 1879, that the eighteenth century
has left in the country-houses of the environs of the city, a permanent record of
its taste in scenery. He said :

' They most of them turn their backs to the view ; fashion at that date pre-
ferred the picture formed by an artificial landscape ornamented with a geo-
metrical frog-pond to the magnificent panorama of our Alps and our lake.'

36 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

climbers first visited the Caucasus no Russian official could believe
that we climbed Kasbek and Elbruz without a commercial or a
political purpose, and twenty years later the Prince of Suanetia
invited me to develop gold mines under the shadow of Ushba.

The prosperity of Geneva was not confined to any single class,
or even to the townspeople. The condition of the peasants in the
rural districts of the Republic was a strong testimony to the
efficiency of its government. The contrast between the Genevese
territory and the neighbouring portions of Savoy is insisted on by
every passing traveller — by no one more forcibly than the poet
Gray.1 I quote from one of his letters written the year before
de Saussure's birth.

' To one that has passed through Savoy, as we did, nothing can be
more striking than the contrast as soon as he approaches the town.
Near the gates of Geneva runs the torrent Arve, which separates it
from the King of Sardinia's dominions ; on the other side of it lies a
country naturally, indeed, fine and fertile ; but you meet with nothing
in it but meagre, ragged, barefooted peasants with their children in
extreme misery and nastiness ; and even of these no great numbers.
You no sooner have crossed the stream I have mentioned than poverty
is no more ; not a beggar, hardly a discontented face to be seen ;
numerous and well-dressed people swarming on the ramparts, drums
beating, soldiers, well clothed and armed, exercising, and folk with
business in their looks hurrying to and fro, all contribute to make
any person who is not blind sensible what a difference there is between
the two governments that are the causes of one view and the other.'

With wealth came the call for luxury, and the natural result
was frequent friction between the inhabitants and their paternal
administration. From Calvin's day the government had taken
on itself with an alacrity, if not an audacity, hardly equalled else-
where, to decide what should be considered articles of luxury. In
Geneva, however, the motive was not taxation, but prohibition.
In 1646 the Senate, finding itself unequal to the task, deter-
mined to appoint a special tribunal, known thenceforth as the
Chambre de la Reformation, competent to enact and enforce a code
of sumptuary laws. Liberty in thinking was won at Geneva before
liberty in dress . This egregious board survived, though with gradu-
ally diminishing powers, till 1770. No sentiment was too sacred, no
1 Gray to his father, October 25, 1739.

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 37

details were too intimate or too small for these meticulous pastors.
They revelled in the regulation of funerals and mourning ; they
forbade the use of monuments or inscribed tombstones ; they re-
buked a husband for wearing too long a scarf on his wife's death,
a mother for putting on black for her infant. Ladies might not
carry their watches pinned on their breasts. Gowns without
waistbands were forbidden, ' since a mother of a family ought
not to think of her dress,' nor might she go to church in shoes,
which is ' too unbecoming.' The materials of the ladies' gowns
must not be of extravagant richness, nor must they wear lace,
except on their inner garments ! The Chamber further made
rules as to how many guests you might entertain, and how many
courses you might offer them. Liveries were not allowed. Car-
riages might only be used for long country drives. Even a bride
was expected to walk to church, nor might she receive, or give,
wedding presents. Babies' christening robes must be simple.
Finally, some wiseacre (or wit ?) proposed that the Chamber
' should establish a standard costume both for men and women,
which should never be altered ' ! Is it to be wondered at if, under
such provocation, there were many fair recalcitrants ? We are
told of one petulant demoiselle who vented * incoherent words '
against the august tribunal. She was promptly fined fifty florins
and costs, ' to be obtained by summary process.' It is pleasing
to learn that a bold citizen was found with the good sense to retort
by proposing that ' the Chamber of Reform be abolished, as use-
less.' His fate has not been recorded.

Happily, there is reason to believe that at the worst of times the
critic of the Chamber I have just cited came near to expressing a
fact, and it is clear that after the middle of the eighteenth century
this petty tyranny had been greatly relaxed — at any rate for the
upper classes. By a singular inconsistency, even in the period
of the strictest control, the standard of luxury permissible was
graduated according to social rank. The wives of the principal
officers of State were allowed special privileges in the way of
decorating their persons, doubtless a pleasing substitute for the
share in their husbands' civil designations accorded ladies in coun-
tries east of the Rhine up to the present day. A print of 1789,
commemorating a street procession held on one of the many recon-
ciliations between the contending parties in the State, displays

38 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

an exuberance and variety in the ladies' headgear which bears
witness to their release from all restrictions.

By those who held to the old religion, Geneva was reckoned
the anti-Rome long before Voltaire had established himself on
its borders as an anti-Pope. Of this religious rancour, Lassels — a
Catholic who travelled as tutor to young English gentlemen in
the reign of James I., and produced a sort of embryo Handbook to
Italy, a work which can still be read for the sake of some vigorous
and picturesque touches — may serve as an instance :

' Geneva,' he writes, ' like a good sink at the bottom of three
streets, is built at the bottom of Savoy, France, and Germany, and
therefore fit to receive into it the corruption of the Apostates of the
Roman Church.' 1

It did not occur to the ingenious author of this somewhat crude
comparison that he had put his finger on the main cause of the
activity, both commercial and intellectual, of Geneva. The ad-
vantage as a mart given to the town by its natural position was
supplemented by its convenience as a city of refuge. Here, as
elsewhere, intolerance had its natural effect in transplanting men of
independence and energy of mind to a spot where they could enjoy
relative freedom. That which is strained out by persecution is
apt to be not the dregs but the life-blood of civilisation. The
city on the Rhone owes most of its famous names to the immigra-
tion provoked by the bigotry of its neighbours, France and Italy.2

To the intelligence of the Genevese of the eighteenth century
and their relatively high standard of popular education many
shrewd observers have borne witness. Of the general character
of the citizens, of their pursuits and amusements, and their social
habits we have a great deal of contemporary evidence. With a
Parisian shopkeeper, Rousseau tells us, you could talk only of his
trade ; a Genevese watchmaker would discuss literature or philo-
sophy. The ordinary citizen was serious and intelligent ; fond
of money, he regarded idleness as contemptible. But in conversa-
tion he was apt to be long-winded and disputative.

1 The Voyage of Italy, R. Lassels, 1670. Lassels describes the government
of Geneva as ' a kind of democracy, or rather a kind of aristocracy, a mingling of
laymen and ministers.' The lake, he declares, is ' absolutely the fairest he has
seen, fairer than either the Lake Major, the Lake of Como, the Lake of Zurich, the
Lake of Wallenstadt, the Lake of Iseo, the Lake of Morat, or the Lake of Garda.'

2 Some of the families of Italian origin have already been mentioned. The
Tronchins, the de Candolles, the Jalaberts, and many others were French.

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 39

'While a Frenchman writes as he talks, these Genevese talk as
they write ; they lecture in place of conversing ; they give one the
impression that they always want to argue. ... In short, their con-
versation is sustained, their speeches are harangues, and they gossip
with a pulpit air. The Frenchman reads much, but nothing but new
books, or rather he runs through them more to be able to say he has
read them than for their own sake. The Genevese reads only good
books — he reads them to digest them ; he does not criticise them, but
he knows them by heart. Women as well as men are given to books.1
It needs all the good sense of the men, all the gaiety of the women,
and all the talent both sexes have in common to overcome in the men
a touch of pedantry and in the women of preciosity.'

The picture here drawn by Rousseau, himself by birth a
Genevese, shows understanding and sympathy mixed with its
criticism of his fellow-citizens. Voltaire, as might be expected, is
far less appreciative. Established first at Les Delices, on the
right bank of the Rhone close to the gates of Geneva, and after-
wards a few miles off and outside its territory at Ferney, he
amused himself by watching with a mischievous eye the doings
of his neighbours, ready at any moment to make sport of their
domestic troubles as far as he could venture to do so without
risking his own convenience and social relations.

He took pleasure in, from time to time, shocking the serious
circles of the Upper Town by some literary freak. He found it an
agreeable diversion to distract the Venerable Company by casting
doubts through the Encyclopedic on its orthodoxy, or to intervene
with irritating comments in the strife between political parties.
The squire of Ferney was always ready to mock in sprightly rhymes
the sober lives and solemn diversions of the citizens :

' Noble cite, riche, fiere et sournoise ;
On y calcule et jamais on n'y rit :
L'art de Bareme 2 est le seul qui fleurit ;
On hait le bal, on hait la comedie ;
Pour tout plaisir Geneve psalmodie
Du bon David les antiques concerts,
Croyant que Dieu se plait aux mauvais vers.'

1 The Genevese ladies wrote as well as read. De Saussure's wife and sister
both produced novels, which, however, never got beyond MSS. His daughter
was a well-known writer, and her work on L? Education Progressive won the
highest praise from Amiel. See p. 400.

8 Barreme (sic) was an editor of Ready Reckoners.

40 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

By general consent, the great fault of Genevese society was
its tendency to break up into small coteries. This began in
childhood : a number of neighbours would arrange for their
children to meet frequently at each other's houses, and the
intimacies thus formed were apt to extend to after-life. About
1739 the lack of public amusements drove the men to form clubs
or circles , to hire in winter a room where they could meet frequently
to discuss politics and exchange the talk of the town, in summer a
garden on the lake where they could spend the long evenings. In
1745 the Venerable Company of Pastors looked on these clubs with
a pained disapproval. It complained to the Senate that there
were too many of them — no less than fifty in the town, where,
' besides talking a great deal, perhaps too much, of politics and
foreign affairs, it is certain that wine, gambling, the table, and
loose conversation are the principal, if not only, attractions . Cards
are played, even at the hour of the evening sermon.' The wives and
daughters started in revenge similar, if less dissipated, assemblies.
' As the men are more susceptible than gallant, the women are
more romantic than coquettish,' writes an observer. The impres-
sion left is of a society somewhat prim and decorous, taking itself
seriously, and interested in serious subjects, in which the men
who were not in business engaged in political administration, or
literature, or learned pursuits ; while the women were apt to
be either genuine femmes savantes — interested in botany, like
de Saussure's mother, or in education, like his daughter, or else
full of domestic details and the home farm, like his wife. We
find ourselves introduced to company that lacked the light-
ness in give-and-take, and also the mockery and frivolity of the
salons on the Seine, that had for its centre not a corrupt court,
but a more or less austere and puritanical group of about a
hundred 'noble families of the first quality' — holders, present or
past, of the higher offices in the State, who refused to intermarry
or associate with the rest of the town.

Madame Recamier is at pains to summarise the intellectual
bent of Genevese society :

' Observe them closely ; all these Genevese of the old stock have
acuteness, moderation, a certain reserve, a power of patient and exact
analysis, more learning than effect, more substance than show, and
when they converse it is with more detail than colour, the touch of

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 41

the pencil rather than the brush. They excel in observing and de-
scribing mechanisms — organic, physical, or psychological — in extreme
detail ; they examine at length each object as through the microscope ;
they push patience to dullness ; they are ingenious, but lacking in
breadth of view.' l

In Mme. d'Epinay Geneva found a more appreciative guest.
In 1758 she writes :

' I have made myself a society of people who would be sought
after anywhere. I get up between five and seven, all my mornings
are free. At midday I come down on my terrace, and, if the weather
is fine, walk in the public garden. Women here can go anywhere on
foot, alone, without footmen or maids. Even foreigners would be
remarked and followed if they did otherwise. I like, and avail
myself of, this liberty.

' I dine at one with M. Tronchin [the famous doctor] or at home.
From two to six one pays or receives visits, at six all is dead in the
town, and strangers find themselves in the most complete solitude,
since the Genevese meet in their own sets. Each member holds an
assembly in turn ; they take tea in the English fashion, but they do
not limit themselves to this beverage ; there are plenty of cakes, coffee,
and chocolate. The Assemblies, which are called Societies, are mixed,
but girls are not admitted, they have their own Societies, where men
and boys are only introduced when a member is married.

' In these Societies the diversions vary with the age and tastes of
their members. There is a good deal of play, they occupy themselves
with needlework, sometimes with music. Gambling seems to be the
ruling passion with the women, and I am surprised, for I was told that
they were all as cultivated as those I have met, who are really so.

' There are some " Societies " composed entirely of women. There
are also assemblies of men, to which women are not admitted, which
are called Cercles. But it is not true that the members smoke and
get tipsy. These Cercles are held in rooms which are hired by sub-
scription among a number of individuals of similar tastes. The
members meet on a fixed day of the week, there is no eating or drink-

1 ' Regardez-y bien ; tous ces Genevois de la vieille souche ont finesse, modera-
tion, une certaine temperance, 1'analyse exacte, patiente, plus de savoir que
d'effet, plus de fond que d'etalage et quand ils se produisent ils ont du dessin
plutot que de la couleur, le trait de poh^on plutdt que du pinceau. Ils
excellent a observer, a decrire les mecanismes, organiques, physiques, psycho-
logiques dana un parfait detail ; ils regardent chaque piece a la loupe et longtemps,
ils poussent la patience jusqu'a la monotonie, ils sont ingenieux mais sans une
grande portee.' — Souvenirs de Mme. liecamier, p. 135.

42 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

ing, but a supply of newspapers and endless political discussions.
They exhaust themselves in guesses and discoveries about the plans
of the Great Powers, and when the event does not correspond with
the guesses of these gentlemen, they are no less satisfied of their sagacity
in having recognised, if not what the State in question has done, at
least what it ought to have done ! After all, men are the same every-
where, with some trifling differences, for I know originals of this sort
in Paris ! Still, here they are more busy with their own affairs than
with other people's. Nearly all the Genevese having their money
invested in France, England, and Holland, they naturally take a par-
ticular interest in current events. But I have wandered a long way
from what I was trying to say, which, if I remember right, was that
at six o'clock I find myself alone, or nearly so. Ah well ! It is the
hour at which I should begin to live if I were here with my family
and with you.

' To sum up, the manners and the mode of life of these men are
more sympathetic and satisfactory to observe than easy to describe.
Virtue, honesty, and above all, simplicity form the base of their
politics. But these qualities are all besprinkled with a slight coating
of pedantry, which, as far as I can judge, is essential to the main-
tenance of the simplicity which alone gives strength to their State.'

Madame de Stael, on the other hand, is a severe critic. She
recognised in the Upper Town most of the characteristic defects of
the aristocracy of a petty State : pride, exclusiveness, a strict con-
ventional standard, lack of sentiment, and a seriousness habitually
verging on dullness and sometimes ending in morbid religious
melancholy. English visitors of the time noted that suicides were
frequent even in the upper class.1 We shall meet with two
instances among de Saussure's near relatives. Lady Shelley,
the wife of Sir John Shelley, visiting Geneva in 1816, records a

1 Since Senebier points out that it was only in the cases of suicide and adultery
that Calvin's code affixed any definite penalty, the prevalence of what was termed
dilire milancolique, must have been of long standing in Geneva. The Baron de
Zurlauben's suggestion (in Laborde's volume) that the malady was introduced by
English visitors may be summarily dismissed. Napoleon's Prefet du Leman in
1812 furnished his government with a curious report on its alleged origin. He
attributed it to a combination of causes : the influence of Calvinism, the habit of
political disputes, sedentary occupations combined with the intellectual strain of
serious studies, and, above all, the oppressive scale of the local landscape and the
cold, uncertain, and depressing climate ! Dr. Moore in 1779 confirms in one respect
the Prefet when he notes that ' it is not uncommon to find mechanics in the
interval of their labours amusing themselves with the works of Locke, Montesquieu,
Newton, and other productions of the same kind.'

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 43

remark of his son Theodore, ' Ah, Madame, nous apprenons de
bonne heure le metier de nous ennuyer.' l

It is probable that to our countrymen and countrywomen
the social atmosphere of the Upper Town proved more congenial
than to visitors from the livelier salons on the Seine. At Geneva
they found clubs where conversation was more like that at
home, more solid, if less brilliant, than in the boudoirs of Paris,
and where ladies were not so powerful and disturbing an influence.
Rousseau asserts that English habits were the fashion at Geneva
in his day ; Sismondi describes it as a town where French was
spoken and written, but where people read and thought in English.
In 1773-74, under the auspices of Lord Stanhope, an ' English
Club ' was formed where debates, in which many of the leading
citizens, including de Saussure, took part, were carried on in our
language.

The criticisms quoted above apply, no doubt, to the general
tone of Genevese society, modified in the leading families by
frequent connection with Paris and London. But they are more
or less borne out by the character of the literary output of Geneva
up to the middle of the eighteenth century. This consists in the
main of juridical and theological works, or party pamphlets. Of
imagination we find little trace ; of poetry there is a complete
dearth apart from polemical rhymes. The glaciers of Savoy
inspired no Genevese Shelley, or Coleridge, or Byron. The
verses called forth by the earliest ascents of Mont Blanc were
dull and lengthy squibs written by partisans anxious to assert
the superior claims of Paccard, or Balmat, or de Saussure.

The aristocracy willingly undertook and, on the whole, faith-
fully carried out the public offices and duties of the State. But
these were not incompatible with abundant leisure. In the
absence, until Voltaire's day, of a theatre, social distractions were
relatively few, and the upper class of both sexes found relaxation
in their clubs and small social gatherings.

1 Sir J. Shelley of Maresfield Park, Sussex. His wife's statement, though
rashly endorsed by her grandson and editor, Mr. Edgcumbe, that ' he had the
good fortune to accompany de Saussure in his remarkable ascent of Mont Blanc,
is, it need hardly be said, a slip. Lady Shelley records that in 1787 her husband was
at Geneva and had Pictet, de Saussure's friend and successor, for his tutor. Sir
J. Shelley may possibly have been at Chamonix while de Saussure was staying
there in 1787. Unnamed Englishmen are referred to in his and young Bourrit's
diaries. See The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley (London, 1912).

44 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

The religious authorities, if exacting in matters of morals
and venturesomely meddlesome in sumptuary concerns, left
sufficient freedom in the more important domain of thought. In
the eighteenth century, so long as a man did not want to go to
mass, or declare himself an atheist, or fail to show a proper degree
of respect and deference to the authorities, he might live and
philosophise in peace. The language, though not free from
provincialisms, was that of the nation foremost at the time in
science and civilisation. Secondary education was regarded as
one of the duties of the State, but only so far as the classes that
provided the clergy and the magistracy were concerned. It was
for these that the studies of the Academy were designed. The
course of instruction for boys at the College, a public school,
was deficient. But the Academy obtained a reputation which
drew to it the youth of other nations, including our own. Our
countrymen do not seem, as a rule, to have formally matri-
culated. They were ' coached ' by a professor, attended lectures,
and boarded together in what they termed ' a common room.'

No doubt the foreign students at the Academy were a valuable
asset to the town. To Protestant parents and guardians Geneva,
with its Calvinistic legislation, seemed to offer fewer dangers or
distractions to youth than the capital cities of Europe. Dr.
Moore, who travelled with the Duke of Hamilton, and visited with
him the Mer de Glace in 1773,1 recommended Geneva as preferable
to any other place on the Continent for the education of an English
lad. Here, he says, ' he may have a choice of men of eminence
in every branch of literature to assist him in his studies. He will
have constant opportunities of being in company with very in-
genious people whose thoughts and conversation turn upon literary
subjects. ... It may also be numbered among the advantages
of this place that there are few objects of dissipation and hardly
any sources of amusement besides those derived from the natural
beauties of the country and from an intimacy with a people by
whose conversation a young man can hardly fail to improve.'

Apparently English youth found improving conversation with-
out amusement somewhat monotonous. A singular instance
of the exceptional tolerance shown to the band of our country-

1 Moore'a View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, etc. (London,
1779).

GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 45

men who first explored Chamonix is recorded at length in the Life
of Benjamin Stillingfleet, written by Archdeacon Coxe, the author
of the work on Switzerland already referred to. Stillingfleet
acted as tutor to young Mr. Windham of Felbrigg, who was
one of the gay party ; another was a Mr. Neville, who while at
Eton had taken a prominent part in school theatricals. These
young gentlemen actually persuaded the Venerable Company to
let them build a temporary theatre holding three hundred people.
They played to crowded audiences Shakespeare and pantomimes !
Their natural style of acting was much admired. Mr. Hervey,
who in 1768 became Earl of Bristol, took female parts, playing
alternately as Lady Macbeth and Columbine, and was acclaimed
as only second to the famous Parisian actress of the day, Mile.
Clairon. Most surprising of all, the players invited the Venerable
Company, and offered free passes to the four Syndics, as well as
to the English students at the Academy. The city of Calvin was
obviously on the path of perdition ! After this sidelight on the
doings of 1741 — even before the days of its arch-tempter Voltaire —
we read with less surprise how, forty years later, Beckford, in 1782,
returning at night from an excursion to the Saleve, found the gates
reopened to allow theatre-goers to get to their country homes.
Beckford's reflections on this occasion, if forced and malicious,
go some way to explain the fluid state of Genevese society imme-
diately before the revolution.

' The Comedie,' he writes, ' is become of wonderful importance.
The days of rigidity and plain living have completely gone by ; the
soft spirit of toleration, so eloquently insinuated by Voltaire, has
removed all thorny fences, familiarised his numerous admirers with
every innovation, and laughed scruples of every nature to scorn.
Voltaire, indeed, may justly be styled the architect of that gay, well-
ornamented bridge, by which free -thinking and immorality have been
smuggled into the Republic under the mask of philosophy and liberality
and sentiment. These monsters, like the Sin and Death of Milton,
have made speedy and irreparable havoc. To facilitate their operations
rose the genius of " Rentes viageres." At his bidding, tawdry villas,
with their little pert groves of poplar and horse-chestnut, start up — his
power enables Madame C. D., the bookseller's lady, to amuse the
D. of G. with assemblies, sets Parisian cabriolets and English phaetons
rolling from one faro table to another, and launches innumerable plea-
sure parties with banners and popguns on the lake, drumming and

46 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

trumpeting away their time from morn till evening. I recollect, not
many years past, how seldom the echoes of the mountains were profaned
by such noises, and how rarely the drones of Geneva, if any there were
in that once industrious city, had opportunities of displaying their
idleness ; but now Dissipation reigns triumphant, and to pay the
tribute she exacts, every fool runs headlong to throw his scrapings
into the voracious whirlpool of annuities ; little caring, provided he
feeds high and lolls in his carriage, what becomes of his posterity.' l

1 Travels in Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal, by the author of
Vathek, 1834, vol. i.

CHAPTER III
YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS

HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUBE was born at Conches, an estate
on the bank of the Arve, near Geneva, on the 17th February
1740. His ancestors were among the many religious refugees who
flocked from France and Italy to Geneva in the middle of the
sixteenth century. Their name still survives in five villages in
Lorraine which were at one time in the possession of the family.
The most important of these ' Saulxures ' lies near Remiremont
in the pleasant, wooded heart of the Vosges among the valleys
north-west of the Ballon d' Alsace. The family pedigree starts
with one Mongin de Saussure ' Seigneur de Dompmartin et de
Monteuil sous la ville d'Amance en Lorraine,' who was born in the
fifteenth century and held the office of Grand Falconer in the
Court of two successive Dukes of Lorraine, Rene n. and Antoine
the Good. He was succeeded in this dignity by his son, Antoine
de Saussure (1514-69). The great event of Antoine's life, which
was to affect the fortune of his descendants, is thus recorded in the
Genealogy of the family printed at Lausanne, ' chez David Gentil,'
in 1671 :

' En 1'an 1551 Dieu Pillumina de la connaissance de la purete de S.
Evangile. Au sujet duquel il fut arreste prisonnier par son Altesse
de Lorraine et comparut pour ce fait a Nancy dans les Assises et
Estats de la Noblesse de Lorraine. Et fut oblige ensuite de se retirer
abandonnant tous ses biens fonds qui furent escheus au fisque du
Prince. II se retira dans la ville de Metz en 1'an 1552 ou Dieu le rendit
Pun des premiers organes de sa grace en la naissance de 1'figlise de
Metz, avec un nomme Monsieur de Croppeville, Gentilhomme Picard.
Ce que le rendit exile de la dite ville par authorite du Magistrat. De
la il alia avec la famille de douze enfants a Strasbourg et puis a Neuf-
chastel en Suisse et depuis a Geneve et enfin se rendit dans le Pays
de Vaud sous la protection de leurs Excellences de Berne et s'arreta
dans la ville de Lausanne ou il fut honore et gratuitement favorise
de la Bourgeoisie de ladite ville en 1'an 1556.'

47

48 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

It is recorded that Antoine's disgrace arose from a charge brought
against him by Christine of Denmark, Duchess of Lorraine, of
teaching heresy to her son, or, according to another account, to
her husband. In Switzerland he became a friend of the leading
Reformers, of Calvin at Geneva, Farel at Neuchatel, and Viret at
Lausanne.

Antoine de Saussure's grandson, Jean Baptiste (1576-1647),
removed from Lausanne and settled at Geneva, where he married
into another family of exiles, the Diodati of Lucca.1

Elie de Saussure, a son of Jean Baptiste, was in 1635 the first
of the family to acquire the citizenship of Geneva. His grandson
Theodore (1674-1750), the grandfather of Horace Benedict, became
a member of the Senate in 1721, and one of the Syndics of the
Republic in 1734. He was active in the service of the State,
and his name appears frequently in the lists of officials of the
time. He built the modest house at Frontenex, where he passed
most of his days, and lived till 1750, ten years after his grandson's
birth. Horace Benedict's father, Nicolas de Saussure, seems to
have been contented to remain a country gentleman. He was
elected in 1746 to the Council of Two Hundred, but declined to
serve on the Senate. He had something of a scientific turn of
mind, but his science was applied mainly to agriculture. It was,
however, sufficient to obtain for him the honour of a respectful
notice from Cuvier in the Biographic Universelle. His literary
remains consist of tracts on The Methods of Cultivation, The
Failure of the Wheat Crops, and The Pruning of Vines. His
last effort, a treatise on Le Feu, principe de la fecondite des
plantes et de la fertilite de la terre, was thought at the time to
have some scientific value. His daughter-in-law describes Nicolas
de Saussure at the age of seventy-three as always busy with his

1 Daniel, a brother of Jean Baptiste de Saussure. established a branch of the
family at Lausanne, members of which became, in due course, Town Councillors
and Ministers of the Gospel, and played a prominent part in the social life of
the Canton. About 1725 a Cesar de Saussure wrote letters from England which
have been published abroad and in this country. See A Foreign View of England
in the Reigns of George I. and George II. (London, 1902). At a later date we find
at least two de Saussures of this branch settled in England. The Vaudois branch
is now extinct. Another member of the family emigrated to America and had
two sons, one of whom was killed in the attack on Savannah in the War of
Revolution, while the other became an Under- Secretary of State and signed
the first dollar bill issued by the Treasury of the United States.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 49

farming and an old system of physics, and but little interested in
the stormy politics of the moment. Yet a few months before
only his son's intervention had saved him from being held up as
a hostage at the city gates and prevented from returning to his
farm and his family. He died in 1792, at the age of eighty-three,
predeceasing his son by only seven years. But there are few
traces of any influence exercised by him on Horace Benedict's
character and career. What correspondence between them has
survived relates mainly to agricultural matters.

Nicolas de Saussure was fortunate in his marriage with Mile.
Renee de la Rive,1 a member of a family of distinguished ability
and considerable wealth, who brought him both happiness and
an increase of fortune. During his father Theodore's lifetime
Nicolas and his wife continued to live at Conches, a homely
country-house situated in a bend of the Arve, some distance out-
side the town near the Savoyard frontier. It had come into the
family through the marriage in 1683 of an Anne de Saussure to
Andrew Hamilton, a 'gentilhomme ecossais,' to whom it had
belonged. Here, in the spring of 1740, Nicolas 's son was born
and named Horace Benedict, after his maternal grandfather.
The chief authority for the events of de Saussure's early life, apart
from the Voyages, private diaries and letters, and official documents,
is a little volume by his friend Senebier.2 Senebier was a man of
many accomplishments, a pastor, a naturalist, the author of a
literary history of Geneva and the keeper of the Town Library.
But he wrote in a style — the style of Louis xvi. — which has
been admirably characterised by Sainte-Beuve : ' It is essentially
well-mannered, flowing, and gay ; it breathes a virtuous senti-
mentalism. Benevolence, desire for improvement, confidence,
love of right, an optimism showy and quite amiable — these are
its moral characteristics, and the mixture finds easy expression
in a form that is elegant, but inclined to flatness and too sugary.'
Senebier is of his age to a degree that is often distressing, and
Sainte-Beuve's criticism exactly fits his flowing and flowery
periods. De Candolle, who knew Senebier well, while speaking

1 A Pierre Louis de la Rive was among the first oil painters to represent Mont
Blanc on canvas. A picture painted in 1802, taken from Secheron, is preserved
in the Art Museum at Geneva. He also painted Mont Blanc from Sallanches.

2 Memoire historique sur la Vie et les Ecrits de H. B. de Saussure, par Jean
Senebier, Geneva, ix. (1801).

D

50 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of him with respect and affection as a man, fully confirms this
opinion of him as an author. He writes: 'Arrived at Geneva, I
made acquaintance with M. Senebier, who encouraged me in the
wish to study the philosophy of plants, and gave me useful advice.
He was a man of varied but superficial learning who had written
a great many diffuse and ill-arranged books wanting in clearness
of expression, without close argument, and in a wearisome style.'
After describing Sene bier's merits as a botanist and chemist,
de Candolle goes on to bear testimony to his inexhaustible kindness,
and concludes : ' I became sincerely attached to him. I kept up
intimate relations with this worthy man until his death. I have
had his bust placed in the Botanical Garden at Geneva, and I have
always preserved for his memory a most tender recollection and
sincere gratitude.' 1

The worthy Librarian's effusiveness frequently palls on the
modern reader, but we do not doubt him when he assures us that de
Saussure's invalid mother was the centre of his home and the
main formative influence in his character. She was, he writes,
' his best friend ; she taught him to endure hardships and privations,
to sacrifice cheerfully pleasure to duty, and to possess the philo-
sophic mind.' She is described as a woman of intellectual tastes
who lived a more or less retired life hi her quiet home at Frontenex,
surrounded by flowers and animals. From the time of the
birth of her first child she never enjoyed good health and was
constantly confined to her sofa, and both her children seem to
have inherited her constitution and tastes rather than those of
the robust country gentleman who was their father.

Though by birth a citizen of Geneva, Horace Benedict was
in no sense a town boy. Up to the age of twenty-five, until his
marriage, his home was in the country, among fields and hedge-
rows and poplar avenues, with a wonderful landscape of lake
and mountain always within reach. At the age of ten, on his
grandfather's death, his parents moved to the family property
at Frontenex, near the Thonon road. They had no home in
the city.

To what extent his hero's career has been influenced by the
surroundings of his childhood and early years must always be an
interesting matter of inquiry to a biographer. De Saussure on
1 Memoires et Souvenirs de A. P. de Candolle, p. 47, Geneve, Cherbuliez, 1862.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 61

the first page of his great work, the Voyages, has himself borne
eloquent witness to the inspiration he drew from his environment.
I quote the passage :

' Geneva by its situation seema made to inspire a taste for Natural
History. Nature presents herself in her most brilliant aspect. She
displays an infinity of divine features, a lake brimming with clear
and azure waters, from which issues a beautiful river, surrounded by
charming hills which form the foreground of an amphitheatre of
mountains, crowned by the majestic summits of the Alps. These are
themselves dominated by Mont Blanc, clothed in a mantle of ice and
eternal snows reaching down to its foot, and presenting a surprising
contrast between its frosts and the beautiful verdure which covers
the hills and the lower ranges. This grand spectacle delights the
eyes and inspires the keenest desire to study and explore its marvels.'

Before we pursue de Saussure's boyhood, the reader may, I
trust, not be unwilling to join in a short pilgrimage to the three
properties where de Saussure spent the best, if not the greatest,
part of his life. They He in different directions, respectively south,
east, and north-east of the town.

The property at Conches, where de Saussure was born and
where he passed his last years, was of some extent, and lay enclosed
within a bend of the Arve, on its right bank, about two miles from
the gates. The road leading to it, shaded by old oak-trees, passes
between what were formerly open fields until the ground slopes
somewhat sharply towards the river, the opposite bank of which is
high, abrupt, and wooded. There seems reason to believe that
the site of the old farmhouse was identical with that of a modern
(or modernised) villa standing among meadows close to a pictur-
esque weir. Near at hand an ancient barn and stable and some
old garden walls indicate an earlier residence. There is little
distant view, and in de Saussure's day Conches must have been a
relatively remote and quiet retreat.

Frontenex, the principal de Saussure estate, lies some two
miles east of Geneva. It still remains in the state in which
it was in the eighteenth century, when the Duke of Gordon, Lord
Palmerston, and other young Englishmen of rank and fashion,
who were being educated at Geneva, were glad to come out
and be entertained by the worthy old patrician, his clever son,
and handsome daughter.

62 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

The buildings stand round three sides of a courtyard shaded
by aged lime-trees ; a homely dwelling, similar in character to an
English manor-house, occupies two sides, and the old barns and
outbuildings , still primitive in character, the third . The approach
is under a walnut avenue, and some specimen conifers, probably
planted by de Saussure or his father, are scattered about the
meadows. Conches and Frontenex were examples of the old-
fashioned Genevese pleasure farms.

Genthod, the mansion belonging to the Boissier sisters, where
de Saussure, as he tells us, during many summers spent the
happiest days of his life, was of a different type. It was the
summer resort of a wealthy citizen. Situated four miles outside
the town, on the north bank of the lake, and close to its shore,
it stood at the spot whence the snows are seen to the greatest
advantage. To the right of the Mole towers Mont Blanc,
supported by the Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc de Tacul — ' the
staircase of Mont Blanc,' de Saussure tells us they were called
at Geneva ; more to the left the Aiguille du Geant and Grandes
Jorasses are seen dwarfed by the noble pyramid of the Aiguille
Verte. This was the view that for twenty years at once delighted
and distracted de Saussure until he at last succeeded in setting
foot on the great mountain. The snows are seen through green
vistas that may remind the visitor of an English park. There
can be little doubt that de Saussure and his wife on their return
from their visit to our country did their best to imitate on a small
scale the surroundings of the great Yorkshire houses they had so
much admired. The chief features of the Genthod grounds are
still a long horseshoe avenue and a picturesque private port a
hundred yards from the house.

The Lullin villa both inside and out is a good specimen of
a moderate -sized country-house in the formal French style. It
shows a handsome fa9ade decorated with family arms, and
some of the sitting-rooms retain their original panelling. Near
at hand, but detached, is a long, low out-building which
contains sitting-rooms that served de Saussure for his scientific
studies.

On the slope above, at a distance of a few hundred yards,
stands a larger house of the same epoch and style which through
his marriage with Mile, de la Rive became Charles Bonnet's

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 53

home. Old prints show that in the eighteenth century it had,
in contrast to its neighbour, a formal garden of some extent,
with terraces, obelisks, parterres, and specimens of the topiary
art. This has been completely done away with by later
owners.

As soon as he was old enough, at the age of six, the little Horace
Benedict was sent to the College — the public school of the city — and
at once won his first success by obtaining the Reading Prize. His
biographer Senebier — always on literary stilts — celebrates this
' triumph ' as ' the spark which lit in him the thirst for glory and
led him to labour with so much ardour to merit it.' Surely a
singularly unhappy flourish : for the conscious pursuit of glory
is the last characteristic we shall recognise in the future career
of a searcher after knowledge as modest and patient as he was
earnest.

At school the boy began to show that he had ideas of his own ;
and, like most boys with ideas, he had also strong tastes, which to
some extent interfered with his lessons. His country home, no
doubt, helped to give him a zest for outdoor life. Long rambles
and reading romances were his chief dissipations. But the child
had the courage to place himself under discipline. He resolved
to limit his country walks to one a week, and to put aside
novels. In after years he could recall with pride that on his way
home from school he had resisted the temptation to open the
covers of the tempting volumes he was in the habit of bringing
back for his mother.

Of his school life and teaching de Saussure retained no
favourable recollections. In after years he gave the most con-
vincing proof of his feeling by his refusal to send his own children
to the College.

From school de Saussure, at the age of fourteen, passed on to
the Academy, or, as we should call it, University. In his class,
or in that above him, we find the names of the fathers of Sismondi,
the historian, and de Candolle, the botanist, and of members of
families subsequently connected with our own country, a Romilly,
a Pasteur, a Thellusson, and a Marcet.

Before he was eighteen the boy in the weekly tramps that
formed a welcome interlude to classwork had explored many of
the lower mountains in the immediate neighbourhood of Geneva :

54 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the Saleve, the Voirons, and the heights of the Jura. On these
excursions he was wont to collect for his mother, who loved and
studied flowers, specimens of all the species of the mountain flora
that came in his way. Already he had been bitten with the
mountain passion. In the ' Discours Preliminaire ' which intro-
duces his Voyages, an autobiographical document of great interest,
he recalls these early rambles r1

* I have had from childhood the most positive passion for the
pleasures of the mountains. I still remember the sensation I felt
when, for the first time, my hands touched the rocks of the Saleve
and my eyes enjoyed its points of view.'

As a rule, he tells us, he preferred solitary walks, since they
left him more free to use his eyes. But he found com-
panions for many of his youthful rambles in his contemporaries,
Jean Louis Pictet (not to be confused with Marc Auguste Pictet,
afterwards his great friend and successor in his professorship)
and Fran9ois Jalabert, the son of a well-known scientist. The
former was an astronomer who visited Siberia in 1768 to observe
the transit of Venus, while the latter was something of an artist.
Both at a later date joined de Saussure in some of his more
extensive Alpine expeditions.

These early excursions furnished many picturesque incidents
which are pleasantly interspersed in the first volume of the
Voyages. Here is a description of the deserted convent on Les
Voirons (4856 feet) and its former inmates :

' A Madonna held in repute in the neighbourhood is the object
of their worship and the motive of their sojourn in so wild and cold a
locality. I saw one of these martyrs of superstition, a victim of
rheumatism and subject to frightful torments. Heaven, weary of
their sufferings, allowed their wretched dwellings to be burnt ; they
had the courage to pass one or two years in a vault the flames had
spared, but at last gained permission to seek a milder climate, and the
Madonna was transferred to Annecy. I always remember with a
shudder the dark court which occupied the centre of the Convent —
it was a real ice-cave, filled with melting snow, and formed in the
middle of the building a reservoir of cold and damp that became
more dangerous as the outer air grew hotter.' [Voyages, 275.]

1 See pp. 286-91.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 55

Of a visit to the Dole, one of the highest ridges of the Jura
near Geneva, de Saussure gives a pleasant account :

' To enjoy this view in all its brilliancy it ought to be seen as I
once had the fortune to see it. A dense mist covered the lake, the
hills which enclose it, and even the lower mountains. The top of the
Dole and the High Alps were the only summits which raised their
heads above this vast cloud-carpet, the upper surface of which was
illumined by a brilliant sun. The snowy Alps, lit both by its direct
rays and by the light which the clouds threw back on them, showed
themselves in all their splendour and were visible at prodigious dis-
tances. But my situation had something strange and terrible. I
fancied myself alone on a rock in the middle of a stormy sea at a great
distance from a continent fringed by a long reef of unapproachable
rocks. Little by little the mists lifted, for a time enveloped me in
their gloom, then, rising overhead, suddenly revealed the superb view
of the lake and its shores, smiling, cultivated, and dotted with little
towns and picturesque villages.

' On the top of the Dole there is a considerable plain which forms
a beautiful terrace covered with a carpet of grass. From time imme-
morial this terrace is on the two first Sundays in August the rendez-vous
of all the youth of both sexes from the villages in the Pays de Vaud
situated near the foot of the mountain. The shepherds of the neigh-
bouring chalets set aside for these two days milk and cream, and
prepare all the varieties of delicacies that they can compose out of
their dairy produce.

' Here the holiday-makers enjoy the most varied pleasures ; some
engage in athletic games, others dance on the crisp and elastic turf,
which bounds beneath the robust and heavy tread of these worthy
Helvetians. Others, again, seek rest and variety on the brink of the
precipice and enjoy the fine view before their eyes. One peasant
points out the tower of his village, recognises the fields and orchards
that surround it, and recalls to memory the chief events of his life.
Another, who has travelled, names all the towns of the district, and
indicates the direction of the Mont Cenis, the road to Rome, that city
celebrated even for those who do not look to it for pardons and dis-
pensations. The bolder prove their courage by walking on the edge
of the cliffs on the Genevese side of the mountain. Others, less boastful
and more gallant, display their skill in collecting the flowers which grow
on the steep crags. They pluck the Leontopodium, remarkable for its
cotton-like sheath, the Senecio alpinus with its circle of golden rays,
the pansy of the Alps which has the scent of lilies, the Satyrium nigrum
with the perfume of vanilla, while the echoes of the neighbouring hills

56 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

resound with bursts of lively and uncontrolled laughter, the sure
accompaniment of simple and innocent pleasures.

' But one day this mirth was checked by a fatal accident. A young
couple married on the same morning had come, with all their wedding
party, to the festival. To avoid for a moment the crowd, they had
approached the edge of the mountain, when the bride's foot slipped,
her husband tried to hold her, but was dragged over the precipice,
and they both ended their li ves together on their happiest day ! A
ruddy rock is pointed out which is reputed to be stained by their
blood.' [Voyages, 355.]

I quote this passage in full, since it illustrates several sides of de
Saussure's character — his feeling for nature, his early inclination
for botany, and his sympathy, none the less real for being coloured
in its expression by the sentiment of the day, for the simple life of
country people. On another occasion he describes how he met a
young girl from one of the villages on the Savoy shore of the
Lake of Geneva, who, having been courted by a youth from Canton
Fribourg, was starting off on a two days' tramp alone with her
lover, in order to visit his home, and satisfy herself as to his means
before accepting him. On this incident, as a proof both of the
worldly prudence and the high moral standard of a peasantry
who saw in it nothing compromising, de Saussure moralises
sympathetically. It is in this direction far more than in connec-
tion with the appreciation of the scenery of the High Alps that
any trace of Rousseau's influence can be detected in his pages.
He is always quick to record any human traits that interest him,
and he does not hesitate in the Voyages to wedge them in between
solid blocks of geological detail.

Thus later in life he confesses to having filched some pears in
passing an orchard in the Vallee de Montjoie, near St. Gervais,
and having been delighted when the peasant woman to whom he
offered payment replied : ' It is not for that I come ; He who
made the fruits did not make them for a single owner.' No
better proof could be offered of the rarity of visitors in
de Saussure's day ! The indulgence that was extended to
the pious pilgrim or rare wanderer could hardly hope to
survive the inrush of the view-hunters and the visitors to the
glaciers.

I must find space for one more passage, a description of the

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 67

source of the Orbe in the Jura, that has attracted the admiration
of literary critics :

' We went to see this source where it issues at the mills of Bonport,
and found it well worthy of the visit of the curious traveller. A semi-
circular cliff, about 220 feet high, composed of great horizontal layers,
cut vertically, and broken by lines of pines which grow on the shelves
formed by its protruding salients, closes to the west the vale of Vallorbes.
Loftier mountains clad in forests form a circle open only where it
allows the course of the Orbe, which rises at the very foot of this cliff.
Its waters of a perfect purity flow with majestic calm over a bed
carpeted with a beautiful green moss, Fontinalis antipyretica. Soon,
however, the centre of the current, quickened by the steep slope,
breaks in foam against the rock which occupies the middle of its
channel, while the sides, less troubled and still flowing smoothly over
their green bed, make the whiteness of the central stream more notice-
able ! Thus it glides out of sight, following the course of a deep glen
clothed in pine-woods whose dark hue is rendered more striking by the
brighter tone of the beeches that grow among them. Gazing at this
source one understands how poets have been led to deify fountains,
or to make them the homes of their divinities. The purity of the
springs, the beautiful shades which surround them, the broken cliffs
and dense forests which defend their access, this combination of
charms, at once gentle and imposing, creates an impression difficult
to express, and suggests the presence of a Being above humanity.

' Ah ! had Petrarch discovered this source, and found here his
Laura, how much would he have preferred it to that of Vaucluse,
more abundant, perhaps, and swifter, but whose sterile rocks have
neither the grandeur nor the rich setting which decorate ours.'
[Voyages, 385.]

This passage has been selected by Ruskin, a lifelong admirer of
de Saussure, for special eulogy. It loses, no doubt, in translation,
yet I cannot rank it as high as others in de Saussure 's works, less
touched by the conventional classicism of his day.

The two remarkable men whose influence most affected de
Saussure 's early life and career must now be introduced to my
readers. It was in 1756 that a sister of de Saussure 's mother, Mile.
Jeanne Marie de la Rive, married Charles Bonnet, at that time
one of the leading names in science and philosophy at Geneva and
a man of European reputation. The relationship thus created
was destined to be an enduring one. Fifty -four years afterwards

58 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

— in 1810 — the uncle and nephew were coupled in the eulogy de-
livered by Cuvier at the Institut de France on those of its members
who had died during the French Revolution, a period the orator
described as ' the fatal epoch when all personal merit, all inde-
pendent pre-eminence, was odious to authority.' After another
half -century Sainte-Beuve was to write of them as ' the two
names that form the true crown of this great literary and scientific
century of Geneva.'

It was two years later that de Saussure first came in contact
with Albrecht von Haller.1 Their acquaintance was brought
about in this wise. In 1758 Madame de Saussure 's health gave
renewed cause for anxiety. For three years she had been under
the care of Theodore Tronchin, the most famous doctor of his
time, and a notable character in the Geneva and Paris of his day.
An old friend of the de Saussure family, and destined to be closely
connected with Horace Benedict in after years, he calls for some
notice here. Tronchin's father had lost his fortune by the collapse
of Law and the South Sea Bubble. At the age of eighteen
Theodore came to England, where Lord Bolingbroke, with whom
there was some family connection, introduced him to Swift, Pope,
and Addison — but not to a career. The youth went on to
Holland, married a great-niece of John de Witte, and studied and
successfully practised medicine for twenty-five years. When at
the age of forty-five he set up in Geneva, Tronchin earned the
cordial dislike of his colleagues by his contempt for the traditional
treatment then in vogue . He ridiculed their antiquated ' systems,'
he condemned their violent remedies, he called the medical
science, as they practised it, 'the scourge of the human race,' he
preached observing nature and helping it to cure itself. ' He,'
wrote Grimm, ' treats not the sickness, but the sick man.' His
favourite prescriptions were moderate diet, pure air, country life,
riding — above all, out-of-door exercise. He recommended an
Abbe to chop wood and an Abbesse to do her own room and
polish the floor ! He was an enthusiast for cold baths. ' As long
as the Romans,' he wrote, ' after their exercise on the Campus
Martius threw themselves into the Tiber they were the masters of
the world ; the hot baths of Agrippa and Nero turned them into
slaves.' If he made enemies in his own profession, he had for his
1 For a fuller notice of Bonnet and A. von Haller, see chapter xvi.

DK. TRONCHIN

By Liotard

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 59

friends the world of letters . To his lady patients who suffered from
nerves Tronchin used very plain speaking, and they endured his
scolding gladly. He became the fashion, and the arbiter of
fashion. To take a morning walk in heelless shoes and a short
dress was called ' tronchiner.' A bevy of fair ladies came from
Paris to be under the physician a la mode ; there were not enough
houses or apartments in Geneva to hold them. Madame d'Epinay
was delighted to dine constantly with her doctor ; Grimm declared
that all his patients became his friends. Voltaire rejoiced in his
company and described him as six feet high, ' wise as ^Esculapius,
and beautiful as Apollo ; no one talks better or more wittily.'
Catherine, the Empress of Russia, tried to tempt him to St.
Petersburg. In 1766 he left Geneva to become first physician
to the Duke of Orleans at Paris, where he died fifteen years
later at the age of seventy-four. His funeral was attended by
a crowd of poor people whom he had benefited, and for
whom he had reserved two hours a day for gratuitous
consultations.

This paragon of a doctor was on the most intimate terms
with the de Saussure family ; but he could do nothing to restore
Madame de Saussure 's health. It is easy to realise the dilemma
of her relatives, their anxiety for a more vigorous treatment in
accordance with the traditions of the orthodox medicine of the
day, and at the same time their reluctance to slight an old family
friend. In these circumstances it no doubt seemed a good
arrangement for Madame de Saussure to have recourse to the
waters of Bex, where she would find her brother-in-law Bonnet's
friend, ' The Great Haller,' close at hand in his chateau at
Roche, and could profit informally by his medical advice. It was
convenient that her son should go with her and exercise his taste
for botanising in a new field, the Alps of Vaud. Bonnet, who was
in constant correspondence with Haller, wrote to him warmly
recommending his nephew. Haller, who had promised himself
literary leisure in his retirement, seems to have soon found his
country home dull, and readily welcomed the youth who was so
keen on botany and so eager to be of use in collecting for him.
The link between them resulted in a lifelong friendship and
produced a voluminous correspondence, much of which is still
preserved in the Public Library at Berne.

60 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

These two men, illustrious in their generation, were the chief
formative influences in de Saussure's early manhood. Between
them they gave a direction to his travels and encouragement to
his scientific pursuits. In the course of a century and a half
their fame has grown somewhat dim. I have therefore added
in a supplementary chapter a brief sketch of their careers which
may be of interest to some of my readers.

In the year 1759 de Saussure finished his course at the
Academy in the philosophy class, and publicly delivered and
printed, apparently as a qualification for his degree, A Physical
Discourse on Fire,1 a tract on the transmission of heat from the
sun's rays. Senebier tells us that ' it was remarkable for pre-
cision of thought, clearness of style, and accuracy in excluding all
hypothetical matter.' Amongst other details the student showed
that dark objects are more quickly heated, an observation he was
two years afterwards able to illustrate by the practice of Alpine
peasants of spreading in spring black earth over their meadows
to hasten the melting of the snow. About this date Haller's
letters to him — Haller was always formal in his superscription —
bear the title ' Avocat.' An explanation may be found in a
passage in de Candolle's reminiscences. ' In 1796,' he writes,
' I quitted the School of Philosophy. As a matter of form and
following a prevalent custom, I entered that of Law, firmly resolved
never to be a jurisconsult, or lawyer, but hoping to gain some
knowledge of affairs.' The custom is not confined to Geneva :
many Englishmen read law and are called to the Bar with a
similar motive.

De Saussure, now released for a time from his studies, found
leisure for more extended rambles. He climbed the grassy cone
of the Mole, a mountain which, rising conspicuously above
Bonne ville, forms a prominent object in all southward views from
the neighbourhood of Geneva, and had served the English party
of 1741 as a natural belvedere for Mont Blanc. These excursions
excited his youthful energy to further enterprise. The call of
the snows became most urgent. ' I burnt,' he writes, ' with
desire for a nearer view of the High Alps, which from the
summit of our mountains appear so majestic.'

The occasion came in the following year, 1760, a memorable

1 Dissertatio physica de igne.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 61

date in de Saussure's life, that of the first of his many visits to
Chamonix.

There is no reason to think that the Campus Munitus l of old
parchments, the once secluded dale lying immediately at the foot
of the snows visible from the neighbourhood of Geneva, was unin-
habited, or unknown, even in classical times. We have evidence
in the shape of memorial inscriptions and a boundary stone of the
permanent presence of Romans along its borders, on the sunny,
vine -clad slopes of Passy, and on the wooded heights of the
Forclaz above St. Gervais, which before the defile of Les Montets
had been made passable, served as the chief means of access to the
upper valley. From the end of the eleventh century its principal
village, known as le Prieure" — the modern Chamonix — had been the
seat of a religious house, many documents relating to which have
been preserved and published.2 It was dependent on the great
Benedictine Abbey of St. Michel de la Cluse near Susa above the
road to the Mont Cenis, to which the whole valley of Chamonix
had been given by Count Aymon of Geneva by an Act of Donation
dated 1091. As early as 1375 its Prior sent twelve baskets of
what he described as most exquisite butter across the Great
St. Bernard as an Easter offering to the Court of Savoy. In
1458 we find one of his successors in office engaged in contracting
for a road wide enough for 'two-horse wine-carts, each capable of
carrying three barrels,' being kept in repair between Servoz and
the upper valley. Two centuries later the Prior of the day was
more banefully employed in superintending the burning of poor
women as alleged heretics and sorceresses, and in confiscating
their goods to ecclesiastical uses. The belief in witchcraft was
widespread in the Alpine region.

1 It has been commonly assumed that the Latin form represents accurately
the original name of the valley, ' le champ muni,' and that this was a picturesque
description of its situation enclosed by high mountains. It occurs to me that a
primitive peasantry would be more likely to regard the singular feature of so
large a cultivable expanse from its practical aspect. This undoubtedly imposed
itself on its early visitors. For instance, Bordier, in his Voyage Pittoresque, writes
as follows of ' the pleasant plain of Chamonix ' — ' C'est un ovale long de trois lieues
d'etendue sur un quart de lieue de largeur d'un terrain excellent, parfaitement uni,
tel qu'on n'en voit point aux environs de Geneve.' Is not ' le champ uni ' a plausible
origin for the name ? In this case a curious analogy would exist with the old name of
Zermatt, ' Praborgne, Praborno, or Praborny ' (Whymper, Guidebook to Zermatt).

2 See Histoire de la Vallee et du Prieure de Chamonix de Xe au XI Ve siecle,
and Documents relatifs au Prieure et a la Vallee de Chamonix, par MM. Perrin et
Bonnefoy (Chamb6ry, 3 vols., 1879, 1883, and 1887).

62 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Bishops on
their pastoral rounds occasionally penetrated this remote corner
of their diocese. In 1606 the valley received an episcopal saint,
St. Fran9ois de Sales. Seventy-four years later another Bishop,
Jean d'Arathon d'Alex, penetrated this corner of his diocese, and,
we are told, successfully exorcised the glaciers, forcing them to
retire ' half a quarter of a league.' But this exercise of episcopal
authority was but a poor set-off for the executions and cruelties
perpetrated in the name of religion. In the sixteenth century the
Priory passed into the hands of the collegiate church of St.
Jacques at Sallanches, and a period of disturbance followed.
The Chamoniards on several occasions revolted against the
exactions of their ecclesiastical lords. But it was not till 1786
that the Commune succeeded in buying out the Priory at the cost
of 58,000 livres. Had the Chamoniards endured patiently for
another year or two the Revolution would have relieved them for
nothing.

The Reformation, in freeing Geneva from the rule of its Bishops,
broke the links between the city and the highlands of Savoy.1
There is no evidence that any of these ecclesiastical visitors
noticed the splendour of Mont Blanc. The distinction of being
the first to do so was left to a layman, a Treasury clerk from
Grenoble, who visited on business what he was pleased to call
' ce pays affreux.' He seems to have been a shallow-witted person
who lightened his official duties by amorous correspondence.
Boileau, in his Repas Ridicule, alludes to him as a ' buffon plaisant,'
* un 6crivain fort estime par les provinciaux.' At Chamonix
he displayed his ingenuity by making the glaciers serve him to
turn an elaborate compliment in a love-letter — ' Madame,' he
wrote in May 1669 :

' I see here five mountains which resemble you as if they were
yourself . . . five mountains, Madame, made of pure ice from head
to foot . . . for the rest, Madame, there is nothing so magnificent
as these mountains.' 2

Le Pays' premature — and probably fictitious — enthusiasm for the
glaciers had no immediate consequences. Their chaste magnifi-

1 The see of the diocese was transferred to Annecy after 1635.

2 Les Nouvelles (Euvres de M. le Pays, Amitiks, Amours, et Amourettes, were
published at Amsterdam in 1687. See vol. ii. p. 124.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 63

cence remained for a century unsullied by any crowd of admirers.
Chamonix was thought of at Geneva, as far as it was thought of at
all, as a forbidding district inhabited by a peasantry of a more or
less uncouth, if not dangerous, disposition, who made a precarious
living by selling crystals,1 butter, and honey, and telling strange
tales of the 'frosty fairyland' which encompassed their home.
The good citizens of Geneva no more looked on the glaciers of
Savoy as an object for a holiday than the Russian officials at
Kutais fifty years ago thought of pleasure -touring in Suanetia
under the shadow of Tetnuld and Ushba.

The dwellers in the vale of Chamonix had been discovered to
their cost by clerics and clerks. But, with few exceptions,2 their
visitors before 1760 had been bound on business ; they had not
gone beyond the chief village, or paid any particular attention to
the strange features of the scenery. It was left to a party of our
countrymen, most of them youths completing their education at
Geneva, to furnish the world with the first detailed account of ' a
visit to the Ice-Alps of Savoy.' The leaders of the expedition of
eight Englishmen, which penetrated as far as the Montenvers, were
Pococke, a well-known Eastern traveller, and Mr. Windham of
Felbrigg. These adventurers were destined to be the forerunners of
the host of ' visitors to the glaciers,' who a few years later disturbed
Gibbon in his retreat at Lausanne.3 In 1741 they were the first to
reveal not only to the literary and scientific world of Europe, but
also to the citizens of Geneva, that the glaciers of Grindelwald,
already brought into notice by the scientists of Berne and the
worthy Scheuchzer as 'miracles of nature,' had their rivals in Savoy.
Windham's narrative has of late been often reprinted, condensed,
and commented on, and need not be dealt with here in any detail.3
But it is due to our countrymen to point out that their story has
been unfairly criticised. Their claim to be discoverers has been

1 Crystals are mentioned by Evelyn as one of the chief articles of commerce
at Geneva.

* Amongst the exceptions before 1740 may be reckoned Fatio de Duillier,
a Prince of Sulzbach in 1727, and soon after 1740 Firmin Abauzit.

8 Archdeacon Coxe, in his Life of Benjamin Stillingfleet, mentions that Pococke
and Windham were joint authors of the latter's letter, but were aided in its composi-
tion by the latter's tutor, Stillingfleet. The title of the rare tract is 'An Account
of the Glaciers or Ice Alps of Savoy in two letters, one from an English gentleman
to his friend at Geneva, the other from Peter Martel, engineer, to the said
English gentleman,' 1744.

64 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

taken in far too literal a sense, while the more or less sarcastic
comments made on their nervousness in going armed prove
to be unreasonable. Contemporary records show that even
twenty years later Savoy was infested with smugglers, tramps, and
marauders to such an extent that the citizens of Geneva were in
the habit of arming themselves before going a few miles into the
environs. The doctor or the lawyer called to a sick-bed, the
pedlar going the round with his wares, the landlord collecting his
rents, did not set out without seeing to the priming of their
pistols. In a letter dated 10th September 1761, de Saussure tells
Haller the following story. Two German botanists had been
recently murdered on the Saleve. They had fallen victims to a
band of ' Bohemians ' who were lurking in the forests of Savoy.
These marauders had been bold enough to enter villages and rob
houses in broad daylight, until the Chamoniards turned out
in force to ' hunt them down like wild beasts.' Fortunately
for the Bohemians,1 de Saussure writes, they escaped ; for had
they been caught they would have been slain without any
form of trial. He concludes by lamenting that he may have
for a time to give up his solitary rambles on the heights round
Geneva.

Senebier, de Saussure 's biographer, puts the case on the whole
fairly enough : ' At Geneva,' he writes, ' in 1760 there was much
talk of a journey made by some Englishmen to Chamonix ; this

1 De Saussure's first visit was, it may be noted, in the year before the murders,
but he went to Chamonix again in 1761. 'Bohemian ' was for a long time a common
term for marauders in the Alps. Sebastian Munster, a professor at Basle, who
published a Universal Cosmography in 1544, got into a scrape by asserting that
the inhabitants of the Engadine were ' worse robbers than the Bohemians.' He
had probably been taking a cure at St. Moritz, the waters of which were frequented
from early times. It is amusing to learn that a solemn deputation was sent all
the way from the valley to Basle to complain of the libel, with the result that due
apology was offered and accepted. The disorders about 1760 were partly conse-
quent on the Seven Years War, which was drawing towards its close. Troops of
deserters and disbanded soldiers roamed the country and made the roads unsafe.
Further evidence of the disturbed state of Faucigny at this period is found in a
pleasant anecdote told by de Saussure himself of his reception at the Chartreuse
of Le Reposoir. This lies in a secluded glen a few miles above Cluses, at the
back of the Pointe Percee, a lion-like summit, the other side of which is a con-
spicuous object from the Baths of St. Gervais and stands prominent against the
sunset in the view from the Grands Mulcts. I give de Saussure's tale in his own
words :

' I have stayed at this Convent, a convenient resort for a naturalist, two or
three times, and always been well received by the Chartreux. My first visit,

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 65

district was then regarded as inaccessible ; it was a fairyland,
where imagination and credulity amused themselves in placing
the most absurd and terrifying phenomena — it was the site of the
" Montagnes Maudites." Senebier goes on : ' De Saussure
formed the project of visiting Les Montagnes Maudites. I
know not which is most admirable, the courage of the youth
who braves opinion and carries out his wish despite it, or the
good sense of his parents who contemned popular nervousness
and had sufficient confidence in the prudence of their son to
authorise his journey.'

Adequate explanation of the comments on our countrymen's
alleged timidity is not far to seek. They preferred tents to
the wretched wine -shops which at that date were the only shelter
at Chamonix ; they carried arms, and Pococke, who had travelled
in the Levant, seems to have put on an Arab dressing-gown,
and, abetted by his companions, mystified the simple inhabitants
of Sallanches by pretending to be an Oriental potentate. This
harmless jest was quite enough to afford to the Chamoniards —
* nation gaie et railleuse,' as de Saussure called them — material
for a tale which would be welcomed by their Genevese visitors,
gossips by nature, and slightly annoyed that it should have been
left to foreigners to reveal to the world wonders that had lain for
centuries almost at their own gates — within, even at that date, a
long day's journey. It was natural enough that they should take

however, gave them a great fright. At the time I was making a collection of
Alpine birds. I carried a gun, my two servants who were with me had guns ;
the hunters who served me as guides were also armed. It was a Thursday ; the
Chartreux were enjoying the moment of recreation they term a spaciment — they
were taking the air in a wood near the Convent. By chance we approached
through the same wood, and the peaceable hosts of this solitude, seeing themselves
suddenly surrounded by armed strangers, thought that their last day had come,
or at least that we were about to pillage their Convent. In vain I tried to explain
to them my objects in travel ; curiosity seemed to them too feeble a motive
to make anyone come to see mountains from their point of view gloomy and un-
attractive ; and that all our armament was in order to kill little birds they looked
on as a ridiculous and almost preposterous pretext. Notwithstanding, they
invited us to enter the Convent and to refresh ourselves, being persuaded that in
any case we should enter by force. It was only after having examined my
scientific instruments and inspected us scrupulously that they persuaded them-
selves that we had no evil designs.' [Voyages, 284.]

The case, it may be noted, has points of resemblance with that of the English
party, and indicates the general sense of insecurity in Savoy at this time. Even
the unwarlike Bourrit took pistols with him when he went round Mont Blanc.
It is true they were unloaded.

66 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

a mild and harmless revenge by making fun out of any eccentricities
in the Englishmen they could lay hold of. It gave them some-
thing to laugh over at the afternoon tea-parties in the pleasant
gardens on the shores of Lake Leman, while they glanced at the
sunset on the snows they preferred to view from a discreet
distance.1

Another glimpse of the supposed perils of a visit to the glaciers
about this date is afforded by the high -spirited account of his
own experiences given by de Saussure's friend, the young Due de
la Rochefoucauld d'Enville, afterwards a victim of the Revolu-
tion, who went to Chamonix in 1762. He does full justice to
our countrymen, whom he imitated in taking arms. I quote a
few lines :

' Mr. Windham, a young Englishman of about twenty, carried out
successfully this arduous journey ; it wanted an Englishman, or a
knight-errant ; he was an Englishman ! It was worse than fighting
with giants or winged dragons, sheep or windmills. It was a case of
tramping through frightful regions by paths full of rocks fallen from
the mountains, crossing streams, affronting the voracious insects with
which the pothouses of Savoy are full ; his courage carried him over
all these obstacles. Since his time all the English who come to Geneva
make this journey, and some Genevese, but no Frenchmen had yet
attempted it.' 2

The immediate motive of de Saussure's first visit to
Chamonix in 1760 had been the desire to collect plants for
Haller. In that year Haller mentions him along with the
collectors from whom he hopes for great results, while
Bonnet writes, 'My nephew glories in contributing to your
botanical studies.' A few weeks later we hear that the pupil
has * created some new plants,' but later on he was appar-
ently less successful, for Haller admonishes him gently as to his
way of going to work. ' I fear, eager as you are, that on your
excursions you walk a little too quickly ; one ought to go as slowly

1 In the year following Windham's visit (1742) Pierre Mattel, an engineer living
at Geneva, organised a party to repeat the trip of the Englishmen. He was better
provided with instruments, and brought back some measurements and an attempt
at a map. These he embodied in a narrative addressed to Windham, which is
stated on the title-page to have been ' laid before the Royal Society.' It is not,
however, included in any of its Transactions.

1 See Annuaire du Club Alpin Fran$ais, 1893.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 67

as possible, and above all on the alps to sit down from time to
time, even to lie down, so as to get a close view of the growing
plants. A league traversed thus slowly will bring you a better
return than two hurried over.' In a later letter de Saussure
alleges as an excuse for his slender booty, the relative poverty of
the flora of the Chamonix valley.

De Saussure has given no separate account of this his first
excursion to the snows, and his experiences have to be collected
from different passages in the Voyages. At an age when walking
for walking's sake is a pleasure to vigorous youth, he tramped
alone all the fifty miles from Geneva. Up to Sallanches the road
was excellent, for the rest of the way to the top of the defile
of Les Montets there was only a rough cart-track hardly possible
for wheels and liable to be interrupted by dangerous torrents.

But the young collector found more than compensation by
the roadside :

' It is on these rocks,' he writes, ' that the first really Alpine
plants one meets on the way to Chamonix grow. After the frosts and
the occupations of winter have kept me for several months far from
the High Alps, when I am at last able to return to them, the first
Alpine plants, the moment that I recognise them, always give me a
thrill of delight ; I feel then that I am in my element, in possession
of the liveliest pleasures that the study of nature can give to its lovers.
I rejoice to see again the Rhododendron ferrugineum, that charming
bush whose ever-green branches are crowned by ruddy blossoms, the
smell of which is as sweet as their colour is exquisite ; the Auricula of
the Alps, which in our garden has gained richer hues, but fails to pre-
serve its delicate perfume, is spread over these rocks, with the Astrantia
alpina, the Saxifraga cotyledon, and many others.' [Voyages, 608.]

De Saussure 's first impression of the glaciers follows :

' On issuing from this wild and narrow defile [Les Montets] the
traveller turns to the left, and enters the valley of Chamonix, the
aspect of which is in contrast absolutely soft and smiling. The floor
of the valley, which is in the form of a cradle with gently sloping sides,
is covered with meadows between which the road passes, protected by
low palings. The different glaciers which fall into the valley catch
the eyes in succession. At first one notes only that of Taconnaz, which
seems as if hanging on the steep slope of a narrow ravine, of which
it occupies the bottom. But soon the eyes are drawn to the Glacier

68 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

des Bossons, which is seen to descend from the summits neighbouring
on Mont Blanc ; its icy masses, wrought into the form of huge pyramids,
produce an astonishing effect in the centre of the pine woods which
they traverse and overtop. These majestic glaciers, separated by
great forests, and crowned by granite crags of astounding height cut in
the form of great obelisks and mixed with snow and ice, present one
of the noblest and most singular spectacles it is possible to imagine.
The fresh and pure air one breathes, so different from the close atmo-
sphere of the basins of Sallanches and Servoz, the good cultivation of
the soil, the pretty hamlets met with at every step, when seen on a
fine day, give the impression of a new world, a sort of earthly paradise,
enclosed by a kindly Deity in the circle of the mountains. The road,
continuously good and easy,1 allows the traveller to give himself up
to delicious reveries and the pleasant, varied, and novel ideas which
crowd on his brain.' [Voyages, 510.]

How are the ' Cursed Mountains ' transformed in the eyes of
the youth who was to lead Europe to do them homage ! At the
Prieure there was no accommodation except in one or two rough
cabarets, so that the young traveller found lodging with the cure,
doubtless in the pleasant house that still stands to the right of the
church as one looks up the village street. He undertook what
since Pococke and Windham's day was the inevitable excursion,
that which was afterwards described by a French tourist as
' le Mont Blanc jusqu'au Montenvers.' There he saw the 'Pierre
des Anglais,' a shepherds' gite, under which local legend said —
it appears falsely — that the English visitors had passed the night,
but where, at any rate, they had lunched and drunk patriotic toasts,
including the health of ' the Roi Georges ' — a precedent the guides,
no doubt pleased to share in the bottles opened, tried, we are told,
to impose on travellers of other nationalities.2 De Saussure, bolder
than his predecessors, essayed the crossing of the glacier and
visited the solitary shepherd who kept his flock on the scanty
pasturage at the foot of the Aiguille du Dru. The old man asked for
tobacco, which de Saussure could not supply, but he seemed to
have no use for the coins offered him.

De Saussure on this occasion also climbed the Brevent, guided
by Pierre Simon, whom for many years he constantly employed.

1 This refers to the open valley above Les Houches as contrasted to the
defile of Les Montets.

* Bordier, Voyage Pittoresque aux Olacilres de Savoie, Geneve, 1773.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 6d

This was probably the first ascent by a tourist. The most inter-
esting fact connected with de Saussure's 1760 visit is that he
issued a notice in each parish of the valley offering a handsome
reward to the first man to climb Mont Blanc, and further promising
to recompense any adventurers for time lost in searching for a way.
The amount offered has not been recorded.

The young traveller's attention was not confined to the
mountains, but extended also to their inhabitants. The human
interest was always strong in de Saussure, whether in society or
during his rambles. He tells us at the beginning of his chapter on
the manners and customs of the Chamoniards that in his childhood
the common folk at Geneva called the snowy mountains ' the
Accursed Hills,' and believed that their eternal frosts — the snow
and ice that grew in the place of forests on their mountain sides —
were a punishment for the crimes committed by those who
lived under them. Until the Savoy highlands became better
known, this belief, absurd as it may seem, served as foundation
for a distrust which obtained credit even among people who might
have been expected to be above such prejudices. They had the
excuse that their superstition was far from being singular ; the
Pyrenees have their Maladetta, and many similar cases might be
cited . Waste places had to be peopled ; and Christianity converted
the classical fauns and nymphs either into demons and witches,
or elves and fairies.

During de Saussure's life a great change came over Chamonix.
Up to 1765 the cure's house had afforded the only decent lodging in
the village. Twenty years later it boasted three large and good
inns and eighteen hundred tourists a year to fill them. This influx
of visitors to a certain extent corrupted the simplicity of the
inhabitants, but, apart from petty tricks used to obtain engage-
ment as guides, they were, we are told, honest, serviceable, and
well content with their pay of five or six francs a day. The male
population in summer was greatly reduced by the number who
sought employment abroad not only in the large towns, but as
cheesemakers in the French and Italian Alps . In this art they had
acquired a reputation which has lasted to the present day, and it
is by no means rare to find a Chamoniard employed in a chalet far
from his own valley. Those who stayed at home were little given
to field labour, which they left mostly to the women. Before the

70 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

career of guides was open to them they resorted either to the
search for crystals or to chamois -hunting, both highly dangerous
pursuits in which many lives were lost. De Saussure tells several
dramatic stories of the perils of the chase and the jealousy of
the hunters of different districts . The charge of luring peasants to
destruction which has sometimes been brought against moun-
taineers is obviously unsustainable, since the profession of guide is
far less dangerous than the pursuits it has superseded. It is
surprising to find as early as 1787 another charge — a less serious
one — brought against the guides' employers. Tourists, a visitor
alleges, anxious to make records — so long to the Montenvers,
so many minutes in crossing the Mer de Glace — forced their
laden guides to keep up an excessive pace, with the deplorable
result that the guides, worn out by constant and excessive effort,
became old men at forty. The same writer admits that many of
the guides had already the fault of being too exacting, but points
out that several may be found who retain the simplicity and
disinterestedness of their fathers .*

There can be no doubt that the new form of employment
created by the visitors to the glaciers was a great boon to a district
which could not maintain its population. Unlike — as Bourrit
points out — the independent peasant -farmers of the Bernese
Oberland, who found sufficient sustenance in their fields and
broad alps, the Chamoniards, shut up in their narrow valley and
subject to the exactions of a religious community, were ready to
welcome eagerly any new mode of wage -earning. The relative
poverty of Chamonix was one cause of its school of guides attaining
to a pre-eminence which was not seriously contested for many
years by the men of Grindelwald and the Hasli Thai. Another was
the quickness with which they picked up the icecraft called for in
ascents of Mont Blanc . In my own early years Chamonix men were
unrivalled on a difficult glacier. Icefalls locally deemed impractic-
able were a pastime to Frangois Devouassoud. Yet another
qualification may be found in the wandering habit of the Savoyard
peasantry. From very early days Chamoniards with their mules
were ready to accompany travellers on extensive tours, and to act,
as Ruskin's guide did, more or less as couriers.

1 Excursion dans les Mines du Haul Faucigny, Berthoud van Berchem file
(Lausanne, 1787).

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 71

Bourrit reports that on one occasion when de Saussure was
expected at Chamonix, a hunter who had gone out to secure a
chamois as a present to him perished in the chase, and that de
Saussure thereon behaved generously to his family. So great,
Bourrit adds, was the respect felt for de Saussure in the valley,
that the Chamoniards would habitually raise their hats in
mentioning his name. Their famous visitor was by no means
slow in returning the warm feelings entertained towards him by
the comrades of his climbs. But at the same time he was very
conscious of the weak points in the local character often brought
out by the emergencies of travel. He records the devices by
which on Mont Blanc his guides endeavoured to prevent him
from camping on the snow, the sorry trick by which they sought to
cut short his sojourn on the Col du Geant. But he has nothing but
praise for his first guide, Pierre Simon, who died about 1780, and
his successor, Marie Couttet. Of the former Bourrit has given us a
picture :

1 This guide is one of the best recommended of the valley, and he
owes his reputation to M. de Saussure, who, recognising his good
qualities, trained him in his various excursions. He is short of stature ;
his head buried in a large hat ; small bright eyes, a short coat, heavy
nailed shoes, and a spiked stick, a peculiar language as difficult to under-
stand as to speak for everyone except his illustrious employer — such
are his external qualities. What made me choose him was that he
was experienced, prudent, courageous, and faithful.' l

The description will find an echo in the recollections of many
more recent climbers. De Saussure's later guide, Marie Couttet,
I picture as of the same type as his nephew, the guide of my own
boyhood, Michel Alphonse Couttet, and his son, Ruskin's com-
panion, Joseph Marie Couttet, so often mentioned in the pages of
Prceterita, tall, upright, with an almost military bearing, in dis-
position cautious, in conversation shrewd and sententious, on
the road or in rough quarters full of devices for an employer's
comfort, having for home a substantial house in the village.
The Balmats of fifty years ago, one of whom was Sir Alfred
Wills' guide, belonged to the same class. Balmat ' of Mont
Blanc ' was of another type, the peasant proprietors of the

1 Bourrit's Description des Aspects du Mont Blanc, 1776.

72 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

outlying hamlets, who often either emigrated or sought to
add to their scanty livelihood by crystal-hunting. De Saussure,
though he employed him more than once, would seem never
to have been on very cordial terms with him, or to have engaged
him as his chief guide. The tradition in the de Saussure family,
as reported by the late M. Henri de Saussure, is to the effect
that Balmat did not work well with his fellows, amongst whom
he was unpopular. Another of de Saussure's guides was Jean
Louis Devouassoud, 'dit le Professeur.' His nickname suggests
that the well-known guide and explorer, Fran£ois Devouassoud,
twice my companion in the Caucasus, may have inherited from
him the fine manner and literary instincts that made him so
delightful a companion to his many English employers. But I
have not been able to trace the degree of relationship. Fra^ois'
monument l stands beside the church door at Chamonix, and may,
I trust, long preserve and hand down the memory of a man who
embodied the traditional qualities of a great guide, and combined
with them those of an intrepid traveller and a never-failing friend.
De Saussure during this expedition made careful notes on the
local methods of agriculture, and he is at pains to indicate a flaw in
the communal system under which the pasturages and forests were
administered. The peasant who owns no hayfields in the valley
cannot feed cows in winter, and therefore gets no advantage from
the common summer pasturage on the Alps. The ' wild hay ' cut
on ledges inaccessible to four-footed animals will not suffice by itself
to maintain a single cow. The remedy de Saussure suggested was
that the wealthier peasants who profit by the pasturages should
pay a rent or tax to the commune, to be used as a poor-rate. Up
to recent years the absence of any poor-law at Chamonix has been
met by the custom among the villagers of taking turns to lodge
for a period the aged and infirm, or orphans who have no family
to support them.

1 Fran£ois Devouassoud's monument, besides the names of some of his prin-
cipal English friends, bears the following inscription : ' Fra^ois Joseph
DeVouassoud MDCCCXXXH-MDCCCCV Viro integro Comiti Amico Sodali jucundo
dilecto desiderate Duci sagaci indomito per xl. annos spectato ne tantae Virtutis
Memoria et Exemplum perderetur hunc Lapidem nonnulli ex Amicis
quos saepe inter Alpium Juga et Caucasi Nives duxerat ponendum cura-
verunt.' It owes its Latin form to my late friends, Sir Richard Jebb and
Mr. T. H. Rawlins, Vice-Provost of Eton. The latter was one of Francois'
employers.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 73

De Saussure points out the need of some winter occupation
for the men. Wood-carving, he says, has never taken root in
Savoy as in the Bernese Oberland. Many in the larger villages
spend most of their time in drinking -shops, and gamble even for
high stakes. In the more remote hamlets the evenings pass as
in the play of the Soiree Villageoise. At nightfall everyone meets
round the fire in the largest room, the women sew and card flax,
or tell stories ; the men make bowls and spoons or other such
articles in wood, and the mistress of the house is at no expense
beyond providing a jug of water and a bowl of apples cooked in
the cinders to serve as supper.

' Their wits,' adds de Saussure, ' are keen and penetrating, their
character is li vely and given to mockery ; they fasten with singular
shrewdness on any eccentricities in strangers, and mimic them between
themselves in the most amusing way. Nevertheless, they are capable
of serious reflection. Many of them have attacked me on questions
of religion or metaphysics, not so much on the points of difference
between one religion and another as on general questions, in a way
which showed that they had ideas of their own apart from those they
had been brought up in.' [ Voyages, 744.]

De Saussure proceeds to tell an affecting tale that has been
already quoted more than once in connection with his travels :

' Nothing of the sort surprised me more than a woman of Argentiere
whose home I entered to ask for milk when coming down from the
glacier in March 1764. The village had suffered from an epidemic of
dysentery, which, some months previously, had carried off her father,
her husband, and her brothers, so that she was left alone with three
children in infancy. Her figure had something noble about it, and
her countenance bore traces of a calm and deep sorrow which made it
interesting. After she had given me the milk she asked who I was,
and what I came for at that season. When she learned that I was
Genevese, she said she could not believe that Protestants would be
damned, that there were among us many honest people, and that
God was too good and just to condemn us indiscriminately. Then
after a moment's reflection, she added, shaking her head : " But what
is very strange is that of so many who have gone, not one should
have returned ; I," she added with an accent of sorrow, " who have
so deeply mourned my husband and my brothers, who have never
ceased thinking of them, who every night implore them with the
utmost earnestness to tell me where they are, and in what state — ah !

74 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

surely if they still exist somewhere they would not leave me in this
uncertainty. But perhaps," she added, " I am not worthy of this
privilege, perhaps the pure and innocent souls of these infants " — she
looked at their cradles as she spoke — " enjoy their presence and the
happiness which has been refused me." ' [Voyages, 744.]

De Saussure goes on to moralise as follows :

' This curious mixture of sense and superstition, expressed forcibly
in the energetic local dialect, had something most out of the common,
something in the classic style, or rather in that of Shakespeare ; and
her situation, her solitude, this frenzy of a soul distracted by grief,
made on me an impression which will never be effaced from my
memory.' [Voyages, 744.].

His holiday over, de Saussure returned to his home at Geneva
and his academic career.

In 1761 he stood for the Chair of Mathematics. With this
object he gave up for the moment the study of Physics and
Natural Science, and ' crammed ' geometry. He was, however,
honourably defeated by a formidable rival, Louis Bertrand, who
was to be his future opponent in the educational controversy, and
at a later date to serve on the same committee with him in the
revolutionary epoch. Bertrand was nine years older and already
a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. For the next
twelve months de Saussure consoled himself by returning to the
classics, and in particular to the Greek and Latin poets. Through-
out his life, though primarily a man of science, he was a consistent
supporter of the claim of the Humanities to a place in education,
and we shall discover him reading and quoting Homer, taking
Horace up Mont Blanc, and keeping an intimate journal in Greek.
He found another congenial occupation in prosecuting his
botanical studies. In 1762 he composed a treatise, Sur VEpiderme
des Feuilles et des Petales, of which Cuvier afterwards wrote :
' This little work in itself gave him an honourable place among
botanists.' He dedicated it to Haller, who contributed an appre-
ciative preface.

De Saussure found time to attend Tronchin's lectures on
Physiology. He also (in 1761) put in a second visit to Chamonix,
of which we have few particulars. He relates incidentally in the
Voyages a narrow escape he and his guide had from a stone

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 75

avalanche which fell from the moraine of the glacier under the
Aiguille du Midi.

In April 1762 another Professorship became vacant at the
Academy, that of Philosophy. The title as understood at Geneva
was a very comprehensive one. ' At this time,' writes a late
Librarian of the Town Library at Geneva, ' Philosophy was held
to include Psychology, Logic, Morals, and Divinity, and also the
general principles of the Natural Sciences, with some acquaintance
with the views of Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz.' The Venerable
Company, the Pastors and Professors of the Academy, accordingly
petitioned the Magnificent Council, which held Geneva under a
wide-reaching control, that the Chair might be divided. Physical
Science, they declared, was all the fashion, Rational Philosophy
in great danger of being neglected. They talked, as clerical
bodies are apt to talk, of ' the poison which spreads itself every-
where and threatens to infect the sources of public education.'
But their proposal was obviously sound . It was clearly monstrous
to call on a Professor of Physical Science to spend half his time
in teaching metaphysics, while his own students were receiving
instruction in the subjects on which he was an expert from a man
who could have but slender qualifications for the task. It was
equally unfortunate — and probably the Venerable Company
resented it more — that a master in Metaphysics and Morals
should be called on to devote his energies to other and more
secular subjects.

The eloquence of the Pastors was fruitless ; the conservative
Senate resolved that there should be no change made at the
coming election, but that it should be left open to consideration
at a future date whether the steps proposed by the Venerable
Company were desirable. This date did not arrive until 1823 !
Even then no satisfactory conclusion was reached.

In 1762 three candidates for the Professorship came forward.
Each had to produce two theses, one on Philosophy and one on
Natural Science. De Saussure was also able to adduce as a
qualification his botanical tract. He now wrote on the ' Principal
Causes of Errors arising from the Qualities of the Mind ' and ' On
Rainbows, Halos, and Parhelia.' His candidature had the in-
fluential support of ' The Great Haller,' and he was elected by a
majority after a contest which is said ' to have done honour to

76 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the Academy.' His more formidable rival, Frai^ois Mercier, had
subsequently a creditable career as a Professor and Rector of the
Academy.

On the 13th December two dignified representatives of the
Venerable Company presented the young Professor of twenty-two
for confirmation in his post to the Senate or Magnificent Council
— a body composed of twenty-five grave and reverend signers,
robed and capped with the flowing wigs to wear which was a
privilege of the aristocracy. The usual picturesque formalities
having been duly observed and the matter voted on both by
acclamation and ballot, de Saussure was introduced and took the
customary oath.

De Saussure's lectures have most of them perished, but
fortunately enough material has been preserved among the papers
of two of his pupils to enable us to form a fair idea of his philo-
sophical position. Of his attitude towards physical inquiry, the
Voyages, and above all the list of Agenda appended to their last
volume, supply the best illustration. More will be said on these
topics when we come to sum up his general character and position
as an observer and philosopher.

De Saussure lectured in French on Physics one year, and the
next in Latin on Metaphysics. For his Inaugural Discourse,
delivered in October 1763, the Professor chose a subject of
practical and perennial interest, one which he was twelve years
later to develop more fully. He writes to Haller :

' On Friday I shall pronounce my Inaugural Discourse. I have
taken as its subject " An Analysis of the Qualities necessary to form a
Philosopher, and of the education to be given to children in order to
foster or call forth such qualities." You will easily believe, Monsieur,
that I am not going to sing the praises of the education in vogue with
us and elsewhere, and that I do not insist on the study of Greek and
Latin as the essential last touch in education.'

In this matter de Saussure, himself no mean scholar, shows a
singularly impartial mind. But let us hope that, as regards
children (enfants is the word used), philosophy was given a re-
stricted interpretation by the Professor of twenty-three.

During 1762 de Saussure kept up a lively correspondence with
Haller. The latter had, it appears, placed one of his sons in some

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 77

commercial employ in Geneva. De Saussure bids him warn the
youth to have nothing whatever to do with the German shopboys,
who are in very bad repute owing to their conduct having been so
disorderly that they have had to be publicly reprimanded. In
April 1763 he writes to Haller a long memoir of twelve pages,
entering in much medical detail into his mother's symptoms,
and asking for a formal opinion. The patient, it seems, had again
lost confidence in the favourite doctor of Geneva. No doubt she
had many friends to suggest the expediency of taking other
advice. Tronchin's treatment, which Madame de Saussure had
been under for seven years, had been, her son writes, entirely
palliative. Would not Haller come to her aid ? If he thought
badly of her case, would he be good enough to say so in a private
note, and not in a formal opinion, so that the patient might not be
alarmed. The whole letter bears witness to the affection and
tender solicitude of a devoted son. Nothing, however, came of it,
as Madame de Saussure was unable to make the journey to Berne
which Haller suggested, and Tronchin was again called in.

His Professorship and his mother's health were not, however,
de Saussure's only interests in the autumn of 1763. A still more
absorbing one had come into his life. He was in love. The object
of his affections was a girl of seventeen, Mile. Albertine Amelie
Boissier, the eldest of three sisters, who were the great heiresses
of the city, and also, says Senebier, ' conspicuous in the society of
Geneva by their charms both of mind and person.' Looking at
the ages of the young ladies — the eldest was not yet eighteen — the
worthy Senebier would appear to be here somewhat anticipating
events. They were the only surviving children of Jean Jacques
Andre Boissier, described to Haller by his future son-in-law as
' of a family not ancient, but wealthy and esteemed.' The Boissiers
were prosperous bankers, and had a London house and English
connections. Madame Boissier was the only daughter of a well-
known professor and pastor, Ami Lullin (1695- 1756), himself the son
of a prosperous banker, Jean Antoine Lullin, whose wealth he had
inherited. It was therefore to his wife's parents that de Saussure
owed not only most of his means, but the townhouse, counted the
finest in Geneva, in which he spent a great part of his life. It was
built according to the designs of Abeille, a celebrated architect of his
day, and completed in 1707. It now remains quite unaltered and

78 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

is still in the possession of the family. A stone mansion of admir-
able proportions and dignified elevation, it occupies an excellent
site fronting, but standing back from, the Rue de la Cit6, the
steep street that leads from the Rhone to the Upper Town.
The entrance is through a lodge and courtyard. At the back
a broad terrace overlooks the ramparts, the Corraterie, and the
meadows of Plainpalais, and commands a view extending to the
distant Jura and the Perte du Rhone. The corner of this terrace
is occupied by a low pavilion used by de Saussure as a con-
venient laboratory and storehouse . According to tradition, Lullin
never lived to cross his threshold or to climb his stately staircase.
The story runs that the banker's coach broke down on his return
from a long absence in Paris, and that in consequence he arrived
so late that the city gates, always closed half an hour after sunset,
were already shut. Forced to sleep at the inn outside the walls,
he was suddenly taken ill and died before morning.

Mile. Boissier's relatives desired that no formal engagement
should take place till she was twenty. It was not till 1764 that
de Saussure felt himself free to announce his approaching marriage
to his friend at Roche. This is the description he gives of his
betrothed in a letter to Haller :

' She has the most beautiful, tender, and generous disposition ;
devoted to her duty, she is made to render happy the man who appre-
ciates her worth. Add a mind cultivated, sensitive, sympathetic, a
gentle gaiety, a face in which all these qualities are expressed, a pleas-
ing figure.'

We are able to put the young lady's portrait of herself
beside that given by her lover. Here are two extracts from
her private diary :

' I am fifteen and a half : I am plain, but not painfully so. Some
people find an attraction in my air of gentleness and kindness. Am I
clever ? No : still I am not actually stupid. My excessive nervous-
ness keeps me from talking as much as I might. I am rather disposed
to languor than to too much vivacity. I do not care for fashionable
society, and, to put it shortly, idleness is my favourite passion, and
one I ought to try to conquer. It often interferes with my studies,
to which, however, I am devoted. Finally, the best part of me is
my heart, which will perhaps prove my misfortune. Its sensibility is
so excessive, it agitates itself so often about nothing, that my reason

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80 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

relief to logic, in which he gave a successful course of lectures. In
March of the year 1764 he found a further distraction in a third
excursion to Chamonix, where he saw the landscape under snow and
studied the glaciers in a new aspect. He notes that in the valley
the snow was so hard that laden mules did not break the surface,
and so deep that the palings between the fields were buried.
This, however, can only have been the case at the head of the
valley, as at Chamonix there was only eighteen inches. De
Saussure's remarks on the aspect of the scenery in its winter garb
are interesting. He wrote :

' It was more wonderful than pleasing. The uniformity of white
surfaces of enormous extent reaching from the tops of the mountains
to the bottom of the valley, broken only by a few rocks where cliffs
could not hold the snow, by forests of a dull grey hue, and by the Arve,
which wound like a dark thread through the centre of the picture ;
this combination, lit by the sun, had, in its grandeur and its dazzling
purity, an element of death and infinite sadness. The glaciers, which
so well ornament the landscape when their background is a beautiful
green, made no effect in the middle of all this white, although when
near at hand the ice-pyramids, whose sides remained bare, shone
like emeralds under the fresh and white snow that capped their tops.'
[Voyages, 730.]

De Saussure added that his excursion had proved to him three
things — the formation of glaciers by the melting and refreezing of
snow, their forward motion, and the permanence of the streams
that issue from them.1

Three months later de Saussure gave an audience at the

1 It may be convenient to take this opportunity to refer to recent observations
os to the true origin of glacial streams in winter.

Up to the present time it has been generally believed that the winter outflow,
the perfectly clear water issuing at that season from the foot of the glacier, is the
result of a continuous melting of the ice caused by the warmth of the earth. It
seems strange that the fountains which break out from under the snow on bare
slopes in winter, when all else is frozen, did not suggest either to de Saussure or
to any of his scientific successors that the permanence of the glacial streams might
be due to similar sources in the bed of the glacier. This somewhat obvious fact
was not recognised until, in 1904, 1 pointed it out in an address to the Geographical
Section of the British Association at Cambridge. It was subsequently observed
independently by Professor Collet, formerly director of the Service des Eaux of
the Swiss Government, and now Professor of Geology in the University of Geneva.
Professor Collet has verified my observation and placed the matter beyond doubt
by a careful analysis of the waters issuing from the ice at different seasons of the
year. (The Academy became a University under Napoleon.)

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 81

Academy the fruit of his experiences in his three first visits to
Chamonix in a lecture entitled, ' A Description of the Glaciers of
Savoy, and a Theory of their Formation.' In November he sent
the MS. to Haller and asked for his advice as to whether it was
worth publishing, but though Haller approved, publication seems to
have been postponed. The material, no doubt, furnished the basis
of the chapter ' Des Glaciers en general ' subsequently inserted
in the Voyages. We recognise in it the first signs of a shift in the
direction of de Saussure's scientific aims. Henceforth, though by
no means off with botany, geology, regarded as the key to the
history of our planet, becomes the first object of his pursuit and
study. His letters to Haller at this time indicate the change.
He does his best to soften to the great botanist the fact that
collecting rare plants has ceased to be his principal aim. He
writes :

' I am very far from thinking of giving up botany ; plants shall
fail me before I will fail them. I meditate some grandes courses on the
Alps for next summer. The active life of a mountain naturalist has
a singular attraction for me. Plants, minerals, strange animals, seem
to grow under one's feet. The more general physical phenomena are
alone sufficient to attract observers. The purity of the air, the agree-
able temperature, the beauty of the landscape, would be enough to
induce me to frequent the mountains.'

His point of view is enlarging ; a special study of mosses, he
writes, may have to wait, and the flora of Chamonix, he repeats,
is deplorably poor.

The following quotation from the anonymous journal of a
visitor to Chamonix at this date (1764) bears witness to the
reputation de Saussure had already attained.

' Professor de Saussure is not one of those who rely on the report
of others. Young and eager to learn, laborious and acute, he has
visited the district three times, twice in the summer, and lastly in
March, not without much fatigue and risk. His eager curiosity has
placed him in a position to satisfy ours, and we reap tranquilly the
fruit of his labours.' l

De Saussure's marriage took place in the Chapel of the
Hospital on the 12th May 1765. Mile. Boissier's sister, Jeanne
Fran9oise, was married at the same time and place to Jean

1 Published by M. Henri Ferrand in the Revue Alpine, 1912, pp. 103-6.

F

82 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Alphonse Turrettini, a member of an old family of Italian origin.
De Saussure, by all accounts the most amiable of men in private
life, entered warmly into the larger family circle now open to him.
In the words of the sentimental Senebier, ' His expansive heart was
not too narrow for the new relations which his marriage provided
him ; he cherished with tenderness the amiable sisters of his wife,
who like her united bodily graces to the charms of the mind,
education, and true virtue.' The relatively early deaths of his
two brothers-in-law, combined with the fact that the country-house
at Genthod remained the joint property and summer residence of
the three sisters, led to the continuance of a singularly intimate
and affectionate relationship of which we shall come across fre-
quent indications in de Saussure 's correspondence.

At this point de Saussure 's biographer interpolates an anecdote
suited to the sentiment of the day in order to illustrate his hero's
kindness of heart. A few days after the wedding, news came
to Geneva that his foster-brother had been arrested as a deserter
at La Roche sur Foron in Faucigny, and was in danger of being
shot ; de Saussure at once rushed off to the spot and was successful
in obtaining a commutation of the sentence. On this Senebier
exclaims : ' A quoi serviraient le genie et le savoir s'ils fletrissaient
la sensibilite ? H est plus utile qu'on ne croit de peindre le cceur
d'un observateur avant de raconter ses travaux.' The 'sensi-
bility ' of the biographer is somewhat of a trial to the modern
reader, and would not, I fancy, have been congenial to his
subject !

His marriage put de Saussure and his bride to a test in most
cases incidental to that relationship in life in an unusually severe
form. It was an anxious matter to marry a youth who had
already avowed a passion for mountains, and a special devotion to
the inaccessible Monts Maudits, who had even gone further, and
plotted ways and means for conquering their snows. This am-
bition of de Saussure was, we are told by contemporaries, for years
a constant source of uneasiness to his family. His wife in
particular seems to have shown from the first, and never to have
wholly overcome, a very natural anxiety. But his resolutions
once formed were not easily set aside. He made up his mind,
he tells us, to make every year an Alpine tour, and he did his
best, while his health permitted, to carry out this intention. At

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 83

this period he had Mont Blanc very much on the brain. Here
is his confession in his own words :

' It became for me a sort of illness. My eyes could not encounter
this mountain, which one sees from so many spots in our neighbourhood,
without my being seized with a pang.' [Voyages, 2023.]

But if de Saussure was not to be diverted from the objects he had
set before him, the survival of many of his letters of a later date
enables us to appreciate with what tenderness he strove to soothe
his wife's feelings. He writes :

' I should be in despair if I thought that you did not love me too
much to look on my travels with indifference. Your affection makes,
I must confess, the whole happiness of my life. I could wish — I
swear to you — to make to it a complete sacrifice, but how can I re-
nounce a vocation which absorbs me, and thus abandon my career
in the middle ? I assure you that I have done all that is humanly
in my power to shorten my journey without spoiling it. For there
would be no lack of people to say, " Why did not he see that ? " " Why
did not he do this ? " And how could I venture to reply to my
critics, " It was in order sooner to rejoin my wife" ? '

Again he replies to some badinage on her part :

' I assure you I do not trouble myself much about mes belles.
You, my children, my parents, are about the only objects that distract
me from my philosophical contemplations. I include your sisters, to
whom I am most sincerely attached.'

On a later occasion (in 1783), in reply to some protest on her
part, he urges the claims of science in a lighter vein :

' In this Valle Leventina, which was new to me, I have made a
number of observations of the greatest importance to me and quite
beyond my hopes, but this is not what will interest you. You would
like better — God pardon me — to see me as fat as a canon, asleep all
day in the chimney corner after a good dinner, than to see me gain
immortal fame by the most sublime discoveries at the cost of a few
ounces of weight and several weeks of absence. If I make these
journeys despite the uneasiness they cause you, it is because I regard
it as an engagement of honour, that I feel myself bound to extend
my knowledge on the subjects in question, and, as far as it depends on
myself, to make my works perfect. I say to myself, "As an officer
goes to the assault when it is sounded, as a merchant goes to the Fair

84 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

on its day, so I ought to go to the mountains when I stand in need
of observations." For how many years this feeling will last I cannot
tell, but rest assured, my dear angel — I tell you this to remove the
doubt you express in your letter — that when I have to give up you
will not find me yawning in our daily life and sighing after the moun-
tains. This long solitude does not give one a presentable figure. I see
as I write my travelling coat hanging on its peg ; it has the look of a
clown, of a peasant, which makes me die of laughter : never would the
elegant Minette confess herself the sister-in-law of a man who wore
such a garment ; yet under it is a heart that loves her and would
assuredly make for her and her sisters far greater sacrifices than the
wearers of the most fashionable waistcoats of Versailles.'

His wife was not alone in her remonstrances. At another
moment Bonnet, the anxious uncle, is ready with a suitable
caution. ' Take care of your health, above all, run no risks ; you
are now the head of a household, you are no longer your own
property, you belong to your family, to your parents, and your
friends. Never, then, put yourself in the case of becoming a
martyr of natural science.'

The argument may sound familiar to modern mountaineers, to
some of whom it has been addressed, possibly with more reason.
Yet, despite her frequent remonstrances, Madame de Saussure
does not seem to have been given any serious ground for com-
plaint. Her husband's journeys in the Pennine or Bernese Alps
seldom went beyond the limits of a few weeks, and on his longer
tours she was, as a rule, his companion.

For the moment, however, it was physiological rather than
Alpine studies that occupied the young husband's time. In
September 1765, he is attacking deep problems. He writes to
Bonnet :

' I find very great difficulties in fixing the exact limit of animal
life. I recognise clearly the movements of a We which is in appearance
spontaneous, but since it appears to pass by insensible degrees from
this movement to true life, I trace the similarity but fail to fix the
interval. I wish, however, to go as far as my powers can take me.
The further I advance, the better I see that as you, sir, used to say,
one must embrace little in order to grasp firmly.'

Here speaks the nephew of Bonnet. It was through his uncle
that de Saussure was brought into correspondence and personal

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 85

relations i with the celebrated naturalist, Spallanzani, who was
prosecuting at Pa via his researches into the animalcules of infusoria
and their modes of reproduction, and at a later date de Saussure
made discoveries that led Spallanzani to congratulate Bonnet on
there being another great naturalist in the world.

De Saussure was shortly to be occupied with a domestic and
less abstruse problem. His first child, a daughter, was born in
1766, and christened Albertine Andrienne.2 The young husband
writes to inform Haller that he has become a father.

' You will easily understand, sensible as you are, monsieur, that
this event has distracted me somewhat from my ordinary occupations.
My distraction has been increased owing to my reading and observa-
tions having revealed to me a prodigious number of faults in the
ordinary way of treating and dressing new-born infants, and I have
been obliged to carry out myself, or at least to have carried out in my
presence, all that was not according to custom ! '

A man must be bold indeed to have the courage of his opinions
in such circumstances, and de Saussure had to face a grandmother-
in-law ! This happy event was not the only interruption in his
studies about this time. In October his father-in-law, M. Boissier,
was found drowned in the Rhone . The evidence given at the inquest
by Dr. Turton, a friend of the family, and afterwards physician to
George in., who was at Geneva at the time, showed that he had
committed suicide in an access of the acute melancholia for which,
writing from Paris only two days before M. Boissier's death, Dr.
Tronchin had advised change of scene as indispensable. The
young couple were, no doubt, living with him at the time, in the
great townhouse in the Rue de la Cite. De Saussure, writing to
Haller, describes the calamity with much feeling :

' I have had the misfortune to lose my father-in-law by a violent
death while still in the prime of his life. I was deeply attached to him ;
he was a man of intelligence, a wise counsellor, a good friend and
father and citizen, who made the happiness of his family, who had

1 De Saussure visited Spallanzani at Pa via in 1770. (See post.)

2 By her marriage to Jacques Necker, a nephew of the statesman and a
cousin of Madame de Stael, she became known in after life as Madame Necker-de
Saussure. She inherited her father's tastes, assisted him at times by working
out his observations, and followed in his footsteps in composing the work on
education by which she is known to posterity. (See chap, xv.)

86 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

filled several public offices with distinction, and would have succeeded
to others. I have had to console myself, my wife, who was in the
deepest affliction, and her sisters, rendered orphans by this death.
We have passed these last ten or twelve days in the saddest way.
They seem to have lasted twelve months.'

He adds :

' I have observed on this occasion the great resource that crushed
and deeply grieved souls find in religion. It is the surest channel
through which consolation can be bestowed, it is from it alone that
arguments can be drawn for submitting with patience and resignation
to misfortune, and my detestation of those who endeavour to deprive
men of this precious refuge has been redoubled.'

This is one of the few occasions on which de Saussure breaks
his reserve on religious matters. His philosophical lectures,
while giving little positive indication of the writer's doctrinal
beliefs and sympathies, indicate a similar attitude of resolute
opposition to the materialism of the day.

Meanwhile the young Professor's time was, we gather from
his correspondence, fully occupied. In addition to the work of
his double Professorship, he was, in 1766, called on to act as
Secretary of the Venerable Company of Pastors, which, amongst
other duties, practically controlled the Academy. His mind was
further diverted, somewhat unwillingly perhaps, from his travels
and his scientific studies by a prolonged political correspondence
with his friend Haller. This will be better postponed to a sub-
sequent chapter.

Marriage had naturally led to a sensible pause in de Saussure 's
visits to the mountains. The summer of 1765 was a blank in
his Alpine record. In 1766 we read only of an ascent of the Mole,
and a short excursion to Samoens and Sixt. It was not till July
1767 that he resumed his serious travels by a tour of Mont Blanc
with two friends, Jean Louis Pictet l and Fra^ois Jalabert.
Pictet was to provide a map, and Jalabert illustrations. The
results were combined with those of earlier and later expeditions
in the second volume of the Voyages. This journey, like all de
Saussure 's Alpine expeditions, was very carefully planned. He at
first proposed to start from the Mont Cenis and traverse to Val

1 Pictet the Siberian traveller, not de Saussure's pupil and successor in his
Professorship.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 87

d'Aosta, possibly by the Col d'Iseran, but gave this up for the tour
of Mont Blanc. De Saussure was already ambitious to enlarge
his article on glaciers and to make it the foundation of a work
that might supplement or supersede Griiner's Eisgebirge, which
touched but slightly on the glaciers of Savoy. But though he and
his friend Lord Stanhope, then residing at Geneva, were both hard
at work learning German, he could not yet read it easily. So he
wrote to Haller in May 1767 to inquire if Griiner's treatment of
his subject was adequate from the local and scientific points of
view, and to ask for a German dictionary. In August he further
inquired if good German would be of any use where ' the Swiss
idiom ' prevailed ! The reply encouraged him to carry out both
his projected tour and his literary undertaking.

In the middle of July he flew to the mountains, and left behind
him the troubles and quarrels of Genevese politicians. It was his
fourth visit to Chamonix. His programme is set out in a letter
to Haller :

' I shall make experiments on heat and cold, on the weight of the
atmosphere, on electricity, on the magnet, and on the modes of repro-
duction of animals, besides giving my greatest attention to natural
history. I should like to bring back something to give you pleasure.'

He was still eager to collect and add to the alpine flora. But
geology was now his main object. He writes to Haller : ' I am
going to work for you and myself.'

De Saussure had not long to wait to study electric phenomena.
The tour began with an ascent — de Saussure's third — of the
Brevent. He writes to Haller from the chalets of Planpra, well
known to modern tourists : ' It is with singular pleasure I give
you news of a journey undertaken under your auspices.' He
goes on to relate how, while on the top of the BreVent with his
friends, his ' guides and domestics,' Pictet, on lifting a finger to
point out one of the opposite peaks, heard a very lively whistling
like that of an electric conductor (aigrette).

* We all, and then our guides and domestics, who thought it great
fun, did the same, with a like result, hearing from time to time the
crackle of little sparks which slightly pricked our fingers. M. Jalabert,
who had a hat trimmed with gold lace, heard all round its edge a
very distinct and almost alarming noise.'

88 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE
Bonnet refers to this incident in a note to Haller :

' Our great Alpinier (sic) l has told you something of his trip to
the glaciers. He had a narrow escape of being beatified — you will
guess I refer to his electrification hi the clouds. The adventure is
unique, and could not have been foreseen.'

Most mountaineers nowadays have met with similar experiences.
De Saussure occupied a wet morning in the chalet in
writing to his wife, who was then expecting her second child,
born in the following October. His conscience was obviously
a little uneasy at having left her in the circumstances,
and he did his best to console her for his absence by a letter
inspired by the fondest affection, in which he first pictures her
occupied with her year -old baby and her thoughts of her hus-
band, while the elders talk politics, and then describes his own
surroundings :

' What a spectacle would present itself to my Albertine — how she
would enjoy its surprising novelty ! She would make fun of me ; she
would press the mosses I had already pressed and would repeat
" Hyposum siccatum " ! How she would laugh if she could see the three
of us at this moment in a row on the straw of our chalet, making the
most of the little light that comes through the gap left by a missing
plank in our hovel, each writing on his knees to the person dearest to
him. She would cast an eye on our three servants and four guides
sitting round a fire built against the wall without any chimney. On
this fire is a huge cauldron full of milk being boiled to make cheese ;
beside it stands a tall shepherd, continually stirring the milk with a
big ladle and burying his naked white arms in the depths of the
cauldron. Turning her head, she would see through a hole in the wall
a huge mass of ice hi the middle of a wood and a pasture covered with
all sorts of flowers. What would strike her most by its oddity is a
goat which, in its effort to find shelter from the rain, has climbed to
the hole which serves us as a window and throws the shadow of its
beard and horns across my paper.'

De Saussure, one notes, is careful to leave out, no doubt as
too alarming, the adventure with lightning just recorded.

Before leaving Chamonix the travellers made an expedition
to the Mer de Glace, and recognised that the interior of the chain

1 This form, which has been superseded by Alpiniste, was doubtless formed
by analogy to ' Crystallier,' used of the Chamonix crystal-seekers.

YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 89

was a vast reservoir, with plateaux and valleys filled with snow-
fields which gave birth, both towards Savoy and Italy, to glaciers
of every size and dimension. Above and around the snows towered
apparently inaccessible granite peaks, split and torn by weather,
from which blocks were continually falling.

From the point of view of botany de Saussure once more ex-
presses his disappointment with Chamonix.

' The flora of the district,' he writes, ' is intolerably monotonous.
I do not know whether it is the exposure, or the soil, or the neigh-
bourhood of the glaciers, but it is always the same thing, and often
nothing but bare rocks.'

He does not seem to have explored on this or on any of his later
tours the sunward slopes under the Aiguille de Varens, where the
flora, favoured by a limestone soil, is of exceptional beauty.

We note that the visitors to Savoy of the eighteenth century
realised that the base of a great mountain is not the best point from
which to appreciate its proportions. The aspects of Mont Blanc
they most frequently admired and represented were those from the
neighbourhood of Sallanches, which the modern tourist hurries
past in a train. In this respect they showed more discrimination
than their successors. But the spots from which the most perfect
views of Mont Blanc may be gained have up to this day remained
unknown and un visited. From the alps above Passy and Servoz
the great mountain is seen from top to base framed in the ravine
of the Arve. Here nature has risen to the occasion by providing
that rarity in the Alps, an exquisitely wooded foreground for a
great snow mountain. Above the vineyards of Passy terraced
lawns, smooth enough to serve as cricket-grounds, are watered
by clear sparkling brooks and encircled by mossy groves of
beech and ash. Higher still in the heart of this wilderness, and
approached by tracks known to few, a solitary pool hides among
the pinewoods and reflects in its still waters the crowning snows
of Mont Blanc, completing a picture worthy of a great painter or
poet. May it be long before these ' sedes discretae piorum ' are
invaded by the polluting multitude !

De Saussure now set out on his first tour of Mont Blanc. He
dwells on the desolation and danger in bad weather of the Bon-
homme, where one of his mules executed several somersaults on

00 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the brink of a precipice, fortunately without breaking the instru-
ments it carried. The gloomy situation of "the huts of Chapieu
so much affected the Genevese servants who accompanied the
party that they laid a plot to force him to give up the Col de la
Seigne and go round by the Little St. Bernard. He admired the
splendid view through the pine stems of the precipices of Mont
Blanc as he passed the foot of the Brenva Glacier. At Courmayeur,
where he found a good inn and bathing guests, he would have
liked to spend more time, but his companions were impatient,
an incident which led him to reflect on the advantages for a
student of solitary travel. The party returned by the Great
St. Bernard to Martigny and the Lake of Geneva.

Two months later, in October 1767, de Saussure's elder
son, Nicolas Theodore, destined to be his father's companion
and the sharer of his scientific tastes, was born.

CHAPTER IV
THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69)

IN 1768 de Saussure wisely determined that it was time both to
escape from the political crisis at Geneva and to give the Alps
a rest. He made up his mind to show his young wife the world,
and himself to study men as well as mountains . Having obtained
leave of absence from his duties at the Academy, he accordingly
set out on February 3rd with his wife, the Turrettinis, and his
unmarried sister-in-law (whom he constantly alludes to as ' the
charming Minette ') for Paris. The party lodged at the Hotel
de la Paix in the Rue Richelieu, where Fra^ois Tronchin, a son
of the doctor, had retained for them a sumptuous apartment full
of tapestries and fine furniture with a vast salon hung with
mirrors, of all of which he sent to Geneva a full and alluring
inventory.1

Senebier in his Life gives the following summary of de Saussure's
stay in Paris :

' From the moment of his arrival he devoted all his mornings to
work : he followed the private courses of Petit, Rouelle, and Jussieu ; 2
he surprised those great men by the precision of his intellect and the
originality of his views. Conchology was then the fashion ; de Saussure
had not yet occupied himself with it, but he quickly became an expert,
and pointed out to more than one amateur rare objects in his collec-
tion which he had not recognised.'

De Saussure was not content to use his time in Paris solely
in gaining knowledge. He was curious to study the society of

1 To be distinguished from Frai^ois Tronchin, an amateur and collector who
made himself useful to Voltaire in business matters. (See Le Conseiller F.
Tronchin et ses amis Voltaire, Diderot, Grimm, par Henri Tronchin, Paris,
1895.)

2 Pierre Petit (1728-1794), ' Geographe du Roi,' and student of physics ;
G. F. Rouelle (1705-1770), Professor of Chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes ;
B. de Jussieu (1699-1774), for many years ' demonstrates ' at the Jardin du Roi —
a leading botanist.

91

92 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the great city, and (continues Senebier) ' in the evening in the
gay world he had the same success he had had in the morning
with the savants.'

De Saussure's own impressions of Paris, as recorded in his
numerous letters and private journal, are more definite and vivid ;
they have also something of the cruelty of youth.

' In general,' he writes, ' I like the savants of Paris better than its
beaux esprits ; the latter are insupportably vain, have no respect for
things human or divine, calumniate pitilessly all that is in the opposite
camp, and exercise in conversation an intolerable despotism. The
savants, on the other hand, at least those I have met, are as modest
as it is possible to be — for Frenchmen ! Both classes spend but little
time in their studies, and are consequently shallow. Pleasure, female
society, and, above all, the passion of frequenting and paying court to
the great, absorb the best part of their time. Thus they have often
the satisfaction of making discoveries owing to their ignorance of those
that have been already made ! '

The young Genevese Professor, it is clear, was by no means
dazzled by the brilliancy of the glittering crust of Parisian life
which twenty years later was to be shivered into fragments by the
Great Revolution. The symptoms of the coming troubles did
not altogether escape him. In the previous year (13th May 1767)
he had written to Haller :

' There is all over Europe a fermentation which aims at liberty,
but of which the sequel in many instances must be a redoubling of
slavery. An imperfect philosophy produces aspirations to a liberty
without limits ; a more perfect philosophy, grounded on experience,
will show that the tomb of liberty may be found in the cradle of
democracy.'

One of de Saussure's most frequent haunts was the Jardin du
Roi — of which Buffon had long been the Director — to which he
went three times a week to study the plants. He writes to
Bonnet :

' I see very often Bernard de Jussieu, the father of French botanists.
He is the living image of the serenity and peace of soul that the
assiduous study of nature ought to give to the philosopher. He enjoys
the most perfect old age, all his senses intact, an incomparable memory,
a sweetness, a gaiety, an unrivalled amenity of character adorn in

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 93

him the deepest and widest learning. Without ever mixing himself in
the intrigues of the Academy, he is loved and respected by all the
academicians ; always the same, always affable, always ready to
instruct, he expresses his views with the noble assurance that springs
from deep study and is far from either the insolence of pride, or the
false pretence of an affected modesty. If he had your imagination,
my dear uncle, he would be you.'

Next to Jussieu, de Saussure saw most of Buffon, who was then
at the height of his reputation, the most celebrated man of science
of his day. Nevertheless, in writing to his correspondents, the
young Genevese ventured on very critical appreciations of the
author of the Epoques de la Nature. To his mother he writes :

' It was the greatest pleasure for me to talk to him. He spoke
coldly but politely of M. Bonnet, and I must confess in secret that to
win his favour I let him see that I do not always agree with my dear
uncle. M. de Buffon is tall and stout ; he has a countenance at first
sight dull and heavy, but which becomes animated and full of life and
expression when he talks. He is polite and suffers contradiction
patiently — a very rare quality here — and he knows how to discuss the
most deep and learned matters without using long words. We have
had several interesting conversations on general physics. He asked
for an abstract of my experiments on the heat of the sun, which I
gave him. He is bold in his speculations, but he sustains them with
force and genius : his conversation instructs me and gives me en-
thusiasm and courage.'

At a later date de Saussure writes in a different tone :

' I have often had occasion to speak of M. de Buffon with members
of the Academy. They do justice to the beauty of his style, but they
think nothing of him as a man of science : they look on him neither
as a physicist, nor a geometrician, nor a naturalist. His observations
they account very inexact and his systems visionary. Perhaps jealousy
enters into their judgment. M. de Buffon has, no doubt, excited it
by his brilliancy : but it is certain his character also arouses hostility ;
he is severe in his criticisms, despotic in his opinions, and very exacting
in his friendships. In youth he had a satirical disposition that made
him very formidable.'

De Saussure, later in life, maintained this unfavourable view
of Buffon's claims as a savant, characterising him as ' more of an
orator than a naturalist.'

94 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Here is another character :

' M. de Bomare, the author of the Dictionary,1 if not a miracle
like M. de Jussieu, is certainly the best man in the world. He is small,
fat, pink and white, somewhat a victim to nerves ; a grocer by trade,
but his wife keeps the shop. He has a pretty cabinet of natural
history, which one reaches through the shop (where Madame Bomare
sells dried figs and raisins), is profound in mineralogy, but a little
superficial in all the rest.'

To his mother de Saussure sent a lively social sketch :
' A pretty new opera has been brought out called Les Moissonneurs,
in which there is a song that runs : " Argent, argent, maitre du
monde, tu regnes sur tous les etats." It is here [in Paris] above all
that one realises the truth of the song, and on this account the place
is not very agreeable for folk like us who are crushed between the
high nobility and the financiers. Rich young men like the Lullins
[the Genevese bankers, relations of Madame de Saussure] or birds of
passage like ourselves can face the situation, but people of moderate
fortune (and I call moderate anything under 60,000 livres de rente),
who came to settle here would suffer constant inconveniences, unless
they were wise enough to live on exactly the same scale as those of
similar fortune ; but we Genevese who at home belong to the best set
are apt to think ourselves made to hold our own with the best else-
where, and have often occasion to regret it. The son of your neigh-
bour, who could never have anticipated this, is beginning to realise
it. He spent yesterday, as I do often, part of the afternoon at Mme.
la Duchesse d'Enville's, who receives at that hour all that is most dis-
tinguished in the kingdom. He confessed to me that he felt so
small that he grew almost ashamed of the room he took on his chair.
These people combine with the greatest politeness a tone and manners
which naturally, at first meeting, create an impression. As for me, I
am pretty well seasoned. But enough moralising : still this is a place
for moralising, and it is one of the principal gains of this kind of journey.
One sees so many strange sights, so many originals of every sort, so
many follies of every variety, that one is perforce drawn to reflection.
Where do you think these reflections carry me ? To you, my good
mother, to the good education you gave me. I find continual occasion
to apply the excellent lessons you gave me on the world and men, and
then I regret that you are not planted invisibly on one of these gilded
sofas to see what occupies me and to talk it over with me.'

1 A Dictionary of Natural History. Valmont de Bomare was a considerable
traveller, who visited most parts of Europe, Lapland, and Iceland in the employ
of his Government, and made large collections.

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 95

Of his wife, de Saussure writes :

' My dear companion goes with me almost everywhere ; often she
seizes things that escape me. Everyone is charmed to see a young
wife accompany her husband on his travels, and share his occupations
and his studies. She bears without any difficulty the fatigue and
the little discomforts inseparable from travel ; always gay, always
ready, she was destined to make my happiness.'

He recounts her social successes, her manners, free equally
from timidity or affectation, her tact in talking always at the
right moment and to the point. ' I wish,' he adds, ' some of our
mincing coquettes could come here ; they would realise that their
style is lower middle -class, and even the worse sort of that.'

Of the impression made by the three young Genevese ladies
in the Paris salons we find an independent record in a letter
written to de Saussure early in 1769 by the eloquent lawyer
Loiseau de Mauleon, a friend of Voltaire, and remembered as the
defender of the Galas.1 The writer thanks de Saussure for
sympathy on his mother's death, and then goes on to refer to the
' quatre amies de 1'Hotel de la Paix.' Translation would here
take away the charm of the original French.

' Mes seules distractions sont de me rappeler cet extreme don de
plaire que possede si parfaitement Madame Turrettin,2 dont la beaute,
1'esprit, la parole et la grace sont tellement d'accord et font un tout
si exquis que de ma vie je n'y ay vu femme plus aimable. Je n'oublieray
jamais non plus ce caractere si noble, si distingue, si rare de Madame
Tronchin.3 Je le trouvois sur sa physionomie, sur son maintien, sur
son silence meme ; je 1'admirois avec un respect tendre. Elle m'a
laisse des traces qui ne s'aneantiront qu'avec moy. Sa destinee me
sera toujours chere. Et si quelque chose pouvoit jamais adoucir
l'amertume des maux que j 'endure, dites luy, je vous prie, mon cher
ami, que ce seroit le bonheur dont on m'assure que son nouvel etablisse-
ment la fait jouir. Dites aussi, si vous le voulez bien, a votre respec-
table femme combien je suis touche de 1'amitie qu'elle m'a montree
a son retour de Londres. J'ay souvent dit a Mademoiselle Tronchin 4
que je me reprochois de ne luy avoir pas assez fait voir les sentimens

1 The Nouvelle Biographic Universelle states that de Mauleon died at the age
of forty-three from depression caused by an unrequited love affair.

2 The Genevese of this generation omitted the final ' i ' in Italian names.

3 Mile. Boissier, ' Minette,' shortly after her return from Paris, married a son
of the Procureur-General, J. R. Tronchin.

4 A daughter of Dr. Tronchin.

96 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

dont son merite vray m'avoit penetre. Ses lumieres, ses vertus et son
amour vous font le plus heureux des hommes. Gardez longtemps un
si cher tresor.'

In addition to his family letters, de Saussure's intimate journal,
written during his stay in Paris and Holland, has fortunately been
preserved, and it shows that during the whole period he was
assiduous in pursuing his scientific studies, visiting the savants
of the day, and studying botany and horticulture at Choisy le Roi
and at the Jardin du Roi with Coste, the chemical side of geology
with Baume, and attending lectures by Valmont de Bomare.
With the geologist Desmarets he talked over the basalts of
Auvergne, the character of which was at that moment the sub-
ject of an acute controversy between Werner and the French
geologists. If he was eager in the pursuit of knowledge the
patrician Professor found plenty of time for pleasure, and the five
young people went out a great deal. De Saussure's journal
gives evidence both of his taste for society and his keen interest
in character in both sexes, while the affectionate letters, still
preserved, that he received in later years from several of his
friends among the French aristocracy, both men and women,
show that the young Genevese philosopher was at least as inter-
esting as he was interested.

In Mile. Tronchin, the daughter of the celebrated Dr. Tronchin,
who had a fine apartment in the Petit Jardin of the Palais Royal,
the party found a friend who knew the town and no doubt
furnished them with many introductions. They frequented the
salon of the Duchesse d'Enville and dined with the delightful
young Due de la Rochefoucauld, destined to be one of the victims
of the Revolution, who had visited Geneva and Chamonix
as early as 1762. They made the acquaintance of the Due
d'Harcourt, 'le meilleur homme du monde et de la vieille
roche.' His brother the Marquis and his wife de Saussure
describes as ' couple charmant, bonnes gens, simples et honnetes.'

De Saussure reports at length the conversation at the
d'Envilles' of the Abbe Galiani, ' an original who talked sensibly
and cleverly on politics.' J He discussed liberty and tyranny.

1 See Lord Morley's Diderot, vol. ii. p. 272 : ' Galiani, the antiquary, the
scholar, the politician, the incomparable mimic, the shrewdest, wittiest, and
gayest of men after Voltaire.' He was the author of a work with the unpromising

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 97

He denied the existence of real liberty anywhere — either law or
princes always restricted it, and according as the restrictions
prevented people doing the things they wanted to, they thought
themselves free or slaves. The man who did not like to be shut
up by a lettre de cachet felt himself badly off in France ; the
man who wanted to keep a mistress found no liberty in Geneva.
In England, of all European States, there was least freedom — less
even than in Turkey. Tyranny was the result of a conspiracy
of the more intelligent against the common herd ; a single genius
could not maintain a tyranny.

Another pleasant evening in famous company is thus recorded :

' Supped with Madame d'Epinay, who put us much at our ease
with Messieurs Crommelin [the Genevese Resident in Paris] and
Grimm ; delighted with Madame d'Epinay, who is amiable and natural.
M. Grimm has wit and experience ; he attacks the Government of his
country on privileges, exemptions, taxes, etc.'

Grimm would not take de Saussure to Baron Holbach's
because 'attacks on religion formed there the only topic of
conversation.' The Abb£ Morellet, in his Memoires, confirms
this charge : ' On y disait des choses a faire cent f ois tomber le
tonnerre sur la maison, s'il tombait pour cela.'

Madame Necker, now at the height of her prosperity as the
wife of the great banker and future Minister, at first affronted her
compatriot by receiving him somewhat coldly, and he heartily
vowed not to repeat the visit. ' Her head,' he writes, 'is turned ;
she frequents the great and the beaux esprits, she gives herself
ridiculous airs, all the world laughs at her, and most of all Mile.
Clairon, to whom, nevertheless, she makes advances because
she is in the height of the fashion.' It would seem as if
Madame Necker was slow to open the doors of her salon to
the three visitors from her own lake, while the young Genevese
patrician probably resented any appearance of airs in the
daughter of a Swiss minister, the Mile. Curchod whom Gibbon
had courted and then fled from. But a month later the coldness

title of Dialogues on the Trade in Grain. Voltaire vowed that ' Plato and Moliere
must have combined to produce a book that was as amusing as the best of
romances and as instructive as the best of serious works.' Galiani was at one
time a frequent correspondent of Madame Necker. (See also Le Salon de Madame
Necker par le Comte d'Haussonville, Paris, 1888.)

Q

96 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

dont son merite vray m'avoit penetre. Ses lumieres, sea vertus et son
amour vous font le plus heureux des hommes. Gardez longtemps un
si cher tresor.'

In addition to his family letters, de Saussure's intimate journal,
written during his stay in Paris and Holland, has fortunately been
preserved, and it shows that during the whole period he was
assiduous in pursuing his scientific studies, visiting the savants
of the day, and studying botany and horticulture at Choisy le Roi
and at the Jardin du Roi with Coste, the chemical side of geology
with Baume, and attending lectures by Valmont de Bomare.
With the geologist Desmarets he talked over the basalts of
Auvergne, the character of which was at that moment the sub-
ject of an acute controversy between Werner and the French
geologists. If he was eager in the pursuit of knowledge the
patrician Professor found plenty of time for pleasure, and the five
young people went out a great deal. De Saussure's journal
gives evidence both of his taste for society and his keen interest
in character in both sexes, while the affectionate letters, still
preserved, that he received in later years from several of his
friends among the French aristocracy, both men and women,
show that the young Genevese philosopher was at least as inter-
esting as he was interested.

In Mile. Tronchin, the daughter of the celebrated Dr. Tronchin,
who had a fine apartment in the Petit Jardin of the Palais Royal,
the party found a friend who knew the town and no doubt
furnished them with many introductions. They frequented the
salon of the Duchesse d'Enville and dined with the delightful
young Due de la Rochefoucauld, destined to be one of the victims
of the Revolution, who had visited Geneva and Chamonix
as early as 1762. They made the acquaintance of the Due
d'Harcourt, 'le meilleur homme du monde et de la vieille
roche.' His brother the Marquis and his wife de Saussure
describes as 'couple charmant, bonnes gens, simples et honnetes.'

De Saussure reports at length the conversation at the
d'Envilles' of the Abbe Galiani, ' an original who talked sensibly
and cleverly on politics.' 1 He discussed liberty and tyranny.

1 See Lord Morley's Diderot, vol. ii. p. 272 : ' Galiani, the antiquary, the
scholar, the politician, the incomparable mimic, the shrewdest, wittiest, and
gayest of men after Voltaire.' He was the author of a work with the unpromising

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 97

He denied the existence of real liberty anywhere — either law or
princes always restricted it, and according as the restrictions
prevented people doing the things they wanted to, they thought
themselves free or slaves. The man who did not like to be shut
up by a lettre de cachet felt himself badly off in France ; the
man who wanted to keep a mistress found no liberty in Geneva.
In England, of all European States, there was least freedom — less
even than in Turkey. Tyranny was the result of a conspiracy
of the more intelligent against the common herd ; a single genius
could not maintain a tyranny.

Another pleasant evening in famous company is thus recorded :

' Supped with Madame d'Epinay, who put us much at our ease
with Messieurs Crommelin [the Genevese Resident in Paris] and
Grimm ; delighted with Madame d'Epinay, who is amiable and natural.
M. Grimm has wit and experience ; he attacks the Government of his
country on privileges, exemptions, taxes, etc.'

Grimm would not take de Saussure to Baron Holbach's
because 'attacks on religion formed there the only topic of
conversation.' The Abb6 Morellet, in his Memoires, confirms
this charge : ' On y disait des choses a faire cent f ois tomber le
tonnerre sur la maison, s'il tombait pour cela.'

Madame Necker, now at the height of her prosperity as the
wife of the great banker and future Minister, at first affronted her
compatriot by receiving him somewhat coldly, and he heartily
vowed not to repeat the visit. ' Her head,' he writes, ' is turned ;
she frequents the great and the beaux esprits, she gives herself
ridiculous airs, all the world laughs at her, and most of all Mile.
Clairon, to whom, nevertheless, she makes advances because
she is in the height of the fashion.' It would seem as if
Madame Necker was slow to open the doors of her salon to
the three visitors from her own lake, while the young Genevese
patrician probably resented any appearance of airs in the
daughter of a Swiss minister, the Mile. Curchod whom Gibbon
had courted and then fled from. But a month later the coldness

title of Dialogues on the Trade in Grain. Voltaire vowed that ' Plato and Moliere
must have combined to produce a book that was as amusing as the best of
romances and as instructive as the beat of serious works.' Galiani was at one
time a frequent correspondent of Madame Necker. (See also Le Salon de Madame
Necker par le Comte d'Haussonville, Paris, 1888.)

G

98 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

had been removed. ' We see occasionally Madame Necker, who
has at last invited our ladies. She has made great friends with
me, and invites me constantly to dinner or supper, which I enjoy
greatly, as she collects all the beaux esprits, the Encyclopaedists,
and the poets. The majority of these people would be no good
as friends, but they are interesting to see and know.' In after
years Madame Necker became closely connected with de Saussure
by her nephew's marriage to his daughter, and both she and
her husband proved themselves very good friends to him in
the adversity of his later years.

The young party were frequent visitors to the Theatre Fran9ais
and the Comedie Italienne. De Saussure had a great liking for
the theatre, possibly due in part to the scanty opportunities of
enjoying it at Geneva ! He surprises us in the Voyages by a
suggestion in which, anticipating Byron's Manfred, he urges
dramatic authors to find new scenes and subjects in the Alps.
He even goes so far as to sketch a plot for a drama or opera. A
' crystallier ' (the name given at Chamonix to those who made a
living by seeking crystals among the glaciers) should risk his life in
an attempt to reach a mass of crystal on the face of a precipice.
He should be followed and rescued by the village maiden of his
choice. De Saussure adds : ' The representation of these strange
solitudes would enrich our theatrical scenery with an entire
novelty ; in a similar way, these savage landscapes, the rocks that
fall, the avalanches of snow and ice, the storms and majestic
echoes of the high mountains, might inspire in a great musician
new and sublime ideas.' During their travels the young couple
seldom missed a theatrical performance, even in a provincial town.

In Paris de Saussure renewed an agreeable acquaintance with
the great tragic actress, Mile. Clairon — the Sarah Bernhardt of her
day — whom he had doubtless met previously at Ferney when she
was a guest of Voltaire. His wife records going to see her play in
a private house with two tickets she had given her husband —
' a mark of the high favour in which he is with her ' — and her
enjoyment of the acting, although she was wedged in among a
crowd of princesses and duchesses. De Saussure 's frequent calls
were rewarded by an inspection of the actress's ' cabinet ' and
choice library. ' A cabinet ' — a collection of natural objects —
shells, birds, fossils, seaweeds — it did not matter what — was at

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 99

that date and for half a century later a fashionable ornament
to the house of a gentleman or a lady of taste both in France
and England. De Saussure had the further privilege of being
admitted to the select party that met at supper on Wednesdays
at Mile. Clairon's house, where Marmontel led the conversation
— not at all to de Saussure 's satisfaction. He writes in his
journal, 9th March :

' Marmontel talked a great deal ; most of his stories were witty
and in good taste, some, however, rather common, and all told too
slowly. I recognised in him what I had been warned to expect in
Parisian beaux esprits — a very arbitrary tone, a habit of speaking of
his set as the only one to be called philosophic, and of despising and
making odious insinuations against those who did not belong to it,
attacking their manners and their integrity, and throwing doubt on
their aims. It was thus he spoke of M. Mirabeau, the Abbe Troublet,
M. le Batteux, M. Grimm, the Bishop of Mirepoix, and many others
whose names I forget. He was, however, backed and applauded by
all the company.' 1

On 25th March the party went to St. Denis to view a Court
function and procession on the anniversary of the death of the
Dauphine. There they saw the Dauphin, the future Louis xvi.,
' grand, pale et maigre, mais avec une physionomie bonne et
douce, un peu celle d'un Anglais,' and the whole Court defiling
in full dress. De Saussure 's ladies had to sit up all night with
their coiffures arranged in order to be in time for the ceremony.

The party stayed in Paris for four months, from February to
10th June, when they parted, the Turrettinis taking back Mile.
Boissier to Geneva, while de Saussure and his wife started for
Holland. They passed through Compiegiie and Noyon, which
interested them as the birthplace of Calvin, to St. Gobain, where
they stayed three days in order to inspect the glass and chemical
works of their friend M. Crommelin. From St. Gobain they
drove by Ghent and Brussels. From Rotterdam they travelled
in a canal boat to Leyden and by carriage to Amsterdam.
There they were hospitably entertained by a wealthy Genevese
of the name of Horngacher.

In a letter written to the ' charmante Minette,' his younger

1 J. F. Marmontel (1723-1799), a prolific writer of plays and stories. His
Contes Moraux had considerable success.

100 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

sister-in-law, shortly after his arrival in the Dutch capital, de
Saussure summarises his first impressions of Holland and gives a
pleasant picture of the relations of the gay young party, of which
he, the eldest, was twenty -eight, that had just broken up :

' Here we are, my dear Minette, since Thursday evening, the 23rd
of this month, in the great and famous city of Amsterdam. Your
sister seems to accommodate herself to it very well, and, if it were not
for the regret we both feel at being separated from you three, I believe
we should manage to amuse ourselves. It is quite another thing to
Paris ; at Paris the beauty and the splendour is inside the houses,
here it is outside. The city of Amsterdam and all Holland are beautiful
beyond all anticipation and the most exaggerated ideas one could form
of them ; but it is all a spectacle for the eyes. Enter the houses, and
your eyes will still be satisfied by the pictures, the carpets, and the
porcelain, but you will find no gaiety, no amusements, no Comidie
Franfaise, hardly any conversation except about business. One must
pass through Amsterdam and stay in Paris.

' Good-bye, my dear and good sister, love me as I love you — I can-
not ask you for more. Give a thousand messages from me to Madame
Turrettini. Despite our little skirmishes, I love her with all my heart ;
she has a witchery which makes all the world feel an irresistible tender-
ness for her ; this malady seized me on our first acquaintance, and I
do not expect ever to get over it. My greetings to our good brother
Turrettini. I long eagerly for us all to meet again, but I fear that we
shall never be so closely united as we were at Paris. Amuse yourself
as well as you can, and above all think often of the best friend you
have in the world.'

Minette followed faithfully one of her brother-in-law's injunc-
tions. When the de Saussures returned to Geneva six months
later, they found her married. Her wedded life was brief, and
ended tragically in the suicide of her husband and the early deaths
of both her children. But to the end of his life her affectionate
relations with her brother-in-law remained unbroken. His letters
home on his travels constantly contain messages to her and regrets
that she is not at hand to discuss politics with him in his solitary
inn. Madame de Saussure 's interests, one gathers, were of a
more domestic order.

Few of Madame Tronchin's letters have been preserved. But
I have two before me written eighteen years later when she was
spending the summer in the fashionable company of Spa. She

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 101

protests that she is resisting the craze for gambling. ' I have to
choose between the world and a regular life ; my wisdom prefers the
last, the hours of play are too late, it lasts till five in the morning.
It is not your sister-in-law who keeps it up.' She concludes, 'All
I love most is at Genthod ; it is there that my eyes, my heart, and
my tastes turn : you have a very large part, my best of friends.'

Minette, we recognise, despite the sadness of her married life,
must have been the gayest, the most spirited of the three sisters,
and a fast companion and ally to the brother-in-law, whose social
and political interests she shared and entered into.

On the llth July the de Saussures left Amsterdam for the
Hague, where they remained a fortnight, returning to Amsterdam
to visit Haarlem and North Holland before again travelling south
to Rotterdam on the way to embark for England.

It is obvious from the diary that they saw Holland very
thoroughly. Natural history cabinets and horticulture were the
chief objects of de Saussure's study. But he also visited the
museums and numerous private collections of pictures.

According to the sententious Senebier, he succeeded in gaining
the esteem of the local savants, ' despite his vivacity, which con-
trasted so strongly with Dutch phlegm.' His own impressions
of the country and its people are contained in a letter he wrote
to Haller before embarking at Ostend. He finds 'the flat and
learned Holland a country of fine gardens and heavy professors ' ;
it is ' full of singular people who pursue in private and without
any pretence either the fine arts, or rational philosophy, or natural
history, and enjoy in silence and solitude the fruits of their studies
and their labours.'

He proceeds to illustrate this general criticism by particular
instances. First we have a sketch of the Biermanns, father and
son, who kept a shop on the Keysersgracht at Amsterdam, where
they sold seaweeds and fossils and published magnificently
illustrated botanical works. They were 'living specimens of
the old Dutch type, the father in a big wig, black as jet, talking
nothing but Latin and surrounded by his huge folios, rough but
with a friendly air, and really learned in the Batavian fashion ;
the son bald arid of mean appearance, clumsily modernised.' Then
we hear of the Van der Meulens, ' the husband not even speaking
Latin and no savant, but possessing a superb cabinet of natural

102 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

history — seaweeds, minerals, butterflies, agates, monsters, human
and animal, preserved in spirits of wine — a collection of extra-
ordinary interest in the hands of an honest man, probably of little
knowledge. One is tempted to think it luxury or ostentation,
but the man is of such common appearance that you would not
salute him if you met him in the street, and though he is very
wealthy all about him is of the utmost simplicity. No, it is a
singular taste for beautiful and rare objects, which he spends his
life in arranging, admiring, and cataloguing. His wife also is
quite common ; the house is thoroughly Dutch. One is offered
food and drink alternately every half-hour ! *

Another individual sketch is M. Brawers, the owner of a large
collection, including Chinese lacquer, porcelain, and a roomful of
Italian pictures :

' A fine house, very ornate, but all in the Dutch taste ; that is,
dull, heavy, graceless, but, on the other hand, finished, solid, and very
clean. The master of the house sits in his dressing-gown on the
ground floor smoking his pipe, with a silver bowl holding a piece of
smouldering peat, and receiving with an uncouth air the compliments
on his cabinet of visitors as they arrive or leave. He has no taste,
and puts by the side of the greatest masterpieces pictures of a protege
of his which are simply detestable.

' At supper-parties all the dishes are put on the table at once, and
the guests sit at it till they leave. The breakfasts are charming,
social, and easy, and last all the morning round a beautiful mahogany
table, with rye bread, butter, cakes, venison, and the eternal tea.'

The Dutch gardens met with the travellers' unqualified appro-
bation. At one house (M. Boreel's) near Amsterdam they
admired superb pleached alleys, fish-ponds set in lawns and
shaded by weeping willows, and, above all, the bosquet anglais, with
winding paths and a variety of rare trees planted without any
attempt at symmetry.

Among his Dutch hosts de Saussure does not seem to have
made many lasting friends. But the pleasure of his visit was
greatly increased by the hospitality he received from Genevese
settled in the country. There were at that time not a few. The
two Protestant States had many links ; Geneva and Holland
in the eighteenth century both held a high place in European
finance, while the limited opportunities of the former sent its

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 103

more adventurous sons to seek commercial success in larger
fields, either in Holland or England.

De Saussure's health, at no time robust, suffered from the
relaxing climate of the Low Countries in midsummer, and in the
middle of August the travellers turned their thoughts towards
England. With our country Geneva had even more ties than
with Holland, and the moment was opportune. Great Britain
had emerged successful from the vicissitudes of the Seven Years
War (1755-62). The island-state was on the point of developing
into a world commonwealth, she ruled already in India and Canada,
and had not yet lost her American colonies . Europe looked up to
her as the chief among its nations. The domestic troubles, the
riots connected with Wilkes's prosecution, interested — they are
often alluded to in letters from de Saussure's friends — but were not
of a sort to affect foreign visitors. The de Saussures had, more-
over, strong personal inducements to undertake the journey. They
had relations established as bankers in London, old family friends,
such as Dr. Turton, and close acquaintances, members of the
English aristocracy, who had been guests at Frontenex or in the
townhouse, on whose welcome they could count. Foremost among
them was Lord Palmerston, the father of the statesman, a D.C.L.
of Oxford, a traveller, a man of taste and fashion, a member of
' The Club,' an intimate friend of Reynolds, Garrick, and Gibbon.
He visited Switzerland in 1763 and again in 1767. On the latter
occasion he took with him William Pars, the artist of the Dilet-
tanti Society, who made a drawing of the Mer de Glace, engraved
with four other Alpine views by Woollett. There is nothing to
show that de Saussure went to Chamonix with Lord Palmerston in
1767, but in subsequent years he made at least one Alpine tour
in his company.

The ordinary route from Holland at that date was by Helvoet-
sluys and Harwich, but de Saussure was dissuaded from attempt-
ing it by his countryman Jalabert's * report of the terrors of the
nineteen hours' passage. They found their friend at Rotterdam
' bien triste, bien lugubre, ne disant plus de bien de FAngleterre,
nous representant tout comme herisse de difficultes .' It is hard,
perhaps, for islanders to realise the serious view taken by conti-
nental Europeans even to-day of the perils of the short Channel
1 The friend who accompanied him to Chamonix in 1767.

104 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

passage. The sea anywhere is formidable to eyes and stomachs
new to it. When Bernese guides are taken to the Caucasus it is not
the risks of a strange mountain chain and wild people, but those
of the Black Sea — a name of terror — that count most in their
minds and alarm their families. De Saussure, writing to Bonnet,
begs him not to tell his wife's grandmother, Madame Lullin, of
their adventure till he can give the news that they are safe in
England. In the end, to shorten the sea voyage, he hired a
luxurious boat and sailed through the estuaries and among the
islands to Flushing, and thence, after crossing the Scheldt,
drove to Ostend.

The Straits of Dover proved quite as great an ordeal as had
been anticipated, and de Saussure's journal gives a tragic de-
scription of physical sufferings so unfamiliar to the victim as to
call from him for particular description. De Saussure is at pains
to record that it was the downward roll that made him suffer
most, and that he found temporary relief by accommodating
his breathing to the movements of the vessel, drawing in
his breath as it plunged. ' A lesson,' he remarks, ' for next
time.'

In the circumstances it was surely brave of him to go on
deck at 4 A.M. and view the scene.

' The vessel was now in mid-Channel. No land was in sight. The
wind was always very strong. Heavens ! how small did the packet
that in the port had seemed so large, look now in the middle of this
immense space. The sailors were lying down and perfectly still, for
the steadiness of the breeze relieved them of their task. A profound
silence prevailed everywhere ; there were no sounds except the wind
in the sails and the noise of the waves beating on the sides of the
ship, or against one another. The whole surroundings gave to the
vessel an air of abandonment which was vaguely sad and terrible. I
admired the perfect evenness of the horizon, which one sees nowhere
else so well, and '

but we need follow no further. The poor passengers were kept
three hours off Dover waiting to enter the harbour. On landing,
de Saussure put on his best waistcoat and a red coat and went
with his wife to the King's Head, a ' mediocre inn.' On the same
afternoon they drove to Canterbury, arriving after dark, and
leaving next morning at 5. 30 A.M., much too shattered, apparently,

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 105

even to look at the cathedral. I quote the account in the diary
of the drive to London :

' The whole drive is very pretty ; the roads, except in the towns,
and above all in the tiresome Rochester, are not bad. One passes
cultivated valleys, charming hills often wooded, beautiful, deliciously
green meadows, pleasant country houses scattered here and there.
A well-clothed, well-looking peasantry, and women with large hats,
gave us a good impression of England. Still, the gloomy forebodings
of our Joseph [their servant] on English coinage added to all the
warnings we had been given in Holland ; the effects of the movement
of the vessel, which we still felt, and our general uncertainty as to our
adventure, capped by the boredom of having our two servants in the
carriage with us, took away a great deal from the pleasure of the
journey.'

The first view of London surprised them by the crowd of
steeples, in the centre of which rose the dome of St. Paul's, and the
number of vessels, which seemed to form part of the city and added
to its apparent size. They drove up Pall Mall, and, after being
warmly received by their old friend Dr. Turton, sought rooms at
' The Gentleman's Hotel,' which, far from deserving its name,
proved full of noxious insects.

For the next day or two I transcribe the entries in de Saussure's
journal :

' Friday, 15th Augmt.

' Rose early. Hairdresser who had been at Geneva. Breakfasted
with Turton. Went with him to look for lodgings, to buy maps of
London and England, to see Mr. Boissier [his cousin] at the Royal
Exchange ; met Mr. Beauclerk, returned, took my wife to see lodgings,
engaged those nearest Turton, very convenient, the landlady acting
as cook, all for three guineas a week, dined there at once with Turton
and young Fisher, very pleasant ; after dinner went to the Opera to
hear La Buona Figliola, actors heavy, but fine voices and excellent
orchestra. Dances vigorous but wanting in grace. Saw for the first
time Miss Harriet Blosset, with Mr. Banks,1 her betrothed. Returned
on foot from the opera with them and supped together. The eldest
daughter, tall, decided, agreeable, a great musician, splendid voice,
fond of society, polished. The second Miss Harriet, desperately in
love with Mr. Banks, from whom she was to part next day — hitherto

1 Sir Joseph Banks, afterwards president for many years of the Royal Society.
His engagement to Miss Blosset is not referred to by his biographers.

106 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

a prudent coquette, but now only intent on pleasing her lover, and
resolved to spend in the country all the time he is away. The youngest,
a Methodist devote, delighted to pass two or three years in the
country with her sister and live out of the world. The mother, a
good-natured little woman, talking politics. As Banks cannot speak
a word of French, I could not judge of his abilities. [De Saussure
apparently at this time could understand, but had great difficulty in
speaking, English.] He seems to have a prodigious zest for natural
history. I supped there with him and Dr. Solander, who is also start-
ing with him for Isle St. George. They will work on natural history.
They have an astronomer for the passage of Venus, a draughtsman,
all the instruments, books, and appliances possible ; after observing
the passage they will endeavour to make discoveries in the Southern
Ocean and return by the East Indies. Miss Blosset, not knowing that
he was to start next day, was quite gay. Banks drank freely to hide
his feelings. He promised to come and see me at Geneva and bring
me some curios. We were charmed to have made acquaintance with
this family, and I particularly to have seen before his departure a
remarkable man.'

' 16th August.

' Went with Turton to look for M. 1'Espinasse in Greek Street.
We did not find him, but found at the Museum Dr. Matey, friendly,
playing the agreeable, a stout little man : he greeted me cordially
and promised me the run of the Museum . . . dined with Turton and
Pictet on a fine piece of venison sent by Mrs. Blosset, went afterwards
with Miss Blosset to Ranelagh. I was much astonished at this fine
circular hall, admirably lit, with a great column in the centre, boxes
all round, good music with the best singers from the opera, a large
company promenading, listening to the music, or sitting down and
taking tea, some in the boxes and others at the tables round the
column, numbers of pretty girls.'

' llth August.

1 Rose early, studied English, visit from Lord Palmerston, who
suggests we should go to York to see the races and return by Derby-
shire. Called on the Misses Blosset, arranged for the theatre and ball,
dined with Turton and the Misses Blosset and left my wife to dine
alone and dress her hair at our lodgings. Went with Turton to the
theatre to see The Suspicious Husband, in which, in honour of the King
of Denmark, Garrick played Ranger, a part too young for him, but
which he played as faithfully and agreeably as possible. The other
actors also were very good. I enjoyed myself greatly. The short

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 107

piece was a translation of The Oracle well played. The best actors
from all the theatres had been collected in the King's honour. Garrick
danced a quadrille with all the actors at the end of the principal piece.
The pit encored him with noisy obstinacy. Fine theatre. Thence to
supper with Mrs. Blosset and to the ball at the Redout with the eldest
Miss Blosset. Ladies pay half a guinea, men a guinea. Fine room,
fine company. Girls escorted by their " abbesses " ; youths accost
them in passing, everything well conducted, with a singular air of
propriety. Talked to Lord Palmerston, who explained to me the
customs and the company and gave me an excellent itinerary, with
three letters of introduction of the most obliging character, one for
Sir George Savile, M.P. for the county of York, one for Lord John
Cavendish, M.P. for the town, and one for Lord Rockingham, the
Lord -Lieutenant of the county. Returned to bed at 2 A.M. nervous
lest my wife might be lost in her sedan chair.'
' 18th August.

1 [The morning was spent in buying a carriage from M. I'Espinasse
for twenty guineas and in inspecting various kinds of mathematical
instruments.]

' Drove with Turton into the country with Lady Diana Boling-
broke,1 wife of Mr. Beauclerk. . . . The estate Mr. Beauclerk inhabits
is very pretty, there is a fine collection of exotic trees with a pleasant
path winding among them, diversified with points of view, little ponds,
shady and sunny spots. Dined with My Lady, who knows and under-
stands French, but does not like speaking it. After dinner looked at
some instruments with Mr. Beauclerk. He studies mathematics with
his wife, and is a man of great attainments. He took me to drive
in a cabriolet in Richmond Park close to his house, pretty landscapes :
returned to tea and drove back at night to London, talking of high-
waymen, but seeing none.'

' Went with my wife and Turton to breakfast with the Misses
Blosset, met Mr. and Mrs. Earle, with whom we made a very pleasant
acquaintance, he tall, a fine gentleman, she pale, thin, plain, affected
by the death of a brother whom she had come to see, and found dead
in London.2

1 Topham Beauclerk was a man of taste and the owner of a great library-
He is best remembered as the friend of Dr. Johnson. Lady Diana, a daughter of
the Duke of Marlborough, had been divorced by her first husband, the second
Lord Bolingbroke. She was an artist of some ability and much esteemed by
Horace Walpole.

2 Mrs. Earle was a Miss Bouchier and the heiress of Benningborough Hall,
Yorkshire, where the de Saussure's subsequently stayed. She lived to be eighty.

108 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

' Mr. Earle gave me a good route to York and promised to meet
us and entertain us at his home. Went with the ladies to hear the
Musical Glasses of M. I'Espinasse; dined with Turton. Afterwards
took Miss Harriet Blosset in my carriage to see the garden and the
rosaries of Lyse, a gardener patronised by Mr. Banks, on the road
to Richmond, walked about with her, collected many plants. The
man seems a very good fellow, well-informed ; his trees are very reason-
ably priced ; he promised me a catalogue ; the quantity he has is
immense, most of them unknown in France. Thence, still with Miss
Blosset, to see the insects of Mr. Banks, a superb collection beautifully
arranged, insects pinned with the name underneath each, English and
foreign, in drawers covered with glass and framed in cedarwood. Took
tea with Mrs. Blosset, Miss Harriet, and her younger sister, the eldest
had gone with my wife to the opera. I had a serious conversation
with Miss Harriet. Her deep melancholy, her persuasion she should
die, her firm resolve to live in the country to show her true love, make
her very interesting.'

Here we take leave of Miss Harriet as far as de Saussure is
concerned. He may have renewed his interesting acquaintance
on his return to London in the autumn, but of that period no
diary remains. In the official biographies of Banks the young
lady plays no part. But in a privately printed memoir of the
time, Lady Mary Coke's Journal, I find a footnote which throws a
sad light on the end of her love story :

' August 11, 1771. — Mr. Morrice was exceedingly droll, according to
custom, and said he hoped Mr. Banks, who, since his return, had desired
Miss Blosset will excuse him marrying her, will pay for the materials
of all the worked waistcoats she made for him during the time he was
sailing round the world.'

On the 2 1st the most noteworthy event was a visit with Dr.
Turton to a brother of the celebrated Wilkes, some three or
four miles from London, where they found a ' famous painter '
(the name is left blank — probably Sir Joshua Reynolds) and ' an
author named Goldsmith,' ' un homme fort original, fort singulier,
naturel, gai, vraiment comique dans ses idees et dans ses expres-
sions.' Thence they all went to a house, ' a very fine bit of

eight, and, having lost both her sons, left her property to the boys' great friend
at Eton, Mr. Henry Dawney, the grandfather of the present Lord Downe.
Benningborough was sold in 1917 by the then owner, Colonel Dawney. Pictured
in Country Life, it was advertised as having ' matured gardens.'

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 109

architecture, and full of the most beautiful pictures and marbles.'
It was only to be visited with a permit from the owner, and it was
a great favour of the painter to get them one. De Saussure
mentions a portrait of Pope — which has enabled me (by the
friendly aid of Mr. Austin Dobson) to identify the house as in all
probability Caen Wood House, between Hampstead andHighgate,
then the property of Lord Mansfield. The diary continues :

' 22nd.

' To Tissot's shop, where I saw Graphometres he called theodo-
lites, and other instruments, all very dear, but very good and well
finished.

' Started in the afternoon for York. Four horses in the carriage,
and our two servants on horseback, my wife but middlingly pleased
to go, and I surprised, almost astounded, at this unforeseen and hastily
undertaken journey.'

The journey proved less formidable than it had seemed in
prospect. The first night was spent at Stevenage. At Stamford
the host of the inn, forewarned by Mr. Earle, was waiting to take
the travellers to Burghley, where they were received by domestics
carrying silver staves, and, despite de Saussure 's bad English,
the housekeeper made herself very agreeable. They admired
chiefly the pictures and the kitchen.1 Next day, starting from
Grantham, they reached York, having made the journey from
London at the rate of seven and a half miles an hour. De
Saussure is warm in praise of the roads :

' It is delightful to roll rapidly on such roads, seldom straight,
through beautiful country, rich and well cultivated. The peasantry
are better dressed than in France or Switzerland, but less well off ;
their cottages picturesque but wretched and white-washed.'

At York, after a first night in a crowded inn, they found lodg-
ings, and were speedily introduced to the fine society collected for
the races : Sir George Savile, Lord Rockingham, recently Prime
Minister, and his wife, Lord Scarborough, Lord John Cavendish,
and a host of others. The races, the horses and jockeys, the

1 Gilpin, who visited Burghley in 1776, writes : ' We must not leave this
grand house without looking into the kitchen, which is a noble room and decorated
with the ensign memorial of hospitality, an immense carcase of beef, well painted.'
— Observations relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty made in the year 1776 in
several 'parts of Great Britain, particularly the Highlands of Scotland.

110 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

crowd, all had the charm of novelty for the Genevese travellers.
At supper they feasted on the ' singuliers oiseaux qui viennent
de la province de Lincoln et qui sont si peu sociables, mais
excellents.' Apparently bitterns, which in those days were held
a choice dish .

The York festival lasted a week. About noon the company
went to the races. One day the de Saussures drove there in the
carriage of Lady Rockingham, drawn by six horses and escorted
by seven grooms in livery on horseback. Thence to the Assembly,
for which they put on full dress on alternate days. De Saussure
writes, ' Ce jour-ci les dames n'^taient pas habillees, elles le sont
ou ne le sont pas, alternativement.' There were concerts and
plays. One night a brilliant ball took place in ' the superb hall.'
There was no lack of attention shown to the young Genevese
couple. De Saussure had interesting conversations with the Whig
statesman, Sir George Savile, on the government of England, and
with the ' old and good ' Archbishop, ' si honnete, si poli.' On the
last evening the company broke up with many regrets and promises
to meet again, and the de Saussures received numerous invitations
to various parts of the kingdom. They went off at once to pay
their first visit to an English country-house, that of their new
acquaintance, Mr. Earle, ten miles north of York. They were
fortunate in lighting on a very good specimen of the Queen Anne
period. Benningborough Hall is a fine brick mansion, with a
' noble vestibule ' and a dancing-room, which had remained un-
touched until the estate recently came into the market, a large
garden going down to the river, a wooded park, and all the
appurtenances of an English gentleman's place. ' Belle verdure
de 1'Angleterre, a laquelle aucun pays du monde n'est comparable,'
is a note in de Saussure 's journal. Their hosts were agreeable.
' At tea we talked of the human race and of all our acquaintances.
Mr. Earle seemed to me a good judge of men, fine perceptions and
shrewd and strong ideas ; in general he is something of a pessimist,
but he argues his case ably. His only fault seems to be a slight
tendency to boast of himself and his country.' After a stay of
two nights, Mr. Earle took his guests to view the sights of York-
shire. They began with Castle Howard, where the magnificent
gardens and hot -houses made a deep impression on the visitors.
They admired also the house with its gallery of Italian paintings

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) m

and drawings by Holbein of the Court of Fra^ois Premier, which
were shown by a ' concierge of a fine figure, very intelligent, and
speaking Latin.'

The next object was Duncombe Park, built by Vanbrugh, the
seat of the Earl of Feversham, where they were invited to lunch
and stay to dinner, though they saw nothing of the owner, who
with his ladies spied them from a balcony overlooking the vestibule.
Here they admired a Titian ' Venus and Adonis/ ' almost too
beautiful.' Through rain, which prevented their seeing much of
the park, they drove on to Helmsley, where de Saussure notes,
' My farthest north, 54° 16".' Here they parted with their kind
guide, with promises to meet again at Geneva. Between Helmsley
and Thirsk they crossed the moors, the barrenness of which was
noted. Their naked slopes reminded (we are surprised to hear)
de Saussure of his own country : possibly he had in his mind
the heights of the Jura. ' Sportsmen,' he relates, * go and live
on them in tents and pursue a kind of pheasant only to be found
there.' Does he mean black game or grouse ? Despite his early
shooting parties round the Reposoir, ornithology does not seem
to have been one of our philosopher's strong points.

The tourists next viewed Studley and Fountains Abbey. De
Saussure, who shows far more enthusiasm for sylvan scenery,
gardens, and classic summer-houses than for serious architecture,
goes into ecstasies over the romantic ruins and the points of view.
Here he encountered Mr. Pennant,1 with a young companion from
Harrogate ; ' full of a poetical verve which these beauties inflamed,
he escaped from time to time in order to write down the verses
which came into his head, and groaned at being obliged to crush
his genius by legal studies.'

They drove next to Hackfall and Mowbray Point. The im-
pression it made on our travellers' eyes is remarkable :

' One discovers of a sudden and without any warning the most
charming point of view that can be imagined — a little river winding
through a deep glen, clothed in beautiful woods, broken only by bold
crags which make a very fine contrast. The stream, which shows and

1 This must have been the well-known author, naturalist, and traveller,
whose Tour in Scotland Dr. Johnson warmly defended. This particular view is
rapturously described by Pennant in a passage in his posthumous work, A Tour
from Alston Moor to Harrowgate (sic) and Brimham Crags, 1904, cited in Murray's
Handbook to Yorkshire. Who was the young poet ?

114 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

previously, next received the travellers at Wentworth House,
where they found agreeable feminine company. The size of the
mansion impressed de Saussure. He repeats a mot of Sir George
Savile, who, when Lady Rockingham hoped that the de Saussures
would visit them if they lay on their road, had cried, ' Oh, the
house is so large that if one end of it is not on your road, the
other must be.' Before supper at 9.30 there were evening
prayers in the chapel attached to the house, 'chose tres edifiante,'
de Saussure remarks. They saw Wentworth Castle before return-
ing to Sheffield, where the walls of their inn were hung with speci-
mens of Scarborough seaweed in place of pictures. The process
of manufacture of Sheffield plate was inspected, and then they
started for another great place, Chatsworth. Here they were
received by Lord John Cavendish, and found Horace Walpole and
his friend General Conway, ' both very unaffected and amiable.'
They talked of Rousseau and his imaginary fears of being pursued
in England and forbidden to leave the country, and how he had
begged General Conway to give him leave to depart, offering in
return to write nothing more about Hume. Horace Walpole,
whom de Saussure speaks of as ' the author of the letter of the
King of Prussia to Rousseau,' he thought somewhat Frenchified
and affected. But General Conway proved a most pleasant
companion. By his advice the de Saussures drove to Matlock,
where they admired the scenery and visited a lead-mine. The
marvels of Chatsworth surprised them ; the house is described as
' a fairy palace in a beautiful wilderness.' Lord John Cavendish
gave de Saussure further light on the humours of a parliamentary
election ; his own seat for York, he said, cost him £1000 a year,
though his return was unopposed. Next day they drove on to the
marble quarries at Bakewell and, over hills showing nothing
but sheep and heather, to Castleton and the Peak Cavern, at that
day one of the sights of England.

At Manchester, a market town of forty thousand inhabitants,
but not yet a city, a cotton manufactory was visited and an
excursion made on the Bridge water Canal. De Saussure called
on that strange collector, Sir Ashton Lever, who ruined himself
in making a most heterogeneous museum, which subsequently,
when shown at the Rotunda on the Surrey side, became one of
the sights of London. He was then living at Allerington Hall,

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 115

some six miles out of Manchester. ' A man of extraordinary
vivacity, over forty, with the frame of individuals of great talents
and strong passions, he has that manner and appearance ; for the
rest lively, pleasant, agreeable, serviceable, at least towards myself.'

At Buxton they found a good Bath-house and accommodation
for visitors, and visited another cavern with stalactites, and a
lead-mine belonging to the Duke of Devonshire near Eaton Hill,
where de Saussure had to go down a great many awkward ladders
and to crouch in low corridors. These subterranean excursions
of her husband obviously bored Madame de Saussure, who was
apt to be uneasy in his absence and impatient when his return was
delayed.

Here, on the 15th September, the surviving portion of de
Saussure 's diary ends.1 It is diffuse with respect to the many
country seats, visits to which occupied a large part of the tour.
The writer has an eye for detail in all things, and a very strong
natural taste for sylvan landscapes and ornamental gardening.
He admires the picturesque in English scenery, but prefers it as
improved by man. The austere charm of the moors escapes him ;
like Cobbett, he looks with disfavour on sheep and heather. In
mineral products, and in natural eccentricities such as caverns,
he is much interested, looking at them not from the tourist point
of view, but as possible sources of information for his History of
the Earth.

The diary offers in one respect a singular illustration of how
travel has been affected by the increase in travellers. In the
eighteenth century a visitor to England could, on the strength
of an introduction such as de Saussure 's from Lord Palmerston,
count on being admitted at once both to the literary circle of the
capital and the great houses of the country. At each of the
latter the travellers spent two or three days, and in her letters
home Madame de Saussure dwells on the kindness with which
they were everywhere received. She adds that most Englishmen
spoke French, though the accomplishment was not so common
among the women. Her husband ' loves England prodigiously.'
She obviously repeats what we are told was his favourite phrase.

1 The manuscript diary I have had access to ends abruptly, leaving blank
pages in the volume. All efforts to find its continuation — if one exists — have so
far failed.

116 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

There are few, if any, countries in Europe now where a stranger
could at short notice hope for a similar welcome. In England de
Saussure met with new minds and modes of life as well as fresh
landscapes. Mores hominum multorum novit.

For the rest of his stay in our country we have to piece
together but scanty material. His letters show that he was back
in town from his Midland tour on the 21st September, after a visit
to Birmingham. On 3rd September he had written from Leeds
to the Rector of the Academy at Geneva, begging for an ex-
tension of his leave of absence. The reason he gave was that he
had been disappointed on his arrival in his hope of mixing in the
learned society of London. He continued :

' I expected to find in the capital at least a great number of its
literary men, but, to my great disappointment, I found only very few ;
everyone except those whose business kept them in the City had gone
into the country, and the fashionable quarter of London was as de-
serted as our Grand' Rue during the unhappy Emigration [in 1766].
I was advised to make use of the season to visit some of the English
counties which, owing to the mines or other natural curiosities they
contain, deserve the attention of Natural Students. The beauty of
the weather, and curiosity to see the horse-races at York and the fine
company and the splendid entertainments which they are an occasion
for, made this plan acceptable to my dear companion.'

He went on to describe how he intended to fill up the time till
the beginning of November by a trip to Cornwall and visits to
the Universities. Then Parliament would have met, the Royal
Society opened its session, and he would be able to encounter the
men he most wanted to . He ended by suggesting that if the Rector
thought his request for a prolongation of leave to February out
of the question, he would say nothing about it, and promising
to come back to his duties punctually at any date fixed.

It is amusing to find de Saussure taking steps to have any
prolongation of his absence broken gently to his parents and his
wife's grandmother, Madame Lullin, who appears to have been
an important personage in the family. He proposed to let his
relations know of his further stay only when the time drew near,
and then by successive suggestions of ' another week ! ' Heads
of a family at Geneva seem to have exercised a control over the
younger generation very alien to English custom.

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 117

On the 10th October the de Saussures went to a masquerade
given for the King of Denmark.

' All the most beautiful and richest ladies in England were there
in fancy dress of singular taste and magnificence. Several ladies, and
among them Lady Spencer, one of our acquaintances, wore more than
a hundred thousand pounds sterling worth of diamonds ! My wife
was dressed as a Spaniard in pink and silver, which suited her admirably
— I have never seen her look better ; and all the sensible — or frugal —
men were only in dominoes ! '

One of de Saussure's correspondents, Francois Tronchin, pleasantly
alludes to 'the King, who was at Madame de Saussure's feet.' It
was possibly on this occasion, though he is recorded to have met
and danced with her previously at the Hague.

Next day de Saussure, leaving his wife at Putney with her
cousins the Boissiers, who had a banking house in London, started
at midnight by coach to visit the mines in Cornwall. A letter
written immediately after his return describes his experiences :

' The journey was very laborious and fatiguing, but made well
worth while by the beauty and singularity of all I saw. The Cornish
climate is, I believe, the softest, the pleasantest, and the healthiest
in Europe ; the land never experiences great heat or great cold ;
myrtles, pomegranates, laurels, grow in the open air, and hardly ever
suffer from frost ; provisions cost nothing ; fish is so cheap that for
two shillings ten people can be fed, and the air is so pure that epidemics
are unknown. The only drawback is the absence of trees — at least of
large trees ; whether from the sea-winds or the character of the soil,
they fail to flourish. The crops, however, are successful.'

Senebier in his Memoir asserts that de Saussure contracted in
Cornwall a diphtheritic sore throat, the effects of which on his
health were lasting. According to his biographer, he was attended
by his friend, Dr. Turton, and after suffering a dangerous relapse
from a visit to a flint-glass manufactory, was still an invalid when
he started homewards at the New Year.1

This story is not borne out by any available evidence, and it
is difficult to credit it in the face of de Saussure's testimony to

1 Senebier wrote from recollections that were often inaccurate. For instance,
he asserts that do Saussure met Banks and Solander on their return from their
famous voyage, and was shown ' the curiosities of Otahiti.' In fact, de Saussure
supped with Banks the night before his start. There is nothing in the letters
written during the last weeks of the de Saussures' stay in England to confirm

118 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the Cornish climate and other facts. We know, for instance,
that immediately on his return to London at the end of October
he planned and carried out a trip to Cambridge and Oxford, and
we have also a letter he wrote two days before starting on it to
the Rector of the Academy of Geneva making a second appeal for
an extension of his leave of absence (which was granted), and
describing his successful visit to the Cornish mines and to the
Land's End.

To Cambridge de Saussure took letters of introduction to
Dr. Rutherforth, the Regius Professor of Divinity, who was also
a F.R.S. One wonders if he called on Gray, whose quiet had just
been disturbed by the visit of the King of Denmark, and who was
a few months later to be fascinated by de Saussure's and Bonnet's
young neighbour and acquaintance, Bonstetten. Of his and his
wife's visit to the sister University and Bath, the only record is a
bill dated Oxford, 10th November, from one Joshua Platt for a
collection of fossils. From its address we learn that the de
Saussures were then staying with ' Mr. Hurst opposite Cumberland
House, Pall Mall.'

The loss of the diary of de Saussure's last weeks in England
is unfortunate, and it is tantalising to read in a letter dated from
London, 21st October : ' I have made the complete tour of England,
and if I were not afraid that this letter would be drowned with
the rest, I would tell you a vast number of things which perhaps
might interest you.' It would seem that some catastrophe in
the Channel must have occurred to previous letters.

De Saussure was, Senebier tells us, taken sight-seeing in town
by Dr. Matey, the Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society and
Chief Librarian of the British Museum, whose ' taste, knowledge,
and judgment ' were commended by Gibbon. Dr. Johnson, how-
ever, wroth at some disrespectful comments on his Dictionary,
threatened on one occasion to throw him into the Thames ! At
the house of Sir John Pringle, the President of the Royal Society,
de Saussure met many of the men of the day. But there is no
record in the books of the Royal Society's Club of his having been,

Senebier's statement as to his health ; on the contrary, they show both the de
Saussures in active enjoyment of society. De Candolle, in an obituary notice of
de Saussure, written immediately after his death (published in the Decade Philo-
sophique, vol. iv., June 1799), states explicitly that his illness was camsed by his
political exertions and anxieties. See also p. 129.

THE GRAND TOUR (1768-69) 119

like his son, a guest at any of its dinners . Nor have we any record
of his presence at a meeting of the Society. Of the character
of its meetings at a somewhat later date, as they appeared to a
Genevese savant, a graphic description is given by the botanist
de Candolle :

1 Meetings of the Royal Society take place in the evening, and are
arranged hi a way to deprive them of any interest. The papers are
read by secretaries in the monotonous voice of people who take no
interest in what they are reading ; no discussion on any of them is
admitted, no material exhibits serve to awake attention. The Fellows
are seated, like schoolboys, on benches facing the President. He
wears a large, three-cornered hat on his head, which he lifts from
time to time with a solemn air, when he has to announce the election
of a new Fellow or to return thanks for the presentation of some work
to the Society. . . . Nothing can be more monotonous or lifeless than
these meetings, but I took a keen interest in them on account of the
number of celebrities assembled, the brilliant series of works of which the
Society can boast, and the position that it enjoys in the scientific world.'

In private de Saussure must have met many of the leaders of
the London world, both in science and society, but at this period
unfortunately his letters are few.

We know that he had congenial converse with Franklin on
electrical problems, which he put to practical use on his return
home. He frequently met Garrick, then at the height of his fame,
and preparing for the Shakespeare festival of the following year.
According to Senebier, he ' penetrated the profound philosophy
of this unique actor and agreeable poet.' The Dowager Duchess
of Portland presented him with a piece of marquetry made of
* all the woods known.' Lord Warwick and Lord Algernon
Percy, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, Lord Lyttelton and
Horace Walpole were members of the society the Genevese
travellers met or were entertained by.

The last glimpse we get of the travellers in town is dining
with Lord Warwick on 2nd January 1769. Two days later they
left for Dover, and, after waiting for fine weather, crossed happily
to Calais on the 7th. On landing de Saussure writes to his sister :

' I confess I am leaving England with regret ; we were so kindly
received. I found so much that was of interest for my pursuits, and
the life led there suited me so well, that had not a tenderly loved father

120 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

and mother, a sister, dear children, and a country, which, after all,
has its attractions, called me home very strongly, I do not know
how I could have returned.'

The preference here expressed by de Saussure for England as
a residence was shared by not a few of his countrymen. There
were many family and business connections between the two
Protestant States : to the serious side of the Genevese character
London perhaps proved more congenial than Paris ; the Genevese
patrician felt at home among the English aristocracy, while the
Genevese radical who had reasons for leaving his native city
found welcome and congenial employment in many quarters, and
might even, like Deluc, the climber of the Buet, aspire to become
' Reader to a Queen,' or with d'lvernois, to gain the honour of
knighthood.

Fran9ois Tronchin, writing from Paris to de Saussure just
before the latter left London, anticipated his friend's favourable
opinion of English hospitality :

' The country in which you are is perhaps of all the countries
in the world the most attractive. You have not yet told me, but I
venture to guess your feeling about it. I should have had more doubts
as to Madame de Saussure's, if her letters did not altogether ease my
mind as to her life in England. The Paradise of women is not identical
with that of every man, and a country where men have the imperti-
nence not to be always at their feet cannot be that which they like
best. If you are really enthusiastic about the English we will talk
about them as much as you like. Otherwise I shall regret your not
having been granted by Heaven a soul of the English stamp and we
will avoid the subject.'

Madame de Saussure has answered for us Fran9ois Tronchin's
question. The de Saussures liked England ' prodigiously.'

CHAPTER V
ITALY

ON 1st February 1769 de Saussure returned to Geneva to find
his younger sister-in-law, the charming Minette, just married.
The bridegroom was a son of the able politician, the Procureur-
General Jean Robert Tronchin, whose memory has survived as
the opponent who drew forth Rousseau's famous Lettres ecrites
de la Montague. The family were on the point of giving a
wedding ball in the great house in the Rue de la Cite, where they
entertained three hundred guests and the dancing was kept up
till eight in the morning. The fact is worth noting as proof that,
whatever prejudices might remain against theatres, the austere
rules of the city of Calvin had been considerably relaxed in
respect of other forms of amusement.

De Saussure found plenty of work awaiting him on his return :
his lectures had to be resumed, the store of instruments, books,
and objects he had collected abroad to be unpacked and studied.
His travels, he tells Haller, in a letter congratulating him on having
resisted all temptations from foreign kings and universities to
quit Berne, had added to his taste for natural history. Hence-
forth he intends physics and chemistry, ' with so much literature
and society as may keep me from becoming a bear,' to form his
main occupation and pleasure. With politics and office, for
which he had never felt any attraction, the troubles of the times
had, he writes, still further disgusted him. He ' prefers a tranquil
independence to a stormy servitude.' Li the following year he
refused a nomination to the Council of Two Hundred, of which
he did not become a member till several years later.

He was more agreeably engaged as a leading figure in the
brilliant society that gathered at Geneva during the sixties
and seventies of the eighteenth century. Himself a member of

an old patrician family, and the husband of the eldest of the

121

Boissier heiresses, de Saussure was closely connected with three
of the most distinguished families in the city, the Tronchins, the
Turrettinis, and the de la Rives. As the host and more or less
the master of the mansion in the Rue de la Cite" and the beautiful
country home on the lakeshore at Genthod, the young philosopher
was obviously called on to take a conspicuous part in the social
life and gaieties of the Upper Town. There was in Geneva at
that time, before the troubles of the end of the century, a some-
what exclusive set of the ' best families/ the ' Nobles ' and
' Spectables ' of the old aristocracy, which was celebrated both
for its agreeable and informal character and for its literary culture .
It was one of the attractions that drew Voltaire to take up his
abode in the neighbourhood. In the letters of the day we read
of constant picnics and exchanges of visits between the inmates
of the neighbouring country-houses in summer, and of afternoon
assemblies and tea-parties in town during the winter.

The long-standing connection between England and Geneva
had grown very intimate. A common form of religion, coupled
with educational advantages, drew many of our countrymen to
the pleasant town on Lake Leman. But the particular magnet
that brought some of the first families in France and England
about 1760 was Dr. Tronchin. He made Geneva a fashionable
health resort, and the ' world ' flocked to its favourite doctor as in
later years it did to mineral spas — to Homburg, Marienbad, and
St. Moritz. So great was the crowd that lodgings were scarce
and dear, and the Genevese, when they went out to their country
villas for the summer, had no difficulty in letting their town houses .
Voltaire and his theatre no doubt added to the double attraction
of society and scenery.

All our evidence — and there is a good deal — goes to show
that de Saussure thoroughly enjoyed the social atmosphere by
which he found himself surrounded. He was himself by all
accounts an attractive personality, with a rare power of giving out
the best of himself, full of sympathy among his friends and of
natural gaiety in general society. In a note in an unusually
lively strain written during his stay in England to Haller's son
in Holland, he shows an eye keenly observant of personal traits.
* If you meet on your way the wig of M. Biermann, the sword of
M. 1'Amiral, the wife of M. Van der Meulen, or the eyebrows of

ITALY 123

M. Fizeau, please offer them my respects.' He goes on : ' I love
with passion all ladies who are at once very charming and fond of
natural science.' 1 He must have needed an expansive heart,
for in the eighteenth century it was as fashionable with the fair
sex to set up ' cabinets ' and pretend a taste for shells and fossils
as it is in the twentieth to buy vellum -bound volumes of Greek
philosophy and discuss psychical problems .

Voltaire more than once expressed his warm esteem for his
amiable country neighbour, to whom he gave an introduction to his
friend the Cardinal de Bernis, then French Ambassador to the
Vatican, for use on de Saussure's visit to Rome. In due course
the Cardinal replied congratulating the host of Ferney on living
in a society which had such an agreeable member. But the best
evidence to de Saussure's talent for friendship is afforded by his
private correspondence. From that we learn on what intimate,
and often affectionate, terms he was, both with the English nobility
and the great French ladies who on their visits to Geneva received
the hospitality of the mansion in the Rue de la Cit6. The latter
in their letters speedily drop the customary formalities and com-
pliments of the time, and in their place end by assuring their
' dear friend ' of a lifelong affection.

The Geneva Visitors' List was a remarkable one. Among
the celebrities from Paris were the philosophers Condorcet and
d'Alembert ; Madame d'Epinay was Dr. Tronchin's favourite
patient, and she delighted in his company as much as she profited
by his prescriptions . Other distinguished visitors were the Duchesse
d'Enville, 'the Philosophic Duchess,' mother of the young Due
de la Rochefoucauld d'Enville ; Madame de Montesson, the
acknowledged wife (though she did not take his name in society)
of Louis Philippe, the fourth Due d' Orleans and father of Philippe
Egalite ; the attractive and romantic Duchesse de Bourbon, his
daughter and the mother of the Due d'Enghien ; Madame de
Lezay-Marnesia, the wife of a Marquis de Lezay-Marn6sia, who
travelled in America and wrote Letters from the Banks of the Ohio.

With most of these de Saussure was on intimate terms. The
Duchesse d'Enville and Madame de Montesson remained his

1 De Saussure describes in this note the blackballing of Dr. J. Hill at the
Royal Society. Hill was a successful producer of quack medicines. Dr. Johnson
labelled him an ingenious man who had no veracity.

124 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

constant correspondents, and their letters show a warmth of feeling
and a certainty of meeting with a corresponding sympathy, both
in happiness and sorrow, which is the best proof of true friend-
ship. De Saussure's complete freedom from vanity and pedantry,
coupled with his natural gaiety and a quick wit, must have
appealed to the visitors from Paris, and doubtless formed a
pleasing counterpoise both to the cynical if brilliant atmosphere of
Ferney and the more serious tone of the coteries of the Upper
Town. From England came Lord Palmerston ; Lord and Lady
Stanhope, who lived at Geneva for several years for the educa-
tion of their sons ; Lord Algernon Percy, and many others.

De Saussure does not seem to have allowed himself to be
distracted by the calls of society, or even by the duties of his
professorship, from his life-work, original research. Before setting
out (in 1767) on his northern tour he had been at pains to explain
to Bonnet his aims and the causes of his delay in publishing his
results :

' Various tasks have retarded my Glaciers (sic). I am taking your
advice, and writing down what I may forget and the points on which
my impressions may grow faint. But I shall publish nothing for a
long time. I realise that my work can only gain any value by the
thoroughness of my investigations. Journeys have been made for
more interesting objects, journeys more fatiguing, more dangerous,
and more remarkable. What can I have to describe which has not
been seen on a greater scale in the Cordilleras l and elsewhere ? What
is wanted is a series of thoroughly carried out investigations into the
causes of the low temperatures in the upper layers of the atmosphere,
on electricity, on the chemical composition and the formation of
mountains, on vapours, meteors, plants, animals.'

In the early summer of 1769 de Saussure paid an unfruitful
visit to the neighbourhood of Grenoble and Chambery and the
Grande Chartreuse. He met with a snowstorm and a gale on the
heights above the convent. On the Mont Granier (6358 feet),
celebrated for a great landslip in 1248, he was more fortunate in
his quest for flowering plants . At this period he was still occupy-
ing himself a good deal with botany, and going over the different
species represented in Haller's great work.

1 A reference to the recent journeys (circa 1740) in the Andes of the French
Academician, La Condamine, and his companions.

ITALY 125

In 1770 there was a renewal of political disorders in Geneva.
Under the Edict of 1768 the unenfranchised ' Natif s ' who had
taken part with the Representants in the late disputes had gained
relief from some of their disabilities. But their position still left
them with many just grievances. The Representants, on their
part, recognised in the growing number and prosperous condition
of the ' Natifs ' the prospect of a formidable rivalry, commercial
as well as political. They showed no disposition to give them the
civic vote or to combine with them in opposition to the patrician
oligarchy. In a heated atmosphere a trifling incident often leads
to serious consequences. In 1770 the Councils seized on the
occasion of a riot arising out of the prosecution of an individual
for reciting a satirical street ballad to pass an ordinance dis-
solving the numerous clubs, which had played an important
part in the recent struggles. In a city of so few amusements and
among a race only too prone to talk and argument these social
institutions filled an obvious need. But, as at Paris, they tended
to become centres of political excitement and intrigue. The
Councils next proceeded to make it penal to propose any further
change in the political position of the ' Natifs,' and to banish their
leaders. These measures, confirmed by the General Assembly,
were for the time successful. The city was now to have some
eleven years of relative tranquillity, at any rate on the surface,
under its patrician government. But the old feuds were only
dormant. The Representants continued to agitate for the
promised Code ; the ' Natifs ' were still clamorous for the removal
of their practical grievances. De Saussure, fully occupied in his
own studies and duties at the Academy and divided in his sym-
pathies, held consistently aloof from the politics of the hour.

In 1770 his friend Lord Palmerston begged him to join a
party, consisting of himself and two friends, in a visit to the
glaciers of Chamonix and Grindelwald. He also asked him to
recommend a German translation of Homer. Haller, on being
appealed to, replied that he knew of none ! He advised de
Saussure, apparently on botanical grounds, to prefer the Valais,
the Grisons, and Val Tellina to the Bernese Oberland, but the
suggestion was not followed. No record of the tour exists,
but we learn from incidental allusions that it was carried out
successfully. The party visited the Rhone Glacier, and early

126 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

in August, perhaps on his return, de Saussure ascended the Dent
de Jaman behind Montreux. He praises the view and tells an
amusing story of a minister from the Pays de Vaud who went with
him, but was so terrified on the descent that he had to be carried
down by his legs and shoulders like a corpse.1

For the following summer (1771) a more ambitious plan was
formed, a tour beginning in June with the Simplon, and having
for its principal object the flora of the Italian Lakes . De Saussure
rowed up Lago Maggiore to Locarno, crossed the Monte Cenere,
ascended Monte Bre, visited Como and Pliny's Villa. He went
on to Milan. In a long letter to his wife he describes how he was
taken round the town by Pere Frisi, a Professor of Physics,
Science, and Engineering, and introduced to Pere Boscovich,
celebrated as a philosopher, an astronomer, and an optician. I
quote part of the letter as a specimen of de Saussure in his lighter
mood :

' Pere Frisi took me in a carriage the round of the churches, and
then we called together on Pere Boscovich, who was out, so we went
on to the Corso. I noticed many fair ladies bow and smile to Pere
Frisi. He told me the names of everyone, but he did not repeat a
single scandalous tale of the kind you would have cared for ; he seems
so good, so upright, that I believe he never thinks any evil. I took him
home and had a long talk over physics and natural history ; conversa-
tion with him is a great pleasure ; his gentleness and modesty are
charming.

' Next day I visited Pere Boscovich. He is in quite a different
style to Pere Frisi. His style is that of the French savant whose
object is to make a great show of his learning and new ideas in your
eyes, without thinking much of his visitor. Let me tell you something
of his ideas. I am glad to write them down before I forget them. He
does not believe that the soul has any fixed seat in the brain, but that
it moves about from one place to another, so that if a man survives
the loss of a great part of his brain from a wound, it is owing to his
luck in the soul having been in the part of the brain that was un-
touched, while another time a slight wound in the part where the
soul is may cause death. He believes that if God created the world
He must have created it such as it would have been had it previously
existed for millions of years. At the moment of creation — according
to him — the rivers filled their beds although the water had not flowed

1 Voyages, section 1659.

ITALY 127

from the hills, vegetation was complete, the trees as big as if they had
grown naturally. The earth, which cannot be fertile unless enriched
by animal and vegetable ingredients, contained these ingredients as
if it had been from all time. The petrifactions formed on mountains
do not prove that the world has undergone revolutions that would
require far more than six thousand years, because God, in creating it,
created it, petrifactions and all, such as it would have been if it had
really undergone these revolutions.

' Here is certainly the most ingenious method ever invented for
reconciling the story of Moses with natural history. He thinks that
the only explanation of the prodigious disturbances of which con-
tinual evidence is found in the mountains is that the subterranean
fires have acted as mines and thrown them into the air, and that in
falling again they have been heaped up pell-mell in all sorts of irregular
situations.

' Pere Boscovich then described in detail the construction of a clock
he had invented which is not subject to expansion by heat or con-
traction by cold. At this moment he was summoned to take a class,
and I think you won't be sorry, for all this astronomy must have
bored you greatly. . . . Up to this point, my dear Albertine, I have
told you frankly and honestly all I have done since my departure.
But now I have to confess an escapade which I have concealed so as
to save you anxiety ! You realise that I was very anxious to meet
Pere Spallanzani, the great observer of animalcules, the reproducer of
snails, salamanders, etc. I had hoped to find him at Milan ; not at
all — he was at Pavia, where he is a Professor. Pere Frisi put it into
my head to go to Pavia ; he made it clear as day that this detour would
only lengthen my journey by twenty-four hours, and that by hiring
a carriage I could recover the time lost. As soon as it was made plain
to me my return would not be put off, I was soon persuaded, but the
trouble was to tell you, because had I done so you would have at once
believed that from place to place I should go on to Rome, and who
knows but that your tender anxiety would not have shortly made you
see your husband at Naples and next at Constantinople !

' Two hours after I got to Pavia — seven leagues from Milan — I
hastened to the Abbe Spallanzani,1 who asked me to dinner. I had
immense pleasure in talking to him ; my unexpected arrival seemed to
be a joy and surprise to him, which flattered me greatly. He showed
me all his microscopes and his instruments and talked a great deal

1 Spallanzani was chiefly celebrated as a physiologist. His discoveries in
the mode of reproduction of minute organisms proved the important fact that
animalcules cannot develop in infusions that have been boiled and kept sealed.

128 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of M. Bonnet. I dined with him and some other Professors of Pavia ;
they all three or four board together. They were very intimate between
themselves, and see little of the Pavians, because they are all foreigners.
They have succeeded some Pavia Professors who were donkeys ; the
Emperor dismissed them and appointed the present ones, who are,
accordingly, not looked on with too kind eyes at Pavia. One of the
Professors, M. Moscati, has an electrical machine, not a very powerful
one ; he showed me a curious experiment I shall repeat at Geneva.
But the best thing Moscati has is a very young and very pretty wife,
who had dined in town but came in in the evening. She could not
speak French, but I understood her Italian and succeeded in making
her understand mine. I addressed to her some gallant speeches,
which she took in very good part, but her presence did not prevent
us from making experiments with scorpions and salamanders and glow-
worms. Her husband, however, complained all the time that she
had no taste for such things, and would not attempt to learn about
them. I thought to myself I was a far more fortunate husband !

' I amused and at the same time instructed myself. Raspberry
syrup was served in place of supper, and at half -past eleven I took
leave of this agreeable company, heaped with tokens of friendship,
laden with books and a thousand little presents which they bestowed
on me ; and neither the science and the wit of the Professors nor the
beautiful eyes and soft Italian speeches of Madame Moscati could
make me promise to put off my departure for a single day ! '

It will be noted here, and it holds good of his letters and
diaries as a whole, that de Sauseure seldom refers to art or archi-
tecture. In England, York Cathedral is the only building he
mentions ; at Milan he passes unnoticed the Duomo, at Pavia the
Certosa, at Venice St. Mark's, only at Rome do antiquities attract
his notice, and even there the attraction was mainly historical.
Next to nature, his interest lay in human beings, and letters such
as the one translated above show that he understood and appre-
ciated them. If de Saussure was, as he says, a fortunate husband,
Madame de Saussure was a still more fortunate wife, despite such
passing infidelities as were caused by the glaciers of Savoy.

From Milan de Saussure returned to Geneva by Novara,
Vercelli, Aosta, and the Great St. Bernard.

De Saussure 's diary refers to a serious indisposition on the
Great St. Bernard from which he suffered on his return from this
trip. It may be remembered that Senebier, his biographer, asserts

ITALY 129

that de Saussure's bad health dated from his visit to the Cornish
mines, an assertion that, as I have pointed out, receives no con-
firmation from the contemporary correspondence that is avail-
able. It is further contradicted by the detailed medical report on
de Saussure's case made shortly after his death by his physician,
Dr. Odier. The doctor's statement is definite and, I think,
conclusive .

' Professor de Saussure, accustomed from his childhood to mountain
excursions, and in his expeditions to brave rain and snow, heat and
cold and fatigue, had enjoyed generally good health, until, after a
journey he made to the Borromean Islands in which he ate a quantity
of unripe fruit, he was attacked some thirty years ago by a long and
serious illness, which ruined his digestion and rendered him subject
thenceforth to the most distressing symptoms.* 1

It was during de Saussure's absence in Italy in 1771 that a
fete, famous at the time, was given by Lord and Lady Stanhope
on the occasion of their son, Lord Mahon, a youth of eighteen,
having won the prize in the annual competition of the Archery
Society.2 The Stanhopes had been living in Geneva for ten
years for the education of their boys, the elder of whom had died
there in 1763. By their liberal charities and geniality they had
made themselves very popular, and they now offered to provide
the town not only with a feast, but with a brilliant spectacle.
Unfortunately, on the day for which it was first fixed rain fell
in torrents, and Madame de Saussure, who writes an account to
her husband, tells him how all the gay decorations of the Pre
1'Eveque, where tables were to have been spread, were ruined.
A week later, however, the fete came off. There was a procession,
with a car on which were perched twelve Cupids, children between
three and eight, and a Mercury of fifteen. There was an obelisk
decorated with the arms of Geneva and the Stanhopes, there were
alfresco lunches and military dances, and, needless to add in
Geneva, complimentary verses to the newly adopted citizen.
According to an English visitor, Dr. Moore,3 the young nobleman,

1 Dr. Odier, who made a post-mortem examination, enters into very full
medical details of his patient's symptoms and their causes. The reader must
marvel at the pluck with which, despite such disqualifications, de Saussure
persisted for twenty years in his mountaineering career.

2 See L'ancienne Geneve, 1535-1798, L. Dufour Vernes (Geneva, 1909), for a
full description of the connection of the Stanhopes with Geneva.

3 See pp. 44, 135.

I

130 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

while at Geneva, took vehemently the part of the Representants,
refusing to associate with the aristocrats, and after the counter-
revolution of 1782 resigning his citizenship by way of protest.

In later years Lord Mahon gave proof of the influence his
republican upbringing had had on his mind. He was popularly
known as ' Citizen Stanhope,' or 'the mad Lord Stanhope.' At
that date that an English peer should both profess Radicalism
and show marked ability as a scientific inventor was doubtless
held sufficient ground for the epithet.

About this time de Saussure made practical use of his frequent
talks with Franklin and his own electrical researches by fixing a
lightning-conductor, a mast surmounted by an iron spike, said to
have been 100 feet above the ground, to his townhouse. This
portentous novelty was regarded with much distrust by his
neighbours, who threatened a riot, and de Saussure was obliged
to write a pamphlet to dissipate their fears.1 A lightning-con-
ductor still exists on the house.

In the autumn of the next year, 1772, after an unsuccessful
visit to the waters of Aix, his general health and his throat gave
de Saussure such trouble that he was advised by Dr. Tronchin 2
to pass the winter in the south. He writes to Haller : ' As
the cold always disagrees with me, I am determined to spend the
next winter in Naples.' He tells him he proposes to describe
Italy from the point of view of natural science ; of books dealing
with art and antiquity, of parleyings over pictures and raptures
on rums, there were already, he held, enough.

Accordingly, in the autumn of 1772 he set out, accompanied
by his wife and his daughter, then a child of six. At the start he
was so ill that there was some question whether his health would
allow him to continue the journey, but once over the Mont Cenis
he made rapid improvement, and was able to carry out his in-
tentions very thoroughly.

At Bologna de Saussure met and admired the celebrated
lady doctor, Signora Laura Bassi. The party reached Florence
at the end of October. There they made the acquaintance of
Sir Horace Mann, the correspondent of Walpole. De Saussure
1 This pamphlet was translated into Italian and reissued at Venice.
8 So says Senebier. Dr. Tronchin had left Geneva for Paris in 1766. But
his biographer indicates that he visited Geneva subsequently. (See Th. Tronchin,
by H. Tronchin, Geneva, 1900.)

ITALY 131

had a long conversation with the Grand Duke, who surprised him
by his ability and the extent of his scientific knowledge. They
visited Volterra, where de Saussure noted the boracic acid works
and the marine shells in the Etruscan walls. From Leghorn he
boldly sailed to visit the iron mines in the island of Elba, and then,
passing through Pisa and Siena, came to Rome. All he finds to
say of Pisa is that, though very decayed, it has a good Museum
of Natural History and an Observatory.

Voltaire, as has been recorded, had furnished him with an
introduction to the Cardinal de Bernis, the French Ambassador
at Rome, who was also a poet, an ex-minister, and a man of the
world. Its terms were an honour both to giver and receiver.
' De Saussure,' writes Voltaire, ' is one of the first scientific
men in Europe, and his modesty is equal to his knowledge.' The
Cardinal secured for him and his brother-in-law, Turrettini, who
was of the party, a private audience with the Pope, Clement xiv.
They were received, writes de Saussure, ' with the simplicity
and cordiality of a good Prior who offers to strangers the
hospitality of his convent.' The genial Pope was so charmed
with the little Albertine that he not only blessed but kissed her,
and then turned to one of his Cardinals with the clerical joke :
' H faut que je me confesse, parce que je viens d'embrasser une
jolie fille.' Her delighted mother wrote home : * Albertine 's story
is true. The Pope and the Cardinals talk of nothing but her ; all
Rome is enchanted, and I am enchanted with Rome.' On the
first visit of the family to Ferney after their return the honour
was duly recounted to Voltaire, to whom it had been mainly due.
' Well,' he exclaimed, ' since you have been kissed by the Pope,
it is only fair you should be kissed by the Antipope.' This was
not the only benediction the little Albertine received on her
travels. On their way home her parents stopped at Berne, and
she was taken to see ' le grand Haller.' In after years she de-
scribed her recollection of the scene : ' Haller was very old and
enveloped in a great dressing-gown, and I passed under an
enormous table at which he was seated, to receive his blessing.'

After three weeks at Rome, where de Saussure made some
excursions with an English antiquarian and virtuoso named James
Byers, and found the prodigies of art occupied him far more than
he had expected, ' since true beauty attracts and transports even

132 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the profane,' the party went on by Gaeta and the coast road to the
warmer climate of Naples . There de Saussure met with a most con-
genial companion and guide in the English Minister, Sir William
Hamilton, who had already lived at Naples for six years, and
had recently published his Observations on Etna, Vesuvius, and
other Volcanoes.1 Hamilton was equally keen on natural science
and on classical vases. He was delighted to act as de Saussure 's
guide to Vesuvius. While the philosophers climbed, or wandered
over the Phlegraean fields, their wives — the first Lady Hamilton
was then alive — made friends. Then the whole company visited
the islands, Procida and Ischia, listened to the improvisatori,
who celebrated their visitors' arrival in appropriate chants, and
studied the manners and customs of the peasants, which recalled
to de Saussure Greece and Homer. Of this visit to Naples
Senebier writes :

' You should have heard de Saussure himself speak ; his enthusiasm
returned in thinking of it, and he renewed his happiness in remem-
brance.'

Here is his own description, written on the spot to Madame
Bonnet :

' Oh, my aunt, my good aunt, this is the place, this is the climate
you need to restore your health ; this air, pure, lovely, and soft, we
breathe, this sun, whose heat is always tempered by a fresh breeze,
these magnificent prospects, these woods of oranges and lemons en-
closed by hedges of figs and aloes crowned by some great palm- trees ! '

and in another letter :

' What an abode for a naturalist ! The earth covered with rare
plants, the sea as yet hardly at all investigated by capable observers,
ancient and modern volcanoes, and their various products, vapours,
baths, mineral springs. To study this land as it deserves, not one man,
but a thousand, not a few days, but centuries, would be needed. And
imagine there is not a single man — I repeat, not one — to make such a
study, I do not say his occupation, but his amusement.'

The last sentence seems a little hard on Sir William Hamilton,
who did occupy himself a good deal in a dilettante way at Naples.
At any rate, he went up Vesuvius twenty-four times in four

1 His Campi Phlegrcei, published in 1779, contains many references to de
Saussure.

ITALY 133

years, and fifty-eight times in all, and published a work in three
volumes on the Campi Phlegrcei, besides making a collection
of Greek and Roman vases which ' forms the groundwork of
the present department of Greek and Roman antiquities at the
British Museum.'

At the Court the little Albertine repeated her Roman success.
She recited fables before the Queen with much applause.

During his stay at Naples de Saussure had an experience
singularly appropriate for a practical student of electricity.
This happened at an assembly of two or three hundred persons,
including the Foreign Ministers and nobility of Naples, held
in a palace inhabited by Lord Tilney, an Irish peer :

' The guests, occupied in playing or conversing, were scattered about
the six or seven rooms that formed the apartment, when of a sudden
the house was struck by lightning. A brilliant flash passed before the
eyes of each guest and a noise like the report of a pistol was heard.
There was a general panic and a crowd of pale faces, in which one saw
depicted fear, superstition, anxiety.'

Some were unhurt, others felt a bruise or a pain in their limbs.
Many were sprinkled with a bright dust, of which at first they could
not imagine the origin. But they soon found that this dust came
from the gilding of the cornices and furniture. Everywhere sofas
and ceilings were blackened, burnt, and stript by the flash.

' Though the danger was over,' writes de Saussure, ' knowledge of
the risk run seemed only to increase the fright. People recognised on
the sofa on which they had been sitting the traces of the flame that
had run over it. The sofa most seriously damaged was that on which
a Neapolitan princess had been sitting between two of her lovers !
It was undoubtedly due to the excessive gilding of the room that we
owed our safety. Sir William Hamilton and I went next morning
to examine the spot. He wrote an account for the Royal Society, and
I one for Paris.'

At Naples the party lingered till the beginning of May, when they
sailed for Palermo, where they were entertained by the Viceroy
and the local society of Princesses and Duchesses, and drove out
to see the neighbouring churches, convents, and country seats.
Thence they crossed the island to Catania, where they stayed
with the Prince de Biscari, a rich and patriotic Sicilian and a

134 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

collector of scientific tastes. On 5th June de Saussure ascended
and measured the height of Etna, the altitude he obtained being
34 metres (111 feet) more than that now adopted — 3304 metres
(10,841 feet). The reflections on the greatness of nature and the
littleness of man, inspired by the view from the summit, are
recorded at some length in a passage of unusual eloquence in the
' Discours Preliminaire ' to his Voyages.

From Naples the party returned through Rome to North Italy,
stopping at Terni to see the waterfall, and then by Ancona,
San Marino, Rimini, Ravenna, Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, to
Venice. At Padua he renewed his acquaintance with the cele-
brated Spallanzani, whom he had already met at Pavia in 1771,
and at Venice he again met Boscovich, the mathematician
and astronomer — who on the suppression of the order of the
Jesuits had exchanged his professorship at the Collegio Romano
for a chair in the University of Padua. He adds a witty epigram
to the description of the latter given to his wife two years
previously, and already quoted :

' He delights,' de Saussure says, ' in making a display of systems
and new ideas. His talk is a lecture, and he admires the lecturer
(II professe en causant et s' admire professant).'

The party returned by Tyrol — that is, no doubt, by the
Brenner 1 — and passing through Zurich, Basle, and Berne, reached
Geneva in August. It had been de Saussure's intention to publish
a ' Naturalist's Tour in Italy,' but his customary diffidence and
dislike of literary work led to its indefinite postponement, and the
greater part of the letters he wrote to his two chief correspondents,
Bonnet and Haller, have perished. The few that have been
preserved make us regret their loss. In one of them he speaks of
himself as a bad letter -writer ; but bad letter-writers often write
the best letters !

The only literary results of his journey were two articles,
' Idee Generate de la Constitution Physique d'ltalie,' published

1 At that date it was for carriage travellers the only alternative to the Mont
Cenis. Thus Gibbon, prevented by the war with France from crossing the Mont
Cenis to join his friends in Italy, writes to Lady Elizabeth Foster : ' My aged
and gouty limbs would have failed me in the bold attempt of scaling St. Bernard,
and I wanted patience to undertake the circum-itineration of the Tyrol.' ' Circum-
itineration ' is appropriately expressive.

ITALY 135

in the first volume of the Voyage en Italic of Lalande (1786), which,
though no doubt valuable at the time, does not now seem more
than an average encyclopaedia article ; and a Letter addressed
to Sir William Hamilton on ' La Geographic Physique d'ltalie,'
published in the seventh volume of the Journal de Physique.
They were both highly praised by a competent contemporary
critic — Rome de 1'Isle. He wrote to de Saussure :

' Your learned and luminous description of your Italian journey
reveals a profound naturalist. It sweeps away the empty hypotheses
of our geological theories as the north wind sweeps away the clouds

which the western seas send us.'

y
The following passage from the Letter may serve as a specimen

of de Saussure's clear and complete method of scientific exposition :

' All this vast plain of Lombardy, the greatest and the richest in
Europe, which, beginning at Turin, extends to Bologna, Ancona, and
Venice, is nothing else than the deposit of the rivers which descend
from the Alps and Apennines. These great streams, rapid at their
sources, tear up the surface of the ground and carry with them frag-
ments of the rocks ; but, gradually slackening their current, they
deposit in succession the material with which they are laden ; these
deposits are governed by the weight and the bulk of the material ;
the same stream which at Turin carries large stones, lays down on
the edge of the sea only sand and a fine and impalpable mud ; yet the
continual accumulation of this mud extends the borders of the dry
land, fills little by little the lagoons of Venice, and will end by one
day joining it to the Continent.'

An event of a very serious and distressing character served
to hasten the de Saussures' return from Italy. The details given
here are borrowed from the work of the doctor who about this
date accompanied the Duke of Hamilton to Chamonix and the
Mer de Glace.1

In 1773 Jean Louis Tronchin, then a young man of twenty-
eight, the husband of de Saussure's younger sister-in-law, shot
himself in his own house, apparently without any warning. He
had been married only four years. Our countryman takes the

1 His name was John Moore, M.D. He was a prolific writer and the father
of Sir John Moore, who died at Corunna. (See A View of Society and Manners
in France, Swtzerland, and Germany, by a Gentleman, London, 1779.) His
portrait was included in a group sold in the Hamilton sale at Christie's in November
1919. See also pp. 44, 129.

136 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

occasion to moralise on the frequency of suicides at Geneva, of
which, he says, there had been a ' multiplicity of instances '
during his stay. Having pointed out that the climate and
coal fogs, commonly alleged as the causes of suicide in England,
cannot here be held responsible, he falls back on the safe
conclusion that melancholia is an illness ! How far frequent
intermarriages and a depressing creed may have been responsible
for the tragedies recorded he does not pause to inquire.

During de Saussure's absence in Italy another incident had
occurred which is recorded in several of the Memoirs of the time.
While he was in England in 1768 his sister Judith, then twenty-
three, had sent him a lively account of an agreeable evening with
Voltaire. She wrote :

* We have had a very pleasant summer — one of the most brilliant
on record in our poor Geneva. Comedies were played at Pregny.
The Demoiselles Sales have plenty of talent and are really charming
girls, to whom the public, often unfair, has done great injustice. The
Enfant Prodigue was played. M. de Voltaire came from Ferney to
enjoy the success of his piece. I was enchanted to find myself sitting
next him. He talked of you, and charged me to write and tell you
" he had had the happiness to pass two hours at my side." He asked
me to dinner. I think we shall go one of these days. How does your
wife amuse herself in London ? One hears it is not a place where
women much enjoy themselves.' l

The two households were already on friendly terms, and the
expected invitation soon came and led to others. It is evident
that. the old wit found the young lady good company, and their
acquaintanceship ripened and led to some correspondence, for
on Voltaire's death, Judith wrote to ask that the ' one or two
letters ' she had written to him might, if found, be returned to her.

Four years later her brother, in a letter from Naples, charged his
father to transmit through Judith, when next she visited Voltaire,
news of the performance of his plays L'Ecossaise and Tancrede.
She was to tell him that they had been played at Naples by a French
company, the best ever seen out of Paris, and had had an astonish-
ing success, so that stalls were selling at a louis : the King had
sent for the company to Caserta to give the pieces there, and their

1 Englishmen at this date were generally believed to bo too much absorbed
in business or sport to pay the other sex the attention they were accustomed to
on the Continent.

ITALY 137

author was as famous and admired at Naples as in Paris. This
was written in February 1773. Some weeks previously, probably
in December, on a day when Judith had been invited to Ferney,
Voltaire, feeling unequal to entertain a large house -party, left,
as he frequently did, his niece, Madame Denis, to take his place,
while he dined tete-a-tete with Judith. The host was seventy-
eight ; his guest twenty-seven, and there should have been no
excuse for scandal. But no doubt the other guests were not
dumb in their disappointment, and in a town at that date much
addicted to ill-natured gossip, Voltaire afforded a tempting and
provoking subject.

A version of the incident, coloured and exaggerated by malicious
tongues, was spread abroad and reported in Paris, and even reached
the ears of Louis Quinze, who through the Due de Richelieu sent a
ribald message to the Patriarch of Ferney. Voltaire replied — as
his years doubly justified him in doing — by a repetition of the
Horatian /w<7e suspicari which would have been in better taste
had he shown more resentment of an unmannerly insult to his
guest. The serious annoyance caused to its victim is shown in
the bitter comments on the bad manners of the Genevese we find
in letters written by Judith to her brother and sister-in-law many
years afterwards.1 That she had ample grounds for her resent-
ment, one at least of the contemporary journals that has survived
offers conclusive evidence. Grimm's comment on the affair is
to the point : ' See how calumny with its venomous tongue pursues
innocence and beauty ! ' Since one of the first acts of the de
Saussures on their return from Italy was to call on Voltaire to
thank him for the introduction to the Vatican he had given them,
it is obvious that the family treated the town talk with the
contempt it deserved.

It will be convenient to conclude this chapter by the story
of the subsequent career of Horace Benedict's only sister, who
sympathised with his pursuits and appears to have shared his
inherited weakness of constitution.

In 1768 we already hear of her suffering from eye trouble ;

1 Judith evidently shared her brother's power of expressing resentment of any
groundless and impertinent criticism or comment. She wrote to her brother :
' Nous sommes furieusement mechants dans notre charmante Republique. Je suia
persuad6e qu'on poijrrait parcourir le monde entier sans trouver une ville oh la
mechancete soit poussee aussi loin.'

138 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

in 1773 she was in the doctor's hands, and Haller was consulted.
Somewhat later she was recommended to seek a warmer climate
than that of Geneva in winter, and she consequently took up
her abode at Montpellier, which before the French Revolution
and the rise of the Riviera was both an important administrative
centre and the fashionable resort of invalids from Paris, and even
from our own country. Here as a lady of great intelligence,
some personal attraction, and an independent fortune she soon
found herself welcomed as a member of the best society of the
town, and made many friends, English as well as French. Among
the latter was Madame Roland, with whom she stayed at her
rustic home, ' le Clos en Beaujolais.' 1

Mile, de Saussure, though she retained property in the town
and from time to time paid visits to her parents at Frontenex
and her brother at Genthod, or stayed for a few weeks in sum-
mer in one of the smaller towns on the lake, never returned
to live at Geneva. In the autumn of 1780, at the conclusion
of a tour of the Riviera, de Saussure paid her a brief visit at
Montpellier, where she entertained him and introduced him
and his companion Pictet to her brilliant circle of friends.
Pictet describes her as making an agreeable impression, though
her good looks and complexion had suffered from constant
ill-health.

On his return to Geneva, de Saussure wrote to his sister ex-
pressing his pleasure at having found her in pleasant surroundings
and among good friends.

' Yet,' he continues, ' you will leave next spring those amiable
inhabitants of Montpellier to return to the bosom of a family which
knows how to love you even better than they do. I, and we all of us,
look forward to this moment with the greatest impatience. Take care
of yourself, and avoid carefully any indisposition that may deprive
us of this happiness.'

The Genevese revolution of February 1781, described in letters
from de Saussure and his father to Judith, may have put a stop

1 Madame Roland, in 1787, visited Western Switzerland and Grindelwald
(see her Leltres sur la Suisse, 1787). For her relations with Geneva and the
Gosse family, see Un Genevois d'autrefois, par Mile. Danielle Plan (Geneva, 1909).
Monsieur Roland, when appointed a member of the Society of Arts, wrote to
' M. de Saussure ' as secretary, thanking him. Theodore de Saussure then
held the office.

ITALY 139

to this projected visit. A year later Madame de Saussure reports
to Judith the state of the family :

' Your mother is always solitary. . . . Your father is always busy
with his farm and an antiquated system of physics ; even politics
are a feeble distraction to him. Your brother is very well and em-
braces you tenderly. Your niece [Albertine de Saussure] is surrounded
by extracts and works of devotion : she is to take her first communion
at Easter. I only see my children when they are at their Latin lesson
or out walking.'

Mile, de Saussure kept up a constant correspondence with
her family, and such of her letters as have been preserved tell
of much social gaiety. More than once she begs her brother
to send her one of the famous lake trout from Geneva as a con-
tribution to her or her friends' entertainments. These fish were
often dispatched as far as Paris, and we read on one occasion
of the Envoy of the Genevese Republic there begging that a
particularly fine specimen may be provided as a compliment to
the First Consul (Bonaparte), whom at the moment it was very
desirable to propitiate. Mile, de Saussure would sometimes
send her brother in return geological specimens collected by the
travelled members of the French nobility who frequented her
salon. From time to time she consulted him as to her treatment
of her admirers, or recommended some of her agreeable English
acquaintances to his care. But though she paid occasional visits
to Genthod, she never showed a disposition to return to Geneva for
any length of time. For her summer holidays she preferred the
Cevennes, or, if she wished to meet her family, Nyon or one of
the smaller Swiss towns on the lake.

In 1785, however, Judith visited her relations at Geneva, and
she was there again in 1790. We next hear of her in July
1792, undeterred by the Revolution, staying in Paris with her
brother's friend Madame de Montesson. On the llth she writes
to him :

' It is quite true that Paris is very gloomy, and may at any
moment become dangerous, but you know my character. When
those to whom I am attached are in danger, I suffer more when I am
separated from them than when I share the danger, and this was
why I was so ill and shaken last year on the 13th February. I was at

140 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Genthod ; had I been at Geneva and able to know from moment to
moment what was going on and that you were safe, I should not
have been the victim of the darkest forebodings.' l

She goes on to describe vividly Louis Seize 's character :

* He has plenty of physical courage, but no resolution. He yields
to the last advice given him, and his feebleness and vacillation endanger
the lives not only of those who are attached to him, but of all the
people of Paris and France, because, as a Jacobin very truly said
the other day, "If there is a revolution, all who have anything to lose
will be robbed and murdered ! " '

Judith must have kept a home, or at any rate property, in
Geneva, for in 1794 the revolutionaries seized in her apartments
895 ounces of silver and 8687 florins. The last letter I have of
hers is to her sister-in-law, written in reply to one describing
Bonaparte's visit to Madame de Saussure in May 1800 during her
early widowhood. Madame de Saussure 's letter is unfortunately
missing. Judith avows herself one of the warmest admirers of
Bonaparte ; she sees no one else capable of giving peace and a
stable government to France, and her feelings towards him, she
writes, are those of devotion and gratitude. Is the rumour true
that he is going to take the command of the army in Italy, where
he will be proclaimed Emperor ? She concludes by expressing
her regret that her sister-in-law had not seized the opportunity
for obtaining from the First Consul some favours for her family or
her friends.

Judith published in 1808 a little volume entitled Anecdotes
extraites de la Volumineuse Histoire de Russie de Le Clerc, par
Mile, de Saussure, auteur de Veloge de M. le Comte de Perigord.
Its interest for us lies in the preface, in which she states that when
at Geneva in 1795 she had tried to distract her brother by reading
to him these extracts, as he was too ill to attempt the original
work. She now publishes them because ' she loves all that reminds
her of her brother,' and adds that she would have dedicated
them to his memory had she not desired to pay a compliment to
M. Baume, her doctor at Montpellier, to whom she owed much.
A copy of the book is preserved in the library at Genthod.

I have put together in these few pages the little we know of

1 This was the date of the revolt of the peasants led by Grenus. (See p. 359.)

ITALY 141

Judith de Saussure. The impression left by the few letters and
the scattered references available is that of a woman endowed in
youth with good looks and high spirits, and through life possessed
of much force and independence of character.1 That she found
the home life at Frontenex with her invalid mother and agricultural
father irksome ; that she was out of sympathy with the social
coteries of Geneva, and never forgave the grievous slight that had
been put on her, is obvious. At Montpellier she showed herself
ready to take a leading part in society as far as her health allowed
her. Though her life as a whole was a detached one, she succeeded
in making many friends, both French and English, and in keeping
at bay at least one admirer. She sympathised keenly with her
brother's scientific pursuits, and was active in taking advantage
of any opportunity to help him to add to his collections. She
did her best to cheer him in his last illness and to keep alive his
memory after his death.

1 Judith de Saussure is thus described by a contemporary : ' She had a regular
profile, with finely modelled features, large deep-coloured eyes which threw up
the whiteness of her complexion ; brown hair, which she powdered in her youth.
She was short, but had a perfect figure, which she retained to an advanced age.'
(Kohler's Madame de Stael et la Suisse, Lausanne, Paris, 1916.)

CHAPTER VI
TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84)

THE warmth of the south had done its work in restoring de
Saussure to health. For a long interval after his return from
Italy we hear no more complaints of any serious or prolonged
indisposition. Though he was often in doctors' hands and his
digestion remained always difficult and precarious, he was able
during the next sixteen years, with but one interruption, to
lead a life of various activity as a hard-working Professor, a
man of science, a citizen, and a mountain traveller.

These were the years of his principal Alpine explorations,
which culminated in 1787-88 and 1789 in the ascent of Mont
Blanc, the stay on the Col du Geant, and the tour of Monte
Rosa. It will be on the whole more convenient at this point
to abandon chronological order for a time and to give in the
following chapters a consecutive account of de Saussure 's career
as a scientific mountaineer, reserving for subsequent pages the
narrative of his home life and political activities and of the mis-
fortunes that clouded his last years .

The period from 1774 to 1784, covering the middle years of de
Saussure 's life (thirty-four to forty-four), was one of continual
activity in travel and observation. The available record of it is
considerable : in addition to the Voyages, I have had the advantage
of reading several of his private diaries and many intimate letters
to his wife and family. The diaries were based on rough notes,
made in a pocket-book while on the road, and often in the saddle,
which he was in the habit of writing out fair — but in a hand at times
almost illegible — every few days. His wife's constant anxiety
during his absences, which seems to have diminished but little with
years and habit, had this good result. It made her devoted
husband an excellent correspondent. His letters not only add
to the human incidents recorded in the Voyages, but often bring
into relief fresh traits in de Saussure 's character.

142

H. B. HE SAUSSURE ABOUT 1777

By Jens Juel

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 143

I shall not attempt here to follow in their chronological order
the Alpine tours of which we have records. In his Voyages de
Saussure summarised and combined the results of several tours
under three separate headings. The first of these is the tour of
Mont Blanc. This, de Saussure, when in 1786 he published the
second of his four volumes, had already made four times. He
gives as a second ' Voyage ' his passage of the Mont Cenis and his
visits to the Riviera and Provence.1 The third 'Voyage ' is a
very condensed account of his many visits to the Gries, the St.
Gotthard, and the Italian lakes.

Further journeys, of which little or no mention is found in the
Voyages, are that of 1777 to the Bernese Oberland and over the
St. Gotthard and Gries to the Lake of Como, returning by the
Spliigen, Chur, Wallenstadt, and Zurich, and that of 1784, mainly
sub -alpine, which included a visit to Engelberg and an ascent
of the Graustock (8737 feet) above the Joch Pass.

De Saussure had made his first tour of Mont Blanc in 1767
in company with Jean Louis Pictet, an astronomer and student
of physics, and a young friend, Jalabert. On his second tour in
1774 he was alone with his guides. On his third tour, in 1778, he
had the company of Jean Trembley, and his pupil and greatest
ally, Marc Auguste Pictet. In the published narrative he refers to
the advantage and pleasure he derived from their company ; but
his subsequent practice indicates that there were certain drawbacks.
De Saussure found that his observations often took more time than
his companions wished to spend. In later Alpine journeys, when
not travelling with his wife and family or his son, he, as a rule,
went alone, no doubt finding it left his attention more free to keep
his notebooks in constant use.

His letters to his wife written during his second journey, in
1774, furnish many picturesque details of Alpine travel in its
earlier stages . Here is the description of his quarters at Sallanches :

' The inn has a long gallery, not ornamented with pictures and
sculptures like that of the Villa Lullin,2 but with a view of the course
of the Arve through a valley surrounded by mountains of immense
height arid the strangest forms crowned by Mont Blanc, which nowhere

1 They are dealt with in chapters xiii. and xiv.

- The villa at Genthod, which belonged to his wife's family.

144 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

looks so majestic as from here. Its head, which pierces above the
clouds, resembles a cloud whiter than the rest, so that those who see
it for the first time cannot believe it to be a mountain.'

The story is continued in a letter written from Courmayeur a
week later :

' On Monday morning the rain prevented me from starting from
Sallanches, for I had determined, as much for the sake of my observa-
tions as for my own personal comfort, never to travel in the rain.
I got up late and spent the morning in putting in order all my luggage,
testing its arrangement on the mules, going over my agenda, and such-
like jobs. M. Efsancet, my host, who is a young gallant of Sallanches,
gave me more of his company than I wanted, and treated me to the
sweet melody of a carillon made up of cowbells which he had invented.
If he had not put a fancy price on it, I might have bought it for Milord
Jack [his seven-year-old son] to meet his taste for good music. He
told me news that grieved me — the death of Madame Charlet of
Chamonix, the wife of the Chatelain, the lady who thought it such a
pity I must be damned. . . . About midday the weather cleared, and
I started. Here is the order of march we keep on all the good roads.
For we have two orders of battle. One for good roads and one for
difficult passes. On the good roads Pierre Simon [his guide] plays
the part of Volante, he leads the march on foot with, in place of a
banner, his big tin box, and for a staff of command my alpenstock ;
next comes your husband, mounted on his mule, looking about him
right and left, and noting down all he sees in his red pocket-book ; for
my mule has such gentle paces that I can write very legibly while he
moves ; I have written as much as eight pages a day in this way.
Next comes Charles [his servant], also on his mule, looking at all the
mountains with startled eyes, and whenever he sees a specially terrible
and needle-like one, inquiring : " Monsieur, shall we ascend that
mountain ? " Then comes the baggage mule charged with my basket
covered with oil-cloth. Last, Favret, on foot, closes the march. In
difficult places the baggage mule goes first and all the rest follow on
foot.

' Thus we jog-trotted to St. Gervais, where I halted to make some
observations, and then we entered the valley which leads to the
Bonhomme. I slept at Contamines, and as the cabaret was so bad
that Pierre Simon (who also fills the place of mariclial des logis, and
goes ahead to prepare my lodging when we draw near) thought I should
not be comfortable, he went to ask for a bed at the Cure's. The Cure
was away from home, but his Vicaire, who is called Monsieur 1'Abbe,
took on himself to receive us, and since it would have been beneath his

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 145

dignity to come and tell me so on the public road, he sent one of his
pensionnaires, a young scholar who puts all the ink of the place on his
fingers and on his coat, so as to prevent any mistake as to his being a
student. The young ambassador came, with many bows, to tell me
I should be welcome, that it was much regretted M. le Cure was away,
but that in his absence M. 1'Abbe would do his best to receive me
properly. I got down, therefore, and found M. 1'Abbe on the step of
his door. He is a little hump-back who attempts fine language. He
conducted me very politely to a rising ground where I wished to make
my observations, and gave me his company for the evening.

* He had read the Voyage Pittoresque [obviously Bordier's little
volume published in the previous year] with the greatest satisfaction,
and consequently did me the honour to take me for its author. I, as
you may imagine, disowned it, and even ventured such light criticisms
as I could without disputing the opinion expressed by M. 1'Abbe.
"It is true," he said, " that it is not written in that sublime style
which, when you have read one page, forces you to read all ; one can
read it by fits and starts, but that is just what I like." All the same,
M. 1'Abbe is a great reader ; he has poor health, which does not allow
him to drink, and books, when he can get them, are his only pleasure.
He complained much of the tipsiness and the rough manners of his
brethren. We had a specimen that very day. About 10 P.M. we heard
a terrible noise : it was a Vicaire, who, having supped two leagues off
on the mountains, came to spend the evening with the local Cure.
Already almost tipsy, he called for wine, drank three or four glasses,
and then went on to continue his round.

' Next day I resumed my march, in spite of the urgent entreaties
of M. 1'Abbe, who wanted to take me to dine with the Cure of Notre
Dame de la Gorge, where all the Cures of the neighbourhood were
dining. I was so terrified at the idea of this fete that I even went
out of my way so as not to pass Notre Dame !

' From this point one begins to climb by a path very good for
foot-travellers, but very laborious for the mules, which delayed us a
little ; but the greatest hindrance was the rain, which began to fall
heavily. We, who are prudence itself, did not think it suitable weather
for crossing the Bonhomme, and we halted at the highest inhabited
chalets we met with. These, which are only occupied at midsummer,
are named the chalets of Nant Borrant. At one of them wine is sold,
and it calls itself, consequently, a cabaret. We turned our mules to
it. Under the eaves was a little girl of the age and height of my dear
Albertine, who, when she saw us approach, ran into the house like
a mouse into its hole, and shut the door behind her.

K

' It needed long negotiations through the keyhole before she could
make up her mind to let us in, as she was alone. At last she opened,
and even rendered us all the little services in her power. She is really
as pretty as Albertine, and talks Savoyard as well as Albertine does
French ; she described everything, the farm, the cows, the goats,
the names of the mountains ; she had been once on a very steep
glacier one sees from the chalet. I had time enough to make friends
with her, since we were forced to spend the day and sleep there. But
you need not be anxious, my dear angel, about my food. I had an
excellent stew in a pot which Jeanne had made for me. Charles, who
is very good in the kitchen, made me a soup and cooked some eggs.
And as to sleeping, I had a good bed and slept better than I have
ever slept in my life. The mountain hay has a delicious smell — that of
the best tea, and I have been parfumi au thi for two days. In the
evening the rain stopped, and I took some strolls about the chalet
which gave me several interesting observations.

' On Wednesday morning we set out to cross the Bonhomme ; it
is a mountain-pass closed at its head by a lofty ridge with pointed crags
on either side, which look like the horns one makes when playing at
horns with the fingers. The local wits say that it is from these horns
that the name of Bonhomme comes.

' Our passage was extremely fortunate, the snow, of which we had
two leagues,1 was of exactly the right consistence, neither too soft
nor too hard. The weather was beautiful ; no sun (which I should
have been glad of for observations), and a few clouds on the peaks.
But it was excellent weather for travel and for observing rocks. I had
a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction ; this one day gave me more
ideas on the structure of our globe than all the work I did between the
College Prize Day and my start. The descent of the mountain is very
easy ; it is over a pasturage four leagues in extent, on what, for these
mountains, is a gentle slope without a single mauvais pas. I did it
all on foot and without fatigue. From the top of the pass the village
where one sleeps is visible at such a depth beneath one's feet that
one would say it was at the bottom of hell, and yet when one gets
there and consults the barometer, one is surprised to find one is still
at the height of the Dole. It is only inhabited in summer. This place
is called Chapieu ; it is perhaps of all the inhabited places in the world
the most savage and terrible. It consists of a dozen miserable huts

1 Leagues with de Saussure is a vague measure. It appears generally to be
equivalent on the mountains to an hour's walk. There must, anyhow, have
been a very unusual amount of snow for the middle of July. I have, however
found an hour's snow on the pass in August.

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 147

built against the hillside, having opposite them the stony bed of the
torrent and on all sides mountains of alarming height which offer only
snow and barren rocks. In every direction one hears the hideous
roar of torrents. A man not accustomed to similar situations might
easily contract melancholia. Charles, who was much more tired than
I, and perturbed to an indescribable extent by the passage of the
mountain, was, as you may imagine, not cheered up ; he managed,
however, to take great care of my belongings and to cook my supper,
and I was better satisfied with him than I could have hoped to be.
I had the honour to sleep in a bed, but I regretted my hay of the
previous night, for the bed was harder than a plank, while my hay
was most luxurious.'

It may be remembered that on de Saussure's first tour of
Mont Blanc in 1767, the Genevese servants of the party had been
so terrified by the Bonhomme that on being told at Chapieu that
the Col de la Seigne was worse, they plotted to force the travellers
to go round by the Little St. Bernard :

' It seemed to us amusing,' de Saussure wrote, ' to find ourselves
in the position of the navigators who, setting out for great discoveries,
have to combat the mutiny of their crews.'

The accommodation at Chapieu remained very much the same
for the next eighty years, and de Saussure's description might
very well have served as late as 1856, when the writer first visited
the spot. Nor does he exaggerate in his denunciation of the
landscape. It attains a stony ugliness rare in the Alps, at any
rate outside Dauphine.

At the head of the glen above Chapieu the gorge expands into
a pastoral basin, which contains the alp of Les Mottets. De
Saussure, always interested in peasant life, describes his reception
there :

' A short distance above the hamlet of Glacier is a large chalet
inhabited by a family of peasants from St. Maurice in the Tarentaise.
All the surrounding pastures belong to this family, and they are
extensive enough to feed in summer a herd of cows, of which sixty
are their own. This is a considerable and rare fortune in the district ;
with such resources it would be possible not only to live without
working, but even to occupy a good position in a town. Yet these
people have lost nothing of the simplicity of their condition : the wife
of the head of the family passes the summer at the chalet, and looks

148 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

after its management, while the husband remains in the plain to see to
the field labours. These good people lodged me in their chalet in 1781.
They had not much spare room, because their son, who had just married,
had come with his wife to pass some days on the mountains with his
mother. They found, however, a corner and some dry hay for me,
and I had my share of a lamb which had been killed to feast the
newly married pair. Although they were of the most perfect straight-
forwardness, and had an address and manners appropriate to their
condition, one saw that they were conscious of their prosperity and
the power they had of living in different conditions.' [Voyages, 839.]

I return to de Saussure's letter to his wife. It ends thus :

' Next morning I mounted my mule to cross another ridge which
has to be passed on the way to Courmayeur. It is called the Col de
la Seigne, and is about the same height as the Bonhomme, but much
gentler. We crossed it without difficulty or fatigue. I saw the
magnificent glaciers at the back of Mont Blanc and the tremendous
mountains of snow and granite between which they issue. This
route through the A116e Blanche is above all description, so I shall
not attempt any, the more as the express messenger I am sending to
carry this letter to Martigny is growing impatient. Farewell, my
dear angel ; rest assured that I shall always take care of myself, and
that you will see me return better in health and richer in knowledge
than when I set out.' l

Of the peasants of Courmayeur de Saussure gives in the
Voyages the following account :

' The people of Courmayeur are very good folk, and although they
talk the Savoyard patois and like to be held Savoyards, they share
to some extent the physical and moral qualities of Italians — dark
complexions, aquiline noses, black hair and eyes, and something of
that tendency to boastfuhiess and exaggeration which is characteristic
of southern races. I may give an instance. Descending alone and
on foot by a steep and narrow path above Courmayeur, I overtook
a peasant mounted on a mule laden with two great bales of hay,
which was going very slowly. It was impossible to pass without his
drawing his mule to one side. I very politely begged him to do this,
pointing out that the flies attracted by his mule and the heat were

1 The messenger to whom this missive was entrusted made a mistake which
naturally infuriated de Saussure ; he brought it back with him from Martigny,
leaving there in its place a letter de Saussure was expecting from his wife. The
ordinary post at that date between Geneva and the Val d'Aosta by the Mont Cenis
and Turin was too slow to be any use to the traveller. It was not till he reached
the Great St. Bernard that any home news reached him.

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 149

inconveniencing me greatly. This man, who doubtless believed that
I only went on foot because I could not afford to ride, answered me
with a really comic air of dignity. I ought, he said, " to bear the
discomfort patiently, since it was quite right that those on foot should
suffer something at the hands of those who were on horseback.' ' Never-
theless, he let me pass, no doubt to make me feel doubly his superiority.'
[Voyage*, 884.]

From Courmayeur de Saussure in 1778 made his second ascent
of the Crammont. He writes :

' I felt an inexpressible satisfaction in finding myself on this
magnificent belvedere, which had given me so much pleasure four years
earlier. The air was perfectly clear, the sun threw a great flood of
light on Mont Blanc and all its chain ; no vestige of cloud or vapour
robbed us of the view of the objects we had come to gaze on, and
the certainty of enjoying for several hours this great spectacle gave
the mind an assurance which doubled the feeling of enjoyment. My
first object was to revise and complete the notes I had taken in 1774,
but I soon found this work distasteful ; it seemed to me that it was
an insult to the sublimity of the scene to compare it to anything but
itself. I began accordingly my observations afresh. . . .'

' It is a law general to all the primitive mountains that the secondary
chains which flank them on either side have their strata tilted towards
the central range. ... I saw the primitive chain composed of layers
which may be regarded as strata ; these strata are vertical in the central
range, while those of the secondary ridges, almost vertical where they
abut on the former, become less inclined as they are more distant, and
as they recede farther and farther approach gradually to the horizontal.

' I thus recognised that the relations between the primitive and
the secondary mountains which I had already noticed in the sub-
stances of which they consist extend also to the form and position
of their strata, since all the secondary summits in view culminated
in pyramidal blades with sharp edges like Mont Blanc and the primitive
mountains. I concluded from these characteristics that since the
secondary mountains had been formed in the bosom of the waters, the
primitive must have had the same origin. Retracing in my brain
the succession of the great revolutions which our globe has undergone,
I saw the sea, covering the whole surface of the globe, form by succes-
sive deposits and crystallisations first the primitive mountains, then
the secondary. I saw these deposits arrange themselves symmetrically
in concentric beds, and subsequently the fire or other elastic fluids
contained in the interior of the globe lift and break up this crust and

150 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

thus press out the interior and primitive part of this crust, leaving the
exterior or secondary portions piled up against the interior beds. I
saw next the waters precipitate themselves into the gulfs split open
and emptied by the explosion of the elastic fluids [gases ?] , and these
waters, rushing towards the gulfs, carry with them to great distances
the blocks we find on our plains. I saw finally, after the retreat of the
waters, the germs of plants and animals, fertilised by the atmosphere
newly created, begin to develop on the ground abandoned by the
waters and in the waters themselves where they were retained in the
hollows of the surface.' [Voyages, 909-919.]

The ascent of the Crammont had not been de Saussure's only
expedition from Courmayeur on his previous visit in 1774. Having
found a chamois -hunter nicknamed Patience l who knew the moun-
tains well, he started with him and his servant (de Saussure's valets
probably found his service trying — they were, at any rate, fre-
quently changed) to explore the upper part of the Miage Glacier.
He was anxious to reconnoitre all the possible approaches to Mont
Blanc. Having apparently no rope, the party halted at the point
where the crevasses became covered with snow and took to the
rocky slopes on the left bank of the glacier. Having reached a
height of 8240 feet, further progress was judged impracticable.
De Saussure speaks of the head of the Miage as a barrier that would
always be impracticable except to chamois. It is obvious, there-
fore, that no rumours of early passages of the Col de Miage were
brought to his ears. Since such rumours subsequently reached
Napoleon and caused local inquiry to be made, this must at first
sight seem remarkable. But we may surmise that refugees' and
smugglers' passes were for good reason apt to be little talked about.

In 1778 de Saussure and his friends rode their mules down
the long and hot Val d'Aosta from Courmayeur to Ivrea. His
remarks on the road are almost entirely geological. He just notes
in passing the snows above the openings of the Val de Rhemes and
Val Savaranche, Mont Emilius, and the valley that leads to Mont
Cervin, as he calls the Matterhorn.

From Ivrea, despite the trying heat of midsummer, the com-
pany rode out towards the Lake of Vivarone to examine the great
banks of transported material which spread out fan -wise, like a

1 His real name was Jean Laurent Jordanay. He kept an inn at Courmayeur.
The fact that he guided de Saussure is mentioned in the entry of his death in
the Parish Register.

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 151

gigantic rampart, from the mouth of Val d'Aosta. He at once
recognised that the character of the boulders showed that they had
come from the recesses of the central chain. But as to the mode
of their transport, so obvious to our eyes, he remained absolutely
blind ; he was too firmly imbued with the current belief in the
agency of prehistoric floods.

It must be matter of astonishment to every modern moun-
taineer who reads the Voyages that anyone with de Saussure's
opportunities of observation should have failed to recognise a
connection between the moraines of existing glaciers and these
monuments of their great predecessors. But de Saussure passes
on, serenely unconscious of the inference that to our eyes seems in-
evitable. Yet he had noted that in the valley of Chamonix great
banks marked former fluctuations of the ice, and that it was the
glacier that had brought the Pierre des Anglais to the Montenvers.

But the usually cautious philosopher on this occasion went out
of his way to make matters worse. So unsuspicious was he of
any possibility of error that he paused to congratulate himself
on his demonstration. After reminding his readers that he had
pointed out that the erratic blocks on the northern flank of the
Alps ' have been carried there by impetuous currents descending
from the heights,' he argued that it follows that on the opposite
flank a similar agency had produced a similar effect, and that
' in the great flood the waters burst forth with equal fury on both
sides of the chain.' He concluded :

' I know not if I am under an illusion, but it appears to me that,
short of the evidence of eye-witnesses, it is impossible to imagine
monuments that bear witness to and verify a fact with greater force.'

So far as the identity of the active agency on both sides of the
Alps was concerned, his argument was sound, but unfortunately
he was altogether mistaken as to the nature of that agency.

The Hospice of the St. Bernard was on many occasions used by
de Saussure as a centre for excursions. It had the advantage of
its great height ; he also found there a capable and congenial
companion in the Abbe Murith, at one time Prior of the convent,
and afterwards Cur6 of Liddes. This worthy priest was the
first climber of the Velan (12,353 feet), the snowy dome which
overlooks the Hospice. He would seem to have had more success
on the mountains than in the management of a parish, for his

152 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

sojourn at Liddes (1778-91) was marked by a succession of law-
suits. It was apparently the custom for the Cur6 to conduct
two processions a week between Easter and Midsummer in return
for which he was entitled to receive a cheese from each family
of his parishioners. A number having refused their offering,
Murith appealed to the law, obtained a judgment in his favour,
and proceeded, perhaps rashly, to read it out from the pulpit.
The aggrieved parish took its defeat ill, followed their pastor
to his home, and turned him out, ' without giving him time to get
his dinner, or even his hat.' Ten days later he was reinstated
by the ' Baron de Preux, Governor, and the Banneret Barberini
of the Dixaine of Sion.' But ecclesiastical discipline having
been thus vindicated, the energetic Cure was judiciously promoted
to the Priory of Martigny.

In 1779 Murith, then thirty-seven, succeeded in climbing the
Velan. No account of his expedition, except a travestied report
by Bourrit, was to hand until Mr. Montagnier lighted on the
following letter addressed to de Saussure :

' 5th Sept. 1779.

' MONSIEUR, — After great labours, difficulties, and fatigues, I have
at last succeeded in transporting myself, with thermometer, barometer,
and a compass with level, to the summit of Mont Velan by a terrible
climb.

' Why did I not have you at my side ? You would have enjoyed
on the 31st August the finest sight it is possible for an amateur of
mountains and glaciers to imagine. You would even have been in a
position to compare in a vast circle all the mountains and their different
heights, from Turin to the Little St. Bernard, from Mont Blanc to the
Lake of Geneva, from Vevey to the St. Gotthard, from the St. Gotthard
to Turin — in a word, what would you not have seen ? But I dare not
promise to give you the enjoyment of this ravishing spectacle. I had
too much difficulty, despite my hardihood, myself to gain this icy
colossus. . . .'

In 1781 de Saussure was taken by Murith to the Otemma
Glacier in Val de Bagnes. His manuscript journal contains a
careful notice, the first on record, of the veined structure of the
ice, which is nowhere referred to in the Voyages.

In treating of the St. Bernard, de Saussure breaks his usual
practice in order to give a historical sketch of the monastery ;
to this he adds an account of the rescue work done by the monks

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 153

and a warm tribute to their arduous and self-sacrificing lives — a
tribute which, coming from a Protestant source, no doubt had
double weight. It seems to have been at least partly called forth
by libellous attacks calculated to interfere with the monks in
obtaining the subscriptions on which they in great part depended,
since many of the legacies left them by pious donors in return for
service rendered had lapsed after the Reformation . Amongst these
were lands in diverse countries, including some in England. It
is worth note that de Saussure bears explicit witness to the great
service rendered by the famous dogs in tracking and discovering
travellers lost in the snow, which has been treated as more or
less apocryphal by some recent writers.

De Saussure found the Hospice an excellent centre for ex-
cursions, and in 1774 climbed the Chenalette and several other
panoramic points of about 9000 feet in height in the range between
it and the Val Ferret.1 He also visited, both in 1767 and 1778, the
Valsorey Glacier, which lies at the north-east foot of Mont Velan,
and is familiar to modern mountaineers who make use of the
so-called high-level route from Chamonix to Zermatt. A basin
contained by two of its tributaries was formerly filled by a lake
known as the Gouille a Vassu, the waters of which periodically
broke loose and caused inundations in the lower valley.

De Saussure suggests that these outbreaks were due to the
subglacial streams which drained the lake becoming frozen in
winter and their channels blocked, so that the meltings of the
upper slopes accumulated in spring in the basin until a fresh issue
was suddenly forced.

It must have been on one of the tours summarised in this
Voyage that de Saussure stayed with another clerical friend.
J. M. Clement, the Vicaire of Val d'Hliez, who was, in 1784, the
first to climb the Dent du Midi. The worthy Vicaire was not
only a mountaineer, but a naturalist and book-collector, and the
walls of his guest-chamber were lined with some eight hundred
volumes. When during de Saussure 's visit a shelf collapsed on
his bed, his host excused himself on the ground that since it was
the weight of the copy of the Voyages, which de Saussure had

1 During these excursions he observed, and was at a loss to account for, a
sheet of highly polished rock marked with striations, mentioned also in King's
Italian Valleys of the Alps. He also noted the occurrence of veins of limestone
cutting at a right angle the strata of quartz.

154 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

presented to him in a handsome binding, that had caused the
accident, it must be laid to the charge ' of the frightful luxury
of you Genevese.' De Saussure comments thus on the scene:
' Comme je fus grond6 par ce bon ecctesiastique et quel plaisir
me fit cette scene, digne de la plume de Sterne et du pinceau
d'Hogarth.' l Clement must have been a most attractive character.
His friend the Doyen Bridel describes him thus :

' A discreet and modest priest, a benefactor of the poor and the
rich, a trusty and disinterested friend, an indefatigable worker, he
earned the esteem and regret of all who knew him. His library, the
richest in Vallais, specially in natural history and languages, was all
he possessed, and his only pleasure.'

The last group of tours — the only one mainly in the Swiss
Alps dealt with in the Voyages — is introduced by de Saussure
in the following terms : 2

' My third journey, which includes the crossing of the Alps by the
Gries, the Grimsel, and the Furca del Bosco, seems to me, I must
confess, interesting as a whole, at any rate for those who are in the least
curious as to the natural history of mountains.

' These great mountain ranges of granite, whether solid or foliated,
of which I have studied the structure with the greatest care, the
magnificent horizontal beds of the veined granites of St. Roch, the
great and singular exfoliations of these granites, the progressive
change in the nature of their upper beds arising from their more recent
date, seem to me facts of the greatest importance for the Theory.

' And readers who have no taste for geology will, I trust, read
with pleasure of the source of the Rhone, its glacier, that of the Gries,
and the other grand and beautiful scenes presented by nature in this
savage and little-known region.

' As to the Theory, I have in this volume followed the same method
as in the preceding ones : I have laid down principles as I observed the
facts which seemed to me to establish them. But of a complete
system I suspend any publication. I wait in order to make the obser-
vations I have planned and of which I have need in order to decide
questions which seem to me still problematic. 20th November 1795.'

In truth, as a careful reader will note, de Saussure thinks
as well as observes as he proceeds. He not infrequently makes,
almost as an aside, some important scientific induction.

1 Wolf's BiograpJiien zur Kulturgeschichte der Schweiz, vol. iii. (Zurich, 1868).
8 Preface to vol. iii.

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 155

De Saussure, who, in order to verify and complete his observa-
tions, was very apt to return to sites already visited in place of
breaking new ground, paid repeated visits to the Gries, Grimsel,
and St. Gotthard. The fame of this portion of the Alpine range
as the source of the great rivers of Central Europe would seem
to have drawn him to it and prevented him from turning his steps
to other regions, such as the Grisons or the South-western Alps.1

There was up to this time a lingering belief — derived from
Roman times — that the Summae Alpes of the old writers must
deserve their name. As to the relative height of the individual
Alpine summits, there was also very considerable doubt. The
height of Mont Blanc, it is true, had been ascertained with approxi-
mate accuracy, but its supremacy was still vigorously contested.
The rivals put forward by Swiss observers were the Schreckhorn
(until the superior height of the Finsteraarhorn had been recog-
nised) and certain vaguely indicated summits in the St. Gotthard
group.2

The claim thus set up gave de Saussure an active interest
in investigating this portion of the chain.

In 1775 he wrote to Haller for an itinerary of a tour east of the
St. Gotthard among the sources of the Rhine. Haller discouraged
any attempt to reach the Hinter Rhein Thai by a more direct
route than the San Bernardino. The passage of the ' Monte
Avicula,' the Rheinwald group, he wrote, was impracticable ;
such a short cut would be full of interest, no doubt, but ' you
are a citizen and a married man, and mere curiosity ought not
to lead you to expose yourself in order to see snow and ice.'

De Saussure acted on this prudent advice, and, in fact, no
direct pass from Val Blenio to the Hinter Rhein was made until
late in the nineteenth century. De Saussure did not even follow
Haller 's recommendation to cross the San Bernardino, but in

1 The Rhone, the Rhine, and the Inn (representing the Danube). By count-
ing the Ticino as a source of the Po, a fourth was added. Orographers were not
very particular in early times. See also p. 7.

2 The observer mainly responsible for this confusion was a Genevese who had
a singularly chequered and unfortunate career, by name Micheli du Crest. After
serving in his youth in one of the Swiss regiments in France, he was employed on
the Committee entrusted with the new fortifications of Geneva. He rashly took
the occasion not only to differ from, but to criticise his colleagues, and to accuse
them of laying a needless burden of taxation on their fellow-citizens. Despite
sundry condemnations, he persisted in his criticisms with so much acerbity
that the Senate not only banished him, but condemned him to death in his

166 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

1777, when he carried out his project of visiting the Orisons, used
the Spliigen.

The tour round which he centres his third ' Voyage ' is that of
1783. Crossing the Col de Jaman from Vevey, he passed down
the Simmenthal, noting its picturesque wooden cottages and dairy
farms. Small properties, he points out, are invariably found to
stand in the way of good agriculture. At Spiez, on the Lake
of Thun, he embarked on a boat the crew of which was an old
woman, a girl, and one man, and landed at the inn at Neuhaus.
Interlaken had not yet grown from a convent and a nunnery into
a tourist resort. But on the Grimsel track there were plenty of
inns, good and indifferent, at Brienz, Meiringen, Guttannen, the
Grimsel Hospice, Obergestelen. This is accounted for by the
considerable traffic to and from Italy that then followed the
Grimsel and the Gries. Most of the villagers at Guttannen spoke
Italian, and the innkeeper had cut on his walls an Italian motto :
' H passato mi castiga, il presente mi displace, il futuro mi
spaventa,' which, de Saussure remarks, ' might have better suited
an Englishman devoured by spleen.' The Handegg chalet served
as a restaurant ; but the waterfall, hid in its chasm, escaped the
traveller's notice. He observes the polished rocks that make the
track dangerous for mules, but again they fail to suggest to him
their glacial origin.

At the Grimsel Hospice the accommodation was rough, but
the food good, and the innkeeper's family very hospitable. De
Saussure found a guide to take him to the Aar Glaciers, the lower
ends of which he explored pretty thoroughly. They were already
among the recognised sights of the Oberland, and often visited
by the early Alpine artists. At Obergestelen de Saussure was
taken ill, and the greedy innkeeper tried to turn him out of the
house, so as not to lose his Sunday customers, but finally, ' by means
of money, which was the real object of this villain, he was persuaded
to let me stay.'

absence. Taking refuge in the Bernese territory, he fared little better from the
local government, who found an excuse they thought sufficient for interning him
in the castle of Aarburg as a political prisoner. Here he sought occupation in
drawing a panorama of the portion of the Alps visible from his terrace in fine
weather, and endeavouring to identify the summits and ascertain their heights.
In neither effort was he very successful. What were the summits he wrongly
identified as belonging to the St. Gotthard group, to which he assigned heights of
over 16,000 and 17,000 feet, must be left uncertain.

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 157

Of the Gries a full topographic account is given, and when
de Saussure gets to the Tosa Falls he allows himself a description
of that splendid cataract, which, by force of accumulation of precise
detail, becomes picturesque :

' This oratory is built on the edge of a cliff of 500 or 600 feet, over
which the Tosa throws itself, forming the most beautifully diversified
features possible. It starts by falling perpendicularly into a deep
horizontal hollow in the rock resembling an immense shell, from which
the water rebounds to a great height in jets of admirable beauty and
volume. All these streams fall back on to a protruding crag, which
they envelope, forming a cylindrical column of water which breaks
upon rocks inclined and coloured like those of the Grimsel, and ends
by sliding over them in an infinity of diverging and varying sheets.'
[Voyages, 1742.]

I add another picture from this noble valley :

' The Tosa suddenly throws itself with a terrible roar into a chasm,
along which the path follows it. As we approached, a dense mist rose
out of the gulf, hiding the path we had to follow and appearing like the
smoke of a great caldron, while the falling torrent represented the
boiling contents. A pine wood, dark and thick, which clothed the
approach to this ravine, rendered its aspect more alarming. It is
new and extraordinary spectacles of this sort, such unlooked-for
incidents, which lend its indescribable charm to travel among the
great mountains and make those who have once enjoyed them unable
any longer to endure the monotony of the plains.' [Voyages, 1746.]

At Formazza he found

' the inn in the Italian style, rooms crowded with images, but at
least well whitewashed, and far more cleanliness and friendliness than
in the Upper Vallais. As a rule the houses are larger and better built,
and the peasantry appear in much better circumstances.' [Voyages,
1744.]

The beauty of the lower Val Formazza made a deep impression
on de Saussure, who could appreciate romantic scenery, even
though he missed in it the classical grace of a Claude or a Poussin
landscape.

' It does not offer, like the Vale of Chamonix, the great spectacle
of glaciers, but in its place has a softer and more pastoral air ; its crags,
mixed with fields and forests, have no rude or savage features. The
valley is sprinkled with hamlets whose neat white houses have a
charming effect set in the rich verdure which carpets its slopes, and

158 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

every here and there little rocky hillocks, covered with branching
larches, suggest a sacred grove, in the middle of which one looks for
an altar or a statue.'

From Crodo in Val Formazza, de Saussure made in 1775 a
plunge across the mountains by an unfrequented track to the
head of Lago Maggiore. His route lay over a rough pass known
as the Furca del Bosco, and down Val di Bosco, a side glen of Val
Maggia. At Cerentino, its principal village, he passed the night,
and met with quarters characteristic of this region. The house
externally was uninviting, but within he found to his surprise the
table laid with silver and his bed provided with damask sheets.
The peasants of this region frequently emigrate, make small
fortunes abroad, chiefly in South America, and return to live in
their native villages, where they build large houses their neigh-
bours call palazzi, and find it a pleasant variety to take in the
rare passing traveller.

At Cevio, where de Saussure entered the main valley, he records
an amusing encounter.

While taking an observation to ascertain the height of the
place above the sea, he was greeted and invited to enter by the
bailli or chief magistrate of Val Maggia. He gives the following
account of the interview which followed :

' It being some time,' writes de Saussure, ' since I had had any
news from the civilised world, I accepted the invitation, hoping to
learn some. What was my surprise when the bailli told me that
though it was long since he had a letter from the other side of the
Alps, he should be happy to give an answer to any inquiry I might
wish to make. At the same time he showed me an old black seal,
and this was the oracle which answered all his questions. He held in
his hand a string, to the end of which the seal was attached, and he
dangled the seal thus fastened in the centre of a drinking-glass. Little
by little the trembling of the hand communicated to the thread and
seal a motion which made the latter strike against the sides of the
glass. The number of the blows indicated the answer to the question
which the person who held the string had in his mind. He assured
me, with the seriousness of profound conviction, that he knew by this
means not only everything that was going on at home, but also the
elections for the Council of Basle, and the number of votes each
candidate had obtained. He questioned me on the object of my travels,
and after having learnt it, showed me in his almanac the age which

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 159

common chronology gives the world, and asked me what I thought
about it. I told him that my observations of mountains had led me
to look on the world as somewhat older. " Ah," he answered with
an air of triumph, " my seal had already told me so, because the other
day I had the patience to count the blows while reflecting on the
world's age, and I found it was four years older than it is set down
in this almanac." ' [Voyages, 1782 ]

From Cevio de Saussure took the road through the deep trench
of the lower Val Maggia to Locarno, thus missing by a mile or two
one of the most exquisite spots in the Italian Alps, Bignasco.
This village, a cluster of a few houses, is situated at the junction
of the two glens that unite to form the main Val Maggia. One of
the happiest of my Alpine memories is of a day spent there in
1864, when there was no regular inn, but guests were received, as
in de Saussure's time, in a private house that stands between the
two torrents. From its upper windows the eyes look up the
long vista of Val Bavona over a foreground of trellised vineyards,
through receding distances of granite cliffs and forested bluffs, to
the snows of the Basodino. At one's feet arched bridges span two
amazingly clear and blue torrents, linking banks draped in chestnut
and birch groves and carpeted with bushes of Alpine rhododen-
dron, here growing among the vines and far below its usual level.

On an earlier passage of the Gries de Saussure had descended
past Domo d'Ossola to Lago Maggiore. He pronounces what most
travellers who do not aim at singularity in taste will consider a
just verdict on the Isola Bella. The formal garden, he admits, has
gone out of fashion, yet even those who prefer, as a rule, nature less
lavishly adorned may, he suggests, here make an exception. He
confesses to have found singular pleasure in wandering round the
shady laurel groves and statued terraces of oranges and lemons,
and enjoying the exquisite views of the lake and mountains
that open on all sides of Count Borromeo's superb fantasy.

From Locarno de Saussure took the road of the St. Gotthard
through Bellinzona.1 At Airolo, the village at the southern foot
of the pass, he on two occasions made some stay. On his second
visit (1783) he was sorry not to find the crystal-hunter who had

1 On the Grimsel-Griea road there was no lack of inns : on the St. Gotthard,
those at Bellinzona, Airolo, and Andermatt are noted as good ; at Dazio Grande,
Giornico, Goschrncn, r.,ncl Fliielen there was passable accommodation.

160 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

served as his guide eight years previously. The poor man, he
tells us, had gone out with his children to collect wild hay, and had
told them to start home with their burden and that he would
soon follow. He failed to do so, and when sought for was found
lying dead with his hands crossed on his chest as if in peaceable
sleep. De Saussure comments :

' A hard-working and good life ending in so gentle a death, in an
attitude which seemed to indicate that, feeling his powers failing, he
had addressed to Heaven his last looks and his last thoughts, had
inspired in the village a kind of reverence for his memory.' [ Voyages,
1806.]

De Saussure made it his first business on reaching Airolo
to climb to a height on the southern side of Val Leventina
whence he would get a general view of the peaks round the St.
Gotthard Pass. He recognised at once that there was no peak
rivalling Mont Blanc or the Oberland summits, and correctly
estimated that the ' Gletscherberg,' north of the Furka (pro-
bably the Galenstock), the loftiest, did not reach 12,000 feet.
This disco very, de Saussure says, 'somewhat diminished his respect
for the St. Gotthard.'

Some letters written to his wife in 1777 and 1783 give a lively
picture of travel at that date :

' The situation of Airolo,' de Saussure writes, ' is unique for a
naturalist, surrounded by very high mountains, almost all accessible
through a smiling valley inhabited by a friendly population which
understands rocks, and provided with a very good inn, managed by
zealous and polite hosts, excellent air, good water, and delicious
salmon trout.

' I am very pleased with Joseph (his servant) ; he has charming
manners and is very attentive. He does not love and climb rocks
as well as I do, but it is unreasonable to ask this of a man not born in
the Alps ; still he is much better in these respects than Charles [his
predecessor]. He looks so well in his blue uniform, which we told
him to wear on the journey, that yesterday, when I was dining with
an Italian shopkeeper, and Joseph at another table at the bottom of
the room, the shopkeeper thought he was an officer who was too
proud to dine with us, and formed a great respect for me when he
learnt he was my servant.'

The Capuchins of the St. Gotthard Hospice de Saussure found
hospitable enough, though men of a far less intelligent type than

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 161

the monks of the St. Bernard. After de Saussure's first visit
they told his Bernese friend Wyttenbach that he seemed a worthy
man, but that it was a misfortune he should suffer from a ridiculous
mania for picking up all the stones he met with, filling his pockets,
and loading his mules with them. He describes the Hospice :

' After leaving Airolo I came with much boredom and disgust to
sleep at the Hospice of the Capuchins. You know how I hate monks !
To make matters worse, two more Capuchins on their travels arrived,
with whom we had to sup. We sat down at the same table, four
Capuchins, two tailors, a mason, Joseph, and myself. They served
us, with many polite speeches, a detestable supper. Next morning
(yesterday) I thought I should hang myself when on getting up I saw
the mountain covered with snow, and feared I should be forced to
spend one or two days in this wretched place, where I had come only
to be near the high summits. But at last, about nine, the clouds
broke, and I climbed very briskly one of the loftiest peaks on which
I have ever been and took my observations in the finest possible
weather ! I returned to the Capuchins to eat soup made of boiled veal
and the veal that had been boiled in the soup, and started at once to
descend to Urseren, whence I sent back my mules to Chamonix.'

The summit lying west of the pass reached by de Saussure on
this occasion, to which he gives the name of the Fient, was un-
doubtedly that called in The Alpine Guide, La Fibbia, 8997 feet,
though de Saussure applies the latter name to a more distant
and loftier snow-peak he reckoned some 1500 feet higher. Despite
the description given by his guide Lombardo, ' who represented
the difficulties and dangers of the ascent with all the emphasis
of his mother-tongue,' the climb proved easy enough. On his
return to the Hospice, de Saussure found that an unprecedented
event had taken place. An English traveller had arrived in his
cabriolet. The St. Gotthard track at this time was fairly broad
and paved with large slabs, and de Saussure was informed that
on an average 1000 laden horses crossed it daily ! But it was
not held practicable for wheels. The eccentric Englishman
was Charles Greville, on his way to visit his uncle, Sir William
Hamilton, at Naples. His 'fantasy,' which we learn cost him
eighteen louis, was successfully accomplished. Greville in the
Voyages is politely qualified as a ' celebrated mineralogist,' but in
his letters home de Saussure describes him more accurately as an
' amateur of natural history.' He was also an amateur of beauty,

L

162 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

and his chief title to fame is having been the protector and
educator of the famous lady who became his aunt. De Saussure
found him

1 ready to talk rocks : at first I was afraid he wanted to get the benefit
of my observations, but I found with a pleasure which was perhaps
ignoble that he was not a serious student and did not attempt to
generalise. He was on the look-out for curious specimens for his
collection, without any consideration for grouping them. I recog-
nised that he was in no sense a formidable rival.'

On a second visit to the St. Gotthard, de Saussure climbed
the Prosa (8983 feet), a peak east of the Hospice. It was fairly
steep and regarded by the Capuchins as inaccessible. He found
a dead cow at its foot, and remarks that, though this animal is
not * a symbol of agility, there are few naturalists of the plain
who would care to follow wherever an Alpine cow led.' For him-
self, on this occasion he found no difficulty.

From Andermatt de Saussure visited the lake on the Oberalp
Pass, one of the sources of the Vorder Rhein. The fishery of the
lake was let to the hotel-keeper at Andermatt for 900 francs
for ten years.

The descent to Altdorf interested de Saussure deeply as a
geologist. He found on the St. Gotthard far better opportunities
of studying the features of granitic rocks than even in the chain
of Mont Blanc. He satisfied himself that they were stratified,
and that the strata were in many instances vertical. He came
to the conclusion that the cause of the dislocation and contortion
of the rocks was not internal explosions, but compression. He
records his conviction that his observations would be verified
even where they were controverted by ' Buffon and other con-
structors of systems.' In another branch of his work he was
less satisfied. Writing to his wife, he regrets that he does not yet
get on well with his attempts at sketching :

' It is a terrible task,' he says, ' to draw a mountain in its detail,
to make it all come out clearly, so that the beds and the joints do not
look flat — that it does not resemble a split board. Oh, this is really
difficult ! Still, I struggle on, and by degrees I shall end by making
intelligible sketches of the St. Gotthard, which is the most important
point. For you, my good angel, you always have the same success in
making your little ladies who fan themselves at the foot of a tree

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 163

with a shepherd on his knees, who offers them a nosegay. Such a
group would make an agreeable foreground for my mountains, and
perhaps I shall ask you to make me one, but you must find some-
thing less civilised than a fan, for the shepherdesses of the Grimsel
and the Upper Valais are very far from using fans. . . .'

The drawings here referred to must, I think, be the originals
of the two illustrations of the gorge of Schollenen in vol. iv. of the
Voyages, which have no artist's name attached to them. If this
be so, de Saussure was obviously right in recognising that his
artistic powers were limited. The rocks represented in these
woodcuts are such as we associate with the theatre rather than
with nature.

At Altdorf de Saussure was welcomed by M. Miiller, a former
Landamman of Uri, whose large and luxuriously appointed house
seemed to him out of place in the little mountain town. The
Genevese traveller's republican sentiment was stirred at finding
himself in the cradle of freedom, and he grows eloquent on the
virtue of the heroes of the Forest Cantons. Of the Tell legend
he expresses no doubt, though it had already been prematurely
called in question by an audacious Bernese writer, who had
suffered prosecution for his unpatriotic scepticism. The high
political morality of the Landesgemeinde, or popular assembly,
he illustrates by an entertaining anecdote. The wealthier mem-
bers of the community were compelled by law to lend a part
of their capital at a fixed rate of interest to their less well-to-
do neighbours. Some local radicals, quoting Scripture to prove
that this was wicked usury, and therefore contrary to sound
religion, proposed that the interest hitherto paid should be
counted as instalments towards the repayment of the original
debt. The popular assembly not only rejected the proposal
with scorn, but permanently disenfranchised those who had
made themselves responsible for it.

De Saussure rowed in eight hours from Fliielen to Lucerne,
but he finds little to say of the scenery of the lake ; the structure
of the neighbouring mountains, and particularly of the Rigi
(which he did not climb), was what interested him. At Lucerne
he was on several occasions the guest of M. Pfyffer, an ex-officer
of a Swiss regiment serving in France, who spent most of his
leisure in constructing a model on a large scale of this part of the

164 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Central Alps. There were no accurate maps to serve as bases,
and the task therefore was one of great difficulty and labour.
M. Pfyffer is said, while engaged on it, to have camped out and
lived on the milk of goats he took with him . He often, de Saussure
tells us, risked being attacked by peasants, suspicious, like all
primitive people, that any survey meant interference with their
property or their rights. His relief, if technically inexact,
must have had considerable merits, since de Saussure goes so far
as to say that its inspection gave him pleasure comparable to
that he had enjoyed from the panoramas of the Crammont and
Mont Blanc.

At a later date (1791) de Saussure travelled to Aarau to
inspect another work of the same kind due to the enterprise of
M. Meyer, a ribbon manufacturer of that town. It occurred
to this enterprising tradesman to produce ribbons on which
should be woven the forms of the mountains of his native land.
For this purpose he had models made of some parts of the snowy
range. Their success encouraged him to attempt to represent
' all the mountains of Switzerland.' He found in M. Weiss
a geographer capable of undertaking the task, and de Saussure
in his last volume (published 1796) expresses a hope that a model,
some 15 feet by 8 feet, of the Alps from the Lake of Constance
to Mont Blanc would be completed shortly. It was from M.
Pfyffer and M. Weiss that de Saussure first heard the report
that the Schreckhorn was possibly higher than Mont Blanc.

In 1784 de Saussure returned to the scene of his early scrambles,
the base of the Chamonix Aiguilles, spending three nights in a
chalet at the Plan de 1' Aiguille in order to explore more fully
their cliffs and glaciers. In so doing he met with what seems to
have been his nearest approach to a mountaineering accident.
His description of it is a good example of direct and simple
narrative, stripped of emotion, but not of humour.

De Saussure, accompanied by his favourite, Pierre Balmat, and
another guide, had been geologising at the base of the Aiguille
du Midi. It was nearly 2 P.M. when they turned, apparently un-
roped, to descend the glacier, the surface of which was covered
with snow, now softened by the midday sunshine.

' Suddenly the snow gave way under both my feet at once ; the right,
which was behind, rested on nothing, but the left had still some support,

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 165

and I found myself half seated and half astride on the snow. At the
same moment Pierre, who was close behind me, fell also in almost the
same position. He at once cried out to me as loudly and imperatively
as he could, " Don't stir, Monsieur — don't make the least movement."
I recognised that we were over a crevasse, and that any inopportune
exertion might break the snow which still supported us. The other
guide, who was one or two paces in front, and who had not fallen,
remained planted where he stood. Pierre, without himself moving, cried
out to him to ascertain the direction of the crevasse and of its least
breadth ; interrupting himself at every instant to beg me not to move.
I assured him I would remain motionless, that I was quite calm, and
that he had nothing to do but to join me in considering with as little
emotion as possible the best way to get out of our difficulty. I saw it
was needful to give these assurances, because the two guides were in
such a state of nervousness that I was afraid they would lose their
heads. We came to the conclusion that the line we were taking had
been at right angles to the crevasse, and the fact that my left foot had
support, while my right found none, confirmed me in this. As for
Pierre, his two feet were both in the air, the snow had even given way
between his legs, and through the opening he saw beneath himself and
me the void and the green depths of the crevasse. Our actual situation
made clear, he placed in front of me the two crossed sticks and I threw
myself on them, Pierre in turn did the same, and we thus both happily
escaped from our ' ' mauvais pas ." As for the second guide, he remained
where he stood, without holding out a hand to one or other of us ; and
it is true we had not asked him. But he told us afterwards very quietly
that he had reflected that if Pierre and I fell into the crevasse, it would be
as well that he should remain clear of it to get us out.' [Voyages, 675.]

We have now run through the mountain tours of the period
with which we are dealing (1774-84) that are recorded or sum-
marised in the Voyages. The mountaineer of the present day
may be struck by the frequent returns to old ground, the absence
of any passion for exploration, or any evidence of the pursuit of
scenery for its own sake . He will note the lack of any descriptions
of the beauties of the Bernese Oberland, the splendour of the Jung-
frau seen from the Wengern Alp, the noble landscape of the Vale
of Grindelwald, or the woodland glades of Rosenlaui. That in his
published works de Saussure makes such scanty reference to his
travels in this district may possibly point to a scruple on his part
in trespassing on the field of his friends Haller and Wyttenbach.
But in other parts of the Alps no such reason can be alleged. In

166 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

after years we shall find that the Corner Glacier and the great
ring of peaks round Zermatt, the scenery of the Vispthal and of
Val d'Aosta call forth no expressions of enthusiasm. The Matter-
horn draws but one short descriptive sentence from its literary
discoverer. Either de Saussure had little eye for landscape,
except as a key to geological problems, or, as is more probable, he
deliberately abstained from interrupting his geological notes by
picturesque word-pictures. That he was capable of appreciating
the more romantic aspects of nature is shown by his description of
the sunsets seen on the Col du G6ant, and from the base of the Aiguille
du Grouter. But such indulgences to his readers were reserved for
rare occasions and granted only under extreme provocation.

The Voyages, as I have indicated, record only a portion of de
Saussure 's Alpine experiences. There were other tours, and of one
of the most notable, that of 1777, de Saussure 's manuscript
journal has happily been preserved. It records at some length
his excursions in the Bernese Oberland, but is unfortunately
meagre as to the return through the Orisons. De Saussure 's first
object was apparently to investigate the reputed rival of Mont
Blanc — the Schreckhorn. He accepted the popular derivation
and meaning of its name — the Peak of Terror.1

In 1777 de Saussure commenced his tour of the Oberland at
Lauterbrunnen. In that village he could get no guide but a lad
too young even to act as porter, so he sent his servant with the
luggage round by road while he walked over the Wengern Alp.

1 The occasion tempts me to insert a few lines on the mountain nomenclature
of the Bernese Oberland. It is obvious that at least in one group the names
attributed to the peaks show an imagination hardly found elsewhere in the Alps.
The peasant, as a rule, fixes on some obvious characteristic : colour — the Red Horn
or the White Horn; or shape — the Broad Horn, the Upright Needle (the Dru,
corrupted at an early date into Aiguille du Dru) ; or situation — the Aiguille
d'Envers (the Needle at the Back), corrupted into Aiguille Verte. Bordier (p.
198) in 1773 wrote of ' le Dru.' This was probably the original local form. The
first instance of the substitution of Aiguille Verte for Aiguille d'Argentiere
that I have come across is in 1786, in the manuscript journal of an Englishman
named Brand. See Mr. Coolidge's paper on the peak names in the Mont Blanc
district in the Annuaire du Club Alpin Suisse, vol. 38. But in the range above
the Vale of Lauterbrunnen we find the Jungf rau (the Virgin) supported as in an
altar-piece by the Black and White Monks, while the Eiger stands in attendance
on them like a giant St. Christopher. These are the summits visible from Inter-
laken, and there can be little doubt that their names are due to the poetical
imagination of the inmates of the two religious houses long established there.
The remaining peaks of the Oberland bear names of the usual obvious character —
the Wetterhorn (the Peak of Storms), round which the clouds gather, the Finster-

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 167

At Grindelwald at this date travellers, as was so often the
casein remote parts of the Alps fiftyyears ago, were still entertained
as ' paying guests ' by the pastor, or priest. De Saussure found
some difficulty in explaining to the guide provided for him that
he wanted not 'to visit the glaciers,' as was already the fashion,
but to get a near view of the Schreckhorn — the reputed rival of
Mont Blanc. The guide led his traveller up the slopes in the
direction of the Great Scheideck, whence the top of the Schreckhorn
may be seen behind the mass of the Mettenberg. This was not at
all what de Saussure wanted, and he insisted on returning. When
near the village his guide gave him a choice between the easy
path to the foot of the Lower Glacier, used by tourists, and a
long and, by his account, perilous one leading to the source of the
glacier, whence he asserted the Schreckhorn would not be visible.
De Saussure, however, trusting to his map, and distrusting his
informant, decided to risk the venture. As usual, he had his
servant with him.

I quote extracts from the detailed account of this excursion
given in de Saussure 's manuscript journal :

' I began to climb through a pine wood up a very steep but per-
fectly safe path. After ascending through the wood for three-quarters
of an hour, we came to the foot of a limestone crag with thick beds
and began to turn to the west (the right) and take the traverse on the
edge of the precipices. For ten minutes or so one has a pine wood
under one's feet, and there is consequently no danger, but beyond
the forest one begins to see the great drop there is to the glacier
underfoot, whose broken waves seem designed to mutilate the

aarhorn, at the source of the Aar, the Fiescherhorner, the peaks behind which liea
Fiesch. I may surprise most of my readers if I add the Schreckhorn to this list ;
for its name has hitherto been universally interpreted as the Peak of Terror. It
had long struck me as curious that a peak which from the basin of Grindelwald is
far from a conspicuous object should have acquired such a name from an un-
imaginative peasantry ; so that I was not surprised when in an article describing
the Bregenzer Wald I lighted on a sentence which appears to furnish a very
plausible alternative derivation. This is the passage :

' Schrochen. — Oh, the lovely village ; and how poor the etymological jest
which would derive the name of this charming spot from a word meaning terror !
In the Bregenzer Wald district Schrochen signifies a rocky bluff, and this is far
more likely to be the true derivation.' (Annuaire du Club Alpin Francais, vol. 29.)

I find that the first author to treat in detail of the mountains of the Bernese
Oberland, Thomas Schopf (circa 1670), writes of the ' Schreckshorn (sic), quae vox
sonaret obliquum cornu, vel terribile cornu. Utrumque verb nomen huic monti
convenientissime quadrat ' : thus supporting my conjecture. See Coolidge's
Josias Simler, p. 250*.

168 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

unhappy man who should fall on them. Still the path is firm and
smooth, and the slope towards the cliff is not so steep but that if
unlucky enough to slip one might hope to stop oneself. But here
and there the path narrows, passes across rocky slabs, and the abrupt-
ness of the slope no longer leaves any hope of recovering a false
step. At each bad place of this sort we asked the guide if it was the
worst. He answered, " This is nothing ; what is to come is a hundred
times worse." At this juncture we met an old shepherd who for
forty years had guarded the sheep and goats, the only animals which
can penetrate into those recesses, forbidden to all creatures which have
not good heads and sure feet. I had been told of this shepherd, and
as our guide seemed quite a novice, I begged the shepherd to turn
back with us and act as leader. He was on his way down to Grindel-
wald with a load of goats' milk, and he did not like turning back ; still
he made up his mind to do so, hid his milk behind a rock, and came
with us.

' About the middle of the bad path we found in a hollow a small
spring which fell from the rocks and had worn itself a basin at their
feet, in which the water was so clear and beautiful that the spot tempted
us to rest and recover our force. After some twenty minutes we set
out and had another three-quarters of an hour on this path, which
at times became very risky, but there was always foothold, and the
anticipation I had formed made me find the reality quite tolerable.
At last we reached the level of the more gently sloping portion of the
glacier. It was now necessary to scramble on to it and traverse it to the
end of the ice valley where our shepherd's hut was. In order to get
on the glacier, we had to climb on to the ridge of an enormous rib of
ice which had horribly precipitous sides. The old shepherd seized
an axe which he was in the habit of leaving there for the purpose and
began cutting steps along the ridge. While waiting I looked to see
if there was any way of avoiding this awkward passage, but in vain —
everywhere else bottomless crevasses cut us off from the glacier. This
isthmus was the only bridge there was between us and the Mer de
Glace. I let, therefore, the shepherd finish his staircase. That accom-
plished, he gallantly offered me his hand, and I marched with firm
steps — for in places of this kind one must either not go at all or advance
boldly — and so reached the level of the glacier.

' We had still on the ice several places not so bad as this but not
quite without risk, then the rest of the way was perfectly easy. The
glacier, though steep, had no more crevasses. It was covered with
blocks of primitive rocks, among which I did not see a single bit of
limestone, but everywhere fragments mixed with sckistes d'amiante,

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 169

quartz, etc., none of which approached what I collected on the Glacier
de Mi age.

' What gave me most pleasure was that, as we advanced on the ice,
I began to see behind the Mettenberg a very lofty peak, and it entered
my mind that it might be the so -much -sought Schreckhorn. I asked
my guide its name, but he could not understand. He thought I was
talking all the time of the Mettenberg. He told long stories of sheep
lost on the mountains, of shepherds overwhelmed by avalanches ; he
exhausted my patience, until at last, as the peak gradually revealed
itself, he saw what I wanted him to see, and said as if I ought to have
known, " That is the Schreckhorn."

' I walked on gaily and as quickly as I could in order to have
plenty of time to examine it before the clouds, which I saw gathering
behind us on the side of the plains, came up and covered it. Despite
my efforts, it took us an hour to cross the glacier, and a quarter of an
hour more to the wretched hut of the shepherd, which was opposite
the peak and almost as near as it was possible to get.

' Picture to yourself one of the faces of an immense pyramid, of
which the top, though more than a league distant, rises 33 degrees
above the horizon, and of which the edges fall one to the north-west,
reposing on the top of the Mettenberg, itself from the valley of
Grindelwald of a prodigious height, another still sharper, on the,
south-west, falling towards the Bierselberg and Fiescherberg ridges.
These ridges are broken. . . . The summit is not sharp, but blunt,
and the face opposite us a precipice of a thousand to fifteen hundred
feet. Through glasses the stratification appeared to me to be vertical.

' After having noted what seemed to me most interesting in this
noble mountain, I turned to study the other heights by which I was
surrounded. The rock called the Zasenberg, on which I stood, was
like an island between two great glaciers. Its base is clothed with
pasture which feeds sheep and goats. Behind it and above it rises the
Fiescherberg. Its summit is nearly horizontal, a little concave on one
side, and covered with snow which juts out like the eaves of a roof.'

De Saussure's return to the valley was hastened by a sign of
bad weather he was quick to interpret — a light cloud that, as it
passed across the sun, assumed rainbow hues. He got back just
in time to escape a violent storm.1

1 This incident is recorded in his volume, Essais sur V Hygrom&lre, 1783, p. 359.
De Saussure further notes in the same connection the beautiful effects caused at
sunset (or sunrise) by a wind from behind a mountain, itself in shadow, blowing
off it a cloud of frozen snow which crowns the summit ridges with a bright red
halo. This is most often seen in winter.

170 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

From Grindelwald de Saussure crossed the Great Scheideck and
took the now familiar route over the Grimsel and the Gries to the
Italian Lakes. After calling on the celebrated electrical inventor
Volta at Como, he crossed the Spliigen and travelled by the Via
Mala, Chur, and Wallenstadt to Zurich and Berne, where he paid
a visit to Haller, whose health was fast failing. For the latter
part of the tour the journal is little more than a skeleton and
contains nothing of interest.

While the first volume of the Voyages was going through the
press in 1779, de Saussure received from Berne an offer for its
translation into German from a man who during most of his life
had been the pastor of one of the churches in that city. Jakob
Samuel Wyttenbach had been associated with Haller in his
publications on the Bernese Oberland, and had already translated
and commented on portions of Deluc's Travels. After Haller's
death, Wyttenbach, if he had no claim to the European repu-
tation of his predecessor, took his place to a great extent as a
source of information for the many travellers who were now
turning their minds to the Alps, and as a link between the
various observers who were working in various parts of Switzer-
land to promote a better knowledge of the mountains and
their phenomena.1 Large extracts from his voluminous cor-
respondence have been published by Dr. Diibi, who has shown
that Wyttenbach was the channel through which Baron de Gers-
dorf, the eye-witness of the first ascent of Mont Blanc, mainly
carried on his communications with Chamonix and Geneva.

De Saussure, while protesting that Wyttenbach would employ
his time to better purpose in composing an original work on the
mountains, gratefully accepted the offer of so competent a trans-
lator, and the first two volumes of the Voyages appeared in four
in German, published at Leipzig in 1781 and 1786. It appears,
however, that Wyttenbach in the end acted rather as the super-
visor than the actual translator,2 who was probably a lady geologist,
a Mile. Miiller, who is mentioned in the correspondence of the time.

It is interesting among Wyttenbach's letters to find several

1 In 1776 he supplied the text accompanying Wagner's views in the Bernese
Oberland. In 1787 he published a small volume entitled, Instruction pour Us
Voyageurs qui vont voir les Olaciers et Us Alpes du Canton de Berne.

2 See de Saussure to Wyttenbach, 9th November 1781. Diibi's Jakob Samuel
Wyttenbach und seine Freunde (Berne, 1910).

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 171

from the worthy monk of Disentis, Placidus a Spescha, who, as
has been pointed out, was, next to de Saussure,the most conspicuous
figure in the mountaineering annals of the eighteenth century, and
as a climber the first man of his time. Tardy justice has lately
been done by his fellow-countrymen to one of the most remark-
able among Alpine pioneers in a full and handsome biography.1

In 1792 Spescha was anxious to learn the result of de Saussure's
first visit to Monte Rosa, whether he had proved it to be higher
than Mont Blanc, and if he had written anything on the mountains
of the Orisons ? As far as we know, de Saussure never heard of
his rival's exploits. No mention of Spescha occurs in his works
or in any of his papers that have come to my notice. It is a pity
the two men never met ; for if the good monk had but scanty
scientific knowledge, he showed a very considerable talent for
orography, and his maps contrast favourably with those con-
structed for the Genevese savant.

In the summer of 1776 Sir George Shuckburgh, then lately
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, proposed to de Saussure
to accompany him in an excursion to the Mole. Shuckburgh
was anxious to test previous measurements of the height of
Mont Blanc, and specially those of the Delucs, and had brought
from England for the purpose a number of the best instruments
available. He writes : ' Mr. de Saussure, a very ingenious gentle-
man of this place, and well skilled in various parts of natural
and experimental philosophy, gave me all the information neces-
sary, and obligingly promised to accompany me, as did also
Mr. Trembley.'

The party set out from St. Jeoire, a town at the foot of the
Mole, with a large company of porters charged with their instru-
ments, but presently lost the way in a mist, even de Saussure,
who had been seven or eight times on the mountain, being at a loss.
Arrived on the summit, Shuckburgh describes his sensations thus :

' I perceived myself elevated about 6000 feet in the atmosphere,
and standing, as it were, on a knife-edge, for such is the figure of the
ridge or top of this mountain ; length without breadth, or the least
appearance of a plain, as I had expected to find. Before me an im-

1 See my article on Spescha (Alpine Journal, vol. x.) and the large volume
dealing with his life and activities published at Berne in 1913, Pater Placidus a
Spescha, sein Leben und seine Schriften.

172 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

mediate precipice, d pic, of above 1000 feet, and behind me the very
steep ascent I had just surmounted. I was imprudently the first of
the company : the surprise was perfect horror, and two steps further
had sent me headlong from the rock.'

In 1777 Shuckburgh published the result of his observations
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The
figure obtained by his triangulation was 4787 metres (15,705 feet).
De Saussure, by calculating his barometrical observations by four
different methods and taking the mean of them as his result,
succeeded, somewhat ingeniously, in arriving at about the same
figure, 2450 toises (15,667 feet).

It may be of interest if I run over here some of the earlier
endeavours to determine the height of Mont Blanc. The
first attempt to measure ' the Hill called Cursed ' was made by
Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, and is thus recorded by Gilbert Burnet : 2

' The hill not far from Geneva called Maudit or Cursed, of which
one-third is always covered with snow, is two miles of perpendicular
height, according to the observation of that incomparable Mathe-
matician and Philosopher, Nicolas Fatio Duillier, who at twenty-two
years of age is already one of the greatest men of his age, and seems
to be born to carry learning some sizes beyond what it has yet attained.'

Fatio made the height 2000 toises above the Lake of Geneva, or
15,268 feet above sea-level. Nicolas Fatio was a Fellow of the
Royal Society. The next reference to hypsometry in its annals
is interesting as an indication of the rudimentary state of the
science in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. It is in the
form of an article by J. D. Scheuchzer, a son of J. J. Scheuchzer,
the author of the 'Ovpea-t^olrrj^ Helveticus.'

The writer preludes as follows : 3 ' The height of mountains
and their elevation above the sea-level has been at all times
thought worthy of the attention of inquisitive philosophers.'
He then proceeds to refer to the fact that ' certain Greek philo-

1 See Phil. Trans, of the Royal Society, vol. Ixvii. p. 592.

2 Letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Italy,
Switzerland, etc. (Rotterdam, 1686). Fatio's measurement is also referred to in
a work, Astro-Theology, by W. Derham (London, 1715), and in Spon's History of
Geneva, vol. ii. (Geneva, 1730). The later volume contains an article by N.
Fatio's brother, J. C. Fatio, 'Remarques faites sur 1'Histoire Naturelle des
Environs du Lac de Geneve.'

3 Phil. Trans, of the Royal Society, Abridgement, vol. vii. p. 265.

TEN YEARS' ALPINE TRAVEL (1774-84) 173

sophers who lived some time before our Saviour's Nativity fixed
the perpendicular height of the highest mountains at about
10,000 feet.' Subsequent writers, he regrets, however, to have
to point out, have run them up ' to an extravagant and altogether
unnatural height,' owing to their preference of a trigonometrical
to a barometrical method. Scheuchzer dilates at some length
on the disadvantages which he believes to be incident to the
former method, and firmly asserts that the mountains of
Switzerland, though the highest hi Europe, do not rise above
10,000 French feet.

Scheuchzer does not seem to have put his method into
practice. The next observer to try his hand on Mont Blanc
was Loys de Cheseaux, a Vaudois astronomer, who about
1744 obtained by trigonometry an elevation for the mountain
of 2246 toises above the lake, or 15,582 feet above sea-
level.1

Martel, the engineer, who visited Chamonix in 1742, got for
Mont Blanc by a trigonometrical measurement from a base of
1536 feet in the Chamonix valley a height closely corresponding
to Fatio de Duillier's. Early in the seventies, Deluc was busy
with his barometrical experiments and methods for the ascer-
tainment of heights, and combining these with trigonometrical
measurements from Geneva and the Buet he obtained for Mont
Blanc the height of about 15,285 feet, or some five hundred feet
too low.

Dr. Paccard stated in the Journal de Lausanne that in 1786
he consulted his barometer on the top of Mont Blanc, but his
results were valueless, and Bonnet mentions that his instru-
ment was damaged. It is probable that some air had got
into it.

There have been many slightly varying official determinations
of the height of the mountain in recent years. The latest, and
probably the most exact, is that of M. Joseph Vallot, based on
levelling from the Mediterranean to Geneva and on a most careful
triangulation. The result is 807 metres (15,771 feet), or only a
few feet higher than Shuckburgh's. The height of the snow-cap
probably varies by a few feet in different years and at different
seasons. It may therefore fairly be claimed for Shuckburgh
1 Traiti de la Comete, Lausanne, 1744.

174 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

that he was the first to determine the height of Mont Blanc with
approximate accuracy. He was equally fortunate in several other
cases in the same neighbourhood.1

1 See Whymper's Guide to Chamonix and the Range of Mont Blanc, and the
Phil. Trans, of the Royal Society, vol. Ixvii. part ii. In the Annuaire Meteoro-
logique de France, 1851, an interesting paper will be found, Notice sur les Altitudes
du Mont Blanc et du Mont Rose, parle Commandant Dekroz. The author devotes
several pages to de Sauasure's observations. Developed according to the
formula of Laplace and Delcroz's own tables, these give an altitude for the
mountain of 4817'3 metres. Delcroz, however, prefers a method by which he
gets a result of 4808*1 metres, practically identical with that of the Vallot
brothers' triangulation.

CHAPTER VII
THE BUET

MOUNTAINEERING in Savoy began, modestly enough, with the
ascent of the Buet. The story of that mountain is, in fact, a
prelude to that of Mont Blanc, and it brings on the scene two
characters who were intimately associated, though in different
ways, with de Saussure's activities, Jean Andre Deluc and
Marc Theodore Bourrit.

It was originally proposed that the little ' temple,' the successor
to our countryman Blair's cabin on the Montenvers, that was
erected in 1795 by Felix Desportes,1 while he was the French
Resident at Geneva, and dedicated by an inscription on its front
' a la Nature,' should bear on its walls the names of a number of
men of science of European reputation, and among them of
six distinguished Genevese, including de Saussure, Deluc, and
Bourrit. It seems to me appropriate, before dealing with the
crowning events of de Saussure's life as an Alpine climber, to devote
a few pages to sketches of the men who were thus connected with
the great naturalist, to allow them to give some account of their
exploits, and, in so doing, to throw light on their very diverse
characters.

Jean Andre was the elder son of Jacques Francis Deluc,
by trade a watchmaker and in private life an active member
of the popular party in Geneva, and the author of many re-
ligious and political tracts. Jacques Fra^ois was at one time
on intimate terms with Rousseau, who has left on record that he
found him an intolerable bore. He was, however, held in respect
in his native town, and we find him appointed to head the delega-
tion of Repre'sentants which in 1774 congratulated de Saussure on
his proposals for educational reform. His two sons, Jean Andr6

1 Desportes charged Bourrit with the erection of this edifice, and gave him
two thousand francs for the purpose. It was furnished with beds, a table, and a
visitors' book.

176

176 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

and Guillaume Antoine, inherited their father's political principles,
while adding to them scientific pursuits and a taste for climbing
which combined to incite the brothers to attempt in 1770 the first
ascent of the Buet. Two years later, owing either to his part in
the political troubles of the time, or more probably to financial
reverses, Jean Andr6 found it expedient to leave his native city,
and establish himself in England, where he married. Hia scientific
reputation as a meteorologist and inventor led to his being elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society, while scruples as to his radical
principles did not stand in the way of his accepting an appoint-
ment as Reader to Queen Charlotte. We catch a glimpse of the
quaint figure of the old republican in Miss Burney's Memoirs,
wandering about the Court at Windsor and subject to the gibes,
or practical jokes, of the dull royal dukes. Deluc's old age
was spent at or near Windsor. The last mention we have
of him is a report of his enjoying the descriptions of scenery in
Byron's ' Prisoner of Chillon,' and being reminded by them of
his own voyage round the lake with Rousseau more than sixty
years before.1 He died in 1817 at the age of ninety, and his
tombstone may be found in the churchyard at Clewer.

Jean Andre Deluc was a very voluminous author ; but it was as
a physical student and a skilful constructor of instruments that he
chiefly deserves respect. Meteorology was his special field, and
if he got the worst of his controversy with de Saussure on the
merits of their rival hygrometers, he was acknowledged by his
contemporaries to have contributed substantially to the progress
of the science. But his excursions into geology and cosmology
were less fortunate. The full title of his principal work may help
to explain this. It states that the treatise has been designed to
prove the divine mission of Moses. In short, Deluc may be said
to have had Genesis on the brain. In his cosmology he postulated
a convulsion in which the old continents had given place to oceans,
and the old sea-beds had become dry land. Thus the story of the
universal deluge was vindicated and the presence of marine fossils
on the high mountains accounted for. His views were in 1778
set forth in a work of six volumes, entitled, Lettres Physiques et
Morales sur les Montagues et sur I'Histoire de la Terre et de VHomme,
dedicated to the Queen of Great Britain.

1 See p. 28.

THE BUET 177

In 1762 Deluc had submit ted in manuscript to the Paris Academy
his Recherches sur les Modifications de I' Atmosphere, ou Theorie des
Barometres et des Thermometres (published ten years later), a work
which served to establish a method of ascertaining the heights of
mountains by barometrical observations, and was recognised at
the time as one of the best treatises on the use of instruments in
meteorology. Its author claimed more for the Letters ; he
asserted in the preface that they supplied the outline of a treatise
on nature and man's place in it. The text depicts the scenery
of the Lake of Geneva and the Bernese Oberland ; the descriptions
are interspersed with many reflections on the advantages of a
pastoral life and the virtue of Swiss peasants, obviously derived
for the most part from Rousseau.

If Deluc claims our respect as a scientific worker and an Alpine
traveller, he does his best in his writings to make us forget it by
his attitude as a universal philosopher and a courtier. The
modern reader is amused rather than instructed or edified by
his books, particularly when the author is led by ' the ecstasies
in which he often finds himself on the mountains ' into a long
assault on materialism, and then apologises in a proportionately
long footnote for introducing ' discussions too far removed from
the objects of attention of a Queen.' ' Queen ' is in capitals ! l

To return, however, to the Buet. We may best do the Delucs
justice as mountaineers by summarising the account of their first
climbs which appeared in the English edition of Bourrit's work.2

It was in August 1765 that the two brothers started to
attempt the Buet for the first time. From the neighbourhood
of Geneva, Jean had observed to the north of the ' pikes in
the form of obelisks ' which rose in a forbidding fence round the
mighty dome of Mont Blanc, a mountain whose summit, though
always covered with ice, seemed to him accessible and proper for
his experiments.

' He endeavoured then to inform himself of the name of this
mountain, the place where it was situated, the road necessary to be
taken to arrive at it, and whether or not it was to be ascended ; but

1 A full and appreciative account of the character and the scientific and
religious writings of the brothers Deluc will be found in Sayous' Le dixhuitieme
Siecle a V Stranger, vol. i. ch. 12.

8 Bourrit, Description of the Glaciers of Savoy (English edition, Norwich, 1776).

M

178 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

no person could be found that knew it, nor could he gain the least
intelligence with respect to any of his questions ; he was obliged, there-
fore, at all events, to take a journey in search of it and endeavour to
find it himself.'

Such a passage and the following narrative give a curious idea
of the state of ignorance in which Geneva lived of objects within
its daily horizon, even after ' the discovery ' of Chamonix. With
many doubts as to the right road, anxiously looking out for any
glimpse of the snows, and seriously disquieted when they lost
sight of them, the two Delucs arrived late at night at Sixt,
where * their guide gave them no hope of finding any accom-
modation/ Fortunately, despite the lateness of the hour, the
convent opened its gates and received them most hospitably.

The peasants of the village could give no information as to
the snow mountain they were in search of, but offered to lead the
travellers to some chalets, where a hunter who knew more might
possibly be met with.1 This plan was carried out, the chalets
reached, and the hunter secured. But they followed him with
uneasy minds, for their frozen summit had [entirely disappeared.
When, after some rough scrambling, they reached the ridge of
rocks known as the Grenier des Communes, which had long
formed their skyline, ' they perceived themselves upon the brink
of one of the most frightful precipices, which separated them
from the summit they came in search of.'

There was nothing for it but to go back, after having gazed
' with admiration as well as horror ' at Mont Blanc, which appeared
before them in all its majesty. An accident to the most im-
portant member of the party, the thermometer, compelled them
to return to Geneva.

It was not till 1770 that the Delucs again attempted to carry
out their design. Led by an ' apprentice to a hunter,' they
climbed ' from one jutting point to another up the clefts of an
immense wall of stone which was almost perpendicular,' only to
find themselves ' upon the very same precipice they had been on
five years before.' They consoled themselves by scram bh'ng to
the highest point of the ridge, the Grenairon. In this effort they
had to take the lead from their poor-spirited guides . The conduct

1 It appears that the mountain was known as the Mortine in Valorsine, but
had no name on the Sixt side. Buet was properly the name of a lower point.

THE BUET 179

of one of these men was, indeed, most reprehensible. ' Fatigued
with the labour he had undergone and in a fit of laughter at the
folly of taking all this trouble to boil a little water, he threw
himself, unluckily, with all his weight on Jean Deluc's foot and
badly sprained it.' The ' author of the misfortune ' then aban-
doned his employers, in order to go down and milk his cows.
Jean Deluc was equal to the occasion, both as a philosopher and
as a mountaineer. He candidly imputed the man's behaviour
to his mistaken sense of duty to his master (the owner of the
cows) rather than to want of feeling. Further, he contrived to
slide upon his back 'down 1500 perpendicular feet.' Night
then came on, and the climbers were compelled to sleep out,
making a barricade to prevent themselves from rolling down
the steep. Next morning Deluc's foot was less painful, and he
was able to descend to Sixt.

On the following day the village fair was held, and the Delucs
learnt from some of the assembled peasants that the snowy dome
they were in search of was known as the Buet, a name derived,
they were told, from Bo vet, an upper pasturage, near the snow.

A month later, in company with a hunter, they ascended to
the hamlet of Les Fonds, now well known from the description
of the late Sir Alfred Wills, who built himself a house in this
lovely spot, and wrote of it with an owner's appreciation.1 No
raptures, however, can exceed those of the Delucs on this ' most
superb amphitheatre,' ' delightful plain,' ' romantic solitude,'
which ' they could not cease admiring.' Rain drove the brothers
back to Sixt, but at the instance of the monks they waited until
a fine day enabled them to return with better prospects to Les
Fonds. Next morning they were off at daybreak, and by 7 A.M.
had reached the ' Plain de Lechaud,' where they saw three of the
' native burghers ' of the country — that is to say, chamois. ' Pro-
ceeding, they enjoyed for two hours the sensible succession of new
objects without any other inconvenience than that of walking up
an exceeding steep slope, which was nothing to their spirits and
resolution.'

In plain language, they were drawing near the snow, and
the upper slopes were still hard from the night's frost. Having
had experience of the difficulty of using crampons, ' which
1 See The Eagle's Nut (London, 1868).

180 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

were apt to turn upon the foot and deceive them,' they had
provided themselves with thick woollen socks to put over
their shoes, by means of which, and their iron-pointed staves,
they ' presumed it possible to step with the utmost security.
Their shoes, however, were absolutely improper for such an
undertaking.' Happily, the guides had broad soles and
hobnails with which they crushed footsteps through the
frozen crust. It was about noon when the party gained the
summit, ' which commanded in a manner at one view all the
straights of the Alps, of whose pikes there were but few
which raised their points above them.' The last statement
calls for very large qualification. The height of the Buet is
only 10,200 feet.

' For long they were absorbed in contemplation of the scene
before them. When their attention returned upon themselves,
they found that they were standing only upon a mass of con-
gealed snow which jutted over a most frightful precipice. Their
first impulse was to retreat with all speed, but soon reflecting
that the addition of their weight to this prodigious frozen mass,
which had been supported thus for ages, could have no effect to
bring it down, they laid aside their fears and went again upon
that horrid terrace.' After a halt of three-quarters of an hour,
and making two boiling-water observations for height, they
retired to some rocks a couple of hundred feet below the top for
another hour and a half. During this prolonged stay, ' they were
forced, by the absence of any disagreeable sensation, to remark
what a wonderfully adaptive machine is the human body, whose
equilibrium remains undisturbed within while the atmosphere
without is changed in density.'

The descent was easy. The Delucs observed with envy,
though they did not venture to imitate, the mode of progression
of their guides, who glissaded, as we now say — that is, slid leaning
on their poles down the slopes. They found out, however,
another method which they thought very agreeable. It consisted
in a series of jumps, made ' with regularity and due deliberation,'
and would seem to have been modelled on the gait of a kangaroo .
At the foot of the snow they were saluted by the whistles of
marmots, which suggested to them the signals of banditti. Sixt
was regained after nightfall.

THE BUET 181

A second ascent l of the Buet was made in 1772 by J. A. Deluc,
his brother, and a young Genevese clergyman named Dentan,
from the chalets of Anterne by a different route, recommended
by their guides. Deluc 's object was to make further observa-
tions. Unluckily, at the chalets he again broke his thermometer.
His account of the accident is a specimen of the naive enthusiasm
of the early observers : ' I looked with emotion for my ther-
mometer ; it was broken. I gave a cry which shook the cabin.'
Happily, the hygrometer survived to reach the summit, and
afterwards to be honoured with a place in Queen Charlotte's
apartments. The climbers took eight hours to reach the top,
and on their return they were benighted and caught in a thunder-
storm among the cliffs of the mountain. From this unpleasant
situation they were rescued by the mistress of the chalet in which
they had passed the previous night. Her courageous conduct
and refusal to accept any recompense suggest to Deluc some
of his usual reflections on the virtues of the mountaineer, and he
concludes his story with the exclamation, ' Je me reprocherois
tou jours si Anterne pouvoit devenir un lieu frequente ! ' Else-
where, however, with an inconsistency not uncommon among
travellers, he pronounces the Buet to be ' the most engaging to
a man of taste of all the mountains of the Alps,' and expresses a
hope that some of his readers may undertake its ascent.

It is now the turn of Deluc 's follower on the Buet, Marc
Theodore Bourrit, to be brought on the stage. The faithful
historian must feel some diffidence in attempting a sketch of this
many-sided and unequal character. Deluc was an enthusiast in
his feeling for the mountains, but his enthusiasm was not free
from the affectation of the age. Bourrit 's love of the Alps was
absolutely genuine, and for its sake the critic who shares his
passion is disposed to forgive him much and even to feel a touch
of compunction when called on to record the too obvious weak-
nesses which were combined with this sympathetic quality.

We owe the following vivid contemporary sketch of ' the
Historiographer of the Alps ' — as Bourrit liked to be called — to a
Herr Fischer of Berlin, who, having visited Geneva in 1795 and

1 Lettres Physiques et Morales sur les Montagues et sur VHistoire de la Terre
et de PHomme, Deluc, 1778, in which a published account of the expedition by
M. Dentan is also referred to. The work is in six volumes.

182 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

been admitted to Bourrit's studio, succeeded in anticipating the
method of the modern interviewer.
He writes :

' Bourrit's figure is long and thin, his complexion dark as a negro's,
his eyes burning and full of genius and life, his mouth marked by a
touch of mobility and good nature which inspires confidence — such is
a rapid sketch of this singular man.

' His description of the Alps, written, if you will, in too poetical
and too exalted a style, is a real masterpiece. Bourrit is less exact
than Saussure ; he paints with a broad brush, and often neglects details,
but he makes up for this failing by the colour and vivacity of his
pictures. Saussure speaks as a philosopher, Bourrit as a poet ; while
the former instructs you frigidly, and sometimes sends you to sleep,
the latter may bore you by his too frequently repeated exclamations,
but his style is fiery, and the perusal of his works excites and draws you
on. The talent of Bourrit as an artist is not less distinguished. The
style of his composition is characteristic and individual. Many of his
pictures, none of which is without merit, have been sold in England
and Russia ; his house is hung with those that remain. He lives a
quiet and retired life. Although he no longer serves in the cathedral
choir, the salary attached to the office has been continued to him, as
he has lost the pension he had from France.

' He has, besides, many eccentricities in his way of living : he
sleeps during eight months in the year under a walnut-tree in his
garden, with a fur coat in July, and no greatcoat in January. He
talks of Mont Blanc with the most exalted enthusiasm, and when
leading travellers to the Montenvers, utters appropriate little prayers
while climbing the mountain.

' The companion of his excursions, the faithful Raton, so well
known to his readers, has passed away : he carefully preserves his
skin : the successor of this cherished companion in his frequent pil-
grimages promises to be quite as interesting.

' For the rest, there is not in the world a character more kind or
more obliging than Bourrit. It is true he talks too much of the Alps,
and, above all, of himself. But who will not pardon this little weak-
ness in a man whose merits are so well known, and who, in the double
role of painter and author, is an honour to his country ? ' l

Beside this impression of a passing visitor we may put the
portrait supplied by Bonnet, whose criticisms were always tem-
pered by his kindness of heart and desire to be just.

1 See C. A. Fischer, Ueber Genf und der Genfersee (Berlin, 1796).

THE BUET 183

' The Alpine travels of our Bourrit are in reality only descrip-
tive : this man, Precentor in our cathedral, has talent for music and
in painting, but he is no physical student or naturalist, and his imagina-
tion is always effervescent. Still we must give him due credit for his
enthusiasm and his pluck.'

Contrasted with the in every respect wider intellect of de
Saussure, the man of philosophic mind, who wrote with the
calm and measured precision of a man of science, the aristocrat
with the finest house in Geneva for his home and ample means at
his disposal, Bourrit makes no imposing figure. He was a natif —
that is, a plebeian by birth. Gifted by nature with a fine voice
and some artistic talent, he obtained at an early age an appoint-
ment as Precentor in the cathedral choir. He added to his
income by setting up as a painter of miniatures. But when he was
twenty-two a visit to Les Voirons, one of the lower heights near
Geneva, revealed to him his true vocation. He fell in love with
the Alps, and at the same time he made the convenient discovery
that there was at Geneva a better market for mountain landscapes
than for portraits. Bourrit obviously had in more senses than one
the artistic temperament. He is recorded to have been on
several occasions reproved for unpunctuality and petty irregu-
larities by the cathedral authorities. We find him often borrowing
or asking for payments in advance from de Saussure, whose
Voyages he helped to illustrate. He even got into needless
trouble over the accounts of the subscription he had helped to
raise in Germany for Balmat, after the latter 's ascent of Mont
Blanc. Art, however, soon became with Bourrit only a profitable
adjunct to authorship. His mission in life was to be the door-
keeper in the temple of Jupiter Penninus, the showman to introduce
the ' visitors to the glaciers ' to their ' agreeable horrors.' In the
summer months he was always to be found either at his house in
Geneva or at hand in his chalet at Chamonix. In the case of any
person of distinction he was delighted to furnish an itinerary, or
even personally to conduct his tour. In 1773 he wrote to a
friend that Lord Chesterfield,1 ' a Mylord of fine figure and great
wealth,' who was studying at Geneva, had offered him fifty louis
in advance to accompany him to Chamonix.

1 The fifth Earl of Chesterfield, the godson and successor of the author of the
famous Letters. A supplementary volume of letters addressed to his godson by
the fourth Earl was edited by Lord Carnarvon.

184 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

In 1777 he applied earnestly — though in vain — to de Sauseure
to get the Emperor Joseph n. to visit his studio and accept his
services as a courier or guide to the glaciers. But in his literary
efforts he was more fortunate ; they met with all, and perhaps
more than all, the success they deserved. He was a ready and
successful writer, though he is reported to have needed the help
of his friend Jean Pierre Be"renger, the Genevese historian, in
putting his manuscript into shape.

His Description des Glacieres, first published in 1773, was soon
(1775) translated into English, and went through three English
editions. In the printed list of subscribers we meet with many
of the celebrities of the time : Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica
Kaufman, Horace Walpole, Dr. Johnson, Bartolozzi. Goethe
read it and described its author as a ' passionirter Kletterer.'
Bourrit's fame spread till it reached even royal ears . In 1775
the King of Sardinia received him at Chambery and gave him a
substantial recompense, a compliment he was never tired of
recalling to his visitors' notice. Thus encouraged, Bourrit in
1779-80 took courage to face the ordeal of Paris. Here he was
fortunate in finding an influential friend in Buff on. It is, I think,
clear that there was little personal sympathy or intellectual
fellowship between de Saussure and the author of the Epoques de la
Nature. The reader will find in an earlier chapter de Saussure 's
personal impressions of the great scientist. Buffon, on his part,
seems to have been annoyed by de Saussure 's insistence on the
necessity for exact observation, if he did not feel it as an implicit
reproach. In his chapter on Glaciers he quotes Bourrit, and
Bourrit alone. He was at the pains to read the proofs of Bourrit's
later work, Description des Alpes Pennines et Rhetiennes, and to
acknowledge them in these surprisingly warm terms :

' I have read, too, with great satisfaction, the seven sheets of
your second volume which you have been good enough to send me,
and which I have the honour to return. It is impossible to praise
too highly the courage — or rather the intrepidity — with which you faced
the dangers of your difficult travels among the glaciers and the
summits of the High Alps, and the description you give of them is the
justification of your labours and your exertions. I have been par-
ticularly struck by the prodigious glacier at the source of the Rhone,
and in general it is impossible not to praise your observations and
also your pictures.'

THE BUET 185

Buffon concluded by asking for an appointment to visit
Bourrit's studio.

At Court, thanks largely to his patron's kind offices, Bourrit
was presented to Louis Seize, who bought one of his pictures, a
view of the Oeschinen See near Kandersteg, and on condition
he sent him two pictures every year, granted him a pension
of 600 livres, which after the restoration was renewed by
Louis Dix-huit. It is little wonder if these successes completely
turned Bourrit's head. Henceforth he always signed himself
' Pensionnaire du Hoi.' His neighbours might still smile at their
Precentor. But his fame increased with distance. He wrote to
de Saussure, asking him for copies of his Voyages, that he might
present them to Necker, Buffon, Le Roi (Director of the Cabinet de
Physique ) , and Marat . Bourrit looked on the future demagogue as
a second Newton who had invented a new Theory of the Universe.
Frederic the Great wrote to the proud Precentor and dubbed him
' The Historiographer of the Alps.' Prince Henry of Prussia paid
a visit to his studio, of which an amusing account is preserved
in a volume written by the father of Alfred de Musset : l

' From the retreat where M. Senebier is incessantly at work, I
went to visit M. Bourrit, the author of the Voyage des Alpes. I shall
not permit myself any comment, but content myself with giving an
exact account of what I saw and what he said to me. On entering
the court I saw a sort of framework on which was a wretched mattress ;
this was the bed of M. Bourrit. He moves about this portable bed-
stead according to the weather or his whim, placing it sometimes
near the wall, sometimes in the middle of his court. He described
to us a visit he had received from Prince Henry of Prussia. " At his
request," he told us, " I described a sunrise : I pictured to him the
orb flinging his rays into the recesses of the Alps till, fired by my
description, the Prince cried out, ' Our Lekain 2 was ice compared
to this man.' '

' M. Bourrit pointed out to us his little staircase, which, in fact, is
very narrow. He said that while going down it Prince Henry had said
to his suite, " How many great staircases there are for little men ! I am
delighted to have found at last a great man with a little staircase."
I hope for M. Bourrit's sake that there is a real disproportion between
his staircase and himself, and that the prince's antithesis is sound.

1 Voyage en Suisse et en Italiefait avec VArmee de Reserve, par V. A. D. (Paris,
An ix).

2 A famous actor of the time.

186 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

1 If Bonaparte had consulted M. Bourrit, he would have pointed
out to him a route through the Alps shorter, more convenient, and
easier than any of those by which he transported the different divisions
of his army !

' As we left we saw again the bed on the frame, and my companion
whispered to me that M. Bourrit had some resemblance to Diogenes.
On looking at him I saw that his sleeve had a hole in it.'

The Bishop of Annecy granted, at Bourrit's request, a dis-
pensation from fasting to the visitors to Chamonix. An extract
from his eloquent appeal to the Bishop may serve to show his
special regard for our countrymen :

' Curiosity brings to them [the Chamoniards] strangers, men of
distinction, above all, Englishmen, who come to admire the spot
where Nature reveals her grandeur in its beautiful and its terrible
aspects : they arrive tired, exhausted ; they are told of the obligation
to fast — they soon feel no obligation but that to leave, to get away.
The inhabitants appeal in this matter to your indulgence, your kindness ;
they do not ask to be themselves dispensed from fasting, but they
beg you to permit them to feed visitors according to their wishes,
and as the fatigues they have undergone and those they still endure in
travelling among these mountains demand.'

It was no doubt a small fly in the ointment that Bourrit's
fellow-citizens failed to show proper respect for ' notre Bourrit,'
that the Genevese literary public smiled at the pretensions of the
worthy Precentor, and that the local men of science refused to take
his romantic rhapsodies at his own valuation.

Bourrit himself was at no pains to conceal his character :
his books and letters are self -revelations. His style is a parody
of that of the day, alternately familiar, sentimental, and high-
flown. At one moment he is pouring out lengthy confidences
about the marvellous intelligence of his dog, Raton ; the next
he is celebrating the charms of the rustic beauties of the Bernese
Oberland, or in incoherent ecstasies over the belles horreurs of
the mountains, or descanting on the fearful dangers he believes
himself to have escaped. His feats, and the perils they lead
him into, appear in his eyes prodigiously magnified. His per-
petual state of emotion deprives him of any power of accurate
observation. As the English translators of his Journey to the
Glaciers of Savoy naively remark : ' In all his descriptions he

THE BUET 187

discovers that luxuriance and enthusiasm of fancy which
without instructions have constituted him the painter and the
musician of nature.' Forbes puts it more crudely: 'He conveys
the simplest facts through a medium of unmixed bombast.'

With his disregard for accuracy, Bourrit combined a boundless
vanity. If he loved the Alps well, he loved Bourrit still more.
If Mont Blanc was his idol, he looked on himself as its high priest,
and was jealous of any intrusion on the shrine. De Saussure
wrote, ' M. Bourrit takes even more interest than I do in the
conquest of Mont Blanc.' The enthusiastic worshipper would
have greatly preferred to have had no rival in his devotion.
But for obvious reasons it was needful to treat de Saussure with
respect. It was an honour to the Precentor to be associated with
the wealthy patrician and man of science, while as a needy artist
he found in him a kindly and munificent patron. Bourrit had to
be content with doing his best to link himself on to de Saussure
in the latter 's attacks on the great mountain. But lesser tres-
passers he could not abide. Had his vanity been harmless, it
might have been forgotten, or passed over lightly, but unfor-
tunately it led him into an exhibition of jealousy which, as
will be shown in the next chapter, helped for nearly a century
to obscure the story of the conquest of Mont Blanc. We have
the testimony of one of de Saussure's grandsons that Bourrit
was the originator of the legend of Balmat, which many years
later was to be adorned by Alexandre Dunias (the elder) with all
the romantic detail of which he was a master. Apart from this
deplorable episode, it would be possible for mountain -lovers to
look with a lenient eye on Bourrit 's complacency and self-conceit.
De Saussure himself has set us an example .x His general attitude
towards Bourrit was one of more or less indulgent toleration.
In his Voyages he praises warmly the artist and refers kindly to
the fellow-climber. The letter in which he thanks Bourrit for
a copy of his first book is a model of its kind ; he gives what
praise he can ; at the same time he suggests, under cover of a
gentle irony, qualifications sufficient to satisfy his own conscience,

1 Bourrit's relations with de Saussure and his family are best illustrated by de
Saussure's journal during his long stay at Chamonix in 1787, and the boy Charles
Bourrit's diary during the same period. They remained of a very friendly char-
acter despite the Aiguille du Gouter incident to be recounted in the next chapter.

188 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

and yet such as Bourrit's vanity might lead him to overlook.
He writes :

' The public owes you its thanks for the lively and really picturesque
descriptions of objects so interesting and so little known. I also pro-
pose myself to publish something on these same mountains — it is with
this purpose that I have been studying them for so many years. I
shall owe it to your book to have called the attention of the public
to these great objects, and to have aroused in it a desire to know more
of them.'

In 1780, thanking Bourrit for a later volume, he writes :

' I have just finished reading your work with singular pleasure.
One recognises everywhere that picturesque imagination and that
lively appreciation of the beauties of nature which are the marked
characteristics of your descriptions. I also greatly enjoy the historical
details with which you enrich them. There are some points in physics
in which I do not share your opinion, but that does not necessarily
prove that you are wrong.'

The rest of the note consists of a vigorous correction of
Bourrit's hypsometry.

Nothing could be more judicious : the letters might serve as
models for that embarrassing branch of correspondence, the
acknowledgment of a presentation copy. But when we turn to
later letters to Bourrit, we find that he candidly calls him to
account for his excess of imagination, whilst in familiar corre-
spondence with friends he was wont to refer to the Precentor's
failings in plain language.

Such was the knight who advanced in September 1775 to
the attack of the Buet from the side of Valorsine — the first
inventor of that lately somewhat hardly pressed resource of
modern climbers, the ' new route.' Bourrit was by no means
the man to take an easy peak by surprise ; his approaches were
always made in due form. In the previous year (1775) he had
inspected with de Saussure the Delucs' route from Les Fonds,
and been impressed by its formidable aspect. So he now went
round to the other side and summoned a council of the inhabi-
tants of Valorsine, which, as they did not know the mountain
in question by the name of Buet, naturally led to no result.
Vexed at his failure, he rather hastily set off to make the tour
by Cluses to Sixt, but meeting at Les Houches the former Cure

THE*BUET 189

A

of Valorsine, he was induced to retrace his steps. Accord-
ingly a second council was held, and a hunter made the brilliant
suggestion that possibly the peak Bourrit called the Buet might
be that they knew as the Mortine. Accordingly a start was made
by the valley of the Eau Noire ; but a cloudy day discouraged the
climbers and induced them to return. The impulsive Bourrit
set ofi a second time for Geneva, got as far as Sallanches, and then,
finding a clear sky irresistible, rushed back to his mountain.
This time all went well, and eight hours after leaving Valorsine
the party found themselves on the desired summit. Bourrit
was not the man to under -estimate the importance of his success :
' From this moment he conceived the greatest hope for the History
of the Earth as well as for physical science.' The view he describes
with rapture ; but the best proof of his enjoyment is the fact
that he repeated the expedition no less than six times in sub-
sequent years. His memory still lives in the name of ' La Table
du Chantre ' — the Precentor's Table — given to a huge slab
of rock some distance below the summit on the side of Valorsine
on which he rested.

His hopes for physical science were in some measure fulfilled
by the ascent of de Saussure, led by Pierre Simon and a local
guide named Pierre Boyon in the following year (1776). From
the mountaineer's point of view this expedition does not present
any features worth record, although it furnished opportunity
for a lengthy review of the structure of the granite peaks of the
Mont Blanc chain and a dissertation on the rarefaction of the
atmosphere.

Bourrit had the satisfaction of supplying the savant's work
with a panorama of the view from the summit. It is drawn in
the old-fashioned circle, but is fairly correct, though the identifica-
tion of the peaks is faulty. Bourrit drew in the centre of his
illustration the singular icicle -fringed cornice in which the snow
dome of the Buet formerly broke away towards the north. De
Saussure thereon went out of his way to say in a note that Bourrit
was solely responsible for this feature, of which he had no re-
collection. Either the cornice had broken away in the interval
between the two ascents, or the man of science in this instance
has proved himself less observant than the artist. I was inclined
to think Bourrit might at any rate have exaggerated, but a

190 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

reference to an old photograph proves that there was in the
sixties of the last century a cornice of dimensions equal to that he
represents on the mountain.

This is the description Bourrit gave in a letter written to de
Saussure of an attempt to sketch the panorama made on his
second ascent, a fortnight after the Professor's :

' Next, in order to make good use of my time, I got out my instru-
ments— or rather yours — and set to work to draw : at first the snow
came up to my calves, but insensibly I sank up to the belt, while the
foot of the quadrant sank also. I tried to change my position, but
it was useless, the wind was violent, and so was the cold ; my com-
panions beat themselves like madmen to get warm while I felt my
powers abandon me and my blood freeze in my veins. One of my
companions noticed it and rescued me from my situation. I descended
to the first rocks, where I fell senseless on my guides ; they placed me
in the shelter of some rocks and gave me something to drink, while
Favret held me stretched in his arms ; this rest and the sun's warmth
restored me.'

Bourrit's endeavours as an Alpine artist call for sympathy.
He was one of the first draftsmen of his time to try to draw
mountains as they are. His predecessors, like the ' aesthetic
critics ' of the present day, had looked on them as rude masses,
whose lines required to be reduced to simplicity and symmetry
by the ' man of taste.' Few of Bourrit's paintings still exist ; l
they were numerous. The fourteen sketches intended to have
been etched as illustrations to the English edition of the Journey
to the Glaciers are said to have passed into the hands of a ' gentle-
man in England.' All we know about them is from Bourrit
himself, who, in the preface, tells us how they came to be made.
He observes

' that the first time he went into this romantic country the number
and immensity of the objects which struck his sight at the same time
presented difficulties it was impossible for him then to surmount, not
having formed the least idea of them before he set out. His second
attempt was more successful, when he not only determined his choice
of the prospects, but was enabled to invent a new method of taking
them with greater exactness.

1 There are two in the Art Gallery at Geneva — but they are kept in a cup-
board— and one in the rooms of the Club Alpin Suisse.

THE BUET 191

' His end thus answered, he brought back fourteen sketches, which
those who are pleased with these subjects, as well foreigners as natives,
have judged worthy the attention of the curious.

' He takes upon him to assure the public that not only the larger
masses are designed in these views, but that he has made out even
the smaller, and that nothing is added from imagination only, as in
almost l all the drawings of these places he has had an opportunity
of seeing. That he had examined the print from a plate of Mr. Vivare
in London, representing the icy valley of Montanvert, of which he
affirms there is hardly as much as one stroke taken from nature ;
and that another of the valley of Chamonix is equally false (he means
the thirteenth plate in the account of the glaciers of Switzerland, by
Mr. Grouner) ; all which will not appear extraordinary, when we are
informed that those gentlemen who had hitherto gone over the glaciers
were rather men of taste than draftsmen. He has experienced besides
that one journey is insufficient to render drawings of this sort perfect.
That he found it highly necessary to attend to the peculiar state and
condition of the air and weather, of which we never can be secure,
and which may prove very unfavourable to the designer upon a single
visit or in one season only, though the completion of his sketches must
depend upon their clearness and serenity. We go to the valleys — are
struck with admiration — trace out some loose lines in haste — add a
few revising touches by way of memoranda, and at our return imagina-
tion does the rest.'

Book illustrations are at the present day the chief material we
have from which to judge of Bourrit's art. As might be expected
from a miniaturist, the plates of his own book are laboured, and
the foreground to the Lac de Chede (beside which he desired to
be buried) is beautified in the landscape gardener's style with
' bosquets.' He would seem to have had a failing for painting
reflections in water, and in several instances could not refrain
from turning the Arve into a glassy stream. But the mountain
outlines are, as a rule, firm and fairly correct. For the period
this is no slight praise, as may be seen by contrasting Bourrit's
plates with the more ambitious illustrations to Albanis Beau-
mont's folio The Pennine Alps. When we turn to the plates which
Bourrit furnished to de Saussure we are often agreeably surprised

1 The author has excepted from this censure two views of Chamonix drawn
with great care and exactness by Mr. Jalabert. (Original note.) Jalabert waa
de Saussure's companion in his first tour of Mont Blanc.

192 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

at the accuracy of topographical detail attained in such difficult
subjects as the chain of Mont Blanc from the Allee Blanche, and
still more at the power and vigour shown in many of the blotted-
in sketches of individual peaks. The rock structure was all-
important for de Saussure's purposes ; in the preface to the Voyages
he tells us how he has insisted on its reproduction. Doubtless
the connection between them was most advantageous to Bourrit
by necessarily fixing his attention on facts, and forbidding any
indulgence in the prettinesses of which he was far too fond.
But with every disposition to estimate Bourrit 's work as kindly as
de Saussure does in the passage referred to, we are forced to admit
that, even judged by the standard of his time, it shows little real
artistic sense or power. It cannot compare with that of Wolf,
the painter who furnished the plates of the Aar glaciers and other
scenes in the Bernese Oberland produced at about the same
date.

The Buet was not long in becoming a recognised excursion for
adventurous tourists, as well as for the men of science who found
it a convenient observatory and post for measuring Mont Blanc.
The Delucs climbed the mountain twice. So did de Saussure,
in 1776 and 1778. He narrates an incident at the chalets
above Valorsine which shows that visitors were still a rarity :

' We were conducted by a bevy of young girls, very lively and in
high spirits, to whom the object of our journey, our dress, our mode
of speech, even our least movements, were matters for immoderate
bursts of laughter.1 They accompanied us as far as La Courterai
with unflagging mirth, and even succeeded in communicating to us
some of their gaiety.'

Bourrit returned often to a mountain which suited so well
his climbing powers. Before the end of the century three English
ladies, the Misses Parminter, who, we are told, had already made a
long Alpine tour, found their way to the top, escorted by Bourrit 's

1 An account of a similar incident in the same locality in 1780 may be found
in the Alpine Journal, vol. xxxii. p. 75. These lively damsels were natives of the
valley Ruskin selected as an example of 'mountain gloom ' ! Had he met a similar
troop on his own ascent of the Buet (Alpine Journal, vol. xxxii. p. 335) we might
have lost one of the most eloquent chapters in Modern Painters \ Bordier also
expatiates on the bonheur of the inhabitants of the Trient Valley in the eighteenth
century as an example of Rousseau's ideal rural happiness.

THE BUET 193

friend B^ranger and the guide known as Le Grand Jorasse. In
1800 a young Dane, attempting to make the ascent from Servoz,
lost his life by falling into a crevasse, and his monument was
made a tactful use of by the authorities as a means of conveying
a suitable warning to future travellers not to fail to follow the
advice of their guides.1

There remains yet another incident in Bourrit's literary
career which calls for a passing reference. Some years before the
attacks on Mont Blanc he rushed into a literary squabble with
a rival who remains an obscure but interesting figure in the
annals of glacier research. In 1773 the Precentor was on the
point of publishing his first work on the glaciers of Savoy, when, to
his infinite disgust, he found himself anticipated. To add insult
to injury, the interloper had on his title-page veiled his identity
under the initial 'Mr. B.' Some at least of the public naturally
attributed the little book, consisting for the most part of the notes
of a lively tourist on the round tour to Martigny, the Col de
Balme, and, Chamonix to Bourrit . The author was, in fact, Andr6
Cesar Bordier, a minister at Geneva. The first 'B.'s ' wrath knew
no bounds, but, far from being inarticulate, it found vent in the
Cercles or clubs of Geneva. Bourrit alleged that Bordier had
used as the basis of his work a copy of the manuscript notes he —
Bourrit — was accustomed to lend to visitors to Chamonix. That
one of Bordier's party had had a copy of these notes in his pocket
was not disputed. A critical eye can find, however, little trace in
Bordier's book of any substantial use having been made of them.
Still Bourrit, whose work was already announced, obviously had a
legitimate grievance in the misleading use of the common initial
on the title-page. He appears to have made the most of it in the
social ' Circles ' of the town. The pair rushed into print. Bordier
was stimulated into issuing a tedious pamphlet full of minute and
captious criticism of Bourrit's book. Bourrit retorted in another
written in a similar spirit. It is impossible for a modern reader to
peruse with any patience either of these deplorable productions.
The whole controversy might, indeed, well be forgotten but for
one very remarkable fact. Bordier in his slender and for the most
part slight record of a holiday trip inserted a chapter in which

1 See Alpine Journal, vol. xiii. p. 179, for a note as to this accident and
Eschen's complicated nationality.

H

194 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the theory of the structure of glacier ice subsequently propounded
by Rendu and Forbes was clearly anticipated. I quote the
crucial passage in the original French :

' Hypothec, sur les difftrents Phtnom&nes des Glaci&res riduits
a un seul principe

' II est terns maintenant de considerer tous ces objets avec les
yeux de la Raison, et d'abord d'eiudier la marche et la position des
Glaci&res, et de chercher la solution des principaux Ph6nomenes
qu'elles pre"sentent. Au premier aspect des Monts de glace une
observation s'offrit & moi, et elle me parut suffire a tout. C'est que la
Masse entiere des Glaces est Ii6e ensemble, et pese rune sur 1'autre de
haut en bas a la maniere des Fluides. Considerons done 1'assemblage
des glaces non point comme une masse entierement dure et immobile,
mais comme un amas de matiere coagulee, ou comme de la cire amolh'e,
flexible et ductile jusqu'a un certain point ; supposons ensuite que
les sommit^s du Mont Blanc, point le plus eleve des environs, se soyent
trouvees couvertes de glace et voyons ce qui aura du en resulter.'

The suggestion here put forward is remarkable in itself. But
what is perhaps still more remarkable is that it attracted no
attention at the time, or for ninety years afterwards. The
little volume had its short day of popularity — 1300 copies were
sold in three months — and then it was completely forgotten.
It was left to a Bernese professor to call attention to the chapter
on glaciers. Bernard Studer, in his Physiographic der Schweiz
(1863), introduced the passage already quoted in the following
words :

* It is wonderful how, under the influence of de Saussure, the views
of one of his fellow-citizens, which have of late been recognised as the
more accurate, have been so completely forgotten that in the disputes
of recent years over the earliest traces of the theory that treats glaciers
as viscous masses, his name has never once been mentioned.'

Professor Studer was an early friend and companion of Forbes,
who dedicated his travels to him, and must have read his 1863
book. There is perhaps evidence of this in a mention of Bordier
in his article published in 1865, two years later, in the North
British Review, but it is a bare mention, without any reference
to his glacier theory.1 Studer's emphatic claim attracted no
notice in scientific circles in this country until Tyndall — his
See Coolidge's edition of Forbes' Travels through the Alps, p. 530.

i

THE BUET 195

attention having been called to it by the present writer — in 1872
cited it in his Forms of Water. The greater portion of Bordier's
chapter was subsequently reprinted in the Alpine Journal (vol. ix.).
A copy of the original volume is in the Alpine Club and Geo-
graphical Society's Libraries.

There are two questions which must force themselves on all
readers who are at the pains to compare carefully this attempt
at a glacier theory with the lively but slight narrative in which
it is embedded. Can they possibly both be by the same hand ?
Can the essay on glaciers be the product of a tourist who spent
only a few hours at Chamonix, and, as far as we know, had no
scientific training ? The suggestions contained in it are acute,
and for the most part sound and in advance of their time. They
read like the product of a student with a keen eye and an in-
genious mind who has studied glaciers carefully and fixed his
attention on the problems connected with their motion. Was
there anyone among Bordier's acquaintances at Geneva at that
date who answers to this description ? I am unable to throw
any light on the question, and I must leave the inquiry to local
historians . I have quoted the opening sentences in Bordier's glacier
chapter ; the following ones from a later page (276) strengthen my
doubts as to the authorship — they could hardly have been written
by anyone who did not know well what he was writing about :

' II serait a souhaiter qu'il y eut a Chamonix quelqu'un qui put
observer les Glacieres pendant une suite d'annees et comparer leur
marche et leurs vicissitudes avec les observations meteorologiques ; la
position du Bourg seroit extremement commode pour cela ; cependant
Ton tire peu de lumieres des habitants. II faudroit marquer precise"-
ment quelles sont les bornes et 1'aspect successif des differents Glaciers,
en quel temps ils s'avancent ou retrogradent et quelles sont les annees
les plus remarquables & ces deux egards. II faudroit examiner quand
les fentes et les chutes des glasons sont plus consid6rables, quelles
alterations subissent les rivieres qui decoulent des Glaciers, quelles
sont les differentes hauteurs du Lac de Glace, ce que Ton pourroit
observer dans les rochers lateraux. II faudroit essayer de placer des
fardeaux sur les grosses ondes du Glacier des Bossons et voir quand et
comment ils seroient ren verses. II faudroit examiner si la glace, etant
idioilectrique, ces vastes monceaux de glace ne donneroient aucuns
phenomenes dans les tempetes, etc. etc.'

196 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

The only clue I can offer is the fact that about this time, at the
instigation of M. Hennin, the French Resident at Geneva, steps
were being taken to ascertain the rate of movement of the Mer de
Glace opposite the Montenvers. This is a sign that a new interest
in glacial problems was springing up. Who were the promoters
who shared in the undertaking ?

If it is difficult to believe that Bordier, who has no known
claim to any scientific interests or capacity, should have had
the insight shown in this instance, it is certainly remarkable that
de Saussure should not have thought the hypothesis thus put
forward at some length deserving of his consideration, or even of a
passing comment. We know he had seen Bordier's book, for
in a letter written from Contamines in 1774 he refers to having
felt the reverse of flattered at having the authorship of the
Voyage Pittoresque attributed to him by the local Vicaire. De
Saussure's nature was too generous to allow us to attribute his
silence to any feelings of jealousy. The best suggestion I can
offer, and I admit it is a poor one, is that he glanced at the com-
paratively trivial narrative of the early chapters of Bordier's
volume and then threw it hastily aside.

MONT BLANC

right of the picture.

CHAPTER VIII
MONT BLANC

IN 1760 de Saussure, as has already been pointed out, had had
posted in every commune of the Chamonix valley a notice promis-
ing a handsome reward to the first man to climb Mont Blanc, and
also payment to pioneers for time spent in the endeavour. Fifteen
years passed without any serious effort being made to take
advantage of his offer.

Pierre Simon, de Saussure's first guide, it is true, undertook
some sort of reconnaissance of the mountain both from the Tacul
and from the Chamonix flank, but in neither case did he push
beyond the first difficulties. Yet the Chamoniards were a race
accustomed to brave the perils of the peaks and glaciers in
search of crystals or in pursuit of chamois. What was the
cause of their lack of adventure in this instance ? It may
probably be attributed in part to the moral effect of a deeply
rooted belief in the inaccessibility of the ' Great White Mountain,'
in part to the particular character of the perils to be encountered
in the attempt. Even practised cragsmen may well have been
deterred by the vast extent of the slopes of treacherous snow,
seamed with hidden pitfalls, that had to be traversed in order to
approach the far-withdrawn summit, and by the knowledge that
at least one night would probably have to be spent in the frozen
wastes. The Chamoniards, it must be borne in mind, unlike in
this respect the natives of Zermatt or Val d'Herens, had no need
to cross glacier passes in ordinary life ; they could always get to
Italy by going round Mont Blanc, and consequently they were
very much behind the Vallaisans in learning the use of the rope.
It was not till the latter half of the eighteenth century that Alpine
exploration ki Savoy made any decisive advance. About 1770
the hitherto rare ' visitors to the glaciers ' became more frequent,
and the interest taken in Mont Blanc by the troops of tourists
who penetrated to its foot had a stimulating effect on the villagers.
They had already found profitable employment as guides, and

19T

198 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSUKE

the more enterprising among them were now excited to attempt
higher ventures that might bring higher rewards. The first
serious attempt was made in 1775, when four guides attempted
the obvious approach by the Montagne de la Cote, the ridge
which separates the lower portions of the Glaciers des Bossons
and de Taconnaz. The party entered on the ice and advanced
as far as the level of the Grands Mulcts. There they were
stopped, not so much by any difficulties of the ground as by
their own sensations of fatigue and nausea. They imputed
their failure to the suffocating heat and a total loss of appetite.
It probably arose as much from moral as from physical causes.
The result, anyhow, was that the discouraging report the adven-
turers brought back put a stop to any further attempts for
another eight years.

The frequent references in almost all early mountaineering
records to physical discomforts may largely be accounted for by
the low level of the climbers' bivouacs and the late hour at which
they were apt to start in the morning, which resulted in the
midday sun finding them still toiling uphill in soft snow. They
themselves were apt to attribute their sufferings to the stagnation
of the air in the snow valley under the Dome du Gouter. That
mountain-sickness is felt less on a windy than on a still day has
been proved by many examples. But as the early climbers
suffered equally on the topmost ridges and on the summit itself,
it is obvious that the main source of their indisposition must be
looked for elsewhere.

In 1783 a party of Chamoniards made a fresh attack by the
same route with a similar result. They got nearly two thousand
feet higher — as far as the Petit Plateau, under ' the arch of ice
which crowns the rocks of the Little Mont Blanc ' (the Dome
du Gouter). Here one of the party fell ill and his companions
abandoned the climb. A stalwart guide, Lombard, known as Le
Grand Jorasse, afterwards told de Saussure that it was no use
taking provisions, that if called on to try again he should provide
himself only with a parasol and a smelling-bottle. De Saussure 's
comment — written in 1786 — was :

' When I try to figure to myself this stout and robust mountaineer
climbing the snows with, in one hand, a little parasol, and in the other
a flask of Eau Sanspareil, the picture seems so strange and ridiculous

MONT BLANC 199

that nothing could be a more convincing proof of the difficulties of the
enterprise, and consequently its impossibility to those who have not
the head or the heels of a good Chamonix guide. For myself, after
all I heard from the men who attempted the mountain on that side,
I looked on success as absolutely impossible, and this was the opinion
of all the wise people of Chamonix.' [Voyages, 1104.]

It was a case — not a rare one — in which wisdom was not justi-
fied of her children. There was one man at Chamonix who by de
Saussure's admission was more eager about the ascent of Mont
Blanc than the philosopher himself. The enthusiast Bourrit —
it is his chief claim to our respect — would not accept the verdict
impossible. It is, I think, probable that he had some part in
instigating the second attempt of the guides. No variety of
scientific objects and interests distracted Bourrit 's mind. He had
a single aim before him — to make himself the Hero of Mont Blanc.
In 1780 he had returned from a visit to Paris with a new con-
sciousness of his own fame and an added eagerness to extend it.
The pension granted to him by the King had relieved him from
the money difficulties to which his numerous appeals to de
Saussure for help or advances in preceding years bear witness, and
had provided him with funds for securing the service of guides.
It may, therefore, fairly be put to Louis Seize's credit that he
materially assisted in the conquest of Mont Blanc ! Bourrit now
brought to bear on the guides the influence of his own eagerness
and his belief that success was not unobtainable. Instead of
acquiescing in this new repulse he persuaded them to join him
in a fresh attack by the same route before the autumn snows
made it too late. He even disregarded a friendly warning which
the event fully justified. De Saussure wrote :

' August 23, 1783.

' I wish you, Monsieur, every success in your hazardous under-
taking, and I wish it more than I anticipate it. ... I thank you
heartily for your offer to return [to Mont Blanc] with me, but I do not
expect to take advantage of it. I certainly shall do nothing to dis-
courage you in this enterprise : since I gather that you have decided
and made preparations for it, it would be useless trouble. I cannot,
however, refrain from telling you that I do not think you have the
necessary health or strength, and I fear lest the attempt, even if it is
as fortunate as you hope it may be, may leave you with reason for
long regrets.'

200 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSTJRE

The party slept at the usual bivouac on the Montagne de la
Cote, but on the following morning the weather broke ; Bourrit
did not venture on the ice at all, and the others were soon forced
to turn back.

On this occasion a new figure appears for the first time in
the annals of Mont Blanc. Michel Gabriel Paccard, who joined
Bourrit in this expedition, was the son of the Public Notary at
Chamonix, a man of sufficient means and intelligence to give his
children a good education.

As in most of the Chamonix families — five Devouassouds and
four Balmats went up Mont Blanc with de Saussure — the Paccards
formed a clan. One of the doctor's brothers was an Abbe,
another an avocat.1

Sent to the University at Turin, Michel Gabriel had obtained
there a medical degree and had subsequently studied in Paris,
where he and Bourrit, who was also in his youth in the French
capital, had frequently spent their evenings together. On his
return to his native valley he set up as a doctor. He had a taste
for science and studied botany. He made frequent geological
notes on his excursions, and applied to de Saussure for help in
securing instruments for the measurement of heights, and he more
than once contributed papers to the scientific journals of the day.2
He was now in the full vigour of manhood, and in the habit of
making mountain expeditions. In the year following his attempt
with Bourrit he made two serious reconnaissances of the approaches
to Mont Blanc. With Pierre Balmat, he slept on the rocks beside
the Glacier de Tacul and penetrated its upper basin to a certain
distance. The climbers, however, soon got into difficulty in the
icefall and, from what they could see of the range beyond, came

1 Paccard had also a cousin, a guide, Frat^ois Paccard, whose name appears
from time to time in Alpine history. He was for some years banished from Savoy
on the ground that he had acted as guide to the famous bandit and smuggler
Mandrin, who was executed at Valence in 1755. F. Paccard was allowed to
return as a reward for procuring some live bouquetins (Rupicapri) for the Count
de Caylus. Subsequently, in 1786, he got into trouble again with Bourrit, who
procured his temporary arrest on a charge of libel and abusive language. The
date suggests that the quarrel must have arisen out of the unfortunate part
played by Bourrit in the dispute over the first ascent of Mont Blanc.

* See the Journal de Physique, vol. xviii. 1781, ' Extrait de quelques lettres
du Docteur Paccard sur les causes de 1' arrangement en arc, en feston, en coin, etc.,
et de la direction oblique, perpendiculaire, horizontale des couches vraies et
apparentes, etc.'

MONT BLANC 201

to the sound conclusion that Mont Blanc was less accessible from
this quarter than by its Chamonix face. Early in September
Paccard was again in the field wandering under the cliffs of the
Aiguille du Gouter and reconnoitring their ridges and gullies,
without, however, pushing any further attack.

It was at the end of August 1784, between these two expedi-
tions, that the first meeting of Paccard and de Saussure took place.
It is recorded in de Saussure 's hitherto unpublished diary for that
year. Madame Couteran's inn being full, de Saussure found
lodging in the house of a member of the Paccard family, where he
met the doctor. He describes him as ' a fine fellow (joli gar$on),
full, as it seemed, of intelligence, fond of botany, creating a garden
of Alpine plants, wanting to climb Mont Blanc, or at least to
attempt it.' A week later he met Paccard again, and invited him
to supper, but ' he had an air of being offended, and appeared to
take it as a reproach to him for not having asked me first. We
parted, however, with offers of mutual service which had a strong
air of sincerity.' Paccard, probably, was somewhat sensitive as
to his social position, and did not want to be treated on the same
footing with the Chamoniards who served as guides.

The persevering Bourrit had let the best of the summer slip
away, but news having reached him that two hunters had succeeded
in climbing the Aiguille du Gouter and reaching the upper snows,
he set out from Geneva on September llth — as usual, a month
too late — and on the 16th and 17th made a serious attempt with
six guides to scale the mountain by this route. His powers —
as de Saussure had predicted — proved unequal to the task set
them, and he broke down on the first rocks at the foot of the
Aiguille. Two of his guides, however, persevered, climbed the
Aiguille, crossed the Dome, and reached the rocks below the Bosses,
where M. Vallot's observatory now stands (14,312 feet).

This was a very remarkable advance. The outer defences of
Mont Blanc were overcome, and only the last citadel, the final
1360 feet, remained to be stormed. De Saussure recognised the
importance of the ground gained, and determined to return to
the attack next year on the first opportunity. Unfortunately,
however, the summer of 1785 was wet (the eighties of the eigh-
teenth century seem to have been a period of abnormal precipita-
tion), and again the start was put off to the shortening days of

202 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

mid -September. A further handicap to the expedition was its
size and the inclusion in it of Bourrit and his elder son, Isaac,
a youth of twenty -one. De Saussure's judgment yielded on this
occasion to his kindness. Having regard to the fact that Bourrit
had made the first serious attempt to open this route, he broke
his usual practice of taking no companion except his guides, and
acquiesced in the desire of the two Bourrits to be allowed to join
the party.

The first night (13th September) was spent in a rough cabin
de Saussure had had built on a brow known as the Pierre
Ronde at the base of the rocks of the Aiguille du Gouter. The
Aiguille de Bionnassay — then called the Rogne — attracted the
climbers' attention by its avalanche-swept sides and great height,
but the guides asserted — and they were right — that from ' the
Dome de 1' Aiguille ' they would look down on it.1 De Saussure
busied himself with his experiments. His boiling-point ther-
mometer proved a failure.

' But,' he writes, ' the beauty of the evening and the magnificence
of the spectacle presented by the sunset from my observatory consoled
me for this disappointment. The evening vapours, like a light gauze,
tempered the brilliancy of the sun and half hid the vast expanse under
our feet, forming a belt of the most beautiful purple which embraced
all the western horizon, while to the east the snows of the base of Mont
Blanc, illuminated by the rich glow, offered a singularly magnificent
spectacle. As the vapour fell lower and condensed, this belt grew
narrower and deeper in colour until it turned blood-red, and at the
same moment little clouds which rose above it threw out so vivid a
light that they resembled stars or flaming meteors. I returned to
the spot after night had completely fallen. The sky was then per-
fectly pure and cloudless. The mist was confined to the bottom of
the valleys ; the stars, brilliant but without any trace of sparkle,
poured an exceedingly faint, pale light over the tops of the mountains,
which yet was sufficient to distinguish their groups and distances.
The peace and complete silence which reigned over this vast space,
magnified further by the imagination, affected me with a kind of
terror. I fancied myself the only survivor of the universe, and that I
was gazing on its corpse stretched at my feet. Sad as are ideas of
this description, they have a fascination which it is difficult to resist.

1 This is a proof that the guides had, on the previous occasion, really reached
the Dome du Gouter.

MONT BLANC 203

I turned my eyes more frequently towards these obscure solitudes
than towards Mont Blanc, whose brilliant and seemingly phosphor
escent snows still retained the sense of life and movement.' [Voyages,
401.]

Next morning, at the unfortunate suggestion of Bourrit, who
feared the cold, a start was not made till too late (6.15 A.M.).
The party was large, twelve in all, and naturally moved slowly.
Fresh snow, fallen two days previously, lay on the steep rocks
which form the face of the Aiguille. After five hours' climbing,
Pierre Balmat, de Saussure's leading guide, called a halt and went
ahead to reconnoitre . At midday he returned to report that there
was a great deal more fresh snow on the upper rocks, and a foot
and a half on the slopes leading to the Dome . It was consequently,
we are told, unanimously resolved to give up the expedition at a
point estimated by de Saussure as between 600 and 700 feet below
the top of the Aiguille. During the descent de Saussure lingered
to take observations . Arrived at the cabin, he found to his surprise
the Bourrits, father and son, preparing to descend to the valley.
De Saussure spent a second night comfortably in the cabin.
Thus ended an ad venture which, he tells us, made him resolve never
again to admit companions on a glacier expedition. Some cor-
respondence that has lately come to light more than explains his
resolve and supplies a humorous side to the story.

Shortly after his return to Geneva de Saussure learnt that very
exaggerated tales as to the perils that had been encountered
were running about the town. To him, always anxiously con-
cerned to prevent his wife and family being alarmed by his Alpine
travels, this was naturally no slight annoyance. But there was
worse behind. The legend ran that the cause of the party turning
back had been his own failure as a rock climber. These reports
were clearly traced to the Bourrits. De Saussure was not the
man to allow any perversion of fact to pass unnoticed. The
first letter he wrote to Bourrit has not been preserved, but the
rest of the correspondence sufficiently indicates its contents.
Bourrit replied with more daring than discretion :

' I could not but notice that the way in which you came down
was not the happiest. You might have fallen backwards, you might
have been hit by the rocks dislodged by the guides, whom you made
keep behind you, and we noticed the trouble they had to take to

204 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

avoid this. As to my mode of coming down, I followed the advice
of Gervais, who saw how impossible it was for me, with ruined boots
which had lost their heels, to keep myself from falling. I was forced
to put my feet in his footsteps ; and, if I rested on him, I took care
to do so as lightly as possible.'

Bourrit, with his usual fear of cold, had attempted to climb
the rocks in fur boots !

Having thus far tried to make out a case for himself, Bourrit
enclosed as a peace-offering an account of the expedition warmly
eulogising de Saussure. To this de Saussure replied as follows :

' My intention, sir, is not to cause you pain, but I was obliged to
take steps to put a stop to legends such as your own conversation
gave cause to apprehend. No one perhaps believes moite than I do
in the kindness and honesty of your heart, but I know very well also
that your flighty imagination often makes you see things in a false
light. If you could put aside this tendency, there is no reason why
you should not keep an agreeable recollection of our excursion. I had
every reason to be satisfied both with you and your son. The letter,
of which you furnished me a copy, seems to be excellent, except that
I am too much praised, which is not what I want. I can do very well
without praise, and I do not desire to be put in the foreground, but I
cannot — however, let us say no more. Do not be vexed, and I beg
you to get to work on a fine drawing of the Aiguille du Gouter which
may help to explain our expedition and may be engraved in the volume
I have in the press.'

Before Bourrit had had time to get this reply, his son Isaac
had fired off a long and singularly impertinent letter to de Saussure :
4 Sir,' he wrote, ' do you not envy me my twenty -one years ?
Who will wonder if a youth of this age, who has nothing to lose,
is bolder than a father of a family, a man of forty-six ? '

De Saussure 's reply is a model of the retort courteous :

' Monsieur, a moderate amount of boastfulness is no great crime,
especially at your age. This is all I charge you with, and your letter
is a fresh proof of it. You say you descended agilely. It is true, you
descended agilely enough in the easy places, but in the difficult places
you were, like your father, resting on the shoulder of one guide in front,
and held up behind by another. I don't blame you for these pre-
cautions ; they were wise, prudent, even indispensable ; but in no
language in the world is that style of progress styled agile climbing.

MONT BLANC 206

But enough. I have thought it right to put a stop to stories which
might have caused me annoyance, and of which I had heard sufficient
to give me reason to anticipate their spread ; but there is no call
for heroics on your part. One may proclaim oneself a little stronger,
a little more active, a little more courageous than one really is, and
yet be the most honest fellow in the world. The truth is that though
I recognised in you a slight tendency in this direction, I did not fail
also to find you very amiable, and I am glad to have made during
this excursion a closer and more intimate acquaintance with you than
I could have in my lecture-room. If you will not take too tragically
the very mild and gentle reproach I have made to you, there is no
reason why I may not retain an agreeable recollection of your company,
and that we should not be good friends for life. After what I have
written to you, sir, I am under no anxiety as to anything that you may
say or write, and am very far from asking you to show me your narra-
tive. On the contrary, I desire there may be an end to this discussion.'

Having delivered this adequate reprimand, de Saussure two
years later magnanimously referred in his Voyages to his com-
panions in the most friendly terms :

' In excursions of this sort I prefer always to be alone with my
glides, but M. Bourrit, who had been the first to call attention to
this route, having begged we should attempt it together, I consented
with pleasure. We even took with us his son, a youth of twenty-one,
whose talents promise him a highly successful career, and whose love of
botany and of the great objects that the Alps offer for our contempla-
tion have often led him in the footsteps of his father.' [Voyages, 1106.]

Further light is thrown on the parts played by the chief actors
in this expedition by the account given of it in Dr. Paccard's
notebook,1 which must be taken to represent the story told him
by the guides. De Saussure, we learn, was on a rope with a
guide in front and two behind ; Bourrit pere leant on the shoulder
of one guide and was held up behind by the collar of his coat by
another. In ascending, Bourrit fils hung on to a guide's coat.
Paccard remarks that de Saussure was tied ' like a prisoner ' by
a rope under his arms. The comment is suggestive, and illustrates
the attitude of the Chamoniards to the use of the rope. It was
practically ignored in the earlier glacier expeditions in the chain

1 Now in the possession of the Alpine Club. Extracts from it are printed in
Mr. C. E. Mathew's Annalsmof Montjilanc.

206 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of Mont Blanc, though it had been known and practised for two
centuries at Zermatt. On this occasion de Saussure was for
once roped in the proper way ; on several others the rope was
only uncoiled when one of the party was already in a crevasse.
On his return to Geneva de Saussure sent a full account of the
expedition to his sympathetic friend the Prince de Ligne. This
letter and the Prince's reply may still be read with pleasure :

' September 26th, 1785.

' Since your Excellency has shown your interest in attempts on
Mont Blanc, I promised you hi the last letter I had the honour to
write to you that I would send you news of that which I had planned.

' Not to keep you in suspense, I will begin by telling you that its
success was not complete, but nevertheless I reached a higher level
than any observer before me had in the Alps, and I satisfied myself
that in a more favourable season, starting from a higher point, and
with the aid of a good head and stout limbs, the top of the mountain
might be gained.

' You know, Monsieur, that Mont Blanc rises to about 2400 toises
above sea-level, and that at 1400 toises the region of eternal snow and
ice is reached. This thousand toises to surmount above the snow-
level had repulsed all who had attempted to climb to the summit of
the mountain. The brilliancy of the light, the oppression of the
air from which they described themselves to have suffered, and pos-
sibly moral causes, such as the weariness of a long march on steep
snowslopes and the dread of these immense solitudes, served to dis-
hearten them even in the absence of any real and actually insur-
mountable obstacles.

' M. Bourrit, who has long been eager for the conquest of Mont
Blanc, learnt last year that two hunters in the pursuit of chamois had
climbed two-thirds of these thousand toises by rocky ridges, which,
though above the snow-level, are too steep to remain snow-covered.
He wanted to attempt this route, but, since he started from the foot
of the mountain, fatigue and cold stopped him at the base of the rocks,
while two of his guides climbed to their top, and reported that they
had encountered great dangers in the ascent, but had found an easier
route on their return, and that with more time and help they could
have reached the summit.

' From the moment when this attempt led me to look on the thing
as possible I resolved to make another as soon as the season allowed
it. Unluckily, the snows accumulated during the hard winter of
1784-85, added to those which fell frequently during the cold and wet

MONT BLANC 207

summer that succeeded it, put off the undertaking till the middle of
September. At last the Chamonix guides, whom I had instructed
to keep a watch for the favourable moment, came to tell me that the
snows were melted. In consequence I gave M. Bourrit a rendezvous
at the foot of the mountain. For though, as a rule, I infinitely prefer
to make excursions of the sort alone with my guides, I could not
refuse to associate M. Bourrit — who had been the first to make known
this route — and his son in the enterprise.

' In order not to have to climb the whole mountain in one day
we had had built at the spot where the snows begin, at 1400 toises,
a little hut of flat stones. We carried up there straw, wraps, and
firewood. The Bourrits were somewhat inconvenienced by the rarity
of the air, but for myself, whom this air suits, I passed a delicious night.

' We started next morning in the finest weather possible. It was
the 14th of the month. We were accompanied by nine strong, brisk
mountaineers, who were as eager as we were for the success of the
attempt. Everything seemed to promise well for the result.

' We had, as I have already said, a thousand toises to climb, six
hundred of which were up extremely steep rocky ridges, and the rest
over fairly gentle slopes of snow and ice. We accomplished easily
the first two hundred toises, but as we mounted, the rocks became
steeper and less solid. These friable rocks, fractured by weather,
now broke away under our feet, now came away in our hands when
we tried to cling to them. ... To add to our trouble, the interstices
in the crags were filled by snow that had fallen two days previously
and masked the hard snow and ice that were often our footing. Still,
after five hours of this arduous march we had gained a height of some
five hundred toises along these ridges when the quantity of snow and
the increasing declivity drove us to hold a council as to whether we
should persevere in our advance. We sent the most active and boldest
of our guides to examine what remained to be done to gain the top
of the rocks. He brought back word that, having regard to the
amount of new snow, we could not reach the crest without danger
and extreme fatigue, and that there we should be forced to stop
because the upper part of the mountain was entirely covered with
a foot and a half of new snow in which it was impossible to advance.
His gaiters, covered with snow to above the knees, bore witness to
the truth of his story, which the amount of snow round us was enough
to prove. In consequence, considering the uselessness of going any
higher, we resolved unanimously not to push on.

' I observed the barometer, and the height of 18 inches 1 line f at
which it stood proved that we were about 1900 toises above sea-level,

208 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

and consequently on the level of the Peak of TenerifEe, a height no
physical observer had ever obtained on a European mountain.

' I made several observations of the thermometer, the hygrometer,
and the electrometer. I collected some interesting specimens, I ob-
served the structure and nature of these elevated crags, and we enjoyed
a view of immense extent and beauty, since we looked down on our
lake over the high ranges which separated us from it.

' These enjoyments did not, however, give us pure pleasure : our
satisfaction was marred by the regret at not getting higher and by some
anxiety as to our return. For, as you know, the descent is much more
dangerous than the ascent, and we had passed some pretty bad places
on the climb. Still, by proceeding cautiously and by making use of
the support of our guides, whose strength and courage were really
admirable, we returned safe and sound to our cabin, where I passed
another excellent night.

' But for the new snow we should certainly have got 100 toises
higher — that is, to the top of the rocks which are called the Aiguille du
Goiiter ; but we should have got there after midday, and we should
still have had 400 toises on the hard snows — it is true, by no means
steep, but of great extent. We could not, therefore, have reached the
summit of Mont Blanc even if we had met with no further obstacles.
Time would have failed us, because it is impossible to pass the night
at these heights, or to traverse in the dark any part of the route we
had done in the day.

* To reach this summit, then, it is essential to find some shelter
for the night at a higher point than ours, and to select a year when
the mountain is entirely stripped of snow [new snow is meant] by the
month of July, or at latest by the beginning of August, and even then
the enterprise will be pretty dangerous and always infinitely laborious.

' While climbing with so much fatigue these steep rocks I envied
the lot of aeronauts who rise to such great heights comfortably seated
in their gondolas, and I even speculated on the possibility of using
these aerial cars for attaining inaccessible peaks like Mont Blanc.
But I believe it would be very dangerous, since on high mountains
one is subject to violent and irregular gusts of wind which might break
the machine by driving it against the cliffs, and it would further be
needful to have very perfect means of control, in order to reach points
so precisely determined.'

The Prince de Ligne replied :

1 23rd October 1785.

' I am greatly interested in Mont Blanc, Monsieur, but not so
much as in you ! Your loss would be serious at any time. But

MONT BLANC 209

remember that at the present time above all you are too precious not
to be accountable for your life to Europe. We are about to lose
M. de Buff on ; another reason for taking care of yourself. How
will all the academic chairs be filled ? I really fear the Academy
will have to be reduced to twenty, for soon it will consist of nothing
but Cordons Bleus and Bishops.

' I believe that by dividing your expedition between three days
you might succeed, to the great advantage of your pursuits and to the
honour of your century. But once more take care lest Nature, to
revenge herself on you, does not catch you in the act. I can see
M. Bourrit offering to paint the scene ! I had suggested to him previ-
ously the second resting-place. Would it not be possible to approach
it by military methods ? If your workmen, your hunters, your
mountaineers exerted themselves, it seems to me that with spade and
axe it would be possible by slow degrees to smooth the rough places,
cut down your Aiguilles, destroy your summits, and construct little
platforms. If you only advanced ten toises a day, at the end of six
weeks you would be able to set out in the fine season and to succeed
without as much danger as you have already encountered, and we
poor mortals at your feet would pray for you, while you were treating
us de haut en bas.

' In return for mine, Monsieur, grant me always the honour of
your remembrance, which to-day, when I have received your sublime
letter, is more precious to me than you can imagine, since the letter
is clear and simple like yourself. If one could only trust what the
aeronauts tell us (but " a beau mentir qui vient de haut"), you might
take advantage of what they say as to the hot and cold temperatures
they constantly encounter. But with them it is an affair of minutes,
and you would not be able to stop long in these extraordinary altitudes.'

As has been shown, Chamonix men had on two occasions
overcome the cliffs of the Aiguille and advanced on the relatively
gentle snow slopes that lead towards the final cupola of Mont
Blanc. The prize, they must have felt, was almost within their
grasp. Accordingly, at the earliest possible moment, June 1786,
a well-planned attack on the mountain was made. Its first
object was to test the rival routes by the Montagne de la Cote
and the Aiguille. The Cote party climbed the Dome by its
northern slopes, thus avoiding the danger of avalanches on the
Petit Plateau. This route has never come into common use,
yet it is the only one on the northern side of the mountain that is
altogether safe from falling snow or stones. The two parties

o

met on some rocks near the top of the Dome, that from the Cote
arriving the earlier. Their united forces advanced to the foot of
the arete of the Bosses, which joins the summit of Mont Blanc
to the Dome du Gouter. But this crest seemed to them so
narrow and so steep that they believed it impossible to follow it.
Their decision is a typical instance of the reluctance of the
Chamoniards of that date to face the unknown. The ridge of the
Bosses, given calm weather and ordinary conditions, affords a
comfortable footpath. Mountaineers to-day walk up and run
down it with their hands in their pockets. We may, perhaps,
assume, though the excuse is not offered, that signs of a change
in the weather were already visible and affected the determination
to retreat.

It is difficult, no doubt, for the athletic climber of the twentieth
century to enter into the attitude of the early mountaineers
towards Mont Blanc. The youth who on a fine day walks up the
mountain by a trodden track is apt to wonder how the climb can
ever have been thought perilous. He may even dare to describe
it as ' a dull grind.' This point of view was not shared by the best
Chamonix guides I have known in the last generation. Men of
the widest experience, such as Frangois Devouassoud, have con-
fessed in such a phrase as ' One is always content to be back
safely from Mont Blanc ' their respect for the monarch of the Alps.
It is, of course, true that no climbing is called for on the ordinary
route ; a lame man, M. Jansen, was once dragged on a sledge to
the top ! But the great mountain has its moods, and it can be
terrible, as the list of its victims proves. I shall not forget a
morning of storm on the Aiguille du Gouter, when, wrapped in
Scotch plaids, W. F. Donkin and I rushed down the cliffs, through
mists which, urged by a south-west gale, raced past us in a wild pro-
cession. In a similar gale an Italian climber and two guides were
blown off the narrow crest of the Aiguille de Bionnassay. Sudden
fog and bad weather on Mont Blanc must always be a grave peril ;
the mountain is so large. In addition to these dangers, the first
adventurers, it must be remembered, had no sleeping quarters
above the snow level, they took a route up the final slope which was
at all times badly exposed to avalanches, and they habitually
neglected the proper use of the rope. At one spot on the ordi-
nary route — in crossing the Petit Plateau — there is still a

MONT BLANC 211

minor but appreciable risk from ice avalanches falling from the
Dome.

At this point another leading character in the drama of Mont
Blanc comes on the stage. Jacques Balmat was a young man
of twenty-four who owned a cottage near the Glacier des Bossons.
He was apparently not on very good terms with the men of the
chief hamlet, Le Prieure, who usually served as guides. He had
joined the Cote party uninvited, and his companions looked
somewhat askance on the intruder. On the return he separated
from them near the Grand Plateau under pretence of looking for
crystals. Towards evening clouds and darkness overtook him,
and, no longer able to follow his companions' track, he resolved to
spend the night as best he could in the snow. Daylight found
him not seriously the worse, and, the weather having recovered,
he spent the morning in examining the possible accesses to the
summit, which rose some 3500 feet immediately above him.
Having satisfied himself that he had discovered a possible route,
he returned without accident to the valley. His first idea was to
keep his discovery secret, probably with the very legitimate
intention of entering into communication with de Saussure and
selling it in the best market. But circumstances compelled him
to a different line of action. De Saussure and Bourrit were not the
only competitors in the field. There was another and, inasmuch
as he was actually on the spot and a born mountaineer, a more
dangerous one. Balmat learned that Dr. Paccard had an early
attempt on the mountain in view. He grasped the situation ;
his object was not only to climb Mont Blanc, but to be able to
produce decisive evidence to his success. He recognised that as
a companion Paccard would be an excellent witness, while at
the same time he might be trusted not to make any claim to
a share in the promised reward. Accordingly, Balmat made
haste to come to an understanding with the Doctor. Bad weather
delayed their start for three weeks, but on the 7th August they
slipped away separately from the valley and climbed to the
familiar bivouac on the top of the Montagne de la Cote. On
the following day, at 6.25 in the evening, after a climb of fourteen
and a half hours, they stood together on the top of Mont Blanc.
The conquest of the great mountain was achieved. Balmat
before starting had asked a friend to look out for him on the

212 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

snows, and the progress of the climbers during the final ascent
was followed and eagerly watched by the whole village.1
Amongst the watchers was Baron de Gersdorf, a German
traveller of scientific reputation, who fortunately happened to
be at Chamonix at the moment. Mr. Brand, an English
visitor, whose letters have been preserved, tells us the climbers
were seen by many people from Chamonix and other parts
of the valley with ordinary small telescopes. The Baron de
Gersdorf observed them through a good achromatic glass, so
as to be able to distinguish the identity of their persons. The
Baron made notes and drawings on the spot illustrating the
climbers' route. These notes have only recently been made
public, and provide very valuable evidence in the case.2 For,
strange as it may seem, no full and satisfactory report of the first
ascent of Mont Blanc from either of the two men who took part in
it had, until de Saussure's diary came to light, ever appeared.
Dr. Paccard shortly after his climb visited Lausanne and issued a
printed prospectus asking for subscribers to a narrative of the
expedition. A copy of this prospectus has survived and was repro-
duced in the Alpine Journal (vol. xxvi., 1912), but the promised
work has of late years been sought for in vain in every library in
Europe, and it is now generally assumed that it never reached
the printing-press.

The news that Mont Blanc had been climbed was promptly
sent down to de Saussure at Geneva by J. P. Tairraz, the Chamonix
innkeeper, by a special messenger, while Balmat himself arrived a
few days later (13th August) to claim his promised reward and to
offer his services for the future. He would appear on this occa-
sion to have placed himself at the disposal of Bourrit as well as of
de Saussure, for in June of the following year we find him writing
to Bourrit that the mountain is open, and urging him to hasten his
arrival. Immediately on receiving the great news de Saussure
instructed Tairraz to send a party of guides to build two huts —
one at the bivouac on the top of the Montagne de la Cote, the
second on the higher of the two Grands Mulcts crags — to make
smooth the rough places at the entrance to the glacier, and to

1 On his return Balmat learnt that his infant child had died during his absence.
This sad incident, which had escaped notice, is attested by the Register of Le
Prieure.

* See Dr. Diibi's work, Paccard wider Balmat (Berne, 1913).

MONT BLANC 213

arrange with Jacques Balmat to procure a staff of guides for the
ascent. De Saussure's name was not to be mentioned in con-
nection with these preparations, which were to be attributed to
the orders of an Italian nobleman1 — a step, doubtless, due to de
Saussure's habitual reluctance to arouse the anxiety of his family.
No time was lost. On 15th August he left Geneva, by his own
account in a state of high nervous excitement. He writes in his
diary : ' My head is so full of my project that it is a fatigue, and
almost an illness, if I leave off thinking of it for a moment. It
affects my brain so as to cause me an emotion that is very dis-
tressing. In short, it is a thorn that I must absolutely pluck out
of my foot.' On the 18th he was at Chamonix and ready to
start. Next day he called at Paccard's, and was disappointed to
find that ' ce diable de Docteur ! ' — as he calls him in his diary —
whom he had counted on to take observations in the valley
corresponding with his on the mountain, had gone off again in the
direction of Mont Blanc . De Saussure at first imagined he might
be trying to repeat the ascent. Next day, however, as he was
himself starting for the Cote, he learnt that Chamonix gossip had
alarmed him needlessly. The Doctor's object had been limited
to an endeavour to cross the crevasses of the upper Bossons
Glacier from the Montagne de la Cote to the foot of the Aiguille
du Midi. It was, in fact, an attempt to open the route now
always taken in ascents from Chamonix. For the moment the
attempt failed, but the fact that it was made by the Doctor and
his brother, a lawyer, with one guide, is perhaps the best comment
on Bourrit's depreciation of the Doctor's energy and climbing
powers. Before his own start de Saussure succeeded in finding
Paccard at home and in arranging with him and his brother for
the simultaneous observations he wanted being taken at Chamonix
during his ascent. In the afternoon the party, de Saussure and
his servant, Tetu — de Saussure's unfortunate valet had always
to share his adventures — with sixteen guides, set out for the
bivouac . At the end of thirty-six hours he was back at Chamonix,
driven down by the doubtful weather and the guides' advice.

On the 22nd August, the day after his return, de Saussure again
visited the Paccards, in order to give them further instructions in
the method of ascertaining heights by the use of the barometer.
1 The letter was, in fact, taken to Chamonix by an Italian traveller.

On this occasion Paccard p&re, the village notary, invited de
Saussure to dine with the family. This dinner is an incident of
historical importance in the annals of Mont Blanc, for if we have not
Dr. Paccard's printed Voyage, we get here a detailed account of
his expedition taken down from his own lips by de Saussure, a fort-
night after the events took place. De Saussure showed the value
he attached to the record by mentioning in his diary that he sat
up late in order to put it down in writing the same evening. I
give a literal translation of his notes, now published for the
first time :

' We discussed at length the Doctor's ascent of Mont Blanc. He
says that he found near the top large hailstones embedded in the
snow ; l that fresh snow is far more fatiguing to the eyes than the
old, and that this has been the cause of more than one failure. I
grasped Us route perfectly. After crossing the glacier he left well to
his left the chain of dark rocks [the Grands Mulcts], on which is my
second cabin, and swerved towards the foot of the Dome du Gouter,
called here the Gros Mont. He kept close to its foot, leaving it always
on the right. After a long ascent he found himself on a great plain,
or at least a very gently inclined snow-slope, and, turning to the left,
reached a kind of snowy bank planted between two lofty and per-
pendicular rocks, bare of snow. He passed over the top of the left-
hand rock,2 skirting the base of the summit of Mont Blanc and, having
thus borne a good deal to the east, turned again southwards to climb
the last slope, which is very steep and fairly hard. Still on the top
the snow seemed loose (tendre). It was easy to plant the barometer
as deeply as was desirable.

' From the top it is possible to descend the gentle slope on the
Val d'Aosta side and reach some rocks which rise in a sharp crest
[the Mont Blanc de Counnayeur]. He looked there for a possible
sleeping-place, but the wind was everywhere equally strong and cold.
He found at the foot of the last slope some loose stones on the snow
and higher up the two little rocks one sees from Chamonix, perhaps
some hundred paces below the top.

1 Compare L. da Vinci's note on his ascent of Mon Boso (see p. 7). The
occurrence is not uncommon. It is produced by the granular structure of the
ice and the melting produced by recent sunshine.

1 This passage fe conclusive as to the point — hitherto, I believe, unnoticed —
that in the first ascent Balmat and Paccard passed between the two Rochera
Rouges, while in de Saussure's ascent the route taken lay to the right of, and
over, both. This was obviously the easier passage Balmat in his letter of June
1787 reported to de Saussure that he had discovered (see p. 219).

MONT BLANC 215

' Four times the snow covering crevasses failed under their feet,
and they saw the abyss below them, but they escaped a catastrophe
by throwing themselves flat on their poles laid horizontally on the
snow, and then, placing their two poles side by side, slid along them
until they were across the crevasse. He thinks it would be an excellent
idea to take a ladder. The place where they met the most crevasses
was near the rocks on which my second cabin stands. He told me he
owed his success in part to the observations I made on the Buet on
the periodicity of fatigue and recovery. When they reached a con-
siderable height he noticed that he was obliged to take breath and
allow his strength to recover about every hundred paces, and as they
advanced more often, down to every fourteen paces ; but after a rest
his strength immediately came back, as I have also noted.

* It was midday before they were opposite my second cabin, although
they had started at 4 A.M. from the first, so if one starts from the
second one would gain greatly, and might reach the summit early in
the day. A curious observation on sunburn and snow-blindness is
that they did not come on till the next morning. They did not
descend without a halt, as has been alleged. They stopped before
midnight on the top of the Montagne de la Cote ; and up to that
point they did not suffer any inconvenience, but next morning, when
at dawn they set out to return to the Priory, the Doctor could not see
enough to find his path, and had to be led by the guide. He says it
may prove one of the inconveniences of sleeping en route that it may
lead to the eyes being weak on awaking. Anyhow, it is a suggestion
that one should take precautions against the brilliancy of the sun-
shine. He confirmed the statement that the ink in his bottle was
frozen in his pocket, and also some meat the guide had in his sack. He
thinks his hand was frozen at a relatively moderate temperature
because his skin glove had been wetted by his leaning on the ice.
His hand became black and insensible. He got rid of the blackness
by rubbing it with snow. He adds that his finger-tips are still numb.
He changed gloves with Balmat, who had a pair of fur gloves, and
the latter then also had his hand frozen ; it turned pale and was cured
by the same method of rubbing it with snow.

' He agrees with Pierre and Jacques Balmat in thinking that the
best time for ascents would be the beginning of June, because the
crevasses are choked and the winter snows are firmer than those
which fall in the summer months. The long days are another advan-
tage. The distant objects were not clear ; the accumulated vapour
seemed to form and settle on the horizon. When they reached the
plain which I have mentioned at the foot of Mont Blanc, they endured

216 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

great fatigue from the fact that the surface was covered with a thin
crust which alternately bore them and gave way under their steps.
The guide told him he could not persevere unless he (Paccard) was
prepared to take the lead from time to time and to break the snow,
and he did this all the way to the top. There they were exposed to a
bitterly cold west wind which affected their breathing. They sought
for temporary shelter below the final crest, but found the temperature
insupportable. They could only withstand the cold by keeping con-
tinually in movement. He had a compass, and he believed that on
the top its variation was different. I passed the rest of the evening
in writing this.'

These are the rough notes jotted down, in no very orderly
sequence, by one of the most accurate of men after listening to
Paccard's description of the incidents of the ascent, given a
fortnight after it took place. They now leap to light to con-
tradict finally the legend that was fabricated by Bourrit and
endorsed and embroidered by Alexandre Dumas, that Paccard
was an incompetent climber who was dragged to the top by his
brave companion. Surely it is time that the Alpine Clubs provided
for the erection beside the monument at Chamonix to de Saussure
and Balmat of some memorial to the village doctor.1

De Saussure lingered another ten days in the mountains,
during which time he made an excursion to Martigny and to the
foot of the Dent de Morcles. On his return to Chamonix the
weather continued broken, his servant fell ill, and with many
regrets he gave up the game for the year, venting his feelings,
when Mont Blanc shone down on his departure, by quoting in his
diary the lines of Horace (Satires, book ii. 7) :

' Poscit te mulier, vexat, foribusque repulsum
Perfundit gelida, rursus vocat.'
The jade invites you, plagues you, from her door
Drives with cold douches ; then calls back once more.2

In the hotel book at St. Martin he added to his name, ' on
return from his fourteenth visit to the glaciers.'

De Saussure's friends Pictet and Bonnet quickly spread the

1 For a full statement of the documentary evidence in this protracted con-
troversy and a fair summing up, readers must turn to Dr. Diibi's able and
exhaustive volume, already referred to, Paccard under Balmat (Berne, 1913).

2 It will be noted that, to fit the quotation better to his own case, de Saussure
leaves out the double accusative carried by the words quinque tcdenta in the
preceding line.

MONT BLANC 217

news of Dr. Paccard's and his companion's success in their
private correspondence and in communications to the public
journals. It reached England, and de Saussure's old friend,
Lord Palmerston, wrote, ' I congratulate you on the conquest of
Mont Blanc. I wish you had been the first to set foot on the
summit, a distinction to which you are so well entitled. I am
convinced, however, that we must wait till you arrive there before
our curiosity will be satisfactorily gratified.' It was not long
before the officious Bourrit also appeared on the scene as a mis-
chief-maker. It was a bitter blow to him that anyone should
have anticipated him in reaching the mountain he had so often
attempted ; had the conqueror been de Saussure, he might have
borne it better, but that an old acquaintance, the village doctor,
should have won the race drove him to fury. His vanity, always
the predominant trait in his character, was unfortunately in this
instance linked with a jealousy which led him to very unworthy
action. His first instinct on hearing the news was to endeavour
to discredit it. In writing to de Saussure he insinuated that the
ascent might not have been complete, that there might well be a
higher crest invisible from Chamonix beyond that on which the
climbers had been seen.1 Finding this argument untenable, he
set his busy pen to work with a double object — to assert his own
claim to be the real explorer of Mont Blanc, and to disparage as
far as possible his rival by giving the whole credit for the ascent
to the guide Balmat. He wrote a pamphlet which he sent to
many of the leading journals of the time. In this he recounted
at length his own previous adventures, and went on to represent
Paccard as having been led, or rather forcibly dragged, to the
top of Mont Blanc by his companion, who, after having himself
reached the summit alone, had to return some distance to
fetch him. This pamphlet (probably while still in manuscript)
was brought to de Saussure's notice shortly after his return to
Geneva, and he at once wrote to remonstrate with its author.
Bourrit's rejoinder has been preserved, and exhibits a deplor-
able mixture of obsequiousness and self-assertion. He found
it expedient, however, to add a postscript to his pamphlet in
which he made a disingenuous apology for the terms in which

1 Unpublished letter from Bourrit to de Saussure, written from Sallanches on
llth August 1786.

218 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Paccard had been mentioned. De Saussure acknowledged this
very inadequate withdrawal in the following note :

' Geneva, 19th October 1786. — I thank you a thousand times for
the fresh copies of your letter that you have sent me. The postscript
you have added will throw some balm on the wound the body of the
letter cannot fail to inflict on the Doctor, and if it is at my instigation
that you have written it, I am glad that I wrote to you, and thank you
for your compliance. The description of the Doctor's journey, what-
ever form it may take, will be read from one end of Europe to the
other, and I should have been sorry to have seen in it what must
have caused you pain. No doubt you would have replied, but you
would have suffered annoyance, and that is what I wished to avoid.'

De Saussure, whose object obviously was to prevent an
unpleasant controversy, had, we learn, written at the same time
to Paccard. The latter subsequently dealt with the matter by
supplying material for a controversial note in the Journal de
Lausanne (obviously edited by some ill-informed hand before
publication), and subsequently procuring to be published in the
same journal duly witnessed affidavits signed by Balmat con-
tradicting the main statements in Bourrit's letter.1

With the full facts now disclosed, it is, I fear, beyond doubt that,
in the words of de Saussure 's grandson, M. Henri de Saussure,
Bourrit was the prime author of the legend which was to be given
a world -wide circulation by Alexandre Dumas, the elder, on the
strength of an interview he had with Balmat over his bottle in a
Chamonix hotel forty-six years after the events described.2 Up
to the present moment this legend has been the only account
known to exist purporting to be derived from the mouth of one

1 See Journal de Lausanne, 24th February and 12th May 1787. In the earlier
note there is a blundering reference to Paccard's explorations under the Aiguille
du Gouter and a vague complaint that a rival has tried to obscure the Doctor's
exploit by disparaging as well as attempting to repeat it. Dr. Diibi suggests
de Saussure was here aimed at. But the relations between de Saussure and
Paccard at this moment, as related in de Saussure's diary, are inconsistent with
this explanation. Bourrit, who was at Sallanches on 13th August 1786, trying
to collect evidence to throw doubt on Paccard's ascent, must be the rival rebuked.
The suggestion that Paccard induced Balmat to sign a blank piece of paper,
which he filled up afterwards, is sufficiently refuted by the fact that the two
witnesses to the document were both men of character and position in the valley,
who would have been most unlikely to lend themselves to a patent fraud.

2 A few months after his conversation with Dumas, J. Balmat met with his
death while searching for gold on the slopes of Mont Ruan, above Sixt. The
curious circumstances are related by Sir A. Wills in The Eagle's Nest.

MONT BLANC 219

of the two climbers. After the publication of de Gersdorf's evi-
dence, it became impossible for any competent critic to treat the
Bourrit-Dumas legend as a credible narrative. Indeed Bourrit
himself in later years (1803) went more than half-way to withdraw
his statement.1 Fortunately, we are now in a position to confront
with it the report of the story told by Paccard at the time given
by de Saussure in his private diary.

It may be noted that it was fresh from listening to this first-
hand narrative, and after entertaining at Genthod Baron de
Gersdorf, the eye-witness of the ascent, that de Saussure wrote
to rebuke Bourrit for the version he was putting forward.

There was to be another year of impatience for de Saussure
and of anxiety for his wife. The winter, as will be related,
was shortened by a tour in Dauphine and Provence. When
summer came it was resolved to make the famous expedition
the occasion of a prolonged picnic in the mountains. In this
way the anxieties of a lengthy absence might be avoided, and
the adventure accomplished under the eyes of the assembled
family, who could watch every step in the climbers' progress. De
Saussure must be allowed to describe the start in the words of
his diary :

' On 28th June J. Balmat wrote to me that on the 26th he had
made a second attempt, and that despite the quantity of snow he had
almost got to the top, and that he would have reached it but for the
violence of the wind and an impassable crevasse. He ended by
saying he would return to the attack shortly by another and an easier
route, and that he would come immediately to bring me the news.2
He complained of having suffered more than the previous year from
the brilliancy of the snow and the keenness of the air ; his eyes, he
said, were painful, his face swollen, his skin peeling. It was true

1 See the edition of 1803 of his Guide-book to Chamonix, in which Bourrit
writes of the expedition as one in which Dr. Paccard took part, ' if he was not
himself the author of it.' There had been, in the interval, a coldness between
Bourrit and Balmat owing to the latter's complaint of delay on Bourrit's part
in handing over to him the full amount of the subscription raised in Germany
for Balmat's benefit.

2 Dr. Paccard's statement to de Saussure (p. 214), that in his ascent he passed
' between two lofty and perpendicular rocks bare of snow and over the top of
the left-hand rock,' proves, as I have already shown, that the first climbers
passed between the Rochers Rouges. The easier route hero referred to, used
in the second and third ascents (the three guides' and de Saussure's), was to
the right (west) and over the top of both rocks.

220 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

that he had taken no precautions, and it was natural that the days
being longer and the sun more powerful at this season he had been
more affected.

' I waited, then, his arrival with impatience ; all my instruments
were ready, and I was afraid that while he came to fetch me and I
was travelling to Chamonix, the weather might change and that I
might lose perhaps my only chance. My wife shared my feelings,
and we consequently fixed our start for Saturday, July 7th.

' It is with reason I say we, for we are six on this journey : my wife,
who imagines she will be less anxious at Chamonix, her sisters, who
will not leave her, and my two sons.1 We came into Geneva [from
Genthod] to sleep on Friday, intending to start very early next morning
and to get through in the day to Chamonix.

' On Saturday morning it poured ; it was late before we could load
up, so we did not get off from the town till 6.10 A.M. We took four
hours to Bonneville, where we found the fresh horses we had sent on
in advance. The weather was too bad when we got to Sallanches to
think of going on to Chamonix.'

On Sunday the weather was uncertain, and the party remained
at Sallanches, where Jacques Balmat met them, and Bourrit
appeared, having closely followed the party from Geneva. Madame
de Saussure sent a letter to her daughter by his return driver
to reassure her as to their prospects and to explain that their
delay was the fault of the weather, and ' not of the three sisters, or
of the black and jonquil hat, the most elegant in the world, which
is worn by your Aunt Tronchin.' a

' Monday, 8th. — Left Sallanches in charabancs at 7.10. The rain
began as we started, and got worse continually. We went on, how-
ever, and it fortunately stopped while we crossed on foot the Nant
de Joux, where we lost an hour and a half owing to the road being
destroyed by the torrent, and our ladies were obliged to be carried.
We lunched at Servoz while our horses baited, and after passing
with some difficulty the Nants of the valley, arrived at Chamonix
at 3.30. We had for companion on the road Jacques Balmat, who
met us on his way to Geneva to bring me the news of his second
attempt (this year) on Mont Blanc. He had started on the 4th with

1 His daughter, Madame Necker-de Saussure, who was in delicate health,
expresses in letters which have been preserved, her passionate regret at not being
able to be one of the party, and her eagerness for news of her father's success and
afe return.

* See portrait of Madame Tronchin, p. 256.

MONT BLANC 221

Cachat and Alexis Tournier. They slept at my first cabin, started
from there at 1.30 A.M., at 5 o'clock were opposite my second cabin,
at 10.30 A.M. at the foot of the last and great slope of Mont Blanc,
and at 3 P.M. on the summit, where the wind and cold did not allow
them to stop long. They were only seven hours in descending, and
J. Balmat, to whom I had sent a veil with which he covered his face,
did not suffer at all from the snow, while the others were inconvenienced.
' From this account I gathered that my huts were very badly
arranged, since I had for the first day only four hours, for the second
three hours and a half, and for the third ten hours of climbing.1 In
consequence, after many talks with Jacques and afterwards with
Pierre Balmat, I made up my mind to camp the first day on the top
of the Montagne de la Cote close to the glacier, which would take me
about five hours and a half, from there to the extremity of the last
cul-de-sac under the top of Mont Blanc, which would take seven hours
and a half, leaving four hours and a half on to the top. It was true
this involved sleeping on the snow, but they all think that under the
tent one will be well protected from the cold and that the snow will
not melt under the rugs and still less under the planks of the bed.'

Bourrit, who, as has been noted, had followed close in de
Saussure's footsteps, this time with his younger son, Charles, a
boy of fifteen, arrived at Chamonix at the same moment, ready for
any chance of accompanying, or following, his patron. But this
year he found there was to be no question of a joint expedition.
Bourrit might start six hours after de Saussure, twenty-four
hours after him, or when he saw his party on the top — he was
always changing his plans — but there was to be no companion-
ship above the snow level. In the valley de Saussure and his
household were friendly enough with ' the historiographer of the
Alps,' and the ladies were kind to his boy, who picked bouquets
for them. Bourrit hired a chalet in the meadows behind the
church at the foot of the Brevent, where he showed his pictures
and sold them, or hand -coloured prints, to the ' visitors to the
glaciers.' Of the three weeks of persistently bad or broken
weather that ensued we have very full details, owing to the survival
not only of de Saussure's diary, but of that of the younger Bourrit.
The fine intervals were all too brief for climbing purposes. Mont

1 Colonel Beaufoy, however, proved the contrary. He climbed Mont Blanc
from the second hut, and returned to it the same evening. De Saussure was
handicapped by his scientific baggage.

222 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Blanc appeared only in fleeting and splendid visions of sunset
rose, soon to wrap himself up again in his mantle of clouds. At
night a long mist -banner would float out from the summit, which,
when the moon rose behind it and shone through, showed white
and transparent in the centre with an orange ring. De Saussure
recognised that the particles of this apparently stationary cloud
were always changing, that it was formed by the condensation
caused by the chill of the snows rendering visible the moisture
carried by a warm wind.

Despite the frequent rainstorms which cut short their ex-
cursions, the three sisters seem to have behaved bravely.
' Madame de Saussure,' writes Madame Tronchin, ' had never
been in such high spirits.' The wet days were lightened by
the arrival of interesting travellers, or of parcels of books and
delicacies from friends at Geneva, which, de Saussure notes,
cheered up ' nos dames.' He could employ his time in testing
and improving instruments, or in getting himself into training
and ascertaining his pace by assiduously pacing measured distances
on the hillside opposite the hotel. He found 1500 feet an hour
was the most he could hope to keep up. When it was too wet,
which it generally was, he turned to the classics. Here is the
entry for one day :

' Tuesday, IQth. — I start with enthusiasm to read the Iliad, which
I had never read right through. I run over the Latin translation,
and when I come on a fine passage I look it up in the original, copy
it out, and even learn it by heart. About 11 I go with my son for
a walk under the Brevent to test myself and my boots on some steep
slopes, and return pleased with both. After dinner we drive to the
source of the Arveyron and find the glacier much advanced and its foot
very difficult of access.'

Between the storms de Saussure and his two sisters-in-law
would ride to the Glacier des Bossons, or walk to the source of
the Arveyron, at that time and up till 1860 an ice-cave on the level
floor of the valley . They even , greatly daring , made an expedition
to the Montenvers and enjoyed a gay picnic at Blair's cabin,
though the ladies could not be induced to go on the ice. They
took no less than four and a half hours to descend from the
Montenvers to Chamonix, and were terribly tired. But it must
be borne in mind that it was not till later that a mule -path was

MONT BLANC 223

made to the Montenvers. The old track was a very rough one.
The ladies made the best use of their stay among the mountains,
for which they were greatly pitied by their friends at Geneva.
They left, Bourrit records, greatly regretted by the villagers, on
many of whom they had bestowed friendly sympathy and sub-
stantial kindnesses.

In the fourth week of July the rains were still at their worst,
and Dr. Paccard's father, the notary, who was an elderly man,
having rashly started alone for Sallanches on official business,
fell off the plank over the torrent from the Griaz Glacier near
Les Houches and was drowned. The son, Dr. Paccard, was
absent at Courmayeur at the time, but hurried back on hearing
the news. He had started just before de Saussure's arrival
for the Italian side of Mont Blanc. De Saussure in his diary
remarks : ' I think he does not want to see me before my ex-
pedition,' and on his return adds, ' He seems to have taken pains
everywhere to have gone a little further and higher than I have
been.' These passing references do not seem to me to have any
significance beyond showing that de Saussure was human enough
to be at heart a little jealous of his precursor, as well as of the
climbing powers of the younger man.

The entries in the diary for the last days of July are as
follows :

' 29th. — In the evening the thermometer at 6 P.M. stands at 23°
Centigrade, and stones and dust can be seen blown off the Montagne
de la Cote by the violence of the south-west wind.

' BOth. — Same weather ! [He measures the speed of the clouds and
finds they move 12 degrees in 68 seconds — that is, about 60 feet a
second.]

' 3lst. — The weather at last promises well, and everyone prophesies
a fine spell. Mont Blanc at sunset is alternately rose and pale white ;
it returns, however, to rose, and the quiet clouds which rest on Mont
Blanc are also rose. The barometer mounts quickly. I make, there-
fore, all arrangements for a start, but keep the secret from my wife.
I go to see the Intendant and write up this journal.'

The new month brought at length a break in the clouds,
and the so much longed-for and dreaded moment arrived. The
summits cleared under a bright north-west wind, and on the
morning of the 1st August the great procession of eighteen well-

224 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

laden guides started. No pains had been spared as to equipment,
practical as well as scientific ; it included what nineteenth-century
mountaineers would have considered luxuries : a bed was pro-
vided, with ' mattresses, sheets, coverlet, and a green curtain,'
amongst the clothes were two green great-coats, two night-shirts,
and three pairs of shoes. Between a tent and a ladder in
the list of ' requisites ' appears a parasol and its case. De
Saussure and the faithful Tetu both rode on mule -back for the
first two hours. All Chamonix was there to see the party off —
with one exception. Who that was we learn from the happy
survival of a billet doux written by his wife on a thin sheet of
rose-coloured paper addressed to ' M. de Saussure at his first
bivouac,' and sent after him by a guide who had waited behind
to take up a forgotten parcel :

' A Monsieur de Saussure a son premier gite en me levant a onze
heures du matin :

' I, too, man cher ami, am very glad that Balmat stopped behind,
not so much for the sake of the pistol as that he may take you this
fresh mince-meat. I was really vexed about that you have, which has
been made for two days, though Babet assures me it is excellent.
But I shall be better satisfied that you have this as a supplement. I
thought much about it last night. I did not sleep much ; my poor
knees feel as if they had climbed the Montenvers from having so often
been up and down from my bed. Ah ! what a beautiful night it was,
what vows I made for this weather to last, you will believe ! I assure
you I am very well, very reasonable — as well as it is possible to be
when all one's happiness is on Mont Blanc. Ask my sisters if they are
not pleased with me. I assure you I should have been very sorry had
you not profited by this weather, since your heart is set on this expe-
dition. Anyhow, you are off, and in four days we shall all be happy,
if you take care of yourself. I count on your promises. I should
have liked this morning to have watched you start at the head of
your troop. I wanted to throw you kisses, but it seemed to me useless
to speak to you of it. I was often behind the green curtain, and yet
I managed to miss the moment to see you go off.

' The poor Englishman has a sharp attack of fever. His friend
came to consult me. I behaved like the doctor's wife ; I told Marian
to recommend them to make him drink a great deal, and not to take
James's Powders so often.1

1 Dr. Odier was eventually summoned from Geneva to attend to the patient,
whoso name is not recorded.

Route Map of

MONT BLANC

hY*\/* \ DomeduGouter' J JT ^7*

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•

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MONT BLANC 225

' I leave this note open so that Th6o may give you the thermometer
readings : he is careful in his observations. We looked well to see
you had forgotten nothing. Do not forget what you have left at
Chamonix, and let the remembrance bind you to take care of yourself.
My compliments to your companions. My sisters are out walking ;
they are very kind.

' I have no mischievous hand near me to fold my note the wrong
way in order to tease me about it. I have used rose-coloured paper
so that you may have something else than the white of the snows
to look at. Will you sleep well under your tent, mon cher ami ? I
trust so.'

Here follow Theodore's meteorological notes.

Madame de Saussure's anxiety during the following days was
greatly relieved by the ease with which the expedition's progress
could be followed from Chamonix through the telescope. She was
able to watch the steady and unbroken advance of the party,
to count its number, and to enjoy the emotion, almost too thrilling,
of seeing all gathered on the summit. From his bivouac on the
descent her husband sent down an express messenger to assure
her that all had gone well, and that his scientific objects had
been attained.

The Short Narrative, published at Geneva immediately after
the ascent, has been excellently translated in Whymper's Guide to
Chamonix. In the Voyages de Saussure added many graphic details
to it. The following story is compiled from his hitherto unpub-
lished manuscript diary and the Voyages :

' 1st August. — I start at 7.25 on a mule with Tetu and several of the
guides ; some of them propose to take a short cut by crossing the
Bossons.'

De Saussure was able to ride for two hours, but to a height of
only some 800 feet above Chamonix. As he climbed the long
ridge between the Bossons and the Taconnaz Glaciers he amused
himself by watching the little flocks of visitors, timorously clinging
to their guides as they crossed the plateau of the Bossons ; thus, as
he says, qualifying themselves to tell a pompous tale on their
return of the dangers they had run and the courage with which they
had surmounted them . Higher up the party came to a cave where
the guides had left a ladder and a long pole for use on the glacier ;

p

226 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the ladder was there, but the pole had been stolen. De Saussure
consoled himself with the jest it could not be called a highway
robbery (vol de grande route). The whole climb to the top of
the Montagne de la Cote took nearly six hours and a half. His
tent was pitched against one of the big boulders brought down by
the glacier, Whymper thinks from the Rochers Rouges. Three
of the guides went off to reconnoitre the entrance on the ice
and to cut steps. They came back three hours later to report
that the glacier was not too difficult. Marie Couttet, however,
had broken though the crust over a hidden crevasse, but as they
were luckily roped, Marie was held up between the other two.
They told the story very cheerfully, but the news spread gloom
over the faces of the other guides, despite some jests which they
launched at one another, and which the victims sometimes failed
to appreciate.

Next morning (the 2nd August) the start was delayed till
6.30 by disputes among the guides as to the distribution of their
loads, a cause of delay only too familiar to the explorers of the
Caucasus and the Himalaya of the present day.

' The entry on the glacier proved easy, but soon one plunges into a
labyrinth of siracs divided by great crevasses, some entirely open, some
choked with snow, others crossed by frail arches which are the only
safe means of traversing them. In places a narrow ice -ridge serves as
a bridge ; when the crevasses are absolutely open one is obliged to
descend into the bottom and climb the opposite wall by means of steps
cut in the hard ice. There are moments when it seems that it must be
impossible to find a way out. Yet as long as the ice is bare, however
narrow the ridges, however steep the slopes, these brave Chamoniards,
whose heads and feet are equally firm, show no sign of fear, or even
anxiety — they talk, laugh, joke between themselves ; but when the
track lies across these vaults hung over hidden abysses one sees them
marching without a word, the three in front tied together by ropes at
a distance of five or six feet apart, their eyes fixed on their feet, and
each placing his foot exactly in the steps of his predecessor. It was
above all at the spot where Marie Couttet had broken through that
this sort of alarm culminated. The snow had suddenly failed under
his feet, leaving a hole six or seven feet in diameter and laying open a
chasm of which neither the sides nor the bottom were visible, and that
in a place where there was no visible sign to give the slightest warning
of danger.' [ Voyages, 1973.]

MONT BLANC 227

Nearly three hours were spent in this formidable icefall.
Then steeper but less treacherous slopes of snow led up to the foot
of the lowest of the crags since known as the Grands Mulets. After
a short rest on the rocks the party, profiting by a snow-bridge
which was likely to fall later in the season, swerved to the right
and then back again to the higher block of the chain of rocks,
that on which a second cabin had been built.

De Saussure's guides now compelled him to a long halt. They
were very averse to sleeping on the snow, and their object was to
delay him so that they might not get before nightfall into a region
where there were no rocks. However, it was only eleven when
they started again. De Saussure had spent the time in examining
the nature of the rocks and admiring the broken masses of the ice
that tumbles from the recess under the Aiguille du Midi. As the
climbers advanced, portions of the Lake of Geneva, with the town
of Nyon, came into view, and the ranges of Faucigny gradually
sank below the horizon, the Aiguille Percee du Reposoir being
the last to dip beneath the blue line of the distant Jura. * Each
victory of this sort was a matter of rejoicing to all the caravan,
for nothing is so cheering and encouraging as a clear proof of
progress.'

De Saussure proceeds in his diary :

' One rests from time to time on one's pole, but a few minutes
are enough ; the caravan marches slowly because it does not wish to
go faster ; they rarely make more than thirty steps without halting
to take breath ; still they only sit down every half-hour.'

They now came to the edge of a vast crevasse.

' Although it was more than a hundred feet in breadth one could
nowhere see the bottom. At the moment when we were all collected
on its brink admiring its depth and observing the courses of its snowy
walls, my servant, from I know not what distraction, let slip the pedestal
of my barometer which he had in his hand. It slid with the swiftness
of an arrow down the sloping wall of the crevasse and planted itself
at a great depth in the opposite side, where it remained fixed and
quivering like the lance of Achilles on the bank of the Scamander. I
was extremely vexed, for this pedestal served not'only for the barometer,
but for a compass, a telescope, and several other instruments. But
without hesitation several of the guides, seeing my vexation, offered
to recover it, and when the fear of imperilling them made me hesitate,

228 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

protested that there was no risk. In a moment one of them tied the
rope under his arms and the others let him down to the pedestal, which
he snatched and brought up in triumph. During this operation I
was doubly anxious, first for the guide who was roped, next because,
being in view of Chamonix, whence with a telescope our movements
could be watched, I feared they would have their eyes fixed on us and
be sure to imagine it was one of us who was lost in the crevasse whom
we were trying to rescue. I learnt afterwards that at that moment
they were fortunately not looking at us.* [Voyages, 1978.]

Having crossed this obstacle by a perilous bridge, they reached
by a steep slope the highest but one of the rocks of the Grands
Mulcts chain, which on his return de Saussure named the Rocher
de 1'Heureux Retour. Here they arrived at 1.30 and dined in the
sunshine with good appetite. Water was wanting, but the guides,
by throwing snowballs against the warm rocks, soon procured an
adequate supply.

' This isolated rock surrounded by the snows seemed to the guides
a Palace of Delight, a Garden of Calypso ; they could not make up
their minds to leave it, and were determined to pass the night here.
They had only sought it with that object, for it is off the route. They
fancied that during the night the cold on these vast snowfields must
be absolutely insupportable, and they were seriously afraid that they
would perish. I only persuaded them to go on by promising I would
dig a large hole in the snow, in which I would set up the tent, and
we would all sleep inside it.'

Half an hour later they came to the ' First Plateau ' [now
known as the Petit Plateau]. On the left de Saussure admired
' the vertical position of the strata in the cliffs of the Aiguille
du Midi ; on the right, close at hand, the rounded head of the
Dome du Gouter, crowned by a tier of icy cliffs, presented a mag-
nificent spectacle. In front was Mont Blanc.

' The rocks on its left we call [at Geneva] the Staircase of Mont
Blanc [the Monts Maudits], supported cliffs of the most brilliant
snow. We took twenty minutes to cross this plateau, which seemed
to us very long — for since the guides' last ascent it had been swept
by two enormous ice -avalanches, and we had to cross their debris in
fear of being overtaken by another.1 I noticed that the lowest portion

1 I have, in three ascents of Mont Blanc, crossed the Petit Plateau, and never
without being obliged to traverse the remains of a fairly recent avalanche. This
is the chief danger-spot on the ordinary route up Mont Blanc, but accidents
have been fortunately rare. In 1891, however, five of a party of seven were

MONT BLANC 229

of the ice-cliff next to the rocks is ice, harder and more compact than
that of glaciers in ordinary, and I recognised all the gradations between
snow and ice, for the top of each block is snow. Some blocks — not less
than twelve feet in diameter — had travelled far without breaking up.
One cannot but reflect in passing on the danger from these avalanches,
a danger one would not naturally anticipate, as the foot of the cliff
is at some distance and the slope below it gentle. The violence and
mass of the fall must be enormous to carry the blocks so far.'

An hour's march up a slope of 34°, broken by a splendid
crevasse, brought the party to the lower verge of the second,
now called the Grand Plateau. It was four o'clock, and with
many misgivings as to hidden crevasses, they began to look about
for a site for a camp. They finally fixed on a spot a hundred
yards from the top of the slope.

Directly the guides set to work to dig a platform in the snow
they began to suffer from the rarity of the air, and had to rest
after every five or six spadefuls had been lifted. De Saussure
found himself exhausted by making some barometrical observa-
tions. While waiting for the tent to be pitched they were all very
wretched : those who worked felt sick, those who rested suffered
from the cold. All were exceptionally thirsty, but had to wait
till some snow had been melted on the fire that was successfully lit.

The plateau on which they found themselves led to a cul-de-sac.
To the east were the rocks passed in the ascent, to the west a
gentle slope leading to the Dome du Gouter. The morrow's
route and the very steep slope to be climbed were full in view.1

De Saussure describes the scene, the complete environment
by dazzling snows, the whiteness of which contrasted with the
dark blue of the heavens, the cold and the silence. He takes the
occasion to pay a tribute to his predecessors.

' When I pictured to myself Dr. Paccard and Jacques Balmat
arriving in the decline of day in this desert without shelter, without
hope of succour, without even the assurance that man could live at
the height they were aiming at, and yet persevering undaunted in
their adventure, I admired their resolution and their courage.'

swept by an avalanche into a crevasse, and two of them perished. Whymper's
assertion that avalanches seldom, if ever, extend right across the plateau must
therefore, not be trusted.

1 De Saussure writes of three plateaux. Whymper failed to recognise that
he divides what is now called the Grand Plateau into a second and a third plateau.
There is a rise of some 160 feet in the middle of the Grand Plateau.

230 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

After a rest three of the guides went off in the direction of
the Dome du Gouter to collect rocks, and, on their way back, to
cut some steps for next day. They found a crevasse which had
hindered them on the previous ascent was choked, but reported
the slope to be very hard and steep.

The tent once pitched, all the guides crowded in, and after an
early supper, 'eaten with appetite but digested with disgust/
de Saussure prepared to endure what proved a ' detestable night —
sickness, colic, close atmosphere produced by twenty heated and
panting inmates.'

' I was obliged to go out in the middle of the night for fresh air.
The magnificent basin, glowing in the light of the moon which shone
with the greatest brilliancy in an ebon sky, presented a superb spectacle.
Jupiter rose radiant behind the Aiguille du Midi, and the glow reflected
from the snows was so brilliant that only stars of the first and second
magnitude were visible. After midnight, as we were dropping into
sleep, we were awakened by the roar of a great avalanche which
covered part of the slope we had to follow on the morrow.'

Daybreak at last brought the long penance of night to a close.
The guides as usual were slow in moving, and then water had to be
melted, so that it was 6 A.M. before the party set off. Pioneers
were again sent in front to prepare a path. De Saussure writes :

' After having crossed the second plateau, at the entry to which
we had slept, we mounted on the third, and in half an hour reached
the foot of the great slope which runs towards the east over the rock
which forms the left shoulder of Mont Blanc.'

De Saussure, whose personal experience of the effect of the
rarefied air on Mont Blanc contrasts markedly with his subsequent
immunity on the Col du Geant, was already distressed, and had
to halt every thirty steps for a few moments to regain breath.
After forty minutes' climb the party came on the track of the
avalanche that had fallen in the night,

' and each of us made to himself his own reflections. Pierre Balmat
said to me very politely that I must recover my breath and try to cross
the avalanche track without halting. I, who felt the impossibility of
complying, answered him with equal politeness " that the safest spot
was where the unstable snows had just fallen " ; and we took breath
twice in crossing. The slope now became steeper, and we had to cross
a crevasse at the corner of a sirac which barred the passage. This was

MONT BLANC 231

one of the worst places ; the slope is 39°, the precipice below is frightful,
and the snow, hard on the surface, was flour beneath. Steps were cut,
but the legs insecurely placed in this flour rested on a lower crust which
was often very thin, and then slipped. Here I found the pcle held by
two guides as a balustrade for me on the side of the precipice was of
great service.' [Diary.]

This steep ascent, known henceforth as the ' Ancien Passage,'
lasted for two hours before the party gained the little depression
or col between the eastern shoulder and the final cupola of Mont
Blanc.

' Immense view of Italy, but sickness. I eat some bread
and frozen beef, raw and nasty, and drink some water which
had been carried up for me.' There now remained to climb
only some 900 feet up a moderate slope, free from any difficulty
or danger. But de Saussure 's sufferings from mountain sickness
became acute, he felt faint and dizzy, his legs failed under him,
between every fifteen or sixteen steps he had to rest on his stick.
The only palliative was to face and inhale the fresh northern
breeze.1 The party spent two hours on this last slope, for which
Whymper's Guide allows fifty minutes.

' Since,' writes de Saussure, ' I had had for the last two hours
under my eyes almost all one sees from the summit, the arrival was no
coup de thldtre — it did not even give me all the pleasure one might
have imagined ; my most lively and agreeable sensation was to feel
myself at the end of my uncertainties ; for the length of the struggle,
the recollection and the still vivid impression of the exertion it had

1 See sec. 559 in Voyages. There de Saussure lays down about 12,000 feet as
the height at which he and the majority of dwellers in mountain districts begin
to feel the results of the rarity of the air directly they undertake any exertion,
mental or physical. It may be worth noting that in the first two ascents of
Elbruz, 18,500 feet, one on a windy the other on a still day, both made by moun-
taineers in good training, no one suffered on the windy day, while all more or less
suffered on the still day. In the Alps Mont Blanc is exceptional with regard to
mountain sickness. The continuous, monotonous snowy treadmill of the ascent
may partly account for this. On Monte Rosa very few cases of sickness are
recorded ; nor, as a rule, do climbers suffer inconvenience elsewhere in the Alps.
It is noteworthy that since fair quarters have been provided on Mont Blanc
much less has been heard of serious indisposition on the part of travellers
and guides. The men who slept at the Vallot hut, while employed to
build Jansen's hut on the top, climbed the last slope at a great pace :
experio crede. I once tried to keep up with them in order to conceal
from too inquisitive telescopes in the Guides' Bureau that in our party of three
there was only one guide, a breach of the local regulations.

232 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

cost me, caused me a kind of irritation. At the moment that I trod the
highest point of the snow that crowned the summit I trampled it with
a feeling of anger rather than of pleasure. Besides, my object was
not only to reach the highest point, I was bound to make the observa-
tions and experiments which alone gave value to my venture, and I
was very doubtful of being able to carry out more than a portion of
what I had planned.

' Still the grand spectacle I had under my eyes gave me a lively
pleasure. A light haze suspended in the lower layers of the atmo-
sphere hid, it ie true, the more distant and low-lying objects, such as
the plains of France and Lombardy,1 but I did not greatly regret this
loss ; that which I came to see, and now recognised with the greatest
clearness, was the order of the great ranges of which I had so long
desired to ascertain the grouping. I could hardly believe my eyes,
it seemed a dream, when I saw under my feet these majestic peaks,
these formidable Aiguilles du Midi, d'Argentiere [Aiguille Verte],
du Geant, of which I had found even the bases so difficult and dan-
gerous of approach. I seized their connections, their relation, their
structure, and a single glance cleared away doubts which years of
work had not sufficed to remove.' [Voyages, 1991.]

It is noteworthy that de Saussure, bent as he was on a crowd
of scientific inquiries and hampered by physical discomforts,
was yet able to appreciate the splendour of the spectacle. For,
despite its frequent disparagement by more or less exhausted
tourists, Mont Blanc offers to those who have eyes to see a unique
panorama. On the east the great group of the Aiguille Verte and
Grandes Jorasses presents in the foreground a noble and imposing
sheaf of summits : beyond, the forested slopes and green alps of the
Valais separate the peaks of the Oberland from the Pennine snows ;
to the south the depths of Val d'Aosta, seamed with a thinnest
ribbon of straight white road, divide the Grand Combin and Monte
Rosa groups from the silver shield of the Ruitor and the sharp
spears of the Graians. Away to the south-west the golden cornfields
and green meadows of the Val d'Isere above Grenoble bask in
the midday sunshine, fenced by the distant crags of Dauphin^.
Turning towards the north-west the heights of the Jura lie like a
blue ribbon across the landscape, separating the Swiss lakes and

1 No part of the plain of Lombardy or Piedmont is visible from Mont Blanc,
nor is Mont Blanc seen from the Piedmontese plain. The Grand Paradis is often
taken for it. The mountain is well seen from the railway near Macon.

MONT BLANC 233

lowlands from the plains of Burgundy and Franche-Comte, which
stretch out in faint amethystine spaces that melt into the far-off
horizon. There are doubtless many more picturesque summit-
views in the Alps . But for an equally impressive and suggestive
panorama the climber must go to the Caucasus or Sikkim.

De Saussure in his manuscript diary gives a prodigious — to use
his own favourite adjective — list of the work he accomplished
in the four and a half hours he spent on the top of Mont Blanc,
and concludes it with the following sentence :

' My work would have been far more complete had I been in any
ordinary situation, and I venture to boast that it needed no common
effort to accomplish what I did in the condition I was. Despite the
delight which this superb spectacle gave me, I felt a painful sense of
not being able to draw from it all the profit possible, and that my power
of appreciation was limited by my difficulty in breathing. I was like
an epicure invited to a splendid festival and prevented from enjoying
it by violent nausea.

' At length the clouds which had gathered under my feet about the
tops of the lower mountains began to collect round Mont Blanc. The
fear of taking as long to go down as I had to mount forced me, at
3.30 P.M., to leave this post which I had so long wished to reach. I
went with a regret in my heart at not having got all the advantage
I had hoped out of it. For though I had set to work first on what
seemed to me of the greatest interest, I counted what I had done but
little compared to what I had hoped to do.'

To the top of the Rochers Rouges the party took under an
hour :

' Here began the trying part of the descent. The view of the
precipices was rendered more alarming by a burning sun which shone
in my eyes and softened the surface of the snow which was our sup-
port. From the top to the camp took us half the time it had in
mounting, and that without any exhaustion, which proves it is the
pressure on the chest from lifting the knees which causes the enormous
fatigue one feels in going uphill. An hour more brought us to a
rock I call the " Rocher de 1'Heureux Retour." It was 7.15, and I
determined to sleep there. We pitched our tent against the southern
end of the rock in a truly singular situation. It was on the snow and
at the edge of a great crevasse which cut it off from a very steep
slope falling towards the great hollow under the rocks of the Dome.
This rock is opposite what we call from Geneva the third staircase

234 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of Mont Blanc [Mont Blanc de Tacul] ; it is not the highest of the
isolated chain — there is another, reddish in colour, separated from it
by the snowfield and hah* buried. I search for lichens and find some,
also some moss, a gramen, and a pretty bunch of Silene acaulis.

' The clouds assembled, or rather scattered, in the valleys and
on the mountains below us produce the most singular effect ; they
resemble towers, castles, giants, the strangest shapes in place of the
level slabs one sees from the plain. Above these clouds we see the Jura
bordered by a red ribbon made up of two bands, the lower the darker,
almost blood-colour, while from the upper springs a flame like an
aurora, irregular, clear, and mottled. From here the top of the
Reposoir (the Aiguille Percee) was just level with that of the Jura.

' Next morning start at 6.15 for the final descent. Pass the cabin
built the previous year. Very frail bridge — one of the guides who
quits our steps goes through with one leg. Slope of 50° to avoid
some crevasses that have opened. Then into the thick of the glacier,
difficulties in path-finding, wanderings to and fro, ladder frequently
in use. I note on the glacier some traces of red snow, but I saw not
the least vestige of it above the upper cabin ; the upper snows are of
the purest white, and though there is dust in places, it is the grey dust
detached by wind from the neighbouring rocks.

' We saw no insects or flies or birds, the last living thing I noticed
was a little grey moth on the first plateau. However, one was seen
near the top of Mont Blanc. At last, very impatient of the long
march on the glacier, we touch land at half -past nine. Slip of one of
the guides, who nearly tumbles into a crevasse and loses one of the
sticks of my tent. A great icicle falls with a crash into a crevasse,
shakes the glacier, and frightens all my troop. I find M. Bourrit,
who hoped to make the ascent, but the guides refuse. Sunday mass
and weariness call them home.

' I descend to Les Monts, where I meet the mules and ride in an
hour and twenty minutes to Le Prieure. Great emotion and tender
embraces with my wife, my sisters-in-law, and Madame Necker de
Germagny [his daughter's mother-in-law].

' I am not tired, only a little stiff, and the enormous descent of
to-day accounts for that ; my eyes are quite right, and I am but little
sunburnt, though the bad condition of the Glacier de la Cote forced me
to take off my veil in order to see to my footing.' l

1 De Saussure paid his guides for the ascent, including J. Balraat, five louia
each. In previous years de Saussure in his journal notes that on ordinary
tours he paid his guides four livres de Pi&mont a day, withoiit food, which he
thought dear.

MONT BLANC 235

A day or two later de Saussure 's Bernese friend and corre-
spondent Wyttenbach met at Servoz the Happy Warrior on his
return. He describes how de Saussure rushed into his arms
with the exclamation : ' Congratulate me : I come from the
conquest of Mont Blanc.' After all, de Saussure had the feelings
of a climber as well as of a philosopher !

It was no doubt on reading the first account of his success
that Madame Necker was drawn to address to de Saussure (with
whom she had recently become connected by his daughter's
marriage to her nephew) her congratulations :

' We have trembled while following you among precipices and perils;;
you have made us experience all the feelings of hope and fear which
render the life of the chamois-hunter at once so delightful and so
terrible ; we have fancied ourselves enjoying with you the magnificent
spectacle with which you were greeted when, a modern Enceladus,
you scaled Mont Blanc.

' You have lifted my soul, Monsieur, by showing me these store-
houses of the world, and I continually grieve at the weakness which
hinders me from following in your footsteps. But my imagination
supplies my lack of strength. While I read you I hear the dull roar
of avalanches and the palpitations of the electric current. Full of
terror and admiration I see at times in the distance the grave of the
rash hunter, I watch his shade wandering peacefully in these solitudes,
and feel that I envy him. I imagine that I could wish to end my
days in these quiet retreats beside M. Necker, so as to render a last
homage to Nature and to married love, the only things that remain
to us in the wreck of all the illusions of life. We have shuddered to-
gether over your dangers while admiring your courage ; and, remember-
ing the ties that attach us to you, we feel we have a right to urge
you to take care of a life very dear to us.'

Bourrit, who, forced by the guides' refusal, had returned to
Chamonix with de Saussure, very pluckily started again next
day for the bivouac, but, with his habitual bad luck, met with a
break in the weather. His equally habitual impatience again
betrayed him. The break was but a passing storm. His guides,
he tells us, held a debate about waiting at the bivouac or returning,
but what decided the question was his having some dust blown
into his eye. His son states that his father's eyes suffered from
exposure to the rough weather. This incident is accounted for by
Mr. Mark Beaufoy, the young Englishman who on the 8th of

236 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

August, only five days after de Saussure's ascent, climbed Mont
Blanc. He mentions that he picked up on the mountain Bourrit's
blue spectacles and made use of them.

Sleeping at de Saussure's second cabin — which de Saussure had
made no use of — Beaufoy reached the top at 10.30 A.M. and stayed
there two hours, thus proving that de Saussure's original project
for dividing the day's work was a very feasible one. Paccard,
in the memoranda relating to ascents of Mont Blanc which he
left behind him, remarks that Beaufoy walked like a guide.

Poor Bourrit, who is recorded to have wept on witnessing de
Saussure's arrival on the summit, lingered on at Chamonix only to
watch and chronicle his rivals' successes, and to prepare ladders
for another attempt that never came off. He found some dis-
traction in conversing with Beaufoy's young wife. The help she
was able to give her husband in writing out his observations filled
Bourrit with admiration for the education of Englishwomen.1
But Beaufoy himself disappointed the sentimental Precentor.
For when on being asked in his wife's presence if his first thought
on gaining the summit had been of her, he replied, ' Not at all.'
In matters of the heart Englishmen are apt to do themselves
injustice in the eyes of members of less reticent nationalities, who
do not realise that still waters may run deep.

Beaufoy was a man of scientific tastes and attainments, and
a paper on his ascent was read before the Royal Society on
the 13th December of the same year.2 He appears to have
been more successful than Sir William Hamilton in calling
the attention of the Society to the eminent claims of his pre-
decessor, for in the following year de Saussure was admitted to a
seat on its benches. But though Beaufoy himself became a
Fellow, his paper on Mont Blanc was not considered worth printing
in the Transactions of that learned body. Nor did the Relation
Abregee receive that honour.

Colonel Beaufoy — as he afterwards became — kept up his
interest in science and exploration throughout his life. In 1818

1 Bourrit asserts that Mrs. Beaufoy was only nineteen. She had, however,
been married three years, and had two children.

8 The paper was reprinted from the original manuscript, in the possession of
the Royal Society, in the Alpine Journal, vol. xxix. (1915). It had previously
appeared in the number for 18th February 1817 of The Annals of Philosophy, a
scientific magazine.

MONT BLANC 237

he published articles on the North-West Passage and on the pos-
sibility of reaching the North Pole. He died in 1827, and is buried
in Stanmore Church, where an inscription records his services to
astronomy and the science of navigation.

We shall meet Bourrit again on the Col du G6ant. But
his last climb on Mont Blanc calls for an honourable mention
here. In the following year, 1788, he renewed his assault as a
member of a combined — it may almost be called an international —
expedition . His companions were an Englishman named Woodley
and a Dutchman named Camper. The weather was broken
and the wind high. The Englishman and his guide alone got to
the top. Bourrit, whose slow pace soon left him in the rear,
gave in, after a plucky struggle, at the last rocks, the Petits
Mulets, only 400 feet below the summit. His failure supplied
the ' Historiographer ' with material for a spirited narrative, in
which he almost persuades his readers — and quite persuaded
himself — that he had, for all practical purposes, attained the
long-sought goal.

De Saussure lost no time on his return in giving to the public
an account of his ascent. A brief preliminary note in the second
number of the newly-founded Journal de Geneve was followed
within a week by the carefully drawn up Relation Abregee,
subsequently incorporated in the Voyages. Geneva, which
seems to have paid but little attention to the conquest of the
mountain by the two Chamoniards in the previous year, was
thrilled by the success of its illustrious Professor. Now when
the Geneva of the eighteenth century was thrilled, politically
or otherwise, it made a practice of bursting into rhymed prose.

By such an event as the conquest of Mont Blanc the local
Muse, not, it must be admitted, a frequenter of the heights of
Parnassus, was naturally roused to make special efforts. Several
of the poems written for the occasion survive, notably a long
tribute or Hommage to de Saussure composed by a minor play-
wright of the period named Marignie.1 For the benefit of the
curious I have appended at the end of this chapter extracts from
this and other compositions of a like character. In these the
reader will find a harrowing description of the terrors of Madame

1 ' Hommage & M. de Saussure sur son ascension et ses experiences physiques
au sommet du'lMont Blanc.'

238 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

de Saussure and the anxiety of her sisters while they watched the
progress of the climbers, a picture, it must be said, hardly borne
out by the letters already printed. He will be amused by striking
specimens of the passion for puerile allusions to the Classics, which
infects the political pamphlets of Geneva, and would seem to have
been a principal result of the system of teaching de Saussure tried
in vain to reform. In the rival suggestions to attach a personal
name to the great mountain he may recognise an echo both of
the political controversies of the moment and of the personal
jealousies of Bourrit.

NOTE

VERSES ON DE SATTSSURE's ASCENT OF MONT BLANC

I give here a few short extracts from three of the copies of verses
called forth by the early ascents of Mont Blanc. The first of these,
Marignie's tribute to de Saussure, extended to 112 lines. The passage
describing de Saussure's start and the emotions of his family may serve
as a specimen of its style. I leave out five lines devoted to Madame de
Saussure's telescope, ' ce tube qu'approche 1'objet qu'eloigne la distance ' :

' II marche ; vingt chasseurs ardens, pleins de courage,
Guides des curieux dans ce sejour sauvage,
Partagent avec lui ses travaux perilleux :
On dirait des Titans escaladant les cieux.
Son 6pouse elle est la, melee aux spectateurs,
Sur son epoux sans cesse elle a fixe sa vue
Sa presence soutient son ame suspendue
Et son eloignement la livre a la terreur. . . .
Elle le voit, s' eerie, et dans sa joie extreme
Appelle a 1'observer les doux objets qu'elle aime
Et ses fideles soeurs et ses fils cheris ;
Sa fille manque seule a ses sens attendris.'

The conclusion is an appeal to the public of a kind that has been
more than once made since by indiscreet climbers, or their admirers,
eager to use mountains as personal monuments.

' Si, courant a la hate, entraine par le zele,
Soudain j'ai celebre cette gloire nouvelle
Je demande pour prix que le nom du vainqueur
S'attache au mont fameux qu'a franchi son ardeur,
Que par ma voix il parvienne a la race future
Par6 d'un nom plus beau, du nom de Mont Saussure.'

MONT BLANC 239

This foolish, if well-meant, suggestion called forth, as was to be
expected, a counterblast. Here was an opportunity for a bard of the
popular party, a Representant, to tune his lyre. One was found in
E. S. Reybaz, an eloquent preacher and something of a rhymer, who,
concerned in the affair of 1782, had left Geneva for Paris,1 while we
can hardly be wrong in recognising in the background Bourrit, eager
to provide material for such a theme. There can be little doubt that he
had a finger in the ' Epitre a Messieurs Balmat et Pacard (sic) sur leur
ascension du Mont Blanc le 8 Aout 1786,' which followed promptly on
the publication of Marignie's tribute. The internal evidence is strong.
Not only is Bourrit mentioned in a footnote on the first page, but on the
last page, a couplet, amplified by another footnote, celebrates his art :

' Bourrit par ses pinceaux fait briller ces hauteurs
Ou se verse aujourd'hui Tor des admirateurs.'

The writer is at pains to show his erudition and reading. Balmat is
compared to Columbus and other discoverers or inventors who were
robbed of the fame due to them. He is an athlete ; de Saussure only a
philosopher :

' On ne vit jamais chez les Grecs Aristote, ou Platon,
Le disputer encore au terrible Milon.'

The Bourrit version of the ascent is faithfully rendered as follows :

' Toutefois dans son coeur Balmat sent un besoin :
Aux beautes qu'il contemple il faut plus d'un temoin,
H faut a ses transports un coeur qui les partage :
II descend : il revoit non loin du pic sauvage
Son ami succombant aux peines, a 1'effroi ;
" Compagnon," lui dit-il, " J'ai vaincu sans toi,
Un deplaisir secret attriste ma victoire,
Que tout nous soit commun, le peril est partout,
Mais Balmat te soutient, et 1'honneur est au bout ! " '

Growing more eloquent and classical as he draws to a close, the bard
apostrophises Balmat :

' Ah ! qu'un riche lettre, noble en ses jouissances
Porte jusqu'au Mont Blanc le luxe des sciences,
Qu'attentrfs a ses pas vingt guides eprouves
Le sauvent des perils qu'ils ont vingt fois braves,
J'applaudis ; c'est Jason et sa troupe intrepide
Qui s'arment pour dompter 1'Hydre de la Colchide ;
Leur victoire me plait et ne m'etonne pas ;
Mais qu'Hercule tout seul etouffe dans ses bras
Ce monstre rugissant, 1'effroi de la Nemee,
Hercule est plus qu'un homme et vaut seul une armee.'

1 Reybaz was Minister Resident of the Genevan Republic at Paris from
1794 to 1797.

240 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

These were not the only verses dedicated to the climbers. Paccard
had his poetess in a Mile. Chapuis, who in two lines summarised the
discussion in his favour :

' De Saussure a la cime est arriv6 trop tard
Et deja le Mont Blanc etait le Mont Paccard.'

And she met with a sympathiser in the Gazette de Lausanne (August

25, 1787) :

' Mortels, ne courez plus apres un vain renom,
L'Erreur et 1'In justice maitrisent la Nature:
Vespuce a 1'Amerique a su dormer son nom
Et le Mont Paccard est nomine le Mont Saussure.'

There was no limit to the congratulations and poetical tributes
showered on the heroes of the hour. One came from a murderer in
prison enduring a life sentence, a noble Savoyard of the name of de
Coppenex. It was described as by ' Le petit domicilie de 1'Hotel de
Patience, le dix-huit du mois d'Auguste et la cent vingt-neuvieme lune
de sa captivite.'

These effusions, however small their literary claims, seem worth
notice, as evidence of the interest created at the time by de Saussure's
success, and also as specimens of a class of composition — topical squibs
— much in favour in the Geneva of the eighteenth century.

We have an interesting comment on the Epitre in a manuscript note
on the copy of it preserved in the Library of the Geneva branch of the
Swiss Alpine Club. Good grounds exist for believing it to be written
by the late M. Henri de Saussure, the grandson of Horace Benedict.
In any case, the opinion of the character of Jacques Balmat here
expressed coincides exactly with that given to me verbally by M. H. de
Saussure when I visited him at Genthod in 1891. The note runs :

' The preceding Epitre must be considered as a disguised diatribe
directed against H. B. de Saussure. It appeared at an epoch when
the revolutionary agitation in France had begun to spread to Geneva,
and when certain parties strove to depreciate everything connected
with the old families.

' The following Dialogue set things fairly right. Jacques Balmat
was never anything but a hired journeyman (ouvrier) of H. B. de Saussure.
It was only the prospect of the large reward offered by the latter
which ended in drawing Balmat to the top of Mont Blanc. He several
times abandoned his attempt on finding himself followed by other
guides. Always greedy of gain, his great fear was that of having to
share with others, not the glory, but the money. That is, no doubt,
what Marignie would have put in Balmat's mouth had he known the
facts.

' Balmat presents the most exact specimen of the type of Savoyard
with a spirit limited to narrow interests. If he ended by associating

MONT BLANC 241

himself with Dr. Paccard, it was because the latter sought nothing for
himself.

' Balmat the explorer, eager for discovery, striving for fame,
who has been depicted by various writers, is a Balmat of legend and
pure phantasy.'

The third document, the Dialogue, also by Marignie, to which M. H.
de Saussure alludes, survives. It is entitled : ' Scene Dialoguee entre
Balmat et 1'Auteur de VHommage a 1'occasion de VEpttre d'un anonyme
a MM. Paccard et Balmat.'

In this somewhat heavy pleasantry Balmat is represented as calling
on the author of the Hommage and introducing himself as all the
characters in turn to whom he has been compared in the Epitre before
he reveals his own identity :

' liAvJtewr. N'aurez-vous jamais un veritable nom ?

' Balmat. 0 que si, mais, Monsieur, quand on a 1'avantage
De compter pour patrons des gens de haut parage
On s'en vante un moment. Mais pour ne plus mentir,
Je suis le Savoyard Balmat a votre service.'

After several pages of rhymes the author sums up the discussion :

' Balmat, votre bon sens me ravit et m'enchante.
Voila ce que dans vous vraiment il faut qu'on chante. . . .
Ici comme partout on manque a 1'apropos
Vous etes un brave homme, on vous fait un heros :
Si vous 1'etiez, voyez que de votre victoire
On rehaussirait moins le merite et la gloire :
On dirait : " Apres tout, il a fait son metier ;
Ainsi qu'a galoper s'exerce le coursier,
Le montagnard s'exerce a gravir sur les cimes ;
II est fait au danger, il est fait aux abimes ;
Et c'est meme une honte pour un chasseur Savoyard
De ne s'etre la-haut eleve que si tard." '

Q

CHAPTER IX

THE COL DU G£ANT

THE concluding sentences of de Saussure's Short Narrative indicate
that he was already planning a fresh Alpine adventure. As was
usual with him, his main object in the proposed expedition was
not exploration or cartography, but scientific and, in this instance,
more particularly meteorological research. His stay on the top
of Mont Blanc had been too short to enable him to carry out the
long list of observations and experiments he had tabulated on
his agenda, and until the gaps were filled up he could not rest
satisfied. An opportunity now presented itself. The summer of
1787 had been marked not only by three ascents of Mont Blanc,1
but also by the opening of the legendary pass from Chamonix to
Courmayeur across the lofty ridge that fronts the traveller's
eyes from the head of the Val d'Aosta, and forms part of the
watershed at the head of the snowy recess known as the Tacul,
the source of the southern feeder of the Mer de Glace.

The climb from the Italian side, though long and steep, offers
no serious difficulty, and the crest had doubtless been reached by
chamois and bouquetin hunters long before the visit of Patience,2
the innkeeper and hunter of Courmayeur who had once served de
Saussure as guide in his excursion on the Miage Glacier. The
main obstacle to the passage of the chain at this point lay, as it
still does, in the broken icefall below the upper basin of the Glacier
du Tacul, known in after years as Les Seracs du Ge"ant.

The authentic history of the pass begins in 1786. But, like
the Fiescher Joch in the Bernese Oberland, it has a legend. The
oldest document quoted in its support is an account written by a

1 Those of (1) the three guides, (2) de Saussure, (3) Colonel Beaufoy.

2 ' Patience ' was the nickname of Jean Laurent Jordanay. who died in 1825,
aged eighty-five. He was often employed by de Saussure, and in the Parish
Rogister of Courmayeur his death is entered with a note, ' Guide de M. de Saussure,
naturaliste, sur le Mont Blanc.'

242

THE COL DU GEANT 243

Piedmontese official of the name of Arnod of an attempt made
by him with three hunters. There existed at Courmayeur, Arnod
asserts, a vague tradition handed down from father to son, that a
passage to Chamonix over the glaciers of Mont Frety had once been
practicable. He then describes his own attempt in 1689 :

' Je pris trois bons chasseurs avec des grappins aux pieds, dee
hachons et des crocs de fer a la main pour se faire pas sur la glace
II n'y eut pourtant jamais moyen de pouvoir monter n'y avancer &
cause des grandes crevaces et interruptions qui se sont faits depuis
bien d'annees.' l

Both Windham and Martel, in their respective pamphlets,
record a similar tradition as prevalent at Chamonix, and a possible
instance of such a passage is referred to in a letter by Gosse
published in the Journal de Geneve.2 The experience of the last
sixty years has shown living mountaineers that the only difficulty
of the pass lies in traversing the broken glacier on the Savoyard
side, the labyrinth of the Seracs du Geant, and that this varies
greatly from year to year, and from month to month. In the
late summer of 1863 first-rate guides held the icefall impassable,
and led a party of travellers, of whom I was one, along the steep
slopes of La Noire on the right of the glacier. On several subse-
quent occasions I have walked, both up and down, straight
through the Seracs. It seems therefore reasonable to suppose
that the story is not without foundation, and that from time to
time some of the Courmayeur hunters, who, Bourrit tells us in
his first book (1773), had gained the ridge from the south-east side,
hardier than their comrades, risked the perils of the crevasses, and

1 Relation des Passages de tout le circuit du Duche cCAosta (1691 and 1692).
Edited by Signer Vaccarone, Boll, del Club Alpino Italiano, 1880, and reprinted
by Mr. Coolidge in his Josias Simler.

2 Quoted in Alpine Journal, vol. ix. p. 88. The short time alleged to have
been taken is a very uncertain proof. Sallanches might be reached from Cour-
mayeur in less time by the Col des Fours than by the Col du Geant. Ribel, the
courier in question, was a German of disreputable connections, whose wife was
expelled from Geneva for immorality. On this occasion he was carrying letters
from Geneva to Turin. The usual route was the Mont Cenis. The growth of
the tradition seems to me very obvious. Bordier's report of a legend that peasants
at one time were in the habit of crossing from Chamonix to Courmayeur in six
hours or less, and his story of the witty Capuchin who asserted he had walked over
the ice from Aosta to Chamonix in fourteen hours, are clearly exaggerations.
Nor can the assertion of the Due de la Rochefoucauld's guide (see Ann. du Club
Alpin Francais, vol. xx. (1893)) be easily fitted to any pass approached by the
Mer de Glace. It is possibly a misreported reference to the Col du Tour.

244 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

crossed from Chamonix to Courmayeur, or vice versd, by the
Mer de Glace.

Whether this putative hunters' pass is referred to by the
words ' Col Major ' found on old maps is a wholly distinct question.
On some of these maps we find ' Col Major ou Cormoyeu,' which
suggests a cartographer's or copyist's error. There is no ground
whatever for the suggestion that de Saussure had ever heard the
pass so designated. In writing to his wife he expressly states that
this point in the watershed had been called the Tacul, though
nowhere near the spot at the junction of the sources of the
Mer de Glace properly so named, and that he had consequently
with the approval of his guides named it the Col du Geant after
the adjacent Aiguille.

It was not till September 1786 that the first fully recorded
attempt to force a pass at the head of the Mer de Glace was made.
At that date, M. Exchaquet, the director of the mines at Servoz,
a man who knew as much about the mountains of Savoy as any-
one then living, and was frequently consulted by de Saussure,
resolved to put into execution the project he had long had in his
mind of rediscovering the lost pass.

Exchaquet 's share in Alpine exploration deserves more notice
than it has generally received. His correspondence with de
Saussure and Wyttenbach shows him to have been an observer
of considerable intelligence, specially in matters connected with
meteorology. He had also a talent for topography, which he put
to practical and profitable use by constructing and selling relief
models of the chain of Mont Blanc, of part of the Valais, and of
the St. Gotthard group. The models of Mont Blanc were sold for
the high price of thirty louis. They were made of wood, the
snows and pastures shown in their natural colours, and the
glaciers represented by fragments of spar tinted sky-blue. Their
size was about 3 feet 6 inches by 15 inches.1

1 There was at the time a certain demand for reliefs of this kind, resulting
from the newly awakened interest in the Alps. The only copy of Exchaquet's
relief of Mont Blanc believed to exist is that presented by Baron de Gersdorf
to the Museum at Gorlitz. In London, thirty years later, J. B. Troye, of Frith
Street, Soho, who advertised himself as a pupil of Exchaquet, and had probably
been his workman, offered for sale small models of Mont Blanc. One, perhaps
of his construction, is in the possession of the Alpine Club. General Pfyffer'p
and Meyer's models of the Swiss Alps have been noticed elsewhere (see p. 163).

It is recorded that on Napoleon's visit to Chamb6ry in 1805, a model of

THE COL DU GfiANT 245

Exchaquet's prolonged residence at Servoz, where he was
engaged as ' Directeur-General of the Mines of Faucigny,' gave
him opportunities for mountain excursions by which he fully
profited. He went up the Buet five or six times, and at all hours
of the day, in order to study the variations in the temperature.
He climbed the Pointe de Tanneverge and several summits over
the Val d'Hliez. He got very near to the top of one of the Aiguilles
des Courtes above the Talefre Glacier. He explored among the
lesser summits of the western wing of the Bernese Oberland
round the Sanetsch Pass, and as far east as the Gemmi and the
Lotschen Thai. Though he never reached any peak rivalling
Mont Blanc or Mont Velan, his climbs above the snow-level and
the extent of his wanderings entitle him to rank high among the
early pioneers. By his success in overcoming the famous seracs
he gave proof of his Alpine qualifications, and by his modesty
in describing his adventure he afforded Bourrit an additional
reason for ignoring a predecessor who diminished to some extent
the exploits of the Precentor.

Exchaquet found a companion for his first attempt in a Mr.
Hill, a member of one of several English families then resident
at Geneva. They took with them three guides, and slept on the
rocks at the Couvercle, the meeting -place of the glaciers that
form the Mer de Glace. Next morning, when they assailed the
formidable icefall, they found the crevasses numerous and large.
'Mr. Hill,' writes Exchaquet, 'not being accustomed to glaciers,
greatly delayed our progress, so, seeing how little advance we had
made in two hours, and reckoning that it would take many
more to get through the bad part of the glacier, we resolved to
return rather than risk having to pass the night among the snows
of the Tacul.'

Mr. Hill subsequently went round Mont Blanc by the Col
de Bonhomme and Col de la Seigne to Courmayeur. Thence
with a friend, the guide Marie Couttet of Chamonix, and a local
hunter, he climbed to the top of the pass and returned the same

Mont Blanc, 12 feet long, was placed in his apartment with these lines attached :
' Sur sea bases eternelles
Le Mont Blanc est moins assure
Que dans nos coaurs fideles,
De tes lois 1'Empire sacre.'

Nothing is reported of what Napoleon thought of this somewhat cumbrous
piece of furniture and flattery.

LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

evening to Courmayeur. His object was not to cross the chain,
but to ascertain the chances of approach to Mont Blanc from
this side. De Saussure, we shall see, refers to this excursion
in one of his letters written from the Col. It has been through
a confusion, or combination, of these two explorations from
opposite sides of the pass that several writers have been led to
give our countryman the credit of having been the first traveller
to cross it.

Early in the following summer (1787), M. Exchaquet resolved
to make a fresh attempt to carry out his project. He told Marie
Couttet and Jean Michel Cachat of his plans, and they promised to
accompany him . But three days later, on 27th June , he found that
Cachat and a comrade, Alexis Tournier, had slipped off — nominally
to look for crystals. He lost no time in filling the former's place,
and, starting next morning at 2.15 A.M. from Chamonix itself with
Marie Couttet and Jean Michel Tournier, reached Courmayeur at
8 P.M. the same day, a very creditable performance for that date.
The party had fine weather, and Exchaquet, who was obviously
not, like Bourrit, a writer for the press, frankly stated that ' they
met with no difficulties ' in the passage. On the snowfields
above the seracs they noticed footsteps, and on their arrival at
Courmayeur they found that Cachat and his companion had
anticipated them by twenty-four hours, and had been at pains
to secure a certificate of their exploit from the local authorities.
In the account the two guides gave of the passage they reported
that the first shepherds they met on the Italian side fled from them
in dismay, and that the villagers of Entreves were equally
astonished at their appearance by a route held from all times
inconmie et impraticable.

The facts relating to the two earliest crossings of the Col
du Geant given above are derived from an anonymous letter
from Chamonix in the Journal de Lausanne (8th July 1787), and
a narrative sent by M. Exchaquet to his friend Henri A. Gosse.1
They have been frequently distorted. Bourrit appears once
more as the principal author of the mischief. In the opening

1 It was used by Gosse as foundation for a Precis historique sur le passage
de la Vattee de Chamonix a Cormayeur (sic) nouvellement retrouvee par les Glaciers
des Bais et du Tacul. It will be printed for the first time by Mr. Montagnier
(Alpine Journal, vol. xxxiv.), who has also supplied me with the report of
the guides.

THE COL DU GfiANT 247

of the pass he saw an opportunity to cover his repulse on
Mont Blanc. If he could manage to cross the Grand Col, as
the Chamoniards for the next hundred years called the pass, and
write the first account of it, he might proclaim the adventure
a mountaineering feat at least comparable to de Saussure's ; in
his own phrase, ' a discovery equivalent to the ascent of Mont
Blanc.' This unworthy idea he proceeded to put into execution.
In order to claim for himself the credit of the first passage by a
traveller, he boldly omitted all notice of Exchaquet's previous
success. We cannot but feel sorry for the vainglorious Precentor
when we find him thus doing his best to diminish with posterity
the credit his pluck in this instance fairly entitles him to.

Accordingly, on 27th August 1787, two months after
Exchaquet's expedition, Bourrit set out with his second son,
Charles, a boy of fifteen, and four of the best Chamonix guides,
including the two men who had so unscrupulously anticipated
Exchaquet. The party spent the night at the Montenvers.
For the rest Bourrit must be left to narrate his own exploits.
The following account is that which he sent to the Hon. Maria
Craven, a daughter of the well-known Lady Craven, who, after
being divorced from her English husband, married the Margrave
of Anspach.1 Miss Craven, a girl of seventeen, had, while staying
at Vevey, heard of de Saussure's ascent and boldly applied to
the ' Historiographer of the Alps ' for details. Bourrit, enchanted
at an opportunity to pose in that character, readily complied
with the request, and characteristically could not resist the
opportunity for adding an account of his own recent adventure.
It was written, as given here, in the third person.

' On the morning of the 28th the party passed, by moonlight, Les
Pontets, rocks many find so difficult that they look on them as an
impassable barrier. At daybreak they entered on the ice. At a
quarter to seven they reached the base of the Jorasse, and at eight
began to climb the slopes of the Glacier du Tacul. They had a ladder
twelve and a half feet long for crossing the crevasses, and they soon
had occasion to use it. The water in the cracks was frozen, and the
glacier covered with new snow. By nine the work of climbing and
crossing the crevasses had doubled in difficulty ; their position was
horrible. They found themselves in cavities so narrow, so deep, and

1 See Dictionary of National Biography,

248 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

so over-arched that they did not know how to get out of them. They
had to climb ridges hollow underneath and encompassed by enormous
precipices. The ledges on which they risked themselves were often
only three inches wide. The axe for cutting staircases was as useful
as the ladder and the rope, to which they had all tied themselves.
Between ten and one o'clock the ladder was used thirty-eight times.

* They next reached steep plateaux (sic) cut by bottomless crevasses
extending the whole breadth of the glacier, which might be a league,
and so wide that the ladder scarcely stretched across them. About
one clouds began to cover the summits, wind beat on them from every
direction, and the cold increased. At two no clear sky was visible,
the sea of ice they were traversing seemed boundless, they were like
polar travellers, and the mists completed the parallel. The effect
was as sublime as it was alarming. Their anxiety was further in-
creased by the vast crevasses concealed under extremely thin snow-
arches. They must have perished but for the rope by which they
were attached. The guide Charlet broke through one of these fragile
bridges, and had he not been carrying the ladder, he would never
have been able to emerge from the abyss at his feet. His head, caught
between the rungs, gave him the look of a man taken in a snare or a
trap. At three their distress grew still greater because they found
they had gone past the strait which they ought to take in order to
get to Courmayeur, and they thought of returning in their footsteps,
already hah* effaced by the wind and the falling snow. The cold
began, too, to be insupportable, and the thermometer was at 6° below
zero (Reaumur). Their hair, as well as their veils, were fringed with
icicles. Young Bourrit had some half an inch in length. This youth,
who had lost sensation in his feet and fingers, bore his sufferings with a
courage which drew the admiration of the guides. The cold increased
still more. At three their clothes froze, as well as the laces of their
boots. The guides, firmly convinced that they had passed the point
they had to make for, ran backwards and forwards like men who, after
a shipwreck, avoid the waves by scrambling from rock to rock. They
sought for some crag or passage by which they might escape from
their perilous situation. M. Bourrit and his son, who kept close to
him, were already planning to pass the night where they were rather
than wander further. They proposed to break up the ladder to
provide fuel, put their legs in their sacks, and huddle together. But
the guides, who did not believe it possible to resist the cold of the
night and the bad weather, were resolved to rescue them at all costs
from this dreadful desert. The thermometer marked 7£° below
zero. At this moment a gust of wind drove off the mist and

THE COL DU GEANT 249

revealed some of the peaks. They saw clearly that the field of snow
on which they were sloped downwards before them. This raised
their hopes, and a second gust, while obscuring the crag they had just
noticed, revealed another to their right but a short way off. Cries of
joy gave the news to the more distant guides, all ran together, and
this rock, which formed the crest of the mountain, was named the
Roc Sauveur. It proved so in effect, for from it they had, under their
eyes, all the valley of Aosta, and at their feet the village of Courmayeur.
The sun shone brightly, throwing shafts of light in every direction,
and principally on the summits of the Great and Little St. Bernard.
Thus from a situation of the greatest anxiety they passed suddenly to
the top of their hopes. They exchanged congratulations, and the
youth whose courage had not failed him, who had shared the sufferings
of the guides without adding to them by useless complaints, became
the object of the tenderest caresses. They had been on the ice for
twelve hours.

* By the avowal of the guides, who had all four been on Mont Blanc
with M. de Saussure or Mr. Beaufoy,1 the difficulties of that mountain
do not approach those of this expedition. The most dangerous part
of Mont Blanc is the Glacier de la Cote, which can be crossed in less
than an hour and a half, while the obstacles and difficulties met with
by our travellers on the Tacul lasted six hours. The crevasses ex-
ceeded those of Mont Blanc in horror as well as in size, and if snow
avalanches were to be feared on Mont Blanc, there was no less danger
of the fall of the seracs of the Tacul, which were like towers, thin
and hollow at the base. These towers, these broken walls, often rose
to a height of three or four hundred feet. The guides admitted, it is
true, that a month earlier the glacier did not present such great
horrors.

' The guides further declared that, except for the pleasure of find-
ing oneself on the actual summit of Mont Blanc, the Tacul offered
beauties quite as remarkable. The rocks of the Geant, of the Charmoz,
of Mont Blanc itself, the glaciers which flowed from it, the icefall of
the Tacul, its gigantic towers, its needles, the bridges thrown, as it
were, into the air, the frozen vaults, the corridors and labyrinths of
the glacier, the boldness of their formation, their superb outline, the
play of light across these transparent masses of naked ice, form objects
beyond description and surpass all the richest imagination can conceive

' The descent to Courmayeur proved long and difficult. It took
them five and a half hours. They followed ridges resembling those
of the Aiguille du Gouter. The descent is in part dangerous either

1 Cachat le Geant, Tournier 1'Oiseau, Charlet, and one other.

250 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

from its steepness or from the looseness of the rocks, which break in
the hand or slip from under the feet. They arrived at Courmayeur
at half-past nine by clear moonlight. Their day's journey was of
seventeen and a half leagues (hours). M. Bourrit praises his guides,
but gives the greatest credit to Cachat le Geant, whom he has named
Sans Peur. He returned to Geneva bringing back from his memorable
expedition the most extraordinary pictures and the honour of having
crossed in one day to Piedmont through a thousand dangers — dangers
which added to his satisfaction by the proof they afford of what men
can do when animated by the love of glory ! '

Not a word, it will be noted, as to Exchaquet's previous passage
of the Col. Called to account at the time for this omission,
Bourrit protested that, having mentioned that two guides had
made the first passage, he was not called on to notice any other
predecessor. The motive that had led him astray in the case of
Paccard and Mont Blanc, his intense jealousy of any climber
other than a professional guide, again drew him from the path of
truth. In this case he has succeeded in obscuring the facts
and misleading the most accurate Alpine chroniclers up to the
present day. In Bourrit 's account of the perils he went through,
we must always make a large allowance for his temperament. We
may also admit in his favour that the Ge"ant seracs vary greatly
in difficulty, and that his passage was made two months later in
the year than that of Exchaquet. Nor will any mountaineer
rate lightly the terrors of a storm on the high snowfields. But I
fear no similar excuses are available for Bourrit's account of the
descent to Courmayeur, which urged even de Saussure to critical
comment.1

We may now turn to de Saussure 's admirable narrative of
what I am disposed to think was by far his most daring adventure.
It was not till nearly forty years afterwards that any camp was
pitched in the Alpine snows at so lofty an elevation and then only
for a single night. De Saussure points out in his opening sentences
the aim he had in view in his long stay on the top of the Col du
Geant at a height of nearly 11,000 feet.

' Physical observers who propose to visit the top of some high
mountain arrange, as a rule, to reach it about noon, and, having

1 Besides Bourrit's narrative, we have a letter written by his son to a friend
describing the great adventure. The lad may be excused if he outdoes his father.
His crevasses are a league long, his seracs four hundred feet high.

THE COL DU GtfANT 251

arrived, they hasten to make their observations so as to descend before
nightfall. Thus they always reach great heights at about the same
time of day, and for a very short stay, and in consequence are unable
to form any true notion of the state of the air at other hours, still
less during the night. It seemed to me it would be interesting to
endeavour to fill up this gap in our meteorological records by making
a stay on an elevated spot sufficiently long to enable me to ascertain
the daily variations of the various meteorological instruments, and
to take advantage of the opportunity of observing the origin of meteor-
ological phenomena such as winds, rain, and storms.' [Voyages, 2005.]

De Saussure's remarks on the advantage of prolonged visits
to the heights at other than the mid-day hours in which most
climbers attain them are, it may be pointed out, as true from the
picturesque as from the scientific point of view. Afternoon
shadows and evening lights add enormously to the effect of
mountain panoramas by lending a variety in colour and detail
lost under the equal glow of noon. The summit views that linger
most in my memory are those gained from heights reached early
or late in the day, either in the dawn or gloaming, or when every
lofty ridge and spur throws a long shadow. Prominent among such
recollections a*e the rising of the morning star above the crests
of the Caucasus seen from a height of 16,000 feet on the slopes
of Elbruz, and the after-glow reflected from the snowy ranges
of Tibet viewed from 19,000 feet on one of the spurs of
Kangchen janga .

Before setting out, de Saussure obtained from Exchaquet
details as to his excursion which satisfied him that the top of the
pass (of which Exchaquet had somewhat over-estimated the
height *) would afford him the space and solid ground he required
for a camp and for setting up his instruments. In order to lose
no chances, he set out with his son Theodore early in June for
Chamonix, and remained there till the end of the month, perfecting
his preparations and waiting for the promise of a spell of fine
weather.

It was on the 2nd July that the caravan set out. On the first
night they pitched their tents beside the little Lac du Tacul,
at the junction of the ice-streams that form the Mer de Glace.

1 Exchaquet made it 1800 toisea= 11,511 feet. The accepted height is,
according to Vallot, 10,959 feet.

252 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

The seracs, which had presented no difficulty to Exchaquet a
twelvemonth before, were held by the guides to be impassable
even thus early in the season, and they preferred to turn them
on their south-eastern flank, formed by a crag known as La
Noire. These rocks are not difficult, but the route involves
some scrambling and the traverse of several steep snow-slopes.1
De Saussure comments as follows on his experiences :

' Our guides warned us that this route is much more dangerous
than that which had been taken the year before, but I do not lay
much stress on their statements, for one reason that present danger
always seems greater than that which is past ; for another that they
think to flatter their employers by telling them they have escaped
grave perils. Still, it is true that this passage of La Noire is really
dangerous ; and, as it had frozen in the night, it would have been
impossible for us to cross these steep and hard slopes, had not the
guides trampled steps in the snow the evening before, when it was
softened by the sun.

' Next, as on Mont Blanc ' — continues de Saussure — ' we had to
meet the danger of crevasses concealed under a thin coating of snow.
These crevasses grew fewer and less large as we got higher, and we
thought we were almost free of them when we heard a sudden cry of
" The ropes, the ropes ! " One of our porters, Alexis Balmat, who was
about a hundred paces ahead, had disappeared of a sudden from among
his comrades, swallowed by a large crevasse, 60 feet deep. Happily,
half-way down — that is, at 30 feet — he lighted on a block of snow wedged
in the crevasse. He fell on this with no further injury than a few
scratches on the face. His greatest friend, P. J. Favret, at once had
himself tied to the rope and let down. The porter's burden was first
hauled up, then the two men separately. Balmat came out looking
a little pale, but showed no emotion ; he took on his shoulder our
mattresses which formed his load, and continued his march with
imperturbable coolness.' [Voyages, 2028.]

The incident thus recorded is another example of the care-
lessness or ignorance of the proper use of the rope shown by the
Chamonix guides in most of the early expeditions. Even in the
seventies of the nineteenth century, some of the best Engadine
guides were equally reckless. The rope is irksome, and a smooth
snowfield does not suggest danger to a dull mind.

1 The only danger, even for a novice, is from falling stones. But this is a
real risk, if a slight one.

THE COL DU G£ANT 253

The story of the arrival on the Col may best be given in the
words of the letter de Saussure hurriedly sent off on the spot to
Genthod. De Saussure 's care to say nothing to his family about
the perils of La Noire or the incident of the crevasse is charac-
teristic. The contrast between his reticence and Bourrit's ex-
aggerations may remind an English reader of Clough's lines in
the Bothie of Tober na Vuolich :

' Colouring, he, dilating, magniloquent, glowing in picture,
He to a matter-of-fact, still softening, paring, abating,
He to the great might have been upsoaring, sublime and ideal ;
He to the merest it was, restricting, diminishing, dwarfing.'

Here is the account de Saussure wrote to his wife :

' 3rd July.

' I am sending Jacques * to carry you the news of our happy arrival
on the Col du Giant, where our hut is in the finest situation in the
world. We left Chamonix yesterday morning, passed the Montenvers,
and came on to sleep at the end of the glacier. Your sisters saw the
place where we slept.2 We started this morning at 5.30 A.M. and
got to the hut at 12.30 P.M. We met with some mauvais pas, some
steep slopes, but we had no misadventures, and there need be no
alarm about our return, as we have decided to come back by Cour-
mayeur ; it is a little longer, but not fatiguing, and free from any sort
of danger ; there are neither snows nor crags — nothing but loose stones.
Mr. Hill, the most clumsy of climbers, made this descent by night,
tumbling five hundred times, without even giving himself a scratch.
So have no fear about our return. I did not deceive you in telling you
there was no danger in coming here, but the very light snowfall of last
winter forced us to take a different route,3 which, without being really
dangerous, presented some obstacles. These will increase in a week's
time, hence my high caution has decided me to come back by Cour-
mayeur. The slight difficulties we met with afforded me a great
satisfaction from the way Theodore met them without being in the
least affected by the rarity of the air. I am, therefore, as pleased as
possible as to these first difficulties we have had to encounter. ... I
ought to tell you also that Etienne [a new servant] walks like a stag,
and at least as well as Tetu, and that I am in almost every respect very
pleased with him. . . .

1 This ' Jacques ' was probably Jacques Balmat, the climber of Mont Blanc
(see p. 259).

* This refers to their visit to the Montenvers in the previous year.

* The implication, of course, is that it had not sufficed to choke the crevasses.

254 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUBE

' I have rebaptized this mountain [the Col du Geant]. It has
been called the Tacul, which is seven leagues [hours] off, while it is
quite close to the splendid Aiguille du Geant, which is visible from
Genthod. All the guides approve this change ; you must correct Coco
[his grandchild] and not let him say any more " Grandpapa is at
Tacul." '

The next letter we have was written four days later :

* July 1th.

' Neighbour of heaven though I am, I am very far from being
detached from earthly objects — that is, if the objects that attach me
to life can be reckoned as earthly ! When some one said, " Here are
our letters," I felt so much emotion that I did not know what I was
doing, and ran to meet the " Grand Menton " and the " Chevrier "
[nicknames of the guides who brought the post]. Long before they
could hear me I began shouting, " Have you good news ? " and their
silence filled me with fear. At last they came up, and I quickly seized
the letter addressed " au Col du Geant," my hands trembled, my eyes
filled with tears, to the point of hindering me in reading, and my
delight in finding all your good and delightful news affected me almost
as painfully as the anxiety in which I had been before reading it. I
believe it is this rare atmosphere that increases one's sensibility, or
else this absolute separation makes one realise more fully the value
of what one loves. The atmosphere, however, causes us absolutely
no discomfort, we have the best possible appetites, no feeling of
oppression, not the slightest indisposition. But the bad weather
pursues us ; yesterday was the first fine day. So we are making the
best use of it possible, and you must not be surprised if Theo does
not write at all and I write you a short letter. Besides, our messengers
want to start. [He sent down some of his guides to Courmayeur
from time to time to get provisions. The letters were probably for-
warded thence by the Col Ferret and Martigny. This, at any rate,
was the route used on a previous occasion.] Be content, then, to
know we are very well in health and in every way. We have suffered
a little from cold, the water froze in our glasses in the hut, while we
were supping round our little stove. Still, the thermometer only
marked less than four degrees of frost (Reaumur), but then the hut
does not shut up like your salons, and the fire has the greatest trouble
to burn in this rare air ; it goes out as soon as you leave off using the
bellows. I wanted to see a fine storm, and I have had that satisfaction —
thunder, hail, snow, and sleet all at once, and plenty of them ; it was
on Saturday night and Sunday morning. But it all did us no harm,
and as we cannot have anything worse, you must not have any

THE COL DU GfiANT 255

anxiety as to our future, the more so since we have learnt how to
procure, if not all the conveniences of life, at any rate preservatives
against the worse inconveniences. This bad weather has relieved us
of M. Exchaquet, who had the indiscretion to bring with him four
guides, or sightseers, and we were at a loss where to put them. He
only stayed with us twenty-four hours, and took advantage of an
interval of fine weather to go down to Courmayeur.'

Their only other visitors on the heights were three chamois.
But there were lesser forms of life in the number of butterflies
which were carried up by the wind and took refuge on the sheltered
side of the mountain, where they afforded an easy prey to the
choughs, whose gambols enlivened the snowy wilderness.

In his Voyages, published eight years later, de Saussure gives
a more detailed account of the storm than he had thought prudent
to send home at the time :

' On the following night [4th-5th July] we were assailed by the most
terrible storm I have ever witnessed. It arose an hour after mid-
night with a south-west wind of such violence that I expected at
every instant it would carry away the stone hut in which my son and
I were sleeping. The gale had this peculiarity, that it was periodically
interrupted by intervals of the most perfect calm. In these intervals
we heard the wind howling below us in the depth of the Allee Blanche,
while the most absolute tranquillity reigned round our cabin. But
these calm moments were succeeded by blasts of an indescribable
violence ; double blows like discharges of artillery. We felt even the
mountain shake under our mattresses ; the wind penetrated through
the cracks in the walls of the hut, it once lifted my sheets and rugs
and froze me from head to foot. At daybreak the gale fell a little,
but it soon rose again and came back accompanied by snow, which
penetrated on all sides into the hut. We then took refuge in one of
the tents, which gave better protection. We found the guides obliged
continually to hold up the poles for fear the violence of the gale should
upset them and carry them away with the tent.

' About seven continuous hail and thunder were added to the
storm ; one flash struck so near us that we heard distinctly a spark
slide hissing down the wet canvas of the tent just behind the place
occupied by my son. The air was so full of electricity that directly I
put only the point of my electrometer outside the tent the bubbles
separated as far as the threads would allow them, and at almost every
explosion of the thunder the electricity changed from positive to
negative or vice versd.' [Voyages, 2030.]

256 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

The following charming letter was addressed to his sisters-in-
law :

1 llth July.

' While Theo writes to his mother I will write a line to his two aunts,
and perhaps there is good reason I should, lest they forget me ; for
they are giving such a double share of affection to their sister that
there may be none left for her vagabond of a husband ! My wife in
her letters never ceases to extol to me the kindness of her sisters, their
indulgence, their attentions, and the charming fete which made her
cry with emotion, and made me, too, weep in sympathy amidst the
frost that surrounds me. She described to me this fete and the
outflow of tenderness that accompanied it in colours so vivid that I
vow I fancied myself there, and it was one of the greatest pleasures
I have enjoyed since I left Geneva.

' But in truth this tender companionship of the three sisters makes
the chief charm of my life ; it is my greatest pleasure when I am with
them and my dearest recollection when I am absent. And the best
proof of my eagerness to return to you is that I am giving up the
excursion I meant to make in the Valais. I should have liked to
make it ; had this part of the journej7 only taken three weeks, as I
hoped, my whole absence would only have been about five weeks,
but on no account would I lose eight or nine weeks' of our stay at
Genthod, as I must if I carried out my first plan. For I must stay
four or five days more here to finish my experiments, which do not
advance any too quickly, as the weather is often against us. We have
not had any more of those terrible storms like the one you had also
at Genthod, but in revenge we have two or three showers every day,
with an accompaniment of hail or snow. Ail the same, we are as well
as possible, and Etienne has great difficulty to cook enough to satisfy
our appetites. One would think we lived in a forge ; as the coke will
only burn when blown, our bellows are extremely exhausted and
husky. Our guides, who are also ravenous, seize the stove as soon
as we have done with it, so that one constantly hears the bellows
mixed with the noise of the snow and rock avalanches all round us.
We are perfectly sheltered from them ; it is one of the chief amuse-
ments of Etienne and the guides to set rolling great boulders which,
falling on the frozen slopes, produce really magnificent torrents of
stones and snow.

' But I am afraid of chilling you by telling of nothing but frost
and snow and icy crags, and I would far rather warm your hearts and
inspire them with feelings as lively and as tender as those I have for

258 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

for the problems that perplex me ; my body is susceptible to fatigue,
but my head, which so soon grows weary in the plain, is here absolutely
indefatigable.1

* Here is the little sketch of my labours you asked for. If you see
Uncle Bonnet, express to him my affection and respects, and read him
as much of this letter as you think may interest him. If you wrote
to me in the silence of the morning, I am writing to you in the silence
of the night ; all my companions are asleep, while I, shut up in my
tent, buried in my furs, my feet on a hot stone, and seated beside my
compass, anticipate with delight the moment which will bring me
back to all that is dearest to me.

' I have just been out to take my observations. What a glorious
night ! These snows and rocks, of which the brilliancy is unsupport-
able by sunlight, present a wonderful and delightful spectacle by the
soft radiance of the moon. How magnificent is the contrast between
these granite crags, shadowed or thrown out with such sharpness and
boldness, and the brilliant snows ! What a moment for meditation !
For how many trials and privations are not such moments a com-
pensation ! The soul is uplifted, the powers of the intelligence seem
to widen, and in the midst of this majestic silence one seems to hear the
voice of Nature and to become the confidant of her most secret work-
ings.2 Ah ! how I should like to let you share this pleasure — you
who are so sensitive to all the beauties of nature ! For my uncle
I should be afraid lest his weak eyes would find even the moon too
dazzling — and for my aunt ! I cannot even conceive the idea of her
exposed to this cold and exciting air : so that when Bourrit wrote to
ask me to lend him my tante for his ascent of Mont Blanc, I reflected
I could easily lend him my tent, but for my tante, I very much doubted
if she would care to be his companion. But the hour of my watch is
over ; I must go and lie down in my tent beside Theodore.

' The hut is so small that though our beds are only 3 feet wide
they fill it entirely — one cannot put a foot between them — so that I
have to get on to my bed and sit up to undress myself. But we sleep
excellently, and that is the essential.'

' 20th July.

* At last, my dear, here we are, safe and sound, at Courmayeur
without the least accident, but a bit tired, as our scamps of guides,

1 This account of the stimulating effect on the brain of a rarefied atmosphere,
repeated emphatically in the Voyages, contrasts markedly with what de Saussure
had previously recorded of his experience on the top of Mont Blanc. But the
difference in height is over 4700 feet.

8 Compare Conrad Gesner's outburst in his De Montium Admiratione.
(See p. 10.)

THE COL DU GfiANT 259

in order to make it impossible for us to remain any longer, had destroyed
all our provisions, so that we have been forced to make the descent in
great haste and some suffering, with nothing to eat from seven in the
morning to seven in the evening. And you know I cannot walk
unless I have some food. But for this, we should have come down
very gallantly. Jacques Balmat du Mont Blanc will bring you this
letter ; he has taken no part in this proceeding.1 I am well pleased
with him. Good-bye. I am delighted to feel myself once more nearly
at your level and out of all the trials of the last enterprise of the kinc]
I shall ever undertake.'

And yet he set off next year to Macugnaga, Val Tournanche,
and the St. The'odule ! Well might Madame de Saussure distrust
her husband's promises and protestations !

In the account in the Voyages de Saussure refers to the absence
of any difficulties in the descent to Courmayeur, which, he says,
' has been wrongly compared to the rocks of the Aiguille du Gouter.'
This is the only reference he makes to Bourrit's bombastic narrative.
The rebuke thus given, while complete, is in form characteristic of
de Saussure 's consideration for his former companion. The party
returned by the Col Ferret, Martigny, and the Col de Balme.
Charles Bourrit, who was at Chamonix on their return, noticed that
they had all grown beards while on the mountain.

A letter to his wife, written from Chamonix on the way home,
completes the story :

* 24th July.

4 At last here I am at Chamonix. M. de la Rive, the artist, whom
I have had the luck to meet, will bring you my news.

' Arrived here yesterday, I remain two days, sleep Sunday at
Sallanches and rejoin you Monday evening. ... I have completed
my journey back with the finest weather in the world. I started so
exactly at the right moment that Couttet, who returned to the cabin
[on the Col du Geant] to get the planks of my bed, which had been
left behind, found it full of snow which had come in through the gaps
in the walls and roof. You see I have a happy star, first because you
are my wife, next because everything succeeds with me, and I always
extricate myself happily. . . . Poor de la Rive is not so fortunate.
He came with his wife and the dowager Mme. de Prangins. They
were wetted to the skin in coming. As soon as they were dry they

1 The word in the copy of de Saussure's letter which I translate is * expedi-
tion.' But the sentence seems to require the sense given above. See also
p. 253.

260 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

must start for the Arveyron. Madame de la Rive put her foot on
a loose stone and fell into the water without hurting herself, but the
alarm caused Mme. de Prangins an attack of nerves. She had to be
put to bed, and the only thing to be done was to send her back to her
chateau. Luckily your pretty chateau is on the road to hers, so this
letter is sure to be conveyed to you.

' I expected yesterday evening that rogue (manant) Jacques
Balmat ; he ought to have come back and brought your news, but he
has stopped at Sallanches to get painted ! . . .'

It was doubtless on this occasion that the portrait of Jacques
Balmat, which was reproduced as a companion to one of Dr.Paccard,
was painted. Both were by Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe
(1761-1824), a man who had a singularly varied and distinguished
career. He lived at Sallanches from 1786 to 1793, when he
enlisted in the French army, made the acquaintance of Napoleon
at Toulon, became first Chef du Service Topographique de la
Republique Cisalpine, and later Chef des Ingenieurs Geographes at
Paris, Directeur du Cabinet Topographique de 1'Empereur, Baron
de 1' Empire, and General de Brigade. He accompanied Napoleon
on all his campaigns except the Egyptian one.

Before closing the story of the encampment on the Col du
G6ant, I must mention the still popular coloured prints illustrative
of this great adventure. Their printed titles, it is true, in most
instances make them refer to the ascent of Mont Blanc. But this
appears to have been an afterthought of an enterprising publisher
who held it might be profitable to associate the plates with the
more spectacular enterprise. There seems no room for doubt that
they were all derived from a common source, drawings illustrative
of the passage of the Col du Ge'ant, made by Henri 1'Eveque, a
young Genevese artist who accompanied de Saussure to Chamonix
in 1788. The drawings were reproduced at Basle by a well-known
engraver of the day, Chretien de Mechel, who had frequent
relations with de Saussure. A conclusive proof that they refer to
the passage of the Col is the presence in them of a second and
younger traveller — de Saussure 's son Theodore.

De Saussure would seem to have supervised their publication
with a critical eye from the climber's pfoint of view. In a variant
of one of the plates (which is extremely rare) he is represented as
being let down with a rope in a sitting posture to the brink of a

THE COL DU G^ANT 261

crevasse. But in the ordinary copies we see him in a less un-
dignified posture, standing upright and leaning on his alpenstock
in the ordinary attitude of a glissade.1

As we have seen from his correspondence with young Isaac
Bourrit about the Gouter expedition, the philosopher did not
suffer gladly reflections on the mountaineer.

1 The drawings were ateo issued, with slight modifications, as hand-coloured
lithographs by Kellner at Geneva, and it is from these that the plates here
given have been taken. Copies of the lithographs are at the Royal Geographical
Society. For further details the reader may consult Mr. Baillie Grohman's fine
work, Sport in Art (London, 1913).

CHAPTER X
MONTE ROSA

THE bold and, from the scientific point of view, wonderfully success-
ful adventure on the Col du Geant might well have seemed to de
Saussure a fitting conclusion to his Alpine career ; and, close on
the age of fifty, he might have been content to spend his summers
in the society of his family and the modest luxury of Genthod.
There were other and more serious reasons which would have
sufficiently justified him had he done so. He had public as well
as private anxieties. Politics at Geneva had, for the third time
in his life, reached a violent crisis — one in which he was to find
himself forced to play an active part. Moreover, his fortune was
invested in French securities, and France was now on the brink of
the Great Revolution.

But the call of the mountains was too strong. Many years
before de Saussure had admired and tried to sketch the noble
outline of Monte Rosa seen from the Piedmontese plain. It had
now been ascertained that it was the only close rival of Mont
Blanc among Alpine summits, or, as was then believed, among
the mountains of the old world. His correspondent, Count
Morozzo of Turin, had brought to his notice the beauty of Val
Anzasca and the convenient situation of Macugnaga at the very
base of the snows. De Saussure could not desist from his travels
until he had endeavoured to accurately measure and make the
tour of the mountain. His plan was a comprehensive one — to
cross the Simplon, go up to the head of Val Anzasca, and then
find a way round to the St. Theodule and Zermatt.

The only criticism we might make nowadays on this pro-
gramme, which was repeated in the reverse direction by Forbes
in 1843, is that de Saussure might better have begun with a visit

to Saas and the passage of the Monte Moro, a track known and
202

MONTE ROSA 263

frequented in early times.1 Unfortunately, the old paved track
over it had for many years been impracticable for beasts of
burden, and de Saussure's heavy equipment confined him to
mule passes.

The party was thoroughly organised. De Saussure took his
eon Theodore with him, and through the innkeeper Tairraz, hired
Chamonix guides and mules for the whole tour. The price fixed
was a louis a day for a driver and five mules. The troop met him
at Martigny. The party then rode up the Valais and across the
Simplon. This, and not ' Saint Plomb,' de Saussure dryly remarks,
is the proper French form of the word, ' as there is no saint named
St. Plomb.' At the village of the same name he found even at
that date an excellent inn. His notes on the pass deal more
with the geology than the scenery. In the gorge of Gondo the
old track, before Napoleon made his road, was only four feet
wide and paved with smooth and slippery blocks of granite. Yet
de Saussure writes, ' The path on the Italian side is as alarming as
the torrents, but it is throughout safe and well maintained, partly
because it is the way taken by the post to Milan, and partly because,
as the road to Lago Maggiore, there is a large traffic in corn, wine,
and cheeses carried on the back of mules.' The travellers broke
the journey from Domo d'Ossola to Macugnaga at the village of
Vanzone, a little above Ponte Grande, where they found reason-
able accommodation.

Successive generations of Alpine travellers have expatiated
on the beauty of Val Anzasca ; it has been left to Ruskin to pro-
claim in one of the most perverse pages of his Prceterita its
'supreme dullness.' He complains of the absence of any level
space, or valley-bottom, beside the stream, and of the want of
cliffs and defiles such as may be found in the Vispthal or the
Hash' thai. Monte Rosa is described as ' a white heap with no
more form in it than a haycock after a thunder-shower ! ' For a
parallel to this inept comparison I may quote a description of the

1 On the legend of the Saracens at Saas see Alpine Journal, vol. ix. 208,
254, and x. 269. An origin of the name Monte Moro which seems fairly obvious
remains to be suggested. Was it the dark pass as compared with the white
pass — the Weiss Thor — which led over the snowfields of the Corner Glacier ?
The Schwarzberg — Weiss Thor perhaps owes its self -contradictory name to
being the White Gate nearest the Dark Mountain. Schwarzberg may be
intended as the equivalent for Monte Moro.

264 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Matterhorn I heard given to his companion by a tourist — probably
an upholsterer — newly arrived at the Riffel : ' just like a roll of
stair carpet, set on end.' The passage, as a whole, is interesting
from its complete reversal of the earlier attitude of mind which
thought the bolder features of mountain landscapes horrid. It
is quite inconsistent with its author's normal point of view with
regard to Alpine scenery. But then, consistency is the last thing
one looks for — or desires — in the stimulating paradoxes of Ruskin's
thirty-eight volumes.1

The lovers of Val Anzasca can well afford to smile at such
characteristic petulance. The supreme beauty of the middle
portion of the valley lies, it is true, not in the more abrupt in-
cidents of scenery, the crags and the defiles that are the delight
of the child and the tourist, but in the association of an Italian
foreground with a relatively near view of one of the noblest of
Alpine summits. Framed between yet high above the folds of
forested hillside, the sloping lawns shaded by gigantic chestnut
groves, the terraced vineyards that half bury the white hamlets,
and the tall campanili that break through the foliage, shines the
silver wall of Monte Rosa. Severed from the spectator by no
visible base of rocky desolation, such as is too frequent in views
of great mountains, it hangs faint as a celestial city in the golden
haze of noon, or flushes rose-red in the full light of dawn above the
deep shadows of the valley. In contrast to the great critic's
disparagement, I may record a fact not to be found in any of the
commentaries on the works of a late Poet Laureate. Tennyson's
lines entitled * The Voice and the Peak ' were written in the
inn at Ponte Grande. He went there at my suggestion after
failing to find any inspiration in the scenery of the Upper
Engadine.

De Saussure, if apt to be topographical and little given to
fine writing, was not blind to the charm of Val Anzasca. He
writes :

' One need not cross the bridge (the Ponte Grande), but it is neces-
sary to walk out on to the bold arch in order to enjoy the view of
this beautiful mountain, which presents itself as majestically as Mont
Blanc does from Sallanches.' [Voyages, 2130.]

1 See vol. 35 of the collected edition of Ruskin's works.

MONTE ROSA 265

This comparison, coming from de Saussure, is in itself the highest
praise, but he goes on :

' Monte Rosa has even the advantage of appearing framed in the
verdant slopes of the deep and narrow Val Anzasca, which enhance
marvellously the effect of its ice and snow. The valley is remarkable
for the beauty and, I venture the phrase, the magnificence of its
vegetation ; everywhere except in its highest and coldest portion the
paths are shaded by vine -trellises that cover them entirely like the
pergolas which sheltered the walks of our fathers' gardens. Other
trellises in steps, supported by walls, climb the mountain slopes, for
in all this district the vines are only grown in this manner. But
wherever the hillsides, seamed by torrents, afford retreating angles
capable of irrigation, one meets with meadows shaded by chestnut
trees of a size and beauty that are really admirable, while the torrent
often forms a cascade which adds to the charm of these magnificent
groves. Another remarkable feature of this valley is that it has no
level bottom: the two opposite slopes join at their base and form
an acute angle in which the Anza flows, so that the numerous villages
are almost all perched on the steep slopes, or on narrow shelves that
interrupt them.' [Voyages, 2130.]

The travellers reached Macugnaga — that is, the cluster of houses
known as Staffa on the edge of the meadows below the old church
— at noon.1 Their first impression was one of enchantment with
the situation of the village. Different in character as the land-
scape here is to those of the lower valley, it retains gentle
features which are relatively rare at a similar altitude (4350
feet).

' The houses, built of mixed wood and stone, but well and solidly
constructed, are scattered about in meadows diversified by clumps of
larch and ash. These meadows rise in a gentle slope towards the
base of the towering crags of Monte Rosa, which form the boundary
of this pleasant platform.' [Voyages, 2131.]

The travellers' first difficulty was to get housed. De Saussure
writes to his wife :

' We were more than five hours trying to find a lodging. Strangers
being so rare, there is no proper inn, and quite recently a well-dressed
individual, who had been hospitably entertained, had made off without
paying his bill and after robbing his host. Consequently, on our
arrival, the villagers locked their doors and fled to the mountains.

1 ' Macugnaga ' comprehends several hamlets some distance apart.

266 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

It occurred to me to have recourse to the Cur6, who, luckily, proved a
very kindly man, and at once gave us something to eat ; then, on
seeing the letters I had for the notables of the village, which I had
been unable to present on account of their being either really abroad
or in hiding, ho wrote a note to a sort of Monsieur with whom we had
reckoned on lodging, but who had bolted to an hour's distance on the
mountains, and sent it off by a messenger. The " Monsieur," reassured,
came back at once and has lodged us very comfortably ; we have
each our room ; but we have very poor fare, depending on the powers
of Etienne [his servant], whose recipes are very limited. We are
greatly bored by the Italian boastfulness and volubility of our host,
whom we dare not offend lest he should show us the door.'

At Macugnaga de Saussure spent eleven days, much of the
time in broken weather. The wet day following his arrival was
devoted to a visit to the gold-mines near Pestarena, a few miles
lower down the valley. They had at one time employed a
thousand labourers, but there were now not more than half that
number. The principal proprietor was a Signer Testoni, whose
mines produced the equivalent of 66,560 French livres (£3300)
annually, leaving, after paying all expenses and the royalty of a
tenth due to Count Borromeo, a net profit of £650 to the proprietor.
The product at the date of de Saussure 's visit was falling off, and
the peasant owners of the smaller mines showed much eagerness
to part with their property to the strangers. It is a common
experience of early explorers in an out-of-the-way mountain
district to be taken for mining prospectors. The first Chamonix
ice-axes were picks, and even in 1865 Tyrolese peasants found it
difficult to imagine they could have any other use. Twenty-
five years later, in the wilds of the Caucasus, the writer was
pressed by a Suanetian prince, educated at Odessa, to induce our
countrymen to search for the hidden gold in the mountains
which feed the sources of the Ingur, the fabled stream of the
Golden Fleece. The mines in Val Anzasca were for many
years, and possibly still are, worked, though on a very small scale,
by an English company.

De Saussure during his stay in this remote spot was not
altogether dependent for distraction during wet days on the
exciting news of the fall of the Bastille contained in his home
letters. The Cure" proved to be a man of intelligence ; he had a

MONTE ROSA 267

plausible explanation of the presence on the pastures at the head
of the Italian valleys of Monte Rosa of a German-speaking
population. He attributed it to their aptitude for pastoral
pursuits being greater than that of the neighbouring Piedmontese
peasantry. Mr. Coolidge, however, has pointed out that in the
thirteenth century the same family, the Counts of Biandrate, be-
came Lords both of Visp and of the southern vales, and took steps
to shift the population from one side of the chain to the other in
either direction . This may account for the Germans in Val Anzasca,
but it is a little difficult to believe that Gressoney and Alagna
(Allemagna) as well as Macugnaga could have been colonised by
any arbitrary act of authority. The Cure's explanation is plausible,
and may be supported by similar instances elsewhere.1

In the character of the inhabitants the de Saussures noted
many points of interest. Their native tongue being German, the
peasantry of Macugnaga found themselves of necessity bilingual,
a circumstance which aided them greatly in the wanderings
to which the very limited resources of their own district com-
pelled a considerable proportion of the population. On the women
left behind was thrown all the labour of cultivation, and even of
transport. De Saussure mentions that when, anxious to send
down to Vanzone a box of geological specimens, he inquired for a
porter, he learnt that there was no man ready to carry it, and that
it was at once given to a woman. Most recent travellers have
had the same experience. Yet he found the sex more than equal
to their tasks. He tells how he met a party of six girls crossing a
high pass on their way home from a religious festival :

' Accustomed to cross the mountains loaded with their enormous
burdens, it was play for them, unladen, to make the journey twice on
the same day. They ran, chased one another, scrambled gaily on the
heights beside our path, got every now and then two or three hundred
paces in front of us, and amused themselves by picking flowers, or
singing under the shadow of a rock, to fly off again like a flock of
birds the moment our slow and uniform pace brought us up to them.'
[Voyages, 2224.]

Plain living was a virtue these simple people carried perhaps to
excess. Fresh meat was unknown ; this is still the case in winter

1 See Murray's Handbook for Swtzerland, 1904, for reference to authorities
on this question.

268 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SATJSSURE

in many Alpine villages. The bread was eaten when it was six
months old, first cut with a hatchet, then sopped in skimmed milk.
Cheese and ' a bit of cold cow or salt goat ' were dainties reserved
for feast-days and haytime ; as a rule, even the wealthier peasants
were content to flavour their bread with a bunch of garlic. Yet
those who had been abroad were eager to return to their native
valley and diet and loath to leave them again.

' Their greatest fault,' concludes de Saussure, ' is their lack of hos-
pitality : not only are they reluctant to receive strangers, but if they
meet them on the road they seek to avoid them, and look on them
with an air of dislike and fear. Still the people at Macugnaga, where
we stayed ten or twelve days, after they had got accustomed to us,
came to greet us with friendliness ; we were even told they were
pleased at our taking an interest in their mountains. The mercenary
hospitality found in countries frequented by foreigners is, no doubt,
more convenient to travellers, but is it any proof of a better disposition
than the primitive rudeness of the dwellers round Monte Rosa ? '
[Voyages, 2224.]

As soon as fine weather returned, de Saussure put in hand the
expedition which was the prime aim of his journey. He had
promised his family he would make no attempt on any of the
peaks of Monte Rosa itself. His object, he assured his wife —
no doubt he had got his information from Count Morozzo — was a
safe and commodious mountain about the height of the Buet, the
Pizzo Bianco (10,552 feet), which rises in front of the great screen
formed by the peaks of Monte Rosa and opposite its south-eastern
angle. To make sure of having plenty of time for observations on
the top, he took his tents and slept for two nights at the Pedriolo
Alp (6733 feet), which occupies a superb position at the very base
of the great precipices of the Macugnaga face of Monte Rosa.

' These meadows were bounded by the rocks and glaciers of Monte
Rosa, whose lofty peaks stood out magnificently against the deep blue
vault of heaven. Close to our tent ran a rivulet of the freshest and
clearest water ; on the other side was an overhanging boulder in whose
shelter we lit a fire of rhododendrons, the only fuel that grows at this
height.' [Voyages, 2136.]

Up to a few years ago the site of de Saussure's camp was still
pointed out to travellers.

De Saussure found the ascent from the alp fatiguing. It
presented the ordinary features of rough boulders followed by

MONTE ROSA 269

steep snow-slopes, and ended in a ridge of rocks which gave neither
firm foot nor hand hold. At the close of five hours the party
found themselves on a point, but not the highest point, of the
mountain. This still rose some 250 feet above them, and was cut
off by a snowy gap. De Saussure confesses to having been some-
what poor-spirited in resisting his son's desire to complete the
ascent. His comments on the view in the Voyages are those of an
orographer ; he confines himself to remarks on the mountain
structure, but a letter to his wife shows that he appreciated the
wonderful extent and grandeur of the panorama. On his return
to camp he wrote home :

' From the Pedriolo Alp— July 30, 1789.— We are just back, Th6o
and I, very well, but a bit tired from an excursion we have been making
on one of the lower summits of Monte Rosa. I said nothing to you
about this mountain, although the wish to visit it was the chief motive
of my journey, because I was afraid that you would imagine that I
wanted to reach the highest peak, which is still virgin, and will, I
expect, remain so eternally, like your friend Mile. M. I never thought
of it ; I did not even attempt another of the accessible summits, higher
than that on which I was, because the climb was said to be somewhat
risky. I chose a charming peak, not higher than the Buet ; we ascended
it to-day ; we had on one side Italy, Lago Maggiore, Ticino, the
Naviglio Grande (a canal), all the kingdoms of the world and the
glory of them, but the cities of Milan and Pavia were not visible, on
account of the vapour. On the other side we had the circle of Monte
Rosa, and by looking at it I have learnt its etymology. It is formed
exactly like a single rose ; lofty summits ranged round a great space
occupied by beautiful pastures.1 I will not inflict on you more details
as to its structure ; they interested me deeply, and confirmed entirely
the theory I have put forward of the formation of granite. In this
sense it is, perhaps, the most instructive excursion I have made.

' We are in our tents, where we slept last night, not, as on the Col
du Geant, in a distressful cold-harbour, but among the most delightful
meadows, the grass finer and shorter than in the best-kept English
garden ; but enamelled — literally enamelled — with the most brilliant
flowers. Yesterday, when our tents were put up, and before the grass
had been trampled, it resembled one of those English carpets with
a green ground enlivened with flowers.'

1 De Saussure missed the connection of ' Monte Rosa ' with the Monts
Roeses of Piedmont and the Ruize de Miage of Courmayeur. Roesa or Ruize
is the term for glaciers in the patois of Val d'Aosta.

270 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Before leaving Macugnaga, de Saussure took compass bearings
to the Monte Moro and the Weissthor, the positions of which were
pointed out to him. These show that the pass correctly indicated
to him as the Weissthor was the Schwarzberg Weissthor.1 On
the other hand, the position assigned to the Monte Moro Pass
(that of a variation of the Old Weissthor, the gap between
Monte Rosa, and the Cima di Jazzi) on Theodore de Saussure 's
very inaccurate drawing of the view from Macugnaga can only be
a blunder. There are not a few in the last volumes of the Voyages,
which were brought out during de Saussure 's illness and carelessly
seen through the press by his son, whose sufficient excuse may be
found in the disorders and anxieties of the times.

After a stay of eleven days at Macugnaga, the de Saussures
pursued their tour of Monte Rosa. They had been able to get
information as to the complicated network of passes over the
southern spurs of the mountain from two of the travelled in-
habitants of Val Anzasca. They did not attempt the Turlo, which
was probably thought too difficult for mules. Their first step
was to return to Ponte Grande. On a high brow above the bridge
south of the Anza, the large village of Banio hides among the
chestnut groves. The party arrived on the eve of the annual
local festa, that of Notre Dame de la Neige, held on 5th August.
It is worth noting that a sketch of Leonardo da Vinci's exists
bearing the legend ' Madonna della Neve 5 Agosto.' It may well
be of some other spot : for ' Our Lady of the Snows ' is a frequent
dedication in North Italy. But at any rate the great Milanese
painter is more likely to have been in Val Anzasca than, as an
eminent French critic has suggested, at the Maria zum Schnee of
the Rigi ! 2

The village was so crowded with visitors that the de Saussures
were forced to sleep in their tent. Next day they crossed the
steep, grassy Col d'Egua (7336 feet), where the baggage mules were
in difficulties, and descended Val Sermenza, one of the most
romantic of the tributary glens of Val Sesia, to its junction with
the main valley. At the village of Buccioletto the Cur6 was so

1 It should bo noted that the word ' Macugnaga ' is printed on the ' Siegfried
Karte ' far below the village of Staffa, where travellers halt. This, of course,
must be borne in mind in all dealings with compass bearings.

1 M. Ravaison. See Alpine Journal, vol. x. p. 280.

MONTE ROSA 271

pertinacious in his questioning of the wonderful invaders of his
remote bye -corner that de Saussure lost all patience and sought
hospitality farther on.

Of the head of Val Sesia we are told little ; the travellers'
attention was concentrated on the local copper-mines . They seem
to have gone as far as Alagna and the base of the Tagliaferro, but
de Saussure fails to notice the splendid aspect of Monte Rosa.
On the top of the Col de Val Dobbia (8134 feet) they were surprised
to find a substantial shelter in which they could make their
observations.

Their next halting-place, where they found good lodging, was
one of the hamlets of Gressoney, at the head of Val de Lys, the
stream of which flows into the lower Val d'Aosta. The upper
portion of the valley contrasts with Val Sesia and Val Anzasca in
its more open, pastoral — in a word, Swiss — character. Emigrants
from the northern slopes of the Alps found here a landscape that
might remind them of the region they had left. The Lyskamm,
which, as its name denotes, closes the view, shows as a snowy
hummock, with none of the imposing grandeur of the precipices of
Monte Rosa. Thence they proceeded to the chalets of Betta
in order to climb a summit — one of the many Rothhorns (9834
feet) — on the spur of Monte Rosa west of the Val de Lys, which
promised a good view of what de Saussure calls the outside of the
cirque of Monte Rosa. He was struck by the contrast between the
easy snow-slopes above the Lys Glacier and the cliffs of the eastern
face opposite the Pedriolo Alp. But his climbing ambition does
not seem to have been excited. He listened with critical interest
to the legend of the discovery of a lost valley which had reached
as far as Turin. A party of peasants had eleven years before (in
1778) claimed to have climbed to a point which is identified as the
Lysjoch, and seen beneath them an oasis of green pastures without
trees, houses, or cattle. They thus held for some years the record
of the highest ascent in the Alps (14,033 feet). On a second
occasion they failed hi an attempt to descend the glacier on the
north side. Had they done so they would undoubtedly have
reached the Riffel Alp. The lost valley was obviously the head
of the Vispthal. De Saussure, however, supposed it might be the
Pedriolo Alp ; a conjecture which a better knowledge of the details
of the crest of Monte Rosa would have shown him was improbable.

272 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

He seems to fall into further confusion in describing the highest
peaks of Monte Rosa as ' lying to the left or west of the gap from
which the valley is visible.' The Lyskamm is the principal object
from Val de Lys, but it is almost incredible that de Saussure should
have confused it with the Zumstein Spitze, which an erroneous
calculation had led him to take for the culminating summit. Is
it possible that he took the Col delle Loccie to have been the point
reached by the explorers ?

From St. Jacques d'Ayas, their next stage, the travellers hoped
to cross the dimes Blanches to Zermatt in a day. But being caught
in mists on the pass they followed the local guide's advice and
descended to Breuil, where they were detained twenty -four hours
by bad weather. The only lodging, the house of a peasant named
J. B. Herin (de Saussure calls him Erin), left much to be desired —
* a little wretched room without bed or window, a kitchen with-
out a chimney, and all the shortcomings and inconveniences
which combined become vexatious.' The son of de Saussure 's
host, a boy of twelve at the time of his first visit, was alive till
after 1855, and remembered well de Saussure's party, and, as
a boy would, the great store of provisions they brought with
them.1

After two nights at Breuil they started for the St. Theodule.
Up to the middle of the eighteenth century mules not infrequently
crossed the pass, and the de Saussures tried to ride over the
glacier. It is not surprising to learn that the animals sank deeply
into the snow and had all, including the baggage animals, to be
relieved of their burdens. Still they showed signs of exhaustion
and suffering, uttering ' plaintive cries ' such as de Saussure had
never heard before from mules even on the worst paths. ' It
was,' he writes, ' the rarity of the air that affected them as it had
us on Mont Blanc.'

On the pass the first object to be noticed was naturally the Mont
Cervin or Matterhorn, a 'triangular obelisk of enormous height
which looks as if it had been cut out with a chisel. I propose,'
says de Saussure, ' to return another year and measure this
magnificent rock ! ' For the rest, he refers to the Saasgrat as
part of the external cirque of Monte Rosa. On the south, he writes,

1 See Les Alpes Pennines dans un Jour, par le Chanoine Carrel (Aosta, 1855).
The inn at Breuil was not opened till 1856. I first visited it in 1858.

MONTE ROSA 273

' is a magnificent chain of high peaks of mingled snow and rock.' 1
In his diary (but not in the Voyages) de Saussure mentions, for the
only time, the Graian Alps as ' some fine snow-peaks he is told
are near Cogne.' It is remarkable that though so often in Val
d'Aosta he never noticed the beautiful pyramid of the Grivola, nor,
on the descent to Zermatt, the great crests of the Dent Blanche
and the Weisshorn. To the early travellers snow-peaks would
seem to have been as much alike and indistinguishable as sheep
are to everyone but their shepherd.

The descent to Zermatt was without incident. There the Cur6,
who, as a rule, entertained travellers, refused to receive or to
have any dealings with them, ' il disait, qu'il ne voulait rien nous
vendre.' This very unusual incident would seem to have been a
case of bigotry towards Protestants. The party had to have
recourse to the good offices of their Breuil guide to find them
lodging at a blacksmith's. No wonder that de Saussure did not
linger in the future centre of mountaineering, but rode straight off
next morning to St. Niklaus and the Rhone valley. He must
have been in a great hurry to get home, for he finds nothing to
mention in the remarkable scenery or the geology of the Visp-
thal. At Loeche, in the Valais, his guides met with another
example of churlishness. They were stopped and fined six francs
for travelling with mules on Sunday ! De Saussure lost little
time on the road, but after lodging his complaint at Sion against
the local authorities, and calling on Gibbon as he passed through
Lausanne, returned to Genthod on 20th August, after a five weeks'
absence .

The years following that of his tour of Monte Rosa were for
de Saussure a period of much public and private anxiety, and it
was not until 1792 that he could find an opportunity to carry out
his intention of revisiting the St. Theodule and measuring the
Matterhorn.

In August of that year he started with his son Theodore. His
experience of Zermatt seems to have discouraged him from taking

1 It is obvious that by the transposition of a short sentence the following
words, ' This chain joins Monte Rosa near the Weissgrat, which leads from Zermatt
to Macugnaga,' which should refer to the Saasgrat, have become attached to the
chain south of the St. Theodule — that is, the Breithorn and Lyskamm. As I havo
already had occasion to note, the last two volumes of the Voyages show traces
of the circumstances under which they were put together and sent to the press.

S

274 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the obvious route by the Valais, and the party set out once more
for the familiar Col de Bonhomme and Val d'Aosta. Instead,
however, of taking the Col de la Seigne, they turned off at Chapieu
and crossed the Little St. Bernard, which was new to de Saussure,
to Pr6 St. Didier.

The account of this journey, the eighth and last of those recorded
in the Voyages, contains relatively little of general interest apart
from the visit to the St. Th£odule and the ascents of the Little
Mont Cervin and the Th6odulehorn. It is mainly a transcript of
a geologist's notebook. There is not much description of scenery,
beyond a mention of a ' truly romantic site ' in Val Tournanche,
and of the view of the Matterhorn from above Breuil. The
Corner Glacier again fails to attract the travellers' attention.
Here and there, however, a touch of human interest is thrown in :
de Saussure had a taste for homely scenes, such as reminded him
of Hogarth's drawings or Dutch pictures. We are introduced
to a farmer's family at Chapieu, the mother, a woman ' with a
classical figure,' teaching her child to repeat hymns, the grand-
father giving its supper to another infant, and both children
falling equally fast to sleep. In Val Tournanche he encounters a
wealthy peasant, 'a man of very good conversation who seemed
to take an interest in my researches and desired to possess a copy
of my Voyages' This rare character was claimed as his uncle by the
late Chanoine Carrel of Aosta, who was himself a singular instance
of what may be done with limited means by a man of intelligence
to develop his own district. He corresponded with Forbes on
scientific matters, and the early visitors to Cogne owed much to
his friendly advice and publications, which included complete
panoramas of the Pennine and Graian Alps taken from the Becca
di Nona. I possess copies he presented me with in 1860.

One of de Saussure's companions gave him a curious experience.
He had brought with him from Geneva a neighbouring peasant
who had heard a great deal about glaciers and wanted to see some
specimens.

' Knowing him,' writes de Saussure, ' to be handy, robust, and very
much in the habit of climbing the mountains near Geneva to collect
plants and shrubs for amateurs, we consented without difficulty to
his request. He bore the fatigues of the road very well, though bur-
dened with our hammers and the instruments we wanted to have

MONTE ROSA 275

always at hand, and he showed no fear and no regret at having joined
our adventure. But when he found himself surrounded by the glaciers
of Mont Cervin, and saw the mules wallow to their girths in the snow,
in which he himself sank to his knees, and that on the brink of crevasses
which he believed ready to engulf him, he was seized with intense
terror ; he wept, he made vows to all the saints in Paradise, and
although he did us the justice to admit that it was he who had begged
to be allowed to accompany us, and that he had only his own folly to
blame, he poured out the most bitter regrets at having ever embarked
on such an enterprise. As the crossing of the glacier took us hours,
the time seemed long to him, but he got over safely, and when he
reached the tongue of rock on which we were going to camp, he became
so wild with joy that it took him some time before he recovered him-
self enough to be able to assist the guides to finish their hut and level
the ground for our tent.' [Voyages, 2239.] 1

The first day on the St. Theodule (10,900 feet) was spent in
measuring a base on the snowfield on the Zermatt side with a chain
on the model of that brought by Sir George Shuckburgh from
England to measure Mont Blanc in 1775. De Saussure obtained
for the Matterhorn a height 2309-75 toises, or 14,766 feet .2 This,
he believed, entitled it to rank third among Alpine summits. He
took no count of its neighbours, the Lyskamm, the Dom, and the
Weisshorn. He probably considered them all as part of Monte
Rosa. He observed from a distance the structure of the gigantic
pyramid and recognised the main features of its geological
formation.

This task accomplished, the prospect of an easy climb led the
travellers to start for the Breithorn, but on the way their courage
or their powers failed them, and they turned aside from the long
and somewhat crevassed snow-slopes and contented themselves
with the Little Mont Cervin (the Cime Brune du Breithorn, de
Saussure calls it), an easy two and a half hours from the pass.
On the ascent they remarked the number of dead insects and
butterflies on the snow, and ingeniously calculated that in a
square of 2000 toises there would be 72 millions ! This summit
(12,750 feet) was, next to Mont Blanc, by far the highest in the
Alps reached by de Saussure.

On the third day of their sojourn on the pass the crags of the

1 This section is wrongly numbered. I give the correct one.
8 Federal Survey, 14,705 feet.

276 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Th^odulehorn (11,391 feet) were examined in detail. They sug-
gested to de Saussure by their strange juxtapositions of crystalline
rocks and micaceous sands and clays reflections on the limitations
of scientific inquiry. ' Who,' he asks, ' can by any probable
conjectures penetrate the night of Time ? Placed on this planet
since yesterday, and that only for a day, we can only aspire to
knowledge which in all probability we shall never attain to.'

The same evening they descended to Breuil, and spent a day
in further exploring the immediate neighbourhood. De Saussure
calls attention to its botanical wealth, and gives a catalogue of
Alpine plants found there and in the Vispthal. He adds, ' What
makes it delightful to botanise on these mountains is that since
they are built of thin horizontal layers, of which the lower protrude
farthest, the plants grow as in a stepped rock-garden, within easy
reach of the eyes and hand of the collector, and the specimens
obtained are of an exceptional growth due to the nature of the soil.'
The geologist had not, we note, altogether abandoned his first love.

The caravan next set out — one wonders why — to repeat their
passage of the Cimes Blanches (9777 feet) of the previous year.
As they mounted the broad pastures they came on several tarns
hidden in sheltered hollows, the clear waters of which reflected
the crags of the Matterhorn. A crowd of swallows had here found
a nesting -place at a very unusual height. A little higher they
encountered one of the great flocks of sheep, which, coming up from
their winter quarters in Lombardy or Provence, spend the summer
on the High Alps, blocking the road for miles in their spring and
autumn pilgrimages. Near the top of the pass de Saussure noticed
a glacier ending on the summit of a cliff over which the ice fell
constantly, forming at its base what has been termed by later
glacialists a glacier remanie.

This seemed to de Saussure a favourable occasion to deal with
a German traveller named Plouquet, who had made a journey into
the Alps and written a book with the object of disproving the
onward movement of glaciers. Any reply, de Saussure says,
he had thought superfluous until one of the most esteemed
journals in Germany, the Literary Gazette of Jena, had endorsed
Plouquet by declaring that he had proved to its critic's satisfac-
tion that the movement of glacier ice was an absolute physical
impossibility.

MONTE ROSA 277

De Saussure had no difficulty in bringing forward facts to
prove the contrary. It is interesting to note how nearly he came
on this occasion to realising the power of the glacier as an agency
of transport. He appeals to the blocks brought down on the ice
from its source to the lower ground, and to the moraines which
let loose their missiles on the traveller's path, ' not, indeed, at
Tubingen, but beneath the Glaciers de Miage and des Pelerins.
There is not a single inhabitant of the Alps who disputes the
movement of glacier ice, and the ephemeral doubt raised by this
author will pass away as the ice melts when its advance brings
it to a temperate climate.' Here we see de Saussure on the
brink of a discovery which would have radically affected his
Theory. Wise after the event, we wonder how it came to pass that
his reason did not carry him on to inquire whether the erratic
blocks of the Jura and the moraines of Ivrea, features on a larger
scale, but bearing the same general aspect, might not be the result
of similar causes, and to recognise that there had been periods of
glacial extension in the history of our globe of which they were
the authentic and obvious monuments. In patience and accuracy
of observation, in honesty and deliberateness in drawing conclu-
sions, de Saussure was supreme. But in readiness to discard the
theories of his predecessors, in quickness in drawing novel but
legitimate inferences from the facts before his eyes, his intellect, it
must be admitted, lacked the illuminating flash we term genius.

The travellers spent two hours in geologising on the rocks near
the top of the pass before they pursued the descent in the direction
of Val d'Ayas until they came to a spot where their mules could
find sufficient pasture. Here they made what de Saussure calls
a ' jolie halte.' The phrase may recall to readers of that delightful
work, Topffer's Voyages en Zigzag, a passage hi which the Genevese
schoolmaster dilates on the pleasures of roadside halts in pedestrian
tours ; of the interludes in which the traveller enjoys momentary
release from toil and mingles memories of past pleasures with anti-
cipation of those still to come.

Val d'Ayas did not offer much of interest . At St . Jacques , where
they found lodging, they were entertained with tales of recent
robberies. The proprietor of a gold-mine which de Saussure had
hoped to examine declined to admit visitors. The prevalence of
goitres and cretinism among the inhabitants of the lower portion

278 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of the valley was very marked. The frequency of these distressing
maladies in Val d'Aosta, while they are rare or unknown in most
of the valleys of the Italian Alps, has not yet been satisfactorily
accounted for. De Saussure devoted a chapter to its discussion.
May one of the causes be that the population belong to an old
and worn-out stock, in which the tumidum guttur of Juvenal
has become hereditary ?

From Aosta the travellers were taken by their friend M. de St.
R^al,1 whose acquaintance they had made in 1787 in theMaurienne,
and who was now the Intendant of the Province, to visit the
copper and manganese mines of St. Marcel, situated on the right
bank of the Dora Baltea half-way to Chatillon. These mines are
reputed to have been worked in Roman times, and traces of the
ancient galleries were pointed out. It may be remembered that
Strabo asserts that the subjugation of the Salassi was hastened
owing to their inconveniencing the inhabitants of the lower valleys
by diverting streams for the use of the mines. Even more
interesting than the mines was a source of which de Saussure
gives a full description :

* A spring large enough to turn a mill, of which the waters, them-
selves blue, covered all their channel, rocks, stones, wood, and earth,
with a substance of every shade between green and blue ; what was
under the water was deep sky-blue, what was half-wet green, what
was dry pale sky-blue. The stream itself, of which the water is per-
fectly transparent, runs over this painted bed, breaks into spray,
and presents by its reflection the most singular effect ; it resembles
the coloured flames produced by throwing verdigris on burning logs.'
[Voyages, 2295.]

An analysis showed that the sediment left by the water contained
19 per cent, of copper.

De Saussure lingered so late over this fascinating stream that
the party was benighted on the rough mountain path ; and de
Saussure 's mule, which he had luckily got off, put one of its legs
through a rotten bridge, and was only saved by breaking up the
planks and letting it fall into the torrent. It was midnight when
the party got back to St. Marcel, and found the Cur6, who was to
lodge them, in bed and asleep.

This was to be de Saussure's filial adventure in the mountains.

1 See p. 360.

MONTE ROSA 279

He returned home from Aosta by the Great St. Bernard, where he
was welcomed for the last time by his cordial hosts of the Hospice,
with whom he had for so many years been on the best of terms,
and whose interests he had at one time promoted by defending
them against unfounded aspersions.

Thus ends the record of de Saussure's last journey among
his beloved mountains. We belong to a generation which can
readily sympathise with him in the summary close to his Alpine
travels caused by a political upheaval which convulsed Europe.
It was to the civic and domestic anxieties brought on him by the
French Revolution, and to its reaction on the ancient Republic of
Geneva, that the final breakdown of his always delicate constitution
must be mainly attributed. When his concluding volumes were
sent to the press in 1796, their author's frame and intellect had been
impaired by more than one paralytic stroke. The pages bear signs
of careless revision ; there is a pathetic incompleteness in the
brief ' General View of the Alps,' which follows on the narrative.
The writer's failing strength, it is obvious, has not been equal to
his intention. We feel pained, as in listening to an orator who is
unable to complete his speech. De Saussure lays down his pen,
then takes it up again to introduce the Agenda, which he had for
years been elaborating, by a quotation from the Preface to the
first volume, written seventeen years earlier.

In the present and four preceding chapters I have attempted to
tell, or rather to summarise, the story of de Saussure's travels and
climbing experiences. This seems to me, therefore, an appropriate
place to devote a few pages to a critical estimate of his position
as an Alpine explorer and mountaineer. It is a matter on which
divergent opinions have been expressed. If his claims have been
exaggerated in some quarters, they have been unjustly depreciated
in others.

In any fair estimate of de Saussure's Alpine career local con-
ditions and the mental atmosphere of the time must be taken fully
into account. The standard of Geneva a hundred and fifty years
ago was very different from that of the modern mountaineer.
Among its sheltered aristocracy the taste for roughing it was
rare, if not altogether absent. It was only natural that a society
which habitually wore fine clothes and powdered hair should
prefer tea and talk in a lakeside garden to the ' beautiful horrors '

280 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of the High Alps, and should look on the Professor's excursions
into the mountains as hardy and venturesome, and Madame de
Saussure as a wife much to be pitied for her husband's eccentric
taste. Alpine travel at the end of the eighteenth century was no
doubt rough in a sense, but in the same sense that Dr. Johnson's
tour to the Hebrides was rough. When we come to consider the
facts in detail, we come to the conclusion that with the resources
at de Saussure 's disposal, it involved no great privations or real
risks. What hardships he encountered in the course of his travels
have often been taken too seriously by his early biographers.
Apart from his ascent of Mont Blanc and his sojourn on the Col
du G6ant, which come properly under a different heading —
mountaineering — they were in no sense severe tests of endurance,
at any rate according to the standard of the latter half of the
nineteenth century.

The highlands of Switzerland and Savoy during de Saussure's
life were not the unknown, or uncivilised, regions they are some-
times represented. There were frequented mule-tracks over all
the great and many of the side passes. The valleys of the Pennine
Alps were not untrodden by travellers, or even wholly without
accommodation. At most of the places de Saussure visited,
Haller's botanical collectors had been before him. One of them had
explored the Vispthaler, Saas, and Zermatt, and crossed the St.
Theodule into Val Tournanche. Others had been up to the
head of the Val d'Herens and Arolla, recesses which de Saussure
himself never penetrated. Laborde's great folio volumes, Tableaux
de la Suisse, published in 1780, bear witness to the growing know-
ledge of the Alps. We find plates not only of the Grindelwald and
Rosenlaui Glaciers, but also of the Rhone and Aar and Fiesch
Glaciers. No one seems to have explored the Aletsch, though it
is mentioned in Griiner's second edition. The Linththal and
Pantenbruck in Canton Glarus, Lago di Lucendro on the St.
Gotthard, Engelberg, and the Gemmi are all pictured. About the
same time (1776-86) our worthy countryman, Archdeacon Coxe,
was wandering about the Oberland, the Grisons, and the Val
Tellina, making the tour of the Bernina by the Muretto Pass,
and compiling his three substantial volumes. At many still
out-of-the-way places de Saussure met with reasonable accom-
modation ; for instance, in Val d'Ayas, in Val Formazza, at

MONTE ROSA 281

Cerentino in a side -glen of Val Maggia, at Minister in the Upper
Rhone Valley, at St. Remy on the St. Bernard, at Goschenen on
the St. Gotthard, he found fair inns. At Courmayeur there was a
hotel, and, as now, Italian bathing company. At Chamonix —
after 1765 — there were ' three large good inns.' Even at Zermatt
and Macugnaga there were rough cabarets with, it is true, land-
lords disposed to be churlish and shut the door on unexpected
guests. At Chapieu the lodging seems to have been much the
same as it was in the fifties of the last century. In short, wherever
the valley led to a pass there were wayfarers, though as a rule
not of a class to demand much from their hosts. In more remote
bye-corners the choice lay between the priest's house and a rough
drinking shop. It is all to de Saussure's credit that he took
cheerfully what he found in the way of accommodation, that he
made little of sleeping in a chalet, or even in his tent, when occasion
arose. But the hardships of such rough lodgings must have been
sensibly mitigated by the presence of the train of baggage mules
and domestics he was in the habit of taking about with him.
Moreover his tours were not protracted ; his longest journeys were
only of a few weeks. In short, he endured cheerfully a con-
siderable amount of discomfort, but little real hardship. The
investigation of the Swiss Alps in the eighteenth century was an
easy undertaking compared to the task that has faced later
explorers in the Himalaya, the Andes, or the Rocky Mountains.

Yet, taking all things into account — and his own uncertain
health and frequent indispositions are not to be overlooked — the
amount accomplished was considerable. De Saussure probably
covered more ground than any other Alpine traveller of his time,
except, possibly, Placidus a Spescha. Besides the seven journeys
recorded in his book, he went to the Oberland in 1770 and over the
Spliigen and back by Chur and the Lake of Wallenstadt in 1777.
He visited many unfrequented localities in the Jura, Southern and
Central France, the Riviera and the Brisgau. If we are tempted
to wonder that he did not explore more thoroughly the valleys
of the Pennine Alps, we have to remember his family conditions
and his unwillingness to put too great a strain on the solicitude of
a circle of which he was the adored centre. Bonnet, who himself
played at times the part of an anxious uncle, summarises the
situation in one of his letters to Haller : ' My nephew has two

282 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

wives, or rather two mistresses, the mountains and his wife, and I
cannot venture to say to which he is the more devoted.' We
have also to remember that de Saussure had relatively little of the
spirit of an explorer. He was mainly bent on extending his
geological observations. Again, the troop with which he travelled
confined him to mule -passes, and did not allow of a steeplechase
' over hill, over dale,' such as has been the delight of many simple
pedestrians in our times.

Thus far we have confined ourselves to de Saussure's expeditions
below the snow-level. We have still to consider his record as a
mountaineer. His climbing qualifications would not count for
much, perhaps, in the Alpine Clubs of the twentieth century. But
it would be a gross injustice to appraise them by the standard of
modern peak-hunters. His only serious contemporary rival was
Placidus a Spescha, the worthy monk of Disentis, an enthusiast
who, with far less means at his disposal, made many first ascents in
the Orisons, climbed the Rheinwaldhorn, and almost conquered
the Todi.

De Saussure in his youth was a stout walker according to the
standard of the day. When he was twenty, on his first visit to
the glaciers, he walked all the way from Geneva to Chamonix.
He took considerable pains to keep himself in training for his
expeditions. But in his later years he was always ready to avail
himself of mules to shorten the day's journey or the proposed
climb ; he took them even over the St. Th6odule, and though he
started from his bivouac on the top of the pass, he found the
Klein Matterhorn enough and gave up the Breithorn. It is only
fair to add, this was when he was fifty-two.

De Saussure was obviously a fair rock-climber, as climbers
went in the days before Alpine climbing had become a branch
of gymnastics. He makes no great matter of the Aiguille du
Gouter cliffs, though in the condition that he found them, covered
with fresh snow, they can be unpleasant. Unlike Bourrit, he
thought nothing of the steep descent from the Col du Geant to
Mont Frety. In ice work he had to begin at the beginning, but
he began early. Of his first glacier expedition, the now hackneyed
crossing of the Mer de Glace, he gives a somewhat naive description:

* I cannot recommend it to be attempted from the side of the
Montenvers, unless the guides know the actual state of the ice and

MONTE ROSA 283

that it can be crossed without too much difficulty. In my first
journey in 1760, I ran some risk, and had difficulty in extricating
myself. The glacier at this time was almost impracticable on the
side opposite the Montenvers. I jumped the crevices which were not
too large, but one met with deep hollows in the ice into which one
had to let oneself slide to climb up the other side with extreme fatigue.
At other times, in order to cross the large and deep crevices, I had to
pass like a rope-dancer along very narrow ice-ridges which reached
from one side to the other. Good Pierre Simon, my first guide in the
High Alps, regretted much having allowed me to undertake this en-
terprise ; he ran backwards and forwards, searched for the least dan-
gerous places, cut steps in the ice, gave me a hand whenever possible,
and, at the same time, taught me the first elements of the art — for
it is one — of placing one's feet properly, balancing the body, and using
one's stick in difficult places. I escaped, however, without any injury
beyond some bruises which I suffered in letting myself slide volun-
tarily on the very rapid banks of ice we had to descend. Pierre Simon
descended sliding upright on his feet, his body bent backwards and
resting on his spiked stick. He thus reached the bottom without
hurting himself.' [Voyages, 616.]

De Saussure goes on to describe the skill with which the guides
can glissade on steep slopes, adding, ' This exercise is far more
difficult than one would think, and one must have many tumbles
before attaining to real proficiency.'

There is, I think, no doubt that the crossing of the Mer de
Glace was more formidable at this period than in recent times, and
that tourists, in order to avoid the Mauvais Pas, were often taken
a longer course over the ice.

It should also be noted that this narrative refers to a date before
de Saussure had had any practice on a glacier, and nearly thirty
years before his two great expeditions to the Col du Geant and
Mont Blanc, and should be taken for what it is, an honest account
of a youth's initiation to the mountains. One of de Saussure's
most attractive qualities is his absolute honesty and absence of
striving after effect. He is always ready to tell a story against
himself — as when he records how exhausted he was by being
hustled by his guide at a great pace down to Ghamonix from the
Plan de 1' Aiguille.

' I came down too quickly ; my guide, fearing we should be be-
nighted in these deserts, made me descend at such a pace that, not

284 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

being as yet [he was twenty-one] trained for mountaineering, I
stumbled at almost every step. I did not get back to Chamonix till
late at night, and in a state of fever and fatigue from which it took
me some time to recover.' [ Voyages, 654.]

In later years some of de Saussure's best climbing was done at
the base of the Chamonix Aiguilles, where he had at least one
narrow escape from falling stones.

In his visit to the Jardin and expeditions on Mont Blanc and
the Col du G6ant, de Saussure had to deal with formidable icefalls
at a date when icecraft at Chamonix was in a very rudimentary
condition. Simler two hundred years before had described the
proper use of the rope and snow spectacles as practised by travellers
on the St. Th6odule. But the crystal-hunters employed by de
Saussure seem to have neglected the rope, or employed it, if at all,
not as a precaution, but as a means of rescue after a comrade had
dropped into a crevasse. They carried very long alpenstocks, and
stuck short axes, such as they used to extract crystals, in their
belts. De Saussure describes how two of his guides held one of
these poles, more than 8 feet long, between them horizontally
while he or his son leant on the middle. This was the attitude in
which he chose to be represented in the plates that served to
illustrate his feats. A tourist of the period (Bordier) declared that
Alpine peasants were in the habit of holding these long staves in
this manner while crossing a glacier, so that in case of a fall the
two ends might catch on the side of the crevasse, and the moun-
taineer seize the moment to spring out. The feat is more easily
described than performed !

It has always to be borne in mind that with de Saussure
climbing — except perhaps in the case of Mont Blanc, and even with
Mont Blanc only in private moments — was considered not as an
end in itself, but as a means to scientific research. The Japanese
climb with a religious aim, the eighteenth century climbed with
scientific objects, the nineteenth and twentieth have done so
occasionally, but more often for health or exercise. De Saussure's
aim was always serious. He appreciated in his leisure moments —
no one more thoroughly — the beauty of the storehouses of snow
and the splendours to be seen on the summits. His descriptions
of the view from the Crammpnt and his last sunset on the Col du
Geant remain as evidence of his feeling for mountain effects. But

MONTE ROSA 285

scenery was not in his case, as it is with us, a first object. He did
not find in it an adequate inducement to face obstacles far more
serious in imagination, but also more serious in reality, than those
that we encounter to-day. No doubt something must be allowed
also both for his deliberate temperament and for the pressure of
home influence. We read in his letters how his family — his wife
and sons and two devoted sisters-in-law — the whole Genthod
household — waited and watched eagerly at Chamonix while the
long -contemplated attack on the great mountain was ventured.

What was wanting in de Saussure was the element of rashness
that makes a pioneer. It was Bourrit's example that urged him
to his first serious attempt and failure on Mont Blanc. It was
the success of Paccard and Balmat that spurred him to follow
them. It was Exchaquet who induced him to camp on the Col
du Geant. He preferred the comparative certainty of reaching a
goal already proved attainable to the zest of a new and doubtful
adventure. It was in this respect that he differed most from
the average modern mountaineer, to whom the climb itself is the
main object, and the exertion its own reward.

Before with de Saussure we leave the mountains and turn to
trace his share in the troubles and disasters of the revolutionary
epoch at Geneva, many of my readers will, I believe, be glad to
peruse in his own words the statement of the main aim of his life
and travels given at the beginning and end of the Voyages by their
author. I shall therefore append here a translation of a great part
of the Preface, as well as of the Epilogue and Note he supplied at
the close of his great work. Their pages set out better than any
comment of mine can the spirit in which de Saussure travelled,
his genuine love of the Alps, his passion for science, and the
strong human sympathies which led him to appreciate so warmly
yet with so much discrimination the qualities of the mountain
peasantry. The ' Discours Preliminaire ' supplies the best portrait,
or outline, of the man and the philosopher, while the ' Coup d'CEil
General ' and the final Note by their incompleteness bear witness
to the physical failure which forced him to leave to others the
completion of his life's work.

CHAPTER XI

DISCOURS PRELIMINA1RE, ETC. »

ALL those who have studied attentively the materials of the earth
which we inhabit have been forced to recognise that our globe has
suffered great revolutions which must have required for their accom-
plishment a long series of centuries. Memories of some of these revolu-
tions have even been traced in the traditions of early peoples. The
philosophers of antiquity exercised their wits in endeavours to ascertain
the order and the causes of these vicissitudes ; but, more eager to
interpret nature than patient in her study, they relied on inadequate
observations and on traditions distorted by poetry and superstition,
and thus were led to invent Cosmogonies, or Systems of the Origin
of the World, better suited to please the imagination than to satisfy
the intellect by a faithful interpretation of nature.

It was long before it was recognised that this branch of Natural
Science, like all others, ought to be pursued with the help of observa-
tion, and that systems ought never to be put forward except as the
results and the consequences of facts.

The science which collects the facts that can alone serve as a
basis for the Theory of the Earth, or Geology, is Physical Geography, the
description of our globe, of its natural divisions, the character, the
structure, and the situation of its different parts, of the substances
visible on its surface, and of those which it contains in such depths
as our feeble resources enable us to penetrate.

But it is above all through the study of mountains that the progress
of a Theory of the Earth can be accelerated. Plains are uniform ;
it is impossible in them to inspect a section of the soil and its different
beds except by excavations effected either by water or by the hands
of men ; and such means are very inadequate, because these excava-
tions are of relatively rare occurrence and extent, and the deepest
scarcely descend to 1200 or 1800 feet. High mountains, on the other
hand, infinitely various in their material and their form, present to
the light of day natural sections of a great extent, in which one can
observe with the utmost precision, and embrace in a moment, the
order, the situation, the direction, the thickness, and even the nature

1 Voyages dans les Alpes, vols. i. and iv.

J86

DISCOURS PR&LIMINAIRE, ETC. 287

of the beds of which they are composed and the fractures which traverse
them.

It is in vain, however, that mountains offer opportunities for such
observations if the student does not know how to look on these great
objects as a whole and in their more general relations. The one
object of the greater number of the travellers who style themselves
Naturalists is to collect curiosities ; they walk, or rather they crawl,
their eyes fixed on the ground, picking up little fragments, without
making any attempt at generalisation. They resemble the antiquary
who, at Rome, would scratch the ground in the middle of the Pantheon
or the Coliseum to search for bits of coloured glass without throwing
a glance at the architecture of these superb buildings. It is not that
I advise neglect of detailed observations ; on the contrary, I regard
them as the only base of solid knowledge ; what I ask is that, in
observing details, one should never lose sight of the masses as a
whole, and that a knowledge of the great objects and their relations
should be constantly kept in view in the study of their parts. But
in order to obtain these general ideas it is not enough to follow the
high-roads, which, as a rule, wind in the bottom of the valleys and
cross the mountain chains in their deepest defiles ; one must leave the
beaten track and climb the lofty peaks, whence the eyes can embrace
at once a multitude of objects. These excursions are, I admit, labo-
rious ; one must do without carriages, or even horses, endure great
fatigue, and even at times expose oneself to somewhat serious risks.
Often the Naturalist on the point of reaching a peak which he eagerly
desires to gain is seized with doubt whether his strength will carry
him to the top, or whether he can succeed in conquering the cliffs
that bar his way ; but the brisk and fresh air he breathes sends through
his veins a tonic which restores him, and the hope of the great spectacle
he is about to enjoy, and of the new discoveries which he may gain,
reanimate his vigour and his courage. He arrives : his eyes, at once
dazzled and drawn in every direction, know not at first where to fix
themselves ; little by little he accustoms himself to this great light ;
he selects the objects which ought principally to occupy him, and
he decides on the order in which he should study them. But what
language can reproduce the sensations and paint the ideas with which
these great spectacles fill the soul of the Philosopher ? He seems to
dominate our globe, to discover the sources of its motion, and to
recognise at least the principal agents that effect its revolutions.
[A description of the view from Etna is here omitted.]
Thus the view of these grand objects engages the Philosopher to
meditate on the past and future revolutions of our globe. But if, in

288 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSUKE

the middle of these meditations, the idea of the little creatures that
crawl on its surface crosses his mind ; if he compares their duration
to the great epochs of nature, how much must he wonder that, occupy-
ing so little space both in place and time, they should have been able
to imagine that they were the sole end of the creation of the universe,
and when, from the summit of Etna, he sees under his feet two
Empires that in other times nourished millions of warriors, how puerile
must ambition appear to him ! It is there that the Temple of Wisdom
should be built ; in which, to repeat after the bard of nature, ' Suave
mari magno.'

The accessible peaks of the Alps present views perhaps not so vast
or so brilliant, but even more instructive to the Geologist. It is from
them that he sees before him the lofty and ancient mountains, the
original and most solid skeleton of our globe, which deserve the name
of primitives because, disdaining all alien support or extraneous mixture,
they invariably repose on homogeneous bases and include in their
substance nothing of another nature. He studies their structure, he
distinguishes beneath the ravages of time the traces of their original
form ; he observes the connection of these ancient mountains with
those of more recent formation ; he notices the more recent resting
on the older ; he distinguishes the strata, very much disturbed at their
contact with the primitives, but more and more horizontal as they
are farther from them ; he observes the gradations which nature has
followed in passing from one formation to another ; and an acquaint-
ance with these gradations helps him to raise a corner of the veil
which covers the mystery of their origin.

The physical student, like the Geologist, finds on the high moun-
tains worthy objects of admiration and study. These great chains,
the tops of which pierce into the upper regions of the atmosphere,
seem to be the workshop of nature and the reservoirs whence she
draws the benefits and the disasters she spreads over our earth, the
streams which water it, and the torrents which ravage it, the rains
which fertilise it, and the storms which spread desolation. All the
phenomena of general physics present themselves with a grandeur and
majesty of which the inhabitants of the plains have no idea, the action
of the winds and atmospheric electricity assume an astonishing force,
the clouds form under the eyes of the observer, and often he watches
the tempests which devastate the plains born under his feet, while
the sun shines brightly on him, and above his head the sky remains
clear and calm. Striking incidents of every kind vary at each moment
the scene ; here a torrent flings itself from the rocks, forming jets
and cascades which melt into spray and present to the spectator

DISCOURS PR^LIMINAIRE, ETC. 289

double or triple rainbows which follow him as he shifts his view-point.
Then snow avalanches leap down with a rapidity comparable to that
of lightning, traverse and cut paths through the forests, breaking
short the tallest trees with a noise like that of thunder. Farther
distant, great expanses bristling with eternal ice give the idea of a sea
suddenly frozen at the moment when the north wind had raised its
waves. And beside this ice, in the midst of these terrifying objects,
are delicious retreats ; smiling meadows, fragrant with the scent of
a thousand flowers as rare as they are beautiful and medicinal, present
a sweet image of spring in a fortunate clime and offer the botanist
the richest harvest.

The human interest in the Alps is no less than the physical. For
if mankind are in the main everywhere the same, everywhere the
plaything of the same passions produced by the same needs, yet if
there is anywhere in Europe where one may hope to find men who
have exchanged the savage for the civilised state without losing their
natural simplicity, it is in the Alps that one must look for them, in
these high valleys where there are no landlords or men of wealth, nor
any frequent incursion of strangers. Those who have seen the peasant
only in the environs of cities have no idea of the child of nature. Near
towns, subject to masters, bound to a humiliating deference, crushed
by vain show, corrupted and despised even by those of his fellows
who are themselves debased by service, he becomes as abject as his
corrupters.

But the peasant of the Alps, seeing none but his equals, forgets
the existence of any more powerful class, his soul is ennobled and
elevated ; the services which he renders, the hospitality which he
shows, have in them nothing servile or mercenary, one sees in him
sparks of that honourable pride which is the companion and guardian
of all the virtues. How often, arriving at nightfall in some remote
hamlet where there was no kind of inn, have I knocked at a cottage
door, and then, after some inquiry as to the object of my journey,
been received with a courtesy, a cordiality, and a disinterestedness of
which it would be difficult to find examples elsewhere. And who
would believe that in those savage retreats I have come across thinkers,
men who, by the unaided strength of their native intelligence, have
raised themselves far above the superstitions on which the lower
classes in towns feed with avidity ?

Such are the pleasures tasted by those who devote themselves to
the study of mountains. For myself, I have from childhood felt for
them the most positive passion ; I still recollect the thrill that I
experienced the first time that my hands clasped the rocks of the

T

290 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Saleve and my eyes enjoyed its panorama. At the age of eighteen (in
1758) I had already made several excursions among the mountains
nearest Geneva. In the next year I passed a fortnight in one of the
highest chalets of the Jura, in order to explore in detail the Dole and the
mountains near it, and in the same year I went up the Mole for the
first time. But these relatively low mountains could only imperfectly
satisfy my curiosity. I was burning with the desire to see close at
hand the High Alps, which from the crest of the lower ranges looked
so magnificent. At length, in 1760, I started alone and on foot
for the glaciers of Chamonix, then little frequented, and said to be
difficult and dangerous of access. I revisited them in the following year,
and since that date I have not let a single year pass without making
some serious excursions, and even journeys, with the object of study-
ing mountains. In this period (1760-1779) I have crossed the main
chain of the Alps fourteen times by eight different passes, and made
sixteen other excursions to the centre of the chain. I have explored
the Jura, the Vosges, the mountains of Switzerland, those of a part
of Germany, of England, of Italy, and Sicily and the adjacent islands.
I have visited the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, part of those of the
Vivarais, and several mountains of Forez, Dauphine, and Burgundy.1
I made all these journeys, a miner's hammer in my hand, with no aim
except that of physical research, climbing all the accessible peaks
which promised me interesting observations and always collecting
specimens from the mines and the mountains — above all, those which
promised to afford some fact useful for the Theory, so that I might
examine them at leisure. I also imposed on myself the severe rule of
first setting down on the spot the notes of my observations and then
writing them out in a fair copy within twenty-four hours, as far as
was possible.

One precaution — in my opinion, a very useful one — which I employed,
was to prepare in advance for each journey a systematic and detailed
agenda of the inquiries to which the journey was dedicated. As a
geologist observes and studies, as a rule, on the road, the least dis-
traction may make him miss, perhaps for ever, an interesting observa-
tion. Even without distractions, the objects of his study are so
varied and so numerous that it is easy to pass over something ; often
an observation that appears important absorbs all his attention and
makes him let slip others. Again, bad weather discourages him,
fatigue lessens his power of observation, and the neglected oppor-

1 The eight passes crossed previous to 1779 were the Mont Cenis, the
Col Ferret, the Col de la Seigne, the Great St. Bernard, the Simplon, the Gries,
the St. Gotthard, and the Splugen. In later years de Saussure added to his
list the Col du Geant, St. Th6odule, and Little St. Bernard.

DISCOURS PRtiLIMINAIRE, ETC. 291

tunities that result from all these causes leave behind them bitter
regrets, and may even compel him to retrace his steps. But if from
time to time he throws a glance at his agenda, he brings back to his
recollection all the inquiries which he ought to be occupied with. My
list of agenda, limited at first, became enlarged and improved in pro-
portion to the ideas that I had acquired. I propose to publish it in
my third volume ; it may be of use even to travellers who, without
being experts in research, desire to bring back from their travels some
notes useful for science. I shall add to these agenda directions for
those who propose to undertake a journey among high mountains,
and some hints as to the mistakes into which unskilled observers may
most easily fall.1

Despite all the precautions I take to forget nothing when, in the
quiet of my study, I meditate afresh on the objects I have observed
during my travels, doubts often arise in my mind which I feel I can
only remove by new observations and fresh journeys. It is these
doubts, always recurring, which have delayed till now the publica-
tion of this work, and which compel me to limit myself to the observa-
tions I have made in the last four or five years ; those anterior to this
date not seeming to me sufficiently complete to be submitted to the
eyes of the public. Even these I offer only with extreme diffidence,
persuaded that men of science who see after me objects I have described
will discover many things which have escaped my examination. . . .

As to my style, I shall make no apology — I know its faults ; but
more accustomed to climb rocks than to turn and polish phrases, my
only object has been to describe clearly what I have seen and felt.
If my descriptions give my readers some part of the pleasure I have
had myself in my travels — above all, if they serve to incite in some
of them a desire to study and to advance a science in the progress
of which I take an eager interest, I shall be well pleased and well
rewarded for my exertions. — 28th November 1779.

[The conclusion of the Preface consists mainly of an epitome of
the Voyages and references to its maps and illustrations.]

GENERAL VIEW OF THE ALPS BETWEEN TYROL AND
THE MEDITERRANEAN 2

I HAVE given in these Travels at the end of each crossing of the
Alps a general sketch of the character of the mountains and of the
structure they present in each of the passes traversed. I must now
furnish a general sketch of the whole range.

1 The agenda here promised were issued in the fourth volume of the Voyages,
prefaced by the note that follows here.
^J Voyages, vol. iv. 2300, 2303.

292 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

In my youth, when I had as yet crossed only a few of the Alpine
passes, I imagined myself to have mastered the facts and their general
relations. I even delivered, in 1764,1 a lecture on mountain structure
in which I set forth these conclusions. But since repeated journeys
in different portions of the chain have furnished me with additional
facts, I have recognised that one might almost maintain that the
most constant feature of the Alps is their variety.

In fact, if in place of considering my whole Travels, those described
in these volumes are alone taken into account, it will be at once noted
that the order in which the different rocks are placed is infinitely
varied. In one place the outer ranges are limestone, in another
magnesian. Here the central and loftiest peaks are solid granite ;
there they are micaceous limestone schists ; in one place we find
magnesian rocks, in another gneiss. If one notes the disposition of
the strata, they prove to be in one place horizontal, in another vertical,
in one place inclined in the same direction as the slope of the mountain,
in another in the contrary direction.

Still it will be noted that in general the dip of the strata follows
the direction of the longitudinal valleys and of the mountain ridges,
and that these valleys, as well as the mountain ranges, have a general
direction of east to west or north-east to south-west. It will also be noted
that the strata of the more recent formations are, as a rule, inclined
towards and resting against the more ancient massifs, except where
they are reversed, or inclined in the opposite direction to the mountain
slopes.

But a feature which is universal is the mass of debris in the form
of blocks, fragments, pudding stone, sandstone, and sand, either piled
together and forming mountains or hills, or else scattered on the
exterior of the range, or even on the plains lying at the base of the
Alps, which bears witness to the violent and sudden retreat of the
waters.

We recognise, then, in the Alps the certain proof of the catastrophe,
or last scene, in the great drama of the revolutions of the globe. But
we see only uncertain and doubtful signs of the preceding events, apart
from the proofs of quiet crystallisations in the most remote epochs
which preceded the creation of animals, of deposits or sediments in
the periods which followed this epoch, and some evidence of violent
movements such as the formation of fissures, of pudding stone, the
fracture of shells, and the displacement of strata. But I do not
propose to enter here into any details of the Theory. I only wish to

1 The date given is 1774. This is obviously one of the many errata in the
concluding volumes. — D. W. F.

DISCOURS PRELIMINAIRE, ETC. 293

ascertain if there are any general conclusions which may be put forward
by one who has passed his life in visiting the Alps and in studying
the character and structure of the ranges which compose them.

The following note, or postscript, occupies a page at the end
of the Agenda, and conveys de Saussure's last message to his
successors :

The particulars here given may serve to show that Geology is
not a study for the idle or the self-indulgent, since a geologist's days
are divided between fatiguing and perilous journeys, in which he is
cut off from most of the conveniences of life, and complicated and
deep studies in his cabinet. But what is rarer and perhaps even
more essential than the zeal required to surmount these obstacles is
a spirit free from preconceived ideas and intent on truth alone rather
than on any desire to create or demolish systems, and capable both of
plunging into the details indispensable in exact and reliable observa-
tions and of the power to rise to broad views and general conceptions.
I would not, however, urge these difficulties as a discouragement.
Every traveller can make some useful observations, and bring at least
a stone worthy to serve in the construction of the great edifice. Im-
perfect work may still be of use, for I do not doubt that were one to
compare with these Agenda the results of the journeys of mineralogists l
— even those of the highest reputation (and a fortiori, those of the
author of the Agenda !) — one would find many gaps, many observations
either imperfect or wanting. The reason for this I have given in my
Preface. Moreover, many of these ideas have only occurred to me
since my travels. This is the reason why I have worked with interest
on the Agenda, in the hope of placing young students at the com-
mencement of their career, at the point I have reached after thirty-
six years of study and travel.

1 Mineralogy is up to the end of the eighteenth century found in the Index of the
Transactions of the Royal Society, where Geology would now be the term used. —
D. W. F.

CHAPTER XII
POLITICS AT GENEVA

IN the preceding chapters we have been mainly occupied in follow-
ing de Saussure's scientific career as a physical student and an
Alpine explorer. But no portrait of the author of Voyages dans
les Alpes can pretend to be complete which omits his home life
and his services to the Republic.

Whatever criticism the patrician families of Geneva may
be liable to as practical politicians, it must be admitted
that they were active in fulfilling their public duties. They
furnished the State its magistrates, the Academy its professors,
and the Church many of its presbyters. They enriched the city
by their business enterprise, whether as merchants or bankers.
There were few drones in the busy hive planted on the hill above
the Rhone. De Saussure was no exception to the general rule.
Throughout his life he was engaged in many and very varied
occupations, social, civil, and political ; he was not only a hard-
worked professor and a versatile man of science, he was also an
ardent educationalist and, when compelled by occasion, an active
legislator. As a young man, during the troubles of 1766-68, he
was called on to serve as a political correspondent to his friend
Haller, who was at the time engaged officially as an adviser to
one of the Mediating Powers, the Canton of Berne. At a
later date he was drawn reluctantly into the narrow but
turbid stream of Genevese politics in an earnest attempt to
save his city from being overrun by the flood of the French
Revolution.

Of the difficulties that face a biographer addressing English
readers in any attempt to do justice to this hitherto neglected
side of de Saussure's character and career I am very conscious.
What Sainte-Beuve has written in noticing Sayous' well-known

394

POLITICS AT GENEVA 295

work on French literature outside France,1 seems to me to apply
so exactly to my own case that I am tempted to quote the passage
here :

4 Why not have put in the front of these volumes a brief account
of the constitution and political history of Geneva ? We should have
been glad of a summary sketch of the quarrels and the civil wars
between the different classes, of the strife between the citizens and the
bourgeois, between the members and rulers of the State on the one
hand, and on the other the unenfranchised crowd constantly demand-
ing civil rights. These disputes between the High and the Low Town,
between patricians and plebeians, reproduced in many of their features
those of the Greek and Roman republics. A few pages in which were
presented clearly and accurately the vicissitudes of the city-state up to
the moment when it was swallowed by the French Revolution, would
have informed and relieved our minds.'

Even at the risk of becoming tedious, I feel bound to act on
the great critic's suggestion, and to offer such a brief summary
of the Genevese Constitution, its origin and growth, as may
assist my readers to realise in outline the part played by de
Saussure during the revolutionary period. It is not my object
to follow closely the kaleidoscopic movements of constantly
shifting party combinations, to record in any detail the alternate
victories and defeats of the patrician oligarchy in their protracted
struggle to keep hold of the reins of government. That task may
be left to local historians. My intention is to refer to these events
only in so far as they affected the life and fortune of a single actor
in them.

In order to understand the successive political episodes in which
de Saussure was called on to play a part, it is essential, in the first
place, to distinguish the classes into which, about 1760, the in-
habitants of Geneva were divided, and to enumerate the various
bodies which constituted and controlled the State.

In 1781, according to an official census, the population of the
Republic amounted to 24,700, of whom 8000 were adult males.
Of these only 3000 were entitled to vote in the General Assembly ;
in practice the number voting seems seldom to have exceeded
1600. This enfranchised class was divided into citizens and

1 Le Dix-huitieme Siecle a F Stranger : Histoire de la Litterature Fran^aise
dans les divers pays de F Europe depuis la mort de Louis XIV. jusqu'a la Revolution
Franyaise, par A. Sayous (Paris, 1861). See vol. i. pp. 400-457.

296 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

burghers ; the latter section suffered from certain disabilities
set out below.

In theory the Geneva of the eighteenth century was a demo-
cracy governed by the General Assembly, through four executive
officers appointed by it, and known as Syndics. But, as time went
on, the power of this body had been gradually limited, or usurped,
by two committees distinguished as the Council of Twenty-five,
or Small Council, or more generally as the Senate, and the Council
of Two Hundred, or Great Council. The Senate was selected from
members of the Great Council, for which citizens, amongst whom
were included burghers' sons born in the city, were alone eligible.
Burghers, though they voted in the General Assembly, could not
sit in either of the Councils, or hold any of the higher administra-
tive offices of the State. Families, a member of which had sat
in the Senate, or served in one of its chief offices, bore the title of
' Noble,' while doctors, lawyers and ministers were entitled to be
addressed as ' Spectable.'

The origin of the Senate, which dates back to the fourteenth
century, is somewhat obscure. It would seem to have been at
first a committee, with certain special functions, which were
enlarged, so that in the course of years it developed into something
like a Cabinet. As the affairs of State grew in importance, it
delegated a part of its functions to the larger committee known
as the Great Council. These bodies were, it appears, originally
nominated by the Syndics, and confirmed by the General Assembly.
But about the time of the Reformation the Assembly lost its con-
trol, and the Councils assumed the right to elect one another. The
Senate secured another most important advantage ; hitherto the
four Syndics had been elected by the free vote of the Assembly,
from which they directly derived their authority. Its choice was
now limited to four out of eight nominees of the Senate, and the
Senate nominated only members of its own body. The combined
effect of these changes was to destroy the democratic character
of the State : the General Assembly might still be acclaimed as
the Souverain, but the reins had passed into other hands.

Henceforth all political and judicial power was concentrated
in the Senate and Great Council, and these were recruited out of
a limited number of closely allied patrician families. As the years
went on the powers of the popular body were still further reduced.

POLITICS AT GENEVA 297

No measure could be proposed except in the Senate, and no
measure could be brought before the General Assembly until it had
been passed both by the Senate and Great Council. The General
Assembly might send up remonstrances or petitions to the Councils,
but the Councils were not bound to take them into consideration.
In the terms in use, the citizens might ' represent,' but the Councils
could ' negative.' By the middle of the eighteenth century Geneva
had become an oligarchy, controlled by clerics and a group of
Noble Families. The General Assembly, however, still met from
time to time, if only to give a formal sanction to the enactments of
the Councils ; and its power of vetoing the Senate's nominations
for the chief offices of the State offered an obvious instrument for
the expression of the growing discontents.

Outside the enfranchised minority here described lay the bulk
of the male population, who were liable to special taxation, and
up to 1768 were excluded from public offices, from the liberal
professions, and from certain trades. If born in the city they
were known as ' Natifs,' if newcomers, as ' Inhabitants.' It was,
it is true, possible for individuals of this class to acquire civic
rights either by service rendered to the State or by money pay-
ment, but after the sixteenth century the process became some-
what costly. In the first seventy years of the eighteenth century
some five hundred outsiders were thus admitted as burghers.

Such, in outline, was the Constitution of Geneva in the latter
half of the eighteenth century. I have now to indicate the
main epochs in its historical development.

For many centuries after Caesar Geneva had remained an
obscure provincial town, which won no place in the annals of the
later Empire. First Roman and then Burgundian, it shared in
the vicissitudes of those dark and troublous times until in the
eleventh century it was handed over by the Emperor Conrad n.,
acting as King of Burgundy, to its Bishop, who was created a
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The rule of the Prince-
Bishops lasted for some five hundred years — until 1535 — but it
was a perpetual struggle against first the local Counts of the
Genevois, and afterwards the House of Savoy. The little city-
state found itself surrounded by the dominions of hungry poten-
tates, who, but for the timely aid received from the neighbouring
Swiss cantons of Berne and Fribourg, would probably have

298 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

swallowed it up. The Prince-Bishops' troubles were not only
external ; they had also to contend with their own subjects
within the walls. The Constitution of Geneva was based on the
liberties won from one of its sovereigns, embodied and confirmed
in 1387 in a document described as the Magna Carta of Genevese
history.1 This definitely recognised the existence and powers of
a General Assembly, and provided for the appointment of four
Syndics as its executive officers. The Senate, or Council of
Twenty-five, is not mentioned in the charter, but independent
evidence has been brought to light that it already existed at that
date in the form of a committee, with certain well-defined adminis-
trative powers.

A hundred and fifty years later, about 1535, the Genevese
finally got rid of their Prince-Bishops, and proceeded to develop
a constitution by creating in imitation of the neighbouring Swiss
cantons the Great Council, and also a Council of Sixty, which
dealt with Foreign Affairs, and met only at intervals.

The same date was further marked by the arrival of the
reformer Farel and the introduction of the Protestant religion.
The Reformation affected the political and social life of the city
for evil as well as for good . The old framework of liberty remained ,
but in place of being adapted to the needs of the time, it was
stiffened by Calvin with the spirit of ecclesiastical tyranny.

Recent historians have shown a tendency to exaggerate the
services rendered to the cause of popular government by the
example and influence of Geneva under its clerical rulers. If
the first aim of Calvinism was to be free of the control of princes,
it was equally keen to set up a tyranny of its own in some respects
even more absolute. Its ideal of liberty was strictly limited
by its demand for conformity. It took no account of the claims
of the individual conscience ; it had no tolerance for those who
objected to its creed and doctrine, or its harsh restrictions. When
we are invited to regard the little city on Lake Leman as the
source from which Hampden and Cromwell drew their energy,
and the Pilgrim Fathers their principles, we are tempted to
inquire more closely what the extent and nature of the influence

1 Coutumes, Ordonnances, Franchises et Libertks de la Ville de Geneve.
Recueillies et publiees en 1' annee 1387, par Adhemar Fabry, Prince et Eveque
de 1'Eglise et de la dite ville de Geneve.

POLITICS AT GENEVA 299

exerted in this country by the Calvinist oligarchy of Geneva
really amounted to. Englishmen have at no time needed to go
abroad to learn the love of liberty. If the religious refugees who
returned to their country from Geneva in the days of Elizabeth
brought back with them some fresh experience of a Republic,
they brought back also a narrow and ungenial view of life, a bitter
sectarianism which infected English Puritanism and hastened the
downfall of the Cromwellian government. If the Pilgrim Fathers
owed in part their virtues to the teaching of Calvin, their failings
— the cruelties and bigotry that marked their early attempts at
organising a community — must be laid to the same account.

In 1543 the franchises won by the citizens in 1387 were under
Calvin's rule moulded to the purposes of a self-righteous and
largely clerical oligarchy, resolute in refusing to suit itself to new
conditions and meddlesome to the point of absurdity in matters
of dogma and morals. As has already been shown, a committee,
under the control of the Venerable Company of Pastors, exercised
up to 1770 an intolerably minute supervision over the private
lives of the inhabitants. The Genevese citizen could not call
his house, his table, or even his clothes, much less his soul, his own.
But for the rest the administration under the old aristocracy
seems to have been honest, capable, and economical, and every
traveller noted the striking contrast between the condition of
the inhabitants of the town and its territory and that of the
peasantry of Savoy immediately outside the frontier. Education
was not altogether neglected, and there were schools — limited to
boys — for all classes. Further, to ensure the perpetuation of
the order he created, Calvin founded an ' Academy ' the studies
of which were carefully framed so as to provide a succession of
presbyters and pious magistrates imbued with sound doctrines
and a proper contempt for free thought and worldly indulgences.
The Academy was placed under the control of the Venerable
Company of Pastors, the members of which, should occasion
arise, were always at hand and ready to advise and admonish
their colleagues of the lay Councils.

Meantime, the existence of the Republic, surrounded, as we have
seen, by powerful neighbours, was apt to be precarious. In 1602
it was attacked in force by the Duke of Savoy. His assault was
repulsed, and the Genevese, proud of the one feat of arms in their

300 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

city's history, cherished its memory, which is still kept alive in
the annual festival of the Escalade. Security was subsequently
sought in an alliance with the King of France and the cantons of
Berne and Zurich, the latter on the ground of religion taking
the place originally held by Fribourg. These States, known
in local history as the Mediating Powers, played an important,
and in the result a disastrous, part in the history of Geneva.
There is no more dangerous defect in a government than a
tendency to rely on foreign arms against its own subjects. This
blunder the Genevese aristocracy habitually made. In place
of strengthening their position by gradually associating the
prosperous and growing middle class in the responsibilities of
administration and legislation, they persevered in attempts to
retain a monopoly of power in their own hands by the aid of
alien forces. When France became a Republic the Genevese
oligarchy fell pierced by the weapon it had too long relied on.

During the seventeenth century the democratic elements in the
ancient constitution were in a state of decay, while the popula-
tion of the town was increasing in number and prosperity. The
General Assembly was reduced to practical impotence and its
meetings to empty ceremonies. Public opinion, deprived of any
practical mode of expression, took the form of incessant criticism,
ever ready to ripen on occasion into serious discontent. In 1707
new duties levied by the Councils on the import of wine and more
restrictive game laws were the sparks that served to set a light to
the smouldering ashes. A largely signed petition was presented
to the Great Council, claiming that votes in the General Assembly
should be taken by ballot, that a limit should be put to the number
of members of the same family allowed to sit in the Great Council,
and that the fundamental laws of the State, the text of which had
been untouched for a hundred and fifty years , and was in some points
vague , should be revised and reprinted . This was a demand that was
repeated over and over again for many years, and met by a series
of postponements and evasions on the part of the oligarchy, which
largely contributed to its final discomfiture. The petition was
contumeliously rejected and ordered to be burnt by the First
Syndic. An extraordinary meeting of the Assembly followed/*
stormy debates were succeeded by riots in the streets, and troops
were summoned from Berne. An informer alleged that the demo-

POLITICS AT GENEVA 301

cratic party had planned a massacre of the Syndics and the Swiss
troops. Several of its leaders, including Pierre Fatio, a lawyer of
patrician family and great eloquence, were arrested, condemned,
and executed. Thus ended the first of the series of revolutions
and counter-revolutions which were to mark the century.

The years 1730-40 may serve as the next point in our summary
retrospect. Since the attempted revolution in 1707 had been
put down, the patrician oligarchy had further consolidated its
power. The Senate and Great Council by a series of ingenious
devices had secured to themselves in practice perpetuity of office,
the concentration in their own hands of all legislative, executive,
and judicial power, the appointment of the four Syndics, and the
control of the elections of their own members . The meetings of the
General Assembly had become merely formal and fallen largely into
disuse. It had to content itself with acting as a Court of Registra-
tion for the decrees and nominations of the Councils.

In 1734 the growing discontent was again brought to a head by
increased taxation imposed to meet the cost of new fortifications.
Either side suspected the other of an intention to resort to violence.
Some blood was shed in street riots, but in the end a compromise
was arrived at. The British Resident in Switzerland, it is inter-
esting to find, addressed a very sensible and plain-spoken letter to
the Syndics and Councils, blaming their conduct and justifying
the bourgeoisie in calling in question their claim to the power of
imposing taxation. In the result the Assembly was convoked
and voted the taxes in question, while the officials who had been
concerned in preparing arms for use against the people were dis-
missed. But the truce proved a hollow one. The Senate con-
demned Micheli du Crest, an engineer, who on the ground of
expense had ventured to criticise and oppose their project of new
fortifications ; Micheli's adherents were prosecuted without any
regard for legal forms ; the populace rose in their defence ; street-
fighting ensued . The Councils by feasts and flattery sought to win
over the artisan population to take up arms on their side against
the middle-class burghers. In this dilemma recourse was again
had to the so-called Garantie, the old custom arising out of the need
Geneva had experienced in earlier times of protection from the
Dukes of Savoy. The King of France and the cantons of Berne
and Zurich were invited to exercise their right to intervene in

302 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

unison as mediators. Delegates were duly appointed by the
Powers. After much delay and some bickering between them-
selves, they drew up a solemn document known as the ' Reglement
de I'Ulustre Mediation,' designed to put an end to the civic troubles.
The Councils were pronounced to be bound to govern according
to the established laws of the city, as set out in the Code of 1387,
which they were instructed to revise and reissue ; on the other hand,
they were recognised to possess full executive and judicial powers
and the sole right of initiative — that is, of proposing new laws.
They were confirmed in the right of nominating the four Syndics
and other town officers in the General Assembly, which could, how-
ever, reject their nominees. To that body was reserved the power
of declaring peace and war, of imposing any fresh taxation, and
of enacting such new laws as might be proposed by the Councils,
while any of its members — that is, any burgher — was authorised to
make from time to time representations to the Councils on matters
relating to the interests of the State. It was on the revision and
reissue of the laws of the Republic that future trouble was mainly
to centre. The burghers continued to 'represent,' but the Councils
could not be compelled to act or even to consider. Hence the one
party got the name of ' Repr6sentants ' — Reformers would in
English nearly express their position — the other that of ' Nega-
tifs * or ' Constitutionalists.'

Thus two years before the birth of de Saussure ended the
second important act in the long struggle between the patriciate
and the democracy. The middle of the eighteenth century was for
Geneva a time of material prosperity. Its Academy attracted
students from all parts of Europe, its bankers and merchants
grew wealthy, its watch-trade flourished. The Senate, it is true,
closely allied to the Church by tradition and family ties, continued,
though with diminishing zeal and energy, to support the Venerable
Company in enforcing sumptuary laws and restrictions on private
life, dress, and amusements of a character generally meticulous
and often vexatious. On the other hand, it was evasive and
dilatory in carrying out one of the most important articles of the
Act of Mediation — that which enjoined the publication of a correct
text of the ancient laws of the Republic. It preferred to keep
their interpretation in its own hands, and this neglect on its part
left a legitimate and fruitful ground for future dissensions. Mean-

POLITICS AT GENEVA 303

time the fatal flaw in the Genevese constitution — the Garantie —
the power of the Government to appeal for foreign armed aid
against its own townspeople — was left untouched.

These political conditions produced frequent contests of a
shifting and confused character. At one moment the strife was
between the citizens and burghers — the members of the General
Assembly — on one side, and their aristocratic rulers — the Senate
and the Great Council — on the other, each party constantly striving
either to enlarge or to maintain its own powers and privileges.
Here the Councils had the advantages that they elected one
another, and that the initiative in bringing forward any new
proposal rested solely with the Senate. These governing bodies
thus formed together an exclusive oligarchy ; they were, in fact,
a large family party, the composition of which is illustrated by
the constant recurrence of the same names in their lists. At
another moment the struggle lay between the General Assembly
and the unenfranchised classes, who were yearly growing in
numbers and prosperity. The latter kept up a perpetual agitation
for the removal of their disabilities and for admission to the full
rights of citizenship.1 From time to time the two Councils or
the General Assembly made alternate advances towards these
outsiders in the hope of strengthening their own hands in the
retention or pursuit of power.

The political history of Geneva during de Saussure's lifetime
consists therefore in a struggle for supremacy between these
warring elements, the aristocracy — the old families of the Upper
Town, clinging tenaciously to privileges, thanks to which, they
were convinced, the town had enjoyed at their hands for over two
hundred years an, on the whole, economical and competent rule ;
the members of the Assembly, impatient of a control which left
them with only a shadow of political power ; and a growing class
of small tradesmen and artisans, men with specific and very
practical grievances of their own.

This political and social unrest was going on and spreading up
to the time when, stimulated by the French Revolution, it broke
out in the last decade of the eighteenth century in riot and blood-

1 According to the popular leader, Cornuaud, out of 7000 adult males 5000
were without votes. See Esaie Gasc, Citoyen de Geneve, sa Politique et to. Theologie
(Paris, 1876).

304 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

shed, and an end came in the complete sweeping away of the
historic constitution of Geneva and its temporary annexation to
the French Republic.

From time to time in these recurring contentions the opposing
forces came to blows, and even bloodshed. But the Genevese were
more handy with the pen than with the sword, and their party
spirit found a ready and enjoyable vent in the flights of pamphlets,
both in prose and rhyme, which were hurled from side to side with
but little intermission. An industrious bibliographer has compiled
a catalogue of no fewer than 5885, published between 1735 and 1795 !

At intervals variety and relief were sought in formal recon-
ciliations. Church services were held to celebrate the restoration
of peace, and Geneva gave itself up to processions, garlands,
banquets, and fine sentiments. It would almost seem as if the
enforced absence of reasonable amusements had driven the
Genevese into a habit of holding these frequent political gambols
and junketings, harmless enough in themselves, but sadly incon-
gruous, and even dangerous, when they occurred as interludes in
the midst of strife and civil broils. In short, all parties in the
State amused themselves by playing with fire until they became
finally involved and scorched in the great European conflagration.

The reader may now, I trust, be able to follow the course of
events in Geneva from the date when de Saussure first took any
active interest in its political struggles.

For over twenty years, however, during the whole of de Saus-
sure's youth, there had been relative peace within the city walls.
The Government was economical, free from corruption, and, on
the whole, benevolent. The territory of Geneva offered in the
condition of its inhabitants a pleasing contrast to the adjacent
kingdoms. Trade flourished, work was plentiful, and large
fortunes were accumulated by the Genevese merchants and
bankers. The growing prosperity led to a gradual relaxation of
the more austere features of Calvinism — its control became less
arbitrary both in matters of dress and dogma. In 1770 there was
a two days' debate in the Senate on the sumptuary regulations,
which ended in their substantial modification. The humours
and discontents of democracy found a safety-valve in a profusion
of pamphlets and squibs of a relatively harmless character. It
was not until the dangerous eloquence of Rousseau sounded in

POLITICS AT GENEVA 305

their ears that the Councils had resort to an active policy of
suppression. In 1763 the long -gathering storm broke out with
the condemnation of the Contrat Social and Emile and the ban-
ishment of their author. A band of burghers ' represented ' —
that is, protested — to the Senate against this 'condemnation' in
very strong terms. Their action seems to have been both
politically expedient and legally sound ; the main point they
urged was that, under an article of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances
of 1576, the author of any alleged attack on the Established
Religion could not be condemned unheard or without previous
admonishment.1 The Senate firmly ' negatived ' — that is, refused
to receive — their protest . Public interest was aroused ; the contest
grew wordy, pamphlets flew about on all sides — the Genevese were
always ready to rush to the printing-press. The Procureur
General — Jean Robert Tronchin — in an able tract, entitled
Lettres ecrites de la Campagne, stated in moderate terms and
with much use of historical parallels the case for the Government ;
Rousseau fulminated on the other side in the far more famous
Lettres ecrites de la Montague. The popular party, greatly
encouraged and incited by their eloquent supporter, became
turbulent. The Senate grew alarmed ; it first threatened to
resign, and then gave signs of a readiness to compromise. Voltaire,
who preferred to live among quiet neighbours, seems on this
occasion to have done his best, but in vain, to convert the tem-
porary truce into a more permanent arrangement.

In the following year the quarrel was renewed. The Assembly
was obstinate in exercising the one power left it — that of rejecting
the candidates for the magistracy nominated by the Councils.
The latter replied by throwing themselves into the hands of the
Mediating Powers. There were now three main matters in dispute
between them and the Assembly. The Councils claimed (1)
judicial powers, (2) the right to interpret the ancient laws, and
(3) to refuse to entertain any proposal or remonstrance of the
citizens. In the absence of any published code the effect of this
claim was to make the Councils practically supreme and omni-

1 ' Art. 88. S'il y a quelqu'un qui dogmatise centre la doctrine res9ue qu'il
soit appele pour conferer avec luy : s'il se range, qu'on le supporte sans scandaie
ni difame : s'il est opiniatre qu'on 1'admoneste par quelques fois pour essayer
a le reduire : si on voit enfin qu'il soit metier de plus grande seventh qu'on lui
interdise la Sainte Gene et qu'on en avertisse le magistrat afin d'y pourvoir.'

306 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

potent. On the other hand, the Assembly could assert its privi-
lege of rejecting all or any of the candidates for the post of Syndic
or other office nominated by the two Councils. It did so on more
than one occasion, and with effect. By the use of this weapon
the whole administration could be brought to a standstill. The
power in some measure took the place held in our own consti-
tution by the financial control of the Lower House.

The result of the appeal to the Mediating Powers was the
presentation by them to the Genevese of a projected constitution,
known as The Pronouncement, which conformed in almost every
respect to the views of the aristocracy. No efforts were spared to
ensure its acceptance, yet it was rejected (1st December 1766) by a
majority of two to one in the General Assembly.

The French Agent on the spot — France kept a Resident in
permanence at Geneva — stormed, but the Swiss cantons, and
Zurich in particular, were half-hearted, and the Protecting Powers
hesitated to enforce their edict. Meantime, the rest of Europe
woke up to what was going on. England, mindful of its many
links with the citizens of Geneva, expressed an interest in the
liberties of a small Protestant State. Some of the wiser heads
among the aristocrats realised the perils of the situation, which
were urged on them by a large body of citizens in an eloquent
Remonstrance (16th October 1767). It was clear that the ' Pro-
nouncement,' put forth by the Mediators, was unacceptable.
At last the Councils gave way so far as to accept a working com-
promise, and the Representants smoothed their path by various
concessions. The following were the principal changes made in
the constitution by the so-called Edict of Pacification (llth March
1768). It was agreed that the Assembly's right of rejecting
candidates for the chief offices should be limited to a single ballot,
but that in return it should elect every five years half the new
members necessary to fill vacancies in the Great Council and four
members of the Senate. It was further enacted that a code
should be drawn up and printed, including all existing edicts and
ordinances. A truce having been concluded on these terms, the
Assembly ordered a Day of Prayer and Humiliation. The citizens
abounded in virtuous resolves. ' Our prayers,' they proclaimed,
' are at last granted ; firmly determined to keep our promises,
let us go into the temple of the Most High to offer Him the

POLITICS AT GENEVA 307

sacrifice of our hates, our animosities, and our passions.' It was
a good resolve, and one they often repeated in the following thirty
years, but, unhappily, never proved capable of carrying into effect.

But for the survival of Haller's correspondence we should
know nothing of de Saussure's attitude in the struggle here
indicated. For local politics he had at this time obviously little
bent ; all his interests lay in a different direction, and his leisure
was fully occupied. Born a patrician, his sympathy was naturally
on the side of the established order, and, with his uncle Bonnet,
he looked on Rousseau's influence in politics as that of a dangerous
agitator. But he shows a more or less open mind and a good deal
of sympathy with some of the ideas of the author of Emile, on
whose famous letter resigning his citizenship after the condem-
nation of that work he writes (18th May 1763) : ' You will find
in it all his sentiments, good and bad, and, above all, his self-
conceit, developed with much skill, force, and clearness.'

If in the protracted controversy and disorders of 1766-68, de
Saussure, happy in his home circle and full of his own affairs, had
no inch' nation to take any prominent part, he could not refuse
to act as Haller's correspondent in supplying him with information
as to the progress of events in Geneva. Haller was in a position
to exercise at this period considerable influence on the Bernese
Government, which, of the three Mediating Powers whose inter-
vention had been called for to settle the domestic troubles of
Geneva, was the most sympathetic and disinterested. Of the
others, Zurich was distant and indifferent, while France under the
' ancien regime ' had small sympathy with a republic, and was
entirely opposed to any measures likely to extend its franchise
and render it more democratic. Berne, itself a paternal oligarchy,
was anxious that Geneva should retain the same form of govern-
ment, even at the cost of moderate concessions. At this moment
Albrecht von Haller held a very high position in his own canton,
and though not a member of the Great Council (or inner cabinet)
had the ear of its leading politicians .l He was recognised through-
out Switzerland as the acknowledged champion of religion and
order against the subversive doctrines of Voltaire and Rousseau.
He had formed a strong affection for the young botanist who was
so eager in the pursuit of science, the nephew of his great friend

1 See chap. xvi.

308 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Bonnet. He now called on him to act as a confidential corre-
spondent by keeping him fully informed as to the position of parties
in Geneva, so that he might be able to bring a more effective
influence to bear on the Bernese Government, and encourage it in
its efforts at mediation.

Many more of Haller's than of de Saussure's letters have come
down to us . Haller was very persistent in his demand for informa-
tion. In 1766 he addressed thirty-one letters, the bulk of them
on politics, to Geneva, and the stream ran on well into the next
year. However excellent as a companion, he must have been
somewhat exacting as a correspondent ! Indeed de Saussure
on one occasion entreats his illustrious friend not to agitate himself
so much. And Haller himself confesses, ' I rush, perhaps with
excessive vivacity, into everything I undertake. I am too keen
on my job. . . . Any disorder infuriates me, every resistance to
law, every individual who prefers the evil and the false raises
my wrath.' We learn, moreover, that his letters were not easy
to decipher ; in 1775 Bonnet complains : ' Your handwriting gets
worse and worse, the letters are often unfinished ; there are even
some which your pen skips. I have gone back five or six times
to the same word without being able to make it out. What makes
it more annoying for me is that I value highly the least thing that
comes from your pen.' Bonnet's letters have a frank spontaneous-
ness and reveal the amiable qualities of a man no one ever
quarrelled with, and everybody, even Voltaire, who laughed at his
psycho -physical theories, liked.

The position of the writers in the correspondence, much of
which is preserved at Berne, is made fairly clear. De Saussure,
a member of the patriciate, the grandson of a Syndic, and the
son of a member of the Two Hundred, belonged by birth and
association to the ruling caste, and to a large extent accepted its
point of view. By temper a practical man and a cautious philo-
sopher, he was naturally averse to rash generalisations and sudden
changes. The constitution which had given Geneva two hundred
years of prosperity was in his judgment not a thing lightly to be
thrown aside or tampered with. To transfer the reins of govern-
ment from a body composed of men of experience and high
character to a popular assembly liable to be swayed by sudden
and ignorant impulses, seemed to him a dangerous experiment.

POLITICS AT GENEVA 309

The existing Government, whatever its faults, was honest, cheap,
and fairly efficient, and had brought prosperity to its subjects.
He did not believe that the mere fact of being born in a State gave
a man any title to a share in ruling it. Education was, he held,
an indispensable condition to the exercise of civic rights. He
had a deep distrust of the vague and subversive doctrines preached
by Rousseau and embodied in the Lettres ecrites de la Montague —
which had just come out. He dreaded their effect on an excitable
populace. He believed that behind the proposals of the more
moderate Representants lurked projects for the overthrow of the
constitution, that the ultimate aim of the popular leaders was to
do away altogether with the Councils, and to put all power in the
hands of the Assembly, acting through the Syndics. He dreaded
a raw and flighty democracy suddenly taking the place of an honest
and capable, if obstinate, oligarchy. If I appreciate his position
rightly, he stood for Reform, not Revolution ; he was the equi-
valent of an English Whig.

From Haller's letters we may glean a sufficient idea of what
was the solution present in his mind. It was to meet the demands
of the Representants by such moderate concessions as were con-
sistent with leaving the reins of government in the hands of the
Councils. Haller, who was a sound Tory, prophesied that bad
times might be trusted to tranquillise the popular party, and that
Geneva might hope for twenty years of relative quiet. But he
shrewdly enough added, in a moment of exceptional frankness
and foresight, the following warning :

' It will not last ; your constitution is vicious, your Council [the
Senate] has too much power given it by the law, together with the
weakness of not being self-electing. There will always be restless
spirits ready from time to time to make use of the control of elections
in order to impair the authority of the Council. There has never been
an orderly democracy. This is an inevitable misfortune for which
there is no cure.'

Haller acknowledged that it was to the interest of the rulers that
the people should be granted a legal status for putting forward
their complaints. It would, he thought, serve to prove that the
magistrates did not aim at tyranny. At one moment he was
indignant at the evasions of the Senate, and their failure to show
any sort of readiness for concessions. But he was apparently

310 LITE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

inconsistent when, on the acceptance of the Edict of Pacification
in March 1768, he accused the patricians of selling the constitution
in a cheap pursuit of popularity. He appears to have thought that
in place of repealing minor class restrictions they had given away
too many constitutional safeguards. He recommends his friend
to ' Despair with patience ' ; it was a quality he often failed to
exhibit in his own case.

De Saussure seems not to have been content to take the advice
thus given him without some further independent effort. From a
letter written to him at this time by the Duchesse d'Enville from
Paris we gather that the young Professor had prepared and sub-
mitted to the French mediator, M. de Beauteville, a sketch of a
project of reform. The Duchesse refers rather despondently to
the difficulty of finding a solution that will satisfy both the
Government and the people, ' whose interests are so different,' but
assures him of the goodwill of the Resident. Of the details of de
Saussure 's proposals no record seems to exist. It is, I think,
clear that they failed to bear fruit. It may fairly be inferred
from his subsequent action that they lay in the direction of a
gradual development in a democratic sense of the constitution as
opposed to any violent changes which might put control of the
administration of the State into the hands of the populace. He
foresaw the trend of events and the trouble that was to come, and
his remedy for it was an attempt — if the crowd was to rule — to
educate it first. Throughout his life popular education was his
political watchword.

CHAPTER XIII
EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81)

IN the last chapter we have seen how de Saussure, through his
correspondence with Haller, was called on to follow and take an
interest in the political troubles of Geneva in 1767-8.

On his return from the Grand Tour in January 1769 he found
the internal situation relatively tranquil. Geneva was about to
enjoy some thirteen years of material prosperity and social
brilliance. The young Professor's time was amply occupied.
He held the double Chair of Physics and Metaphysics, which en-
tailed lecturing frequently either in French or Latin during many
months of the year. He was actively engaged in research in
several branches of physical science. Besides these more serious
occupations, he was, as the master of the finest house in Geneva,
and of a country place on the lake shore, called on to play a leading
part in the society of the Upper Town. When it is added that
after 1770 he became subject to attacks of a violent form of
indigestion, and that his health gave cause for serious anxiety, it
will be clear that no apology is needed for his resolve to keep clear
of politics, and his consequent refusal of a seat on the Great
Council ; he had other work in hand.

The part played by de Saussure as a pioneer of educational
reform, though his efforts failed to produce any good effect at
the time, was a remarkable one, and deserves far more attention
than it has hitherto received. The shape in which his suggestions
were put forward has been in part accountable for their neglect.
Had he, in place of drawing up a scheme for the public school of
his own city, embodied them in a treatise or volume addressed to
the European public, they would not have been overlooked in the
subsequent literature of the subject. Popular education held a
place, beside the mountains and geology, as one of the chief and
most constant interests in de Saussure's life. The warmth, both

811

312 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of feeling and of expression, shown in his response to the criticisms
showered on his ' Project ' by his colleagues of the Academy
sufficiently indicates how deeply he was in earnest. Conscious
of the social ferment which preceded the French Revolution, this
Genevese patrician was firmly convinced that the first necessity
for the orderly development of a democratic State was the civilisa-
tion through education of the demos. In the principles laid down
and the practical details set out in his proposals we shall find that
he often struck a surprisingly modern note. Many of them
have had to wait more than a hundred years for their practical
application. Some are still waiting — at any rate, in this country.
If in his own lifetime his arguments fell on deaf ears, they were
destined, repeated by his talented daughter, to attract and impress
the critics, both French and Swiss, of succeeding generations.

De Saussure on his return from Italy in August 1773, with
repaired health and renewed energies, resolved to make use
of them, not only in the fulfilment of his professorial duties and
the prosecution of his scientific studies, but in such action for the
advancement of the public welfare as lay to his hand. His
appointment as Rector of the Academy (1774-76) gave him an
opportunity to bring forward proposals on a matter he had long
had at heart, the reform of the system of education in the College.

Eleven years previously he had taken education as the subject
of his inaugural lecture as a Professor, and had denounced the
undue predominance given to the dead languages . He now devoted
his energies to a vigorous effort to reconstruct the whole scheme
of instruction in the College. This was, in fact, a public school for
the children between the ages of six and fourteen of the upper
classes, and de Saussure 's own experience of it had been such that
he refused to send his sons to be educated there. They were brought
up at home, and had for a time for their tutor an uncle of the
historian, Merle d'Aubign6. He now proposed to use the influence
and position he had acquired in an endeavour to remodel the school
system. He was ready to fight the battle for which his inaugural
lecture had been only the preliminary skirmish. His attack was
direct and vigorous.

' There is,' he wrote, ' a father of a family who, in common with
many others, feels it his duty to refuse to send his children to the
College so long as it remains in the state in which ours now is, but who

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 313

would feel he was giving them the best education possible in sending
them were the College reformed on the principles which form the
base of the present proposal.' 1

De Saussure had small sympathy with the view that looks
on education not as a method for forming a mind, but as a means
of making a livelihood. In a State where the majority rule, ought,
he asked, that majority to be ignorant ? Rousseau's theory of
the rights of man had little charm for his ears. He held that men
should be taught how to use a vote before they were trusted with
one . To hand over political control to an uneducated crowd went, he
urged , against common sense . He and his circle of the Upper Town
— the governing classes — looked on the author of the Lettres ecrites
de la Montagne as in local politics a disturber of his city's peace.
Yet on educational topics de Saussure was affected by the eloquence
and adopted not a few of the suggestions of Emile. In elementary
education he advocated a system of object-lessons such as he had
found serve with his own children ; he proposed to teach natural
science with the aid of specimens suited to the age of the learner,
to link and give life to history and geography by the aid of
maps and pictures, to supply models to illustrate lessons in the
industrial arts. For older pupils he recommended a mixture
of scientific teaching and classical literature. He claimed
for an association in secondary instruction between letters and
science. The children destined to manufactures and com-
merce— the greater proportion of the townspeople — got, he
held, under the existing system little advantage from their school
years.

Early in 1774 he brought out his Projet de Reforme pour le
College de Geneve. In a short preface he tells us that it was the
result of a series of discussions in a Literary Society to which
he belonged, and that it embodied the view of many of its members.
He adds, surely superfluously, to the avowal of the public purpose
he has at heart a vigorous assertion that he has no personal end to
serve, since it would give him far less trouble to bring up his own
children privately than to undertake the thorny task of an educa-
tional reformer.

The first sentences of the pamphlet sufficiently indicate the

1 Avcrtissement to the Projet de Reforme pour le College de Geneve.

314 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

social unrest of Geneva at that date, and the political purpose
that was underlying de Saussure's action. He writes :

' If there is a State that more than others needs to attend to educa-
tion, it is that in which the opinions and the way of living of a con-
siderable portion of its members are opposed to the spirit of its Govern-
ment. Such an opposition must always produce discontents, public
and private quarrels, general distrust, difficulties and shocks dangerous
to the State ; and it is to education alone that we can look for the removal
of these abuses. In a Republic such as ours, therefore, an education
is called for which will inspire in the young of all classes the love of
country, the sense of common interests, and that spirit of equality
which the character of our Government implies and demands.'

He goes on to insist on the advantages a public school has in
this and other respects over home education. The College, he
admits, was originally founded as a seminary for ecclesiastics and
civil servants ; but the time has come, he urges, when it should be
converted to more general uses. He points out unsparingly the
defects of a system that had driven from the College all the
children whose parents could afford to give them a better education.
The middle -class pupils, he declares,

' get nothing but some notions, and those imperfect, of religion ; the
etymology of a few words derived from Greek or Latin, and some
scattered scraps of history and mythology ; those of the upper class, for
whom the curriculum was planned, bring nothing away but some bad
Latin and the rudiments of Greek. For all other branches of knowledge
they have, on leaving the College, to take them up at their A B C as
if they had never heard them mentioned.'

De Saussure proceeds to set out in detail his scheme of in-
struction. It is interesting to note that he cites as a model for
imitation Zurich, celebrated at the present day for having some
of the best-provided primary schools, attended by all classes, in
Europe. The daily school-hours were not to exceed six ; of
these two were to be given to the dead languages, and two to
Science and History, two to Moral Instruction (under which
were included Christian doctrine and French poetry !). De
Saussure subsequently cut down Morals to one hour. To suit
parents who did not want classics, the hours for Latin and Greek
were to be so arranged that the pupils could easily absent them-
selves. For the rest, we find many sensible and essentially modern

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 315

recommendations. Classes on the same subject are not to be
too long, the lessons are as far as possible to be illustrated, the
relations of history and geography are to be insisted on, in classical
studies composition is in the upper forms to be limited in Latin
and altogether suppressed in Greek, while more attention is to be
given to translations. De Saussure ends with an earnest appeal
which indicates a mind alive to the dangers looming in the near
future. ' Our State is but a little island situated between broad,
deep, and rapid currents, and our internal divisions, if radical and
frequent, may open . . . but I turn my eyes from this terrifying
prospect.' Therefore, he urges, let all recognise that a public and
common education is the most effectual means to ensure the
safety of the Republic.

De Saussure 's forcible utterance for the moment caught the
public ear, and was eagerly discussed by partisans on both sides ;
Condorcet wrote to him from Paris, sending him several pages
of sympathetic comment. But at Geneva the novelty of the
ideas seems to have created some misunderstanding and much
criticism. In patrician circles they excited warm hostility. As
has often been the case elsewhere, educational progress was
hindered by political prejudices. The clerics and the class they
influenced — the Negatives of the Upper Town — were violent in
their opposition. De Saussure 's colleague, Bertrand, who as a
mathematician might have been expected to take a more liberal
view, proved a leading opponent. He quoted an Ordinance
according to which ' the College was founded to educate young
men for the Ministry and Magistracy,' and urged that for
' lawyers and theologians, to whom he would add doctors,' any
course of instruction not exclusively classical was ill-suited !
If any teaching for artists and artisans was needed, it must, he
contended, be given in a wholly separate institution. The public
became interested and began to take sides. Tracts and squibs,
after the Genevese fashion, filled the air, while a mock protest
from the women of Geneva, complaining that they would no
longer be fit companions for their over-educated husbands, amused
the^town.1 On the other hand, the Representants, the heads
of the popular party, warmly supported the Projet. Jacques

1 There were no primary public schools for girls at Geneva before 1804, and
no secondary schools before 1836.

316 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Frai^ois Deluc (the father of Jean Antoine, the meteorologist, and
one of the climbers of the Buet) took the lead at the head of a
deputation of fifty in presenting an address of thanks to its author.
Another deputation, also from the Natifs, was led by the Alpine
enthusiast Bourrit. The dispute had become political. De
Saussure was regarded by his own party as more or less of a renegade .
But in the Radical camp he was hailed with enthusiasm. He
delighted his unenfranchised visitors by greeting them as fellow-
citizens. D'lvernois, a Genevese democrat, who spent ten years
in exile in England, where he was knighted, writes in the warmest
terms of de Saussure 's efforts to break down social prejudices and
barriers and to promote close and friendly relations between all
classes in the State. In these efforts he was, d'lvernois tells us,
ably seconded by young Lord Mahon, who did his best to encourage
games and manly exercises among the youth of the aristocracy,
who appear to have fallen into sadly effeminate habits.1

Meantime, de Saussure was surprised, and not a little indignant,
at the hostile attitude of many of his friends and colleagues. He
sent out an answer to objectors, Eclaircissements sur le Projet de
Reforme pour le College de Geneve. He had, it is clear, been accused
of scheming, on the one hand, for his own, the leisured class ; on the
other, of attempting to substitute for solid learning a culture exten-
sive but superficial ; to abolish asound liberal and classical education
in favour of an inadequate technical one. He retaliated warmly :

' Even in this century, called " The Century of Facts," it is phrases
that govern. Society is divided into little cabals, each of which has
its catchword. That which rallies the greatest number is any attack
on " the upper class " — les Gens du Monde. At its sound all who
count as their chief quality misanthropy, all the envious, gather and
are ready to tear in pieces those thus presented to them.'

He set aside brusquely an alternative proposal for separate
technical schools for the working-man. He refuted vehemently
the contention of those who looked on the education of the people
as dangerous to society. He treated with scorn the economical
objectors who were frightened at the probable cost of carrying
out his scheme. The world is divided into two sections — those
whose minds instinctively turn first to the objections to any change

1 See Tableau historique et politique des Revolutions de Geneve dans le dix-
huitieme Siede (Geneva, 1782), and p. 318.

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 317

and those who are ready to appreciate fairly the arguments on
both sides. De Saussure was born and bred a Negative, but in
intellect he showed himself very much the contrary.

De Saussure was obviously before his time, while the Vener-
able Company was as hopelessly conservative as most clerical
Convocations. Moreover, the tincture in de Saussure's eloquence
of the doctrines of the recently condemned Emile was not likely
to recommend his proposals to its friendly consideration. The
principles de Saussure propounded, that a nation gets the Govern-
ment it deserves, that there is no tyranny so vicious as that of an
ignorant democracy, that liberty without law spells licence, might
be sound, but his application of them was well outside the scope
of the Genevese patricians' vision. Since their oligarchy was
a Republic in name, they were satisfied to drive on in the old track
till the events of the last decade of the eighteenth century threw
them into the ditch.

What would appear to be the habitual result of educational
discussions followed. De Saussure's proposals were referred to a
committee. In due course the committee made some practical
suggestions towards carrying them out ; it framed a scheme
for a system of secondary education. This would have involved
the postponement of classical and literary instruction to advanced
classes consisting of youths whose abilities gave promise that
they would be able to profit by it. The proposals were formally
referred back for further consideration and practically shelved.

Some changes for the better were made in 1790, but it
was not till sixty-two years later that the education of the
College was, after continual contests, reformed on modern lines.
Latin and Greek were then made optional subjects. Grammar
was to be taught through the French language. Geography
and history were given an important place. Modern languages,
arithmetic, practical geometry, and drawing were dealt with in
special classes. ' Thus,' writes the historian of the College,
' the adoption of the law of 1836 realised in part the proposals
made by de Saussure in 1774, which the Councils of the revolu-
tionary epoch had attempted to carry out in an exaggerated
shape, and which the Society of Arts had in 1821 tried without
success to revive in their original form.' The variations from de
Saussure's scheme lay chiefly in the absence of any recognition of

318 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

natural science and in the relegation of moral or religious teaching
to a comparatively secondary place.

We have been led on in order to complete the story of de
Saussure's educational activity. I return to 1774 to record the
fact that he was in that year proposed by Lord Mahon and elected
a member of a newly founded English Club, which met every
Saturday for discussions carried on in our language.

Next year (1775), undeterred by his repulse, de Saussure again
attacked the education in vogue. In his capacity of Rector he
gave at the Annual ' Promotions,' or prize-day of the College, a
lecture ' On the Neglect of Athletics and the pampered Bringing -up
of the Young.' 1 He wrote to Haller that he had also furnished a
programme of the proceedings in verse ! This has not survived.
The only other occasion on which there is any record of his having
yielded to the Genevese habit of rhyming is in some playful lines
written in the previous year (1774) for his elder son's seventh
birthday. They prove him a wise father, if but an indifferent poet.

At this date de Saussure was acting as Curator of the Town
Library, and we find him thanking Lord Stanhope for a hand-
some present of books. Throughout his career he was con-
tinually being called on to take up posts demanding a certain
amount of practical ability and sacrifice of time, and he seems
readily to have responded to the claims made on him.

Thwarted in his effort to improve and enlarge at its source the
public education of Geneva, de Saussure turned his mind and
energy to a more indirect method which might serve the double
object of bringing the different classes and avocations, men of
science and artists, employers and workmen, into closer relation,
and at the same time of raising the general intellectual and artistic
level. He conceived the plan of a popular Society of Arts, that
should combine the efforts of the more enlightened members of
every class in the community in a general endeavour to set before
their fellows a high standard in all things, and more particularly to
promote the application of science to industry, and of art to
manufactures and daily lif e . He was fortunate in securing at the

1 Rousseau, in his Lettre ct d'Alembert, insists on this defect in the training
of the youth of Geneva. ' Boys are brought up like women : they are guarded
from the sun, the wind, the rain, and dust, so that they lose all power of endur-
ance. They are forbidden any exercise, etc.' (See also d'lvernois, Revolutions
de Qen&ve.)

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 319

start the support and sympathy of an intelligent watchmaker,
Louis Faizan, who has been held by some to share with him the
credit of the Society's foundation. The project was, no doubt,
fully discussed in the hall or on the terrace of de Saussure's town-
house overlooking the Corraterie, before, in April 1776, a solemn
assembly of three hundred persons was held in the ' Salle du
Magnifique Conseil des Deux Cents,' by the permission of Messieurs
les Syndics, in order to found the new ' Societe des Arts.' The next
step was to form committees. One was charged with the crafts
of the watchmakers and jewellers and silversmiths and the like,
another with rural and domestic economy and their branches,
including machinery. Three lecturers were appointed, with the
title of demonstrators. A number of prizes, medals of the sub-
stantial value of twenty louis, were offered for essays on subjects,
all practical but very diverse — for instance, ' How to Improve the
Fertility of the Genevese Territory ' ; ' How best to Employ
Paupers, should a Workhouse be established ' ; ' How to Improve
the Manufacture of Steel ' ; ' For an Elementary Work on Watch-
making.' ' Virtue,' in the Roman sense of the word, bravery
resulting in the saving of human life, was also rewarded in the
case of rescues from fire or drowning.

De Saussure, who from the start threw himself with all his
energy into the undertaking, was the first President of the Society.
He looked forward to the practical results to be obtained in many
directions by applying scientific knowledge to industry and the
daily affairs of life. But it was also his particular desire to pro-
mote an artistic and imaginative sense among his neighbours in
Geneva. The fine arts had too long, he thought, lain under the ban
of Calvinism ; the town record was rich in theologians and men
of science, but poor in painters and poets.

The Society had some years of moderately successful existence
before it fell under the blight of the political reaction of 1781-2.
Under the restrictions enforced by the victorious patricians, its
meetings were for a time forbidden, but after an interval, and
when political passions had to some extent subsided, de Saussure,
naturally unwilling to see his efforts brought to nothing, approached
the Government, and in 1786 the Society was reconstituted under
its protection on a new basis, and granted an official home, where
it could extend its schools of design. De Saussure did not content

320 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

himself with securing official support. His social and practical
spirit was shown not only in inviting ladies to become patronesses
and attend the meetings, but also in arranging for more friendly
and informal gatherings, which were cheered by tea and coffee and
enlightened by the first appearance of the once famous Argand lamp.

In the next year (1787) the original Journal de Geneve made
its appearance as the organ of the Society. It announced as its
object the publication of whatever local news might be useful to its
readers. Births, deaths, and marriages, elections, new laws and
regulations, prices in the market, fill its columns. There is a
whole front page (here we note the hand of de Saussure) of meteoro-
logical observations. The first number appeared on the day of his
return to Chamonix from Mont Blanc ; the second contained a
short account of his ascent. In the following issues we find it
acting as the Journal of the ' Societe des Arts ' in the stricter sense
of the word, reporting its proceedings and the papers read before
it. It died after five years, in the troublous days of the Revolution,
to be definitely born again as a newspaper in the modern sense in
1830. It has flourished ever since, and is now one of the best
daily papers on the Continent.

The 'Societe des Arts' survived and still prospers. The
story of its achievements and the list of its possessions, its
benefactors, and its officers have been recently issued in a
handsome volume.1 Its rooms contain considerable collections,
among which is the official portrait of de Saussure, painted a few
years before his death by Saint-Ours.

We have transgressed chronological order in order to complete
the story of de Saussure's connection with the ' »Societ6 des Arts '
and the Journal de Geneve.

In 1775 health was again a matter of anxiety with de
Saussure, and he was prescribed for by Dr. Tronchin.

' One word more,' the genial doctor writes, ' to you whose health
is so precious to us. Use moderation in drugs. Moderate also your
activity and your zeal in all you undertake. Add to your virtues that
of bearing contradiction, even where you have least reason to expect
it. This virtue is far more necessary in republics than in monarchies ;
it is the safeguard of peace of soul and tranquillity of mind — conditions
which perhaps are not held at their proper value in republics.'

1 La Sociiti des Arts et see Collections, par J. Crosnier (Geneva, 1910).

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 321

This sound advice did not lead to any restriction in the excursions
that de Saussure undertook in the following year in the interest
of his scientific studies. In 1776, in the early summer, he accom-
panied his friend Sir William Hamilton to Chamonix. In
August he made another dash to Chamonix and climbed the Buet,
and later took his wife, children, and servants with him for an
extensive family tour through southern France in a berlin with
four horses. He went up the Puy de Dome on 13th October ;
drove on through the hills of Auvergne to Nimes, Avignon, Vaucluse,
Orange, and Grenoble. On the 12th November he was at Lyons,
whence the party made another round by Dijon, Semur, Besan9on,
and Pontarlier. In the Jura they suffered from the weather,
which was not surprising, since they did not return to Genthod till
30th November.

Sir William Hamilton in the same year writes to de Saussure
from Paris to report a death in his family. His comments indicate
the philosophic mind he was later in life to have occasion to
exhibit :

' As for me, I take events for which there is no remedy as best
I can, and I confess that since I have learnt to look on nature as a
whole, and discovered that what we call ancient is comparatively
very modern, and that the longest life of man is little more than that
of the insect which is born in the morning and dies in the evening, the
saddest events no longer produce the same effect on me. I shall
fight vigorously to ward off misfortune ; but when there is no
remedy one must console oneself. I enjoy as well as I can the present
moment.'

At the end of the year we find him proposing de Saussure
for the Fellowship of the Royal Society. He writes that he has
no doubt de Saussure will be elected without any opposition.
For some technical reason — different ones are alleged in the cor-
respondence— either lack of a seconder with personal knowledge,
or that de Saussure had not contributed a paper to the Transactions
of the Society — nothing came of the proposal at the time. It was
not till 1788, after de Saussure had established a popular reputation
by his ascent of Mont Blanc, that his scientific claims were re-
cognised. The delay contrasts oddly with the Society's relative
eagerness to receive de Saussure 's far less distinguished townsman,

x

322 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Jean Antoine Deluc. But Deluc was on the spot and ' Reader
to the Queen ' !

In July 1777 de Saussure was called on by the Emperor
Joseph n. of Austria, who passed through Geneva on his way
home from Paris. The prospect of receiving an imperial guest had
greatly fluttered the local authorities. They appointed a Com-
mittee of Reception ; they arranged for his lodging in the house of
a wealthy citizen, and resolved to send a distinguished and discreet
deputation to welcome him. On the 15th July the Register of the
Senate records that the Count de Falkenstein (the Emperor's
incognito) had arrived on the previous day at the hotel at
S6cheron, that two of the Syndics had gone there and, through
one of the Emperor's bankers, had conveyed a message that they
desired to pay their respects to him, but that the Emperor had
replied that while thanking them he must decline all formal and
complimentary visits. The Syndics further reported that the
Emperor had that morning driven into Geneva in a hired carriage,
visited the Public Library and M. de Saussure's cabinet, and
returned by boat, and that he proposed to leave next day.

The dry official record can be supplemented by letters of the
date . They tell us that the Emperor had ordered rooms at the Hotel
des Balances in the town, but changed his intention on finding the
crowd that had collected, and drove on to the inn at Secheron,1 which
had the advantage of being outside the gates. Even at Secheron
the road and adjoining terraces that commanded any view of his
apartment were thronged with a crowd in carriages and on foot.

De Saussure's friend, Trembley, describes the Emperor's
appearance :

' I saw the Emperor ; he has, in my opinion, a mediocre figure
which indicates a mediocre man. He seemed somewhat cold and un-
appreciative. He would not see our Syndics. We must find out
what M. de Saussure, who had a talk with him, thinks of him.'

Unfortunately, de Saussure's impression is not on record, but we
find an account — a remarkable one for a child of eleven — in his
daughter Albertine's diary :

' At last he has come ! He is a little man, well made, with a some-
what lofty air, a small face, a large aquiline nose, and extraordinarily

1 This was the inn where Byron and Shelley afterwards stayed. Turner
made a drawing of Geneva and the lake from a spot near it.

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 323

lively, clear blue eyes. He was dressed extremely simply in a short
brown coat of Silesian cloth and a white waistcoat and trousers. He
looked for a long time at M. Bourrit's pictures of the glaciers. . . .
Papa showed him his museum and electrical machine, to which he
did not give much attention. On leaving he paid fine compliments to
several ladies who had gathered on the great staircase to see him pass.'

De Saussure had been warned that the Emperor might ask
to be taken to the glaciers, and Bourrit had written him a letter
imploring that the job of acting as local cicerone might, if not
wanted by de Saussure, be passed on to the ' Historiographer of
the Alps.' But the Emperor was in a hurry, and there was no
question of a trip to Chamonix.

Next day he set out on the road to Lausanne and Berne.
We owe to Bonnet, who lived not far from Ferney, an amusing,
and, for his kindly bent, somewhat malicious, account of what
happened :

* The Emperor,' he writes, ' left Secheron between four and five
in the afternoon ; he passed through Ferney like an arrow. The old
gentleman [Voltaire], with all his household in full dress, was waiting
for him [at the cross-roads where the road to Ferney branches off from
the Route de Suisse]. He had got up early and worn his best wig
since eight o'clock in the morning, made great preparations for a
dinner, and pushed his attention to the sovereign so far as to have all
the stones cleared off the road to his house — that is for more than
half a league. Nevertheless, the traveller gave him the mortification
of not halting for a single instant, and even when the postilion indi-
cated Ferney, the Emperor only shouted twice over, "Fouette, cocher ! "
It is clear from all his behaviour that he intended to mortify the old
pamphleteer, who, I assure you, felt it deeply.'

Bonnet's version of the story was not universally accepted.
Voltaire, at any rate, had another tale to tell. He asserted that
two men leapt on the steps of the Emperor's carriage and asked
him if he was not going to see Voltaire, and that Joseph n., irritated
at the impertinence, gave the order to drive on ; that his conduct,
therefore, was the result not of any deliberate resolve, but of a
sudden pique. Another version is that the Emperor's mother,
the Empress Maria Theresa, had instructed her son to avoid
Voltaire and visit Haller.

So the Emperor went on his way to call on Haller, then almost
on his death-bed at Berne. On his return to Vienna he sent to

324 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the invalid ' hampers of the finest wine and quinine,' but they
arrived too late, for Haller died in December. Joseph n. bought
his library, with many of his manuscripts, and presented them to
the University of Pavia. They are now stored in the Biblioteca
Ambrosiana at Milan.

A few days later de Saussure found himself at the Baths of
Loeche, at the foot of the Gemmi, whence he wrote to his wife a
lively description of the bathers. He was fortunate in being wel-
comed by the talented Dutchwoman married to a Neuchatelois,
Madame de Charriere, to whom Saintc-Beuve has dedicated
many pages.1 She had already been a guest at the house in the
Rue de la Cit6, where her presence at a dinner party is recorded in
Albertine's diary.

De Saussure anticipates and confirms the verdict of the great
critic on the author of Caliste and the Lettres Neuchateloises.
He speaks warmly of her ' gaiety and real wit,' and takes
credit to himself with his wife for resisting her invitation
to prolong his stay. In the woman who wrote, ' Sitting at
my window and looking out on the lake, I thank you, moun-
tains, snow, and sun, for all the pleasure you give me,' he
must have found a congenial spirit. She introduced him to
the Assembly, where the beauties of Lausanne outshone the
Valaisannes, who wore their local costume. De Saussure
writes :

' If not very elegant, it was all very singular ; the most singular
thing is to see them all en chemise, men and women, in the same bath.
It is most entertaining, when this circle of people has been formed, to
witness new arrivals make their entry and their bows in this comical
crowd.'

The custom survived till the middle of the last century, when on
the entry of English visitors the bathers were wont to strike up
' God Save the Queen ! ' De Saussure dined and supped with
Madame de Charriere, who held him in conversation, much to the
disappointment of the ladies from Lausanne, who were eager for a
card party.

The year 1779 was marked by the death of de Saussure 's
second brother-in-law, Turrettini, a loss by which the whole family

1 See Sainte-Beuve, Portraits Litiiraires, vol. Hi., and Portraits de Femmes, and
Sayoua, Le dix-huilitme Sietle a VEtranger, vol. ii.

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 325

was very much affected. De Saussure was now left the only man
in the villa at Genthod. At the end of October an interesting
visitor presented himself there. Goethe, who was travelling with a
German prince on his way to Italy, arrived at Geneva, and at once
called on de Saussure to ask for advice on the possibility so late hi
the year of an Alpine tour. Encouraged to risk a visit to the
glaciers, he set out for Chamonix and the Mer de Glace, crossed
the Col de Balme to Martigny, and then, favoured by an excep-
tional season, ventured up the Rhone valley to the Furka and
St. Gotthard, arriving at the hospice on the latter on 15th
November.

Goethe's letters on his Alpine tour are among the signs of the
arrival of a new phase in the attitude of travellers towards
mountain scenery. During the previous century their records
had been mostly topographical, matter-of-fact observations of
natural features, or accounts of the difficulties and incidents of
the road. It had been the fashion to look on nature with curious
rather than with artistic eyes. In de Saussure 's Voyages the
former point of view still predominates, though from time to
time he yields to more personal and romantic impressions. But
these are rather the exception than the rule. Too often he
neglects to make any attempt to bring before his readers' eyes
the distinctive features of the scenery he passes through. For
instance, we find in his pages no mention of two of the finest
landscapes in the Alps — the glorious view of Mont Blanc from
the head of Val d'Aosta or that of the Jungfrau from the
Wengern Alp. The beauty of the Lake of Lucerne gets no
tribute from his pen. He seems to take pains to justify his
own confession that he has no natural talent or taste for fine
writing. It requires some very exceptional occasion to draw
from him the eloquence of his descriptions of the view from
the Crammont, or of his last sunset on the Col du Geant.

In Goethe's case the poet's mind and pen dwell not only on
the permanent outline of the landscape before him, but on its
shifting aspects under the changes of cloud and sunshine, of dawn
and twilight. He sets himself down to compose a picture of
passing effects. Such are the descriptions of the first glimpse
of Mont Blanc seen in the gloaming on issuing from the defile
of Les Montets, and of the peaks and glaciers appearing

326 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAXJSSUEE

between two cloud -belts from the Col de Balme. I quote the
former :

* It grew darker as we drew near and at last entered the Vale of
Chamonix. Only the great masses were visible. The stars shone out
one by one, and we noticed over the summits of the range immediately
in front of us a light that we could not account for. Clear without
sparkle, like the Milky Way, but denser, almost like the Pleiades only
larger, it held us long in wonderment, until at last, as we changed our
position, like a pyramid illumined by an internal mysterious light
that may best be compared to that of a glow-worm, it rose supreme
over all the other mountains and we recognised Mont Blanc.

' The scene was of extraordinary beauty ; since the mountain
shone not with the same vivid light as the stars that surrounded it,
but as a broad, single mass which appeared to the eyes to belong to
a higher sphere ; it was difficult for the mind to realise that it had
its roots in the earth.'

Goethe was doubtless the most famous of the early visitors to
Chamonix, but he was only one of a number, many of whom shared
his appreciation of mountain scenery. Our countryman, Mr.
Brand, who was tutor to Sir James Graham, the father of the
statesman, may be taken as a typical specimen of the average
traveller of his day. Writing in 1786, he tells his sister :

' During the whole summer one is sure to find Englishmen here
[that is, on the road to Chamonix] at every stage, some with their
wives and daughters, others with their mistresses, but the most
part like ourselves, raw youth and sedater manhood.'

In the previous year there had been fifteen hundred ' visitors
to the glaciers.' Mr. Brand's enthusiasm for Alpine scenery is not
less than the poet's, if it is less eloquently expressed. Here is his
description of the view from Sallanches :

' We returned to our inn just as the moon was rising behind the
chain of Mont Blanc. Sometimes it was entirely eclipsed by one of
those pyramidal summits which they call Aiguilles or Needles, at
other times the sharp point of an aiguille passed across its surface,
and the outline was marked with all the exactness of one of Mr.
Harrington's profiles. Once we saw only two small points of the
moon's disk at about two inches asunder, and they shone with a
brilliant light like two new splendid planets, till at length she rose

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 827

above the peaks and tinged the summits of Mont Blanc (which was now
uncovered) with a beautiful silver tint reflected by some thin, vapoury
clouds that hovered in the atmosphere above. Among the rich
pictures which moonlight affords, I never saw any to equal this. We
hardly knew how to leave it.'

I might quote further from Mr. Brand's manuscript journal.
His taste for scenery is not confined to romantic incidents, such as
moonlight on Mont Blanc. He fully appreciates and describes
the noble gorges of the lower Val d'Aosta and the beauties of
the descent into Italy.

Next year de Saussure's first family excursion to Chamonix
was undertaken with his wife, his three children, and an English
lady, a Miss Craft.1 It was quite an expedition. The party drove
in three carriages to Sallanches, where twenty -four mules were
ordered to be in readiness. Theodore and his mother went to
the Montenvers, and de Saussure took the boy (aged thirteen) for
a walk on the Mer de Glace, and records that ' he is pleased with
the quickness and force he shows in his first lesson in mountain-
climbing.'

De Saussure left the party at Sallanches on the way back, and,
despite feeling out of sorts, went up to sleep at some chalets on the
west side of the Col de Voza above Bionnassay. On the following
morning he got as far as the Mont Lachat (6937 feet), the grassy
spur below the Aiguille du Gouter. There he was taken ill with a
serious feverish attack which cut short his mountaineering for
the season. For the moment he turned to an endeavour to com-
plete his book on hygrometry, but by September found himself
well enough to set out with his friend M. A. Pictet for a tour in
North Italy and along the Riviera, the principal object of which
was to embark on a new series of investigations.

De Saussure was a precursor in an inquiry which has since been
pursued with great assiduity, that into the temperature of the sea at
various depths . For this purpose he devised a form of thermometer,
capable of resisting subaqueous pressure, which is still in use.2 Of

1 Miss Craft went on to Montpellier with an introduction from de Saussure
to his sister, and is mentioned in Judith de Saussure's letters as preferring a
livelier circle to that in which she lived.

8 The scientific value of the work accomplished is dealt with separately by
Dr. H. R. Mill on pp. 462-5.

328 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSTJRE

the details of the tour we have some account in the Voyages.
This can be supplemented by extracts from de Saussure's letters
home and the unpublished diary of his companion. In his first
note, written to his wife from his house in the Rue de la Cit6 (he
had left her at Genthod), he takes his leave for a five weeks' tour
with as much emotion as if he were starting for the North Pole.
His reference to the tears of the parting scene help us to under-
stand why on other occasions he was apt to slip away at dawn, or
even earlier. Three years later, he records that he left home for a
visit to the Gries and the St. Gotthard at 4.22 A.M., 'concealing
from my wife and children my start, which always causes them
acute distress and by its anticipation poisons our last moments.'
He seldom set out on any considerable expedition without resort-
ing to some similar subterfuge. Madame de Saussure's ' sensi-
bility ' was obviously, even for that date, above the average.
Good as well as bad news was a trial to her nerves. It is recorded
that on one occasion her sister, Madame Tronchin, thought it well
to break to her the fact of her wanderer's return rather than to
let it be announced by a servant.

The chief interest of de Saussure's companion's diary lies in the
picture it gives of the difficulties of post -travel in a wet autumn.
Again and again, first in the Maurienne and then on the plain of
Piedmont, the travellers had to take their carriage to pieces and
pack it on mules, or to cross flooded rivers in ferry-boats. An
enforced halt at Vercelli gave de Saussure opportunity to attempt
a sketch. The object which interested him was the beautiful out-
line of Monte Rosa. But it was not till nine years later that he
first made a closer acquaintance with the rival of Mont Blanc. At
Milan de Saussure went to the opera, and reports that the ladies
were beautiful, but seemed dull. At Genoa he and Pictet hired a
boat and, sailing eastward, took soundings and temperatures of
the sea-bottom off Porto Fino, despite their sufferings from sea-
sickness. These seem to have affected de Saussure's temper. On
his return he wrote home :

4 1 am worn out with boredom and visits, first a certain Dr. Prato-
lungo, longer in his calls than the meadow from which he takes his
name, and next some dear fellow-countrymen, very good people, but
thinking one can have nothing better to do than entertain them.
Then Pictet has a cold, so I have to go alone to pay return calls, and I

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 329

find Madame de la Rue at home, and she insists on showing me her
apartment, her pictures, her cat, and her dogs, and all with a flow of
words and a shrill voice which made me feel sea-sick over again. Im-
patient to get back and write to you I find the house full of people :
but at last I am left free.'

De Saussure had a fall on the marble staircase of his hotel
and hurt his leg. Bad weather came to add to his vexations . The
long-suffering of his companion, who would have preferred to wait
for sunshine, was a further trial. ' Pictet puts up with anything,
nothing makes him impatient ; his patience makes me impatient.'
However, de Saussure had his way, and the travellers rode off in
rain and waterproofs and were at once rewarded by the return of
sunshine .

At this date, before the road was made, a trip along the Riviera
di Ponente was no light matter even in fine weather. This is how
de Saussure prefaces his account of the journey : r

' Few travellers make the transit by land ; it is only practicable
on foot or on horseback, and even on horseback it is dangerous in many
places, where the only track is a narrow and slippery ledge cut in
terraces overhanging the sea.' [Voyages, 1355.]

Dante's reference to the villainous character of the old horse -
track has often been quoted. But it is perhaps not generally
realised that the poet's description held good till the beginning of
the nineteenth century, when the great road Napoleon had begun
was at last finished. Li 1780 the carriage road ceased a few miles
beyond Genoa. The travellers accordingly started on horseback,
leaving their luggage to follow them by sea in a felucca. They
were often forced to dismount and lead their horses, the party
got separated, one of the horses was for a time lost, the inns were
abominable, and they often preferred a mattress on the floor to
venturing in the beds. De Saussure gives a lifelike sketch of the
inn at Spiotorno :

' I went down by chance into the kitchen, where I saw a picture in
the style of Teniers : our old and hideous hostess, who, by the light
of a small lamp with untidy hair and black and wrinkled hands, was
pounding on a block the scraps of meat which were to form our supper.'

At last the party reached Nice, found their felucca arrived, and
embarked to make a fresh set of deep-sea temperature observations.

330 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Safely landed, de Saiissure congratulates himself on having accom-
plished his task ; he was obviously no sailor. Perils by water,
however, were not over. The Var at that date was still unbridged,
and the travellers' carriage was conducted through the stream by
bare-legged men called egayeurs, who held it up on either side.
The next adventure was the passage of the Esterels, the minia-
ture mountain range the outline at least of which is familiar
to visitors to Cannes. Its dangers are depicted hi a para-
graph of the Voyages that agreeably interrupts much geological
detail.

* It is on the bit of road immediately below the highest point
on the Antibes side that travellers are most frequently held up by
highwaymen.

' A long stretch of road is visible in its entirety, shut in between
two projecting heights ; it is on these that the robbers place their
sentinels. They let the travellers advance to about half-way between
the two points, and then the robbers ambuscaded in the wood fall on
them and strip them, while the sentinels keep watch that they are
not surprised by the coastguards. In this case, warned by a whistle
or some such signal, they escape into the forest. It is impossible to
catch them, for not only is the bush very thick, but the ground beneath
it consists of broken blocks, there is neither road nor path, and unless
a man knows the locality as well as the robbers do, he can only pene-
trate with great difficulty and extreme slowness. When M. Pictet
and I passed this way the courier from Rome, who travelled with us,
pointed out the remains of the carriage of the preceding courier, who
had been robbed a few days previously. This forest, which the fre-
quency of accidents of this sort has made so dreaded, is composed of
pines and evergreen oaks, under which grow arbutus, cistuses, heaths,
etc. It extends to the sea, and has an area of three to four leagues in
length by two in breadth. All this region, entirely savage, is the
refuge of the prisoners who escape from the galleys of Toulon, the
nursery of all the brigands of the country.' [Voyages, 1440.]

Seven years later de Saussure explored on foot the recesses of
this fascinating range of porphyry and climbed its seaward summit,
the Cap Roux. Now he and his companion hastened on to Frejus,
where Pictet tells us the population appeared fever-stricken owing
to the marshes in the neighbourhood. In Roman times the town
was a health resort. Pliny the younger mentions sending one
of his freedmen who had delicate lungs there for the benefit of the

EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 331

climate. Its suburb of St. Raphael is now again frequented by
visitors.

Passing through Toulon, Marseilles, and Aix, the travellers
found the roads still bad as far as Nimes, and met with further
misadventures from lack of post-horses and broken wheels. In
consequence of one of these accidents, they were forced to lodge
with a village cure, who had a collection of prints valued at
20,000 francs. He had been a captain of dragoons, 'but an un-
fortunate affair had forced him to leave the army and take
orders ! '

At Nimes the interior of the amphitheatre was at that date
filled with mean houses. The charming temple of Diana struck
Pictet as * assez peu de chose .' Architecture was not our travellers '
strong point — the Maison Carree they do not mention. Thence an
afternoon's drive brought them to Montpellier, with the object of
paying a visit to de Saussure's sister Judith, by whom, as already
related, they were entertained and introduced to her circle of dis-
tinguished friends. Well satisfied with his sister's situation and
surroundings, de Saussure, as usual in a hurry to return to his
home, after two days' stay started at midnight for Pont Saint
Esprit. Halting at Lyons only long enough to make propitiatory
purchases for their female relations, birds for de Saussure's mother
and a gown for his wife, the two travellers reached Geneva on the
3rd November.

CHAPTER XIV
POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92)

THE famous Act of Mediation of 1768 gave a respite to the
patrician Government that, wisely taken advantage of, might have
saved the constitution. But the Councils were blind to the signs
of the times. They had before them a double task, to meet the
growth of the city by setting up a system of gradual enfranchise-
ment for the class without civic rights, and to satisfy the General
Assembly by keeping their promise to codify the laws of the State.
They did nothing to extend the franchise on the one hand ; on the
other they put off the publication of a code by a series of equivoca-
tions. Recognising that there was no hope of forcing the Councils
to act, the General Assembly in 1777 proposed that a joint Commis-
sion should be appointed and charged to report within two years.
This limit was taken advantage of by the Negatives, or Con-
stitutionals, as they called themselves, and the Councils on its
expiration refused to extend the time, although the Commission
had not been able to conclude its task. The two parties were
now actively opposed, and during 1779 and 1780 the situation
grew from month to month more embittered.

In the following year (1781) the political storm which had been
slowly gathering broke out. The situation was complicated by
the triangular nature of the contest. It was no longer a duel. On
one side were the Negatives, a patrician oligarchy striving to
maintain itself by an alliance with the populace, and relying in the
last resort on foreign support ; on the other the Representants,
citizens torn between their anxiety to preserve the powers of a
popular assembly and jealousy of their still unenfranchised fellow-
townsmen. But distinct from the two chief combatants were
the so-called Natifs, composed of a large proportion of the
growing middle class and the artisans, who were ready to join
whichever side held out the best offer. After a time their leaders,
finding the Representants but a broken reed, turned for aid to the

332

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 333

patricians. Cornuaud, an able demagogue, offered the latter the
support of his party in return for the abolition of the restrictions
which forbade the Natifs free access to various crafts and pro-
fessions. Political rights he for the present made no claim to.
The French Resident supported the demands of this strange
alliance, but the two Swiss cantons — the co -Mediators — declined
to follow him.

In February 1781 de Saussure wrote to tell his sister at Mont-
pellier the local news. There had been an unfortunate affair in
which some Natifs had fired on their allies the Negatives by
mistake, and his friend Trembley had had his left hand badly
damaged. Disorder had broken out in the city, the Repre-
sentants had seized the occasion to assert that the State was in
danger. Cannon had been brought into the streets and the town
gates closed. De Saussure had had great difficulty in obtaining
permission for his father to return to his country home at Frontenex.

For the moment the popular party held the upper hand.
They hastened to outbid their opponents by promising to the
Natifs all they asked. The Negatives, surprised and alarmed,
gave way, and a few days later the so-called Edit Bienfaisant
(10th February 1781) was passed, which granted the Natifs
freedom from civil disabilities and a prospect of gradual enfran-
chisement. This might have been the first step towards a real
democracy. But in May the Councils, recovered from their panic
and relying as before on the support of the Mediators, disavowed
their recent action on the plea that they had acted under duress.
They declined to carry out the Edit Bienfaisant and formally
declared that the General Assembly was only one of the several
estates of the Commonwealth, and had no claim to the title
generally accorded it of ' Le Souverain.' They adjured the
citizens of every degree to recognise that the only way to restore
peace to the Republic was to await such measures as the Mediators
might recommend. The patricians, preferring foreign support to
any concession to the bourgeoisie, marched to their doom.

Party feeling ran high, but de Saussure went on undisturbed
with his professorial and scientific work, and felt able to leave his
wife in order to make a short trip to Chamonix and Chanrion, at
the head of the Val de Bagnes, and view the glaciers Bourrit had
been enlarging on in his books. Even in the mountains he found

334 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

traces of the quarrels he had left behind. At 'Blair's Hospital/
the hut erected on the Montenvers two years previously, some
Representants had been at the pains to efface the names of a party
of their political opponents.

In Desportes' Temple de la Nature, which was erected in 1795, a
Visitors' Book, a ' Livre des Amis,' received the effusions of visitors,
but it is unlikely that the earlier hut was similarly provided.
A passage in one of the unpublished letters of Mr. Brand (1786)
serves, however, to explain the allusion. Our countryman refers
to the infinite number of names that were cut or written in the stone
walls or on the wooden roof of the building. Mr. Brand adds some
details as to Blair. He was a bon vivant who had been compelled
to leave his home in Dorsetshire and live abroad ' by the costs
of his cellar and hunting,' and wanted some place to lunch com-
fortably in when he visited the Montenvers. His ' Chateau ' or
' Hospital,' as the guides mockingly called it, was but a rude
affair. A few years later, in 1795, Desportes entrusted Bourrit
with two thousand francs to erect its successor, the Temple de la
Nature, which was decorated with the names of Genevese and
foreign savants, and had some furniture and a looking-glass
besides its ' Livre des Amis.' The furniture was a few years
later wrecked and the Visitors' Book disappeared, but a new one
was provided in 1810, which contained an entry made in 1812
by the Empress Josephine.

For a year the Councils persisted in their uncompromising
attitude. The result was the popular revolution of April 1782.
There was some street fighting and bloodshed. The Repre-
sentants and the populace, once more reunited and masters of
the situation, demanded the total abolition of the Senate and
Great Council. They took steps for the defence of the city from
external attack. They appointed a small executive committee,
named the Constitutional, to deal with the political crisis. De
Saussure, who had so far succeeded in keeping out of any active
share in politics, was one of the members of the patrician party
who hurried to the Town Hall on the news that it had been
seized by the mob, and he acted as the spokesman of his colleagues
in refusing to sit as Magistrates at its bidding. He consequently
became one of a small group of patricians who were held as host-
ages and confined for forty -eight hours at the Hotel des Balances.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 335

De Saussure's attitude on this occasion may seem to call for
some explanation . This may best be found in a letter of Jean Marc
Roget, a Genevese pastor, at one time in charge of the Huguenot
church in Soho, to Sir Samuel Romilly, whose sister he had married,
in which he gives a general view of the political catastrophe of
1782 in Geneva.1

Roget, who describes himself as an ardent Representant,
condemns strongly the obstinacy of the more violent Negatives,
who had succeeded in controlling the Councils and inducing them
to reject the popular demand. But at the same time he expresses
his disapproval of the action of the Natifs. He writes ' the kind
of fury they exhibit towards some of our opponents disquiets
and disgusts me.' The picture he draws is of a revolt of the
rabble, with which Representants like himself were forced to
show sympathy in the hope of retaining some control over
events. He adds that in the Councils there were many moderate
men, whom he terms Constitutionals, who asked for nothing
better than a reformed government, but were thwarted and even
insulted by their colleagues. It is, I think, clear that de
Saussure and Roget were both actuated by a similar motive, to
save the State by the formation of a middle party of Moderates.

A few days after his own release de Saussure thought it well
to place his children in safety. His daughter Albertine's journal
furnishes details of their escape. In the first attempt they were
arrested at the gates, though disguised as peasants, Albertine
with a basket and Theodore with a hotte.

' Papa was very sorry to see us come back. Next Tuesday we were
again disguised, I as a lady's maid of Mile, de Lalgas, who had leave to
drive out with two maids, Theodore as a workman, and Alphonse as a
ragamuffin. I got to Chambesy to Madame Fabri's in a plight which
would have been laughable had one been able to laugh.'

A few weeks later de Saussure's anticipations were justified,
and he had an opportunity to show that his courage and energy
were not confined to mountain-climbing. On the 23rd June,
French troops, acting in their function as agents of one of the
Mediating Powers, invaded Genevese territory ; the alarm of an
attack spread through the town, and five thousand citizens rushed

1 Lettres de Jean Roget (Geneva and Paris, 1911), p. 185-90.

336 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

to arms. A rumour spread that the leaders of the Negatives were
prepared to open the gates . Orders were given by the revolutionary
authorities to search their houses and seize their arms. All
patricians were suspected, and one of the houses ordered to be
visited was de Saussure's. It was alleged that suspicious groups,
amongst them an officer in French uniform, had been seen on his
terrace, and that the cellars had been converted into an arsenal.
The supposed officer turned out to be a pure Genevese, a man of
science and philosopher, de Saussure's friend, Jean Trembley.

De Saussure, forewarned, was also forearmed. He assembled
his family, including his two sisters-in-law, laid in provisions,
procured some helpers in the defence, and barricaded the doors
and windows. A very full account of the affair exists in some
letters written by one of his near neighbours, living on the opposite
side of the Rue de la Cite, who was an anxious eye-witness, and
had her own house twice ransacked by the amateur grenadiers of
the town. I must abridge the good lady's graphic report, but its
details are many of them too picturesque to be lost.1

Two summonses to surrender were disregarded by de Saussure
and his little garrison. These were followed by a close investment.
Guards were posted on neighbouring points of vantage with orders
to prevent all egress or ingress. A whole day was spent in fruitless
parleying. Our eye-witness writes :

' I do not know if you have noticed a little iron grille in the door
[it is still there] used by people who want to communicate with any of
the household. Yesterday all the afternoon his friends kept coming
to the grille to try to persuade M. de Saussure to open. It was amusing
to watch all the great people of the town ringing the bell and then
putting their eyes or their ears to the grille while the master of the
house came to speak to them and the sergeant of the guard listened
with all his ears and at the same time kept back the crowd. At last
the Premier Syndic with his attendant came like the others to the
grille and asked for admission. He was let in, and the door closed
again, to the great disappointment of the crowd, firmly persuaded that
the house was crowded with men and arms.'

Among these would-be peacemakers were Pictet, Tingry, a
distinguished chemist belonging to the popular party, Bonnet,
who, too infirm to come himself, wrote twice to implore his

1 The manuscript is in the Public Library at Geneva.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 337

nephew to capitulate, and the Venerable Company of Pastors, who
sent their Moderator to do his best. The Syndics used what
influence they had with the bourgeois Committee at the Hotel de
Ville to induce them to put off the threatened recourse to violent
measures. But the defence showed no signs of yielding. On the
contrary, according to family tradition, the few servants in the
house were ordered to tramp up and down the stairs and show
themselves armed at different windows, while the master shouted
martial orders in a loud voice. On their side the bourgeois
Committee ordered six companies of grenadiers to advance with
their muskets primed. Bombs, and even mines and saps, were
also threatened, but still no action followed. There was at all
times some prudence, if not timidity, among Genevese revolu-
tionaries, who were more fond of posing as Romans and talking of
imitating the example of Saguntum than of facing fire-arms.
Moreover, they might well reflect, even if they did not receive
specific warning, that any attack on a citizen of the European
reputation of de Saussure was not an adventure likely to be with-
out serious consequences. There were 12,000 French and Swiss
and Sardinian troops outside the walls, and any crime was likely
to meet with speedy punishment. Terms were offered ; the
besiegers undertook, if allowed to search the house, to leave the
inhabitants unmolested and to give any strangers found a safe
conduct out of the city. Still the little garrison held out against
both menaces and entreaties. They threatened to fire on anyone
who approached the walls, they were deaf to the appeals of
neighbours who feared their own houses might suffer, and of the
twelve members of their own party who were hostages in the
hands of the revolutionaries. Duroveray, the Procureur General,
one of the leaders of the Representants, did his best to calm the
mob, who with axes and planks in their hands clamoured for an
assault. Fresh parleyings began with the Committee at the Town
Hall. Through a hot June afternoon the crowd waited im-
patiently, not, however, without occasional incidents that helped
to pass the hours. They are thus related for us by the eye-witness
who lived opposite. Her simple story, written at the moment,
brings the scene vividly before us in all its serio-comic aspects :

' The third floor [of the Maison de Saussure], as you know, is occupied
by a widow, Madame Rilliet, the mother of M. Rilliet-Fatio, one of

Y

338 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the hostages, and mother-in-law of M. PreVost-Lullin, the Syndic.
M. Lullin presented himself at the wicket, and as a magistrate sum-
moned the master of the house to open to him. He was refused. He
insisted that, as a son-in-law, and a Syndic, it was essential that he
should be allowed to talk to his mother-in-law. He had no better
success. Loath to give up his attempt, he sat down near the house
to write a note, and then presenting himself once more, demanded the
delivery of his mother-in-law, with her servants and property. The
venerable lady was brought downstairs, and we heard her sobs and her
feeble, cracked voice telling her son-in-law she would not leave the
house in which she had lived for so many years. M. Lullin insisted,
" Madame, in God's name, do this for me, for your son-in-law ; it is
your duty — do not refuse me. If the house were on fire would you not
leave it ? Well, it is worse. How can I leave you exposed to all these
dangers ? Madame, you refuse me ! In God's name, you will be as
much at home with me as here ! " All the reply we could hear was
the sobs and broken voice of this courageous and resolute woman.
At last M. de Saussure was appealed to. " Monsieur, force her to come
out ! Drag her out ! " The answer was, " She is in her own house
and free : we cannot compel her." M. Lullin got nothing except the
squeeze of one of the old lady's fingers through the wicket. " I leave
you, then, Madame, with tears in my eyes and distressed by your
refusal. But you have still till four o'clock to decide."

' Then there came to our house a poor mother whose daughter was
a housemaid at M. de Saussure's. She called out from the fourth
floor: "My daughter, come out if you can — come out, I pray you.
In God's name, don't stop." When the officials cruelly silenced her,
she came down in despair, crying, " 0 my daughter, my poor daughter,
I shall see her no more. I want to get away. Who knows what may
happen to her. They say they have so many engines for blowing up
the house ! " [There had, in fact, been talk of a mine.] "My God,
take me away." And despite all we could do or say to her, she had
to be taken home.'

At last, after a siege of six days, terms were agreed on, and a
formal capitulation, in no less than seven articles, duly signed,
under which the house was allowed to be visited, but no arrests
were to be made or arms confiscated. The result of the visit was
to prove that the garrison of the fortress that had given cause to
BO much emotion consisted of eighteen men and twenty guns.
De Saussure clearly secured all the honours of war. His wife
wrote to their daughter, ' All is ended in the happiest way possible ;

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 339

our liveliest hopes could not have foreseen so favourable a surrender.
I can still hardly believe it. I am overwhelmed with visits and
congratulations on the success of our particular siege. We passed
some odd moments.' All this time, we are told, de Saussure's
guides were waiting for him at Chamonix ; but there was to be no
Alpine travel that summer.

A few days later the allied troops entered the town, and the
revolution was thus brought to a violent end by the action of
two of the Protecting Powers, France and Berne, supported on
this occasion by the King of Sardinia. Zurich, already radical,
had refused to join in this forcible intervention. The Genevese,
very brave in their preparations and professions, prudently
succumbed at the sight of hostile batteries planted before their
gates and the threat of bombardment. Their leaders made haste
to capitulate. The aristocratic Councils, reinstated and strong
in the support of the allied troops, remained complete masters of
the situation. Geneva fell again under the rule of the patrician
oligarchy, which was now not only released from the restrictions
imposed on it fourteen years previously, but had gained additional
power.

Some six hundred of the popular party left the city.
On d'lvernois' and Lord Mahon's representations, the English
Government was induced to assist in founding for the exiles a
' New Geneva ' near Waterford in Ireland, and to obtain a grant
from Parliament of £50,000 in furtherance of the scheme. The
site selected had already, since the close of the seventeenth century,
harboured a colony of French exiles. But difficulties soon arose,
and after two years the settlement was definitely abandoned by its
promoters, and the exiles took refuge elsewhere, many at Constance
and in other parts of Germany.

The next seven years were a period of commercial and general
prosperity in Geneva ; but to a populace growing in numbers and in-
telligence, the reactionary Government forced on the city by foreign
intervention became constantly more and more irksome. The
recent home of Voltaire and the birthplace of Rousseau was little
likely to escape the influence of the new ideas that were in the air,
while the passing of the old order in France could not fail to affect
a Republic on its immediate frontier. Bonnet anticipated justly
what was to come when he wrote to a Swedish correspondent :

340 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

' Our little Republic is but a boat attached to a vessel of the first
class. You realise all that is implied in the comparison.'

From this moment, according to Senebier, 'de Saussure put aside
science for politics .' The phrase does not fit closely with the facts .
Bonnet expresses the situation far more accurately when he tells
us that his nephew ' was very much distracted between politics and
Alpine travel.' But it is true that henceforth de Saussure was never
free to give himself entirely to science. His sense of duty com-
pelled him to conquer his inclination to decline public office.
He was already a member of the Council of Two Hundred. As
soon as the old order had been re-established by the Mediating
Powers, he was appointed to serve on Committees for the revision
of the Code and for framing modifications in the form of govern-
ment. He was also elected a member of the Military Council,
which controlled the garrison of the city, a force of under a thou-
sand men.

In the following year (1783) de Saussure was called on to aid
in entertaining the Archduke Ferdinand, the Austrian Governor
of Lombardy.

The Professor was at this time troubled by a weak throat,
which hampered him in lecturing, and busy with bringing out a
volume embodying the results of his researches in hygrometry.
In its preface he explains that he was led to resume his studies on
the subject by the indisposition on Mont Lachat, that had inter-
rupted his mountain excursions in 1780. Five years later he pub-
lished a reply to his critics, of whom the principal was J. A. Deluc.

Montgolfier was about this time (January 1784) exhibiting
his balloon inflated with heated air, and de Saussure went to Lyons
to witness the ascent, had long talks with Montgolfier, and subse-
quently made experiments on his own account to prove what had
not previously been recognised, that the ascending power was due
solely to the lightness of heated air compared to that of air at a
lower temperature.1 Among his papers is preserved a draft of a
letter to an unknown correspondent — probably Faujas de Saint-
Fond — in which he describes in detail the Montgolfier machine,
and compares the relative powers and uses of fire and gas balloons.2

1 See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th edition, ' Aerostatics.'

2 In Faujas de Saint-Fond's Description des Experiences de la Machine
Aerostatique de M. M. de Montgolfier (2 vols, Paris, 1783-84), there is a letter
of sixteen pages from de Saussure to the author. It is dated March 20, 1784.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 341

The former, he believes, will be found most suited for carrying
weights and for such purposes as re victualling besieged cities, while
the latter will serve better for meteorological and electrical investi-
gations. His correspondent had suggested to de Saussure that he
should undertake a treatise on aerostatics . He replied that it would
be too great an interruption to his geological pursuits, and that, far
from wishing to sacrifice mountains to balloons, he hoped to make
balloons help him in his mountain researches, not, ' at any rate, for
the present,' in gaining inaccessible heights, but in ascertaining the
constitution of the upper layers of the atmosphere.

After his return to Geneva, de Saussure entertained his uncle
and aunt, the Bonnets, by sending up a balloon from their terrace
at Genthod. His experiments were not always successful. We
hear from some visitors at Conches of an attempt which, ' with all
the science possible,' ended in failure. ' The illustrious Professor
was in a terrible temper ; he scolded his sons and several savants
who, with folded arms, were looking on in silence, or asking ques-
tions which did not make him any happier. The rest of us laughed
at the whole scene.' l

In a letter (13th February 1784) to the Journal de Paris, de
Saussure replies to some statements as to the effects on the
human frame of the rarity of the air at great heights made by M.
de Lamanon on the strength of the ascent of a ridge of about
10,500 feet near the Mont Cenis. He begins thus :

' The works of M. de Lamanon would not contribute much to the
progress of physical inquiry did he not observe nature with greater
accuracy than he reads and quotes the writings of those who have
observed it before him. Permit me, sirs, to use the channel of your
Journal to protest against the absurdities which this naturalist attri-
butes to me despite the fact that my statements are of a diametrically
opposite character.'

The points chiefly insisted on by de Saussure are that he had
never asserted that there is any difficulty in the act of respiration
at great heights, or that the languor and discomfort experienced
by some individuals in such situations are universal and unavoid-
able. The former statement seems at first sight a paradox, and
inconsistent with his own view and personal experience as recorded
in the Voyages. His point, I take it, was that altitude does not

1 Rosalie de Constant, sa Famille et ses Amis, par Mile. L. Achard (1902).

342 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

in itself produce the form of exhaustion known as mountain-
sickness, but that this is the result of altitude coupled with the
muscular exertion of walking uphill, and that its sjinptoms cease
in repose or during a descent. Rest, he insists, even for a few
minutes, removes every trace of discomfort.

The whole question has of late years been most carefully and
lengthily discussed by eminent physiologists and mountaineers,
and de Saussure's limited observations have been largely super-
seded. Experience has shown that the susceptibility to the effect
of rarefied air varies in individuals as much as the susceptibility to
sea-sickness does. It also varies at different periods in the same
individual on the same mountain — e.g. Mont Blanc ; while the
relatively small proportion of the climbers of that mountain
seriously affected in recent years may suggest that coarse food and
rough lodging, and perhaps also strained nerves, had something
to do with the frequent sufferings of mountaineers, guides as
well as tourists, in the days before the Grands Mulets boasted a
' hotel ' and the refuge near the Bosses served as a coffee -stall.
A further observation I have not yet seen recorded may perhaps
be added. Inconvenience is far more commonly experienced on
snow-slopes than on rocks. It would seem that the monotonous
exertion of tramping uphill in snow causes a greater muscular
strain than the more varied gymnastics of a rock climb. That any
prolonged stay at high altitudes or any sudden transference to
them sensibly affects the human frame is beyond question. But
so far as Alpine heights are concerned, de Saussure's statement is
sustainable. It is possible to spend several hours on the top of
Mont Blanc or Monte Rosa without experiencing any of the
symptoms of mountain-sickness, experto crede. I have slept not
uncomfortably 5000 feet higher.

In the early summer of 1784 de Saussure started on a family
tour through the Swiss lowlands with his wife, sister, daughter,
his sister-in-law Madame Tronchin, and his friend Trembley.
From Lucerne he made an excursion to Engelberg and the Joch
Pass, with which he combined an ascent of the Ochsenstock
(9883 feet). The party drove on to Zurich, St. Gall, Constance,
and Basle ; it must have been on this occasion that he took
measurements of depths in the Lake of Constance. At Zurich he
called on ' Monsieur Gesner, the poet.' This was Solomon Gesner,

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 343

the author of a series of conventional idylls which had an amazing
success in their day. Archdeacon Coxe, who visited him, rashly
prophesied, ' His writings will be admired by future ages as long as
there remains a relish for true pictorial simplicity or taste for
original composition.' It is almost impossible to us to believe that
our ancestors can have found pleasure in these sham eclogues —
insipid tales of ideal peasants with classical names. Yet they
were translated into most European languages, and the translator
and publisher of an English edition (1775) congratulated himself
on presenting readers with a work ' he thinks equal in the beauty
of composition (allowance made for the difference of language) to
the idylls of Theocritus or Virgil, and far superior in benevolent
and pathetic sentiments.' He adds, ' The historical plates and
vignettes with which this work is embellished were all designed
and drawn by Gesner himself.' De Saussure thus describes the
bookseller-poet-painter :

* He is small and ugly, but his face has a great deal of character.
He speaks French with difficulty ; is very modest about his work. He
showed us his pictures with much politeness, and seemed to value them
more than his verses. He told us that he had entirely given up paint-
ing ; that all his thoughts, all his aims, were centred on poetry.'

His pictures, judging from the illustrations, were worthy of his
poetry. Each age throws off a quantity of such stuff for the
rubbish-heap, and the contemporaries of Cubism and Vorticism
are not perhaps in a position to cast the first stone .

Later in the same summer de Saussure made a twelve days'
trip to Chamonix, meeting at Servoz Exchaquet, at that date em-
ployed as Inspector of the mines of Faucigny, and at Le Prieure
making the acquaintance of Dr. Paccard. It is further recorded
that he took tea with the Blairs. Mr. Blair, then a resident at
Geneva, has been already mentioned as the Englishman who built
and gave his name to the first cabin at the Montenvers.

About this date de Saussure found matter for passing irritation
in a reference made to him by a German professor from Gottingen,
named Meiners, in a description of a tour in Switzerland in 1782.
The passage ran as follows :

' Among the busiest of the Negatives one must give the first place
to M. de Saussure, who had recently on several occasions declined

344 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the visit of one of my friends, and who, therefore, did not make me
desirous to form his acquaintance. The work of this savant has not
had in Switzerland as much success as in Germany ; not only is it
thought too diffuse, but also the accuracy of many of the observations
is questioned. In general, people are surprised that a disciple of
Bonnet, one who formerly supported the Repr6sentants, should not
only suddenly fight on the other side, but should have become one of
the most ardent Negatives.' 1

De Saussure tells Bonnet that the German's bad temper was
produced by his not having been sufficiently lionised when he
visited Geneva. Consequently he had vented his vanity in abuse.
Bonnet writes :

* He pushes it to the point of finding our landscapes insipid. The
Lake near Geneva has, he says, the air of an artificial pool, our country
estates are all on the same plan, two avenues which, in crossing, divide
the whole property, our manners hopeless from every point of view, our
wealthy class misers and pitiless to the poor. Our faces are all formed
on the same model — forehead, prominent and narrow ; nose, sharp and
thin ; something pinched in all our figures, and a yellow complexion.'

The amiable Bonnet, greatly hurt at this libel on his city and
his friends, suggested to our countryman, Archdeacon Coxe, that
he might insert a reply to it in the next edition of his very success-
ful Letters on Switzerland. Coxe, however, prudently answered
that as the object of his work was to give the result of his own
travels rather than to correct the misrepresentations of others, he
did not see his way to comply, at the same time assuring his corre-
spondent that his and de Saussure 's reputations stood in no need
of any foreign support.

De Saussure was contented to bide his time ; but when, some
years later — in 1788 — Meiners, again at Geneva, asked to see his
geological collection, the German Professor was sharply informed
that for a libeller of Geneva there could be no admittance.

Meiners seems to have made himself equally unpleasant on his
later visit to Berne, for Wyttenbach in a letter to de Gersdorf of
February 1791 refers to him in strong terms : 'Professor Meiners
by his clumsy arrogance has made himself generally obnoxious.' 2

Count Gregoire de Razumouski is another of the small band of

1 Brief e iiber die Schweiz, Christophe Meiners (Berlin, 1784).

8 ' Stinkend ' is the word used (see Diibi's Wyttenbach und seine Freunde),

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 345

victims who fell under de Saussure's cudgel. He had remarked
veins of quartz traversed by threads of green amianthe. De
Saussure's comment is, ' He calls it a transition between amianthe
and quartz ; he might as well say that a goose on the spit was a
transition between the goose and the spit.' On a further occasion
the Count is told that ' he obviously considers the limit of his own
understanding to be that of the possible, and that what he cannot
comprehend nature cannot perform.'

Later in the year (1785) de Saussure's only daughter, Albertine,
married Jacques Necker, a nephew of the financier. Madame
Necker, whose acquaintance the de Saussures had made in Paris,
thus became a near connection of the family.1

In January 1786 de Saussure found himself obliged to resign
on the ground of ill-health the professorship which he had held for
twenty-four years. Some of his biographers, confronted with the
fact that in the preceding summer he had attacked Mont Blanc,
and that the next four years are the period of his greatest moun-
taineering activity, have not unnaturally suggested that health
was more or less of a pretext. The records before us, however,
show that the plea was a true one.

In the previous December he had been forced by throat
trouble, following on a severe attack of whooping-cough, to apply
for temporary leave to break off his lectures. He now represented

1 She wrote to de Saussure in June 1786 to describe a visit from Archdeacon
Coxe, who had consulted her about getting a fresh translator for his book in the
place of M. Ramond, of Pyrenean fame. Coxe thought Ramond too prone to
enthusiasm and exaggeration. Madame Necker's comment was very much to the
point :

' It is to these faults in his translator that M. Coxe owes in part his success
at Paris, for we are still far from that love of nature which recognises perfec-
tion in just proportions, in the correspondence of its effects with our taste
rather than in the astonishment that they cause us.'

Madame Necker's opinion was fully endorsed by the editor of EbeVs Guide,
who wrote : ' This work has gained much in the translation, and the notes and
additions with which M. Ramond has enriched it amount to 223 pages, and
are in many respects more interesting than the original work.'

Madame Necker added :

' I only got the letter of introduction you gave Mr. Coxe after he had left ;
he never spoke of it — the trait is quaintly English. I received him on his
reputation as a person of distinction ; on your letter I should have welcomed
him as an old friend. I reproach myself for all the marks of attention I did
not pay to him, and I cannot forgive him.'

The solid, self-satisfied Archdeacon evidently considered that he stood in no
need of any introduction.

346 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

that he was forbidden on medical advice to resume them, since his
continual throat delicacy did not allow him to give them without
risk.1 He added, it is true, that he was also anxious to make
progress with his book, of which only one volume had yet been
published. His resignation was doubtless made easier to him by
the promise that his friend and disciple, M. A. Pictet, should, with-
out any competition, succeed him in the professorship. Of the
character of his teaching and the appreciation of it by his con-
temporaries, the reader will find an account later on.

In the winter of 1786 an interesting discovery was made by
peasants in the bed of the Rhone near Geneva of two ele-
phant's tusks, some five feet in length. One of the discoverers
stated they had found many large bones in the same place.
De Saussure acquired the tusks for his cabinet, and they are now
in the Museum at Geneva. I understand that experts are not
disposed to consider them of prehistoric date, and it may there-
fore be still open — as Ebel long ago suggested — for one of
the many intrepid scholars who have plunged into the inter-
minable controversy as to Hannibal's passage of the Alps to
cite them as evidence that the Carthaginian general came this way.

We have now reached the years in which de Saussure 's moun-
taineering career culminated : the attempt on the Aiguille du
Gouter in 1785, the ascent of Mont Blanc in 1787, the sojourn on
the Col du Geant in 1788, and the visits to Monte Rosa in 1789 and
1792. The story of these adventures has been told already.2
In December of 1786 Bonnet reports that his nephew is keeping
himself in training for Mont Blanc by climbing the stairs of his tall
city house eight or nine times a day. His newly married daughter
wrote from Paris to urge him to come and enjoy the social success
ensured by his scientific reputation, from the reflection of which
she was profiting. But he was much too occupied and too intent
on accomplishing his lifelong ambition to set his feet on the snows
that he had always before his eyes when he looked across the lake
from the garden at Genthod.

In the spring of 1787 — partly, perhaps, to distract his wife's
thoughts from the preparations for his great adventure, but also

1 See de Saussure's letter of January 12, 1786, to the Rector of the Academy
(de Saussure MSS.).

1 See chapters viii., ix., x., xi.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 347

in order to take barometrical observations at sea-level for the
purpose of comparison with those he hoped to obtain on the
summit of Mont Blanc — he started early in April for a journey in
the south of France in company with his wife. On the way
de Saussure indulged her desire to make a pilgrimage to the home
of Madame de Sevigne's daughter. They accordingly drove from
Montelimar, with the aid of two mules to draw their carriage over
atrocious roads, to Grignan. Madame de Saussure describes the
excursion to her daughter :

' It is not easy to get to Grignan. We took a guide, not that he
was much use, as the leader of the two mules we added to our team
knew the road much better than the guide, who had only passed it on
horseback. At last we set off, but slowly ; the roads were often
broken, the ruts deep. We had frequently to get down in the bad
places, and to be content with two fresh eggs we swallowed in our
carriage, as no room not full of noisy drinkers was to be found in the
village of Vallaurie. We laughed a great deal. At last we came
in sight of Grignan. It is a vast building ; all its balustraded terraces,
beaten by the winds of which Madame de Sevigne speaks, produce
a noble effect. Grignan is set on a rock in the middle of a lofty, arid
slope ; a little town of about a thousand inhabitants, fairly well
built, lies in an amphitheatre below.'

The agent of the owner received the visitors, and Madame de
Saussure was lodged in Madame de Sevigne's room, which had
her portrait over the chimney-piece, but none of the old furniture.
The agent could only talk of the present occupiers. Next morning
the de Saussures visited and admired the Rochers de La Roche -
courbiere, where Madame de Sevigne used to picnic . She describes
it as a piece of Switzerland in Provence.

Having now no motive, as in 1780, to hurry home, de Saussure
made a detailed examination of the coast of Provence, visiting
Toulon, Hyeres, and Frejus. Undeterred by the memory of past
sufferings, he even ventured out to sea, in order to explore the
lies d' Hyeres.

He climbed several of the coast hills. An excursion he
describes at some length is the ascent of the seaward crest of the
Esterels, on which he bestowed the name it still bears, the Montagne
du Cap Roux. He had some difficulty in finding and then in
climbing the highest point of the rocky ridge so familiar as an

348 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

object on the horizon to visitors to Cannes. He sought the
services of the hermit of the Sainte Baume as a guide. Of his
home he gives a pleasant description :

' I was agreeably surprised to find two beautiful fountains which
throw out full jets of a clear and cool water under the shade of a group
of fine trees — chestnuts, nuts, cherries, and figs. The gardens gave
me no less pleasure, and though modern taste despises all that is formal,
yet a little art and symmetry make an agreeable contrast with the
wild and melancholy aspect of these mountains, and the straight
alleys of the gardens laid out in terraces covered with trellises of vines
and ended by niches cut in the rock created in me a most agreeable
impression. The last hermit but one had by his labour brought his
little property into the most flourishing condition. The grapes and
fruit which he gathered served not only for his own needs, but also by
exchange to procure him all he wanted.' [Voyages, 1456.]

The garden, when I visited the spot in 1877, had disappeared,
and I experienced the same difficulty as de Saussure in finding
and forcing a way through the thick scrub of southern growths
to the highest crest of the porphyry crags, whence the view extends
over the coast lands to the snowy peaks of the Maritime Alps.

From Toulon de Saussure made another excursion to the
Montagne de Caume (2856 feet) to ascertain if M. de Lamanon,
the geologist, whose manifold mistakes he was often called on to
correct, had any grounds for thinking the rocks volcanic. They
proved to be limestone. Apart from its technical interest, de
Saussure 's account of his day's walk may serve as a specimen of
the human side of his character.

He drove out from Toulon as far as the village of Revest.

* I had need of a guide. The open door of a cottage showed me
a family of peasants at their breakfast. I entered and told them what
I wanted. My air of a foreigner and my plan of going over the moun-
tains instead of along the high road, my curiosity about worthless
stones, all seemed to them suspicious. All the same, the master of
the house, an honest labourer, said, " Sit down, eat a bit of haddock
with us, after that we will see what we can do." I accepted his offer,
we had a friendly conversation, and he ended by saying he knew the
country very well, and even something about stones, and though he
had at first thought of finding me another giude, he would come with
me himself. This was a most lucky meeting, for I found him an ex-
cellent guide.' [Voyages, I486.]

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 349

De Saussuro comments on the bareness of the surrounding
region, caused by the destruction of the forests, and he is at pains
to argue that this has produced, on the one hand, a failure in the
average rainfall, and, on the other, from time to time violent floods.
It is only of recent years that any practical steps have been taken
in this region in the direction he pointed out. He was delighted
with the view of the coast, its capes, bays, and shores, and the
town of Toulon at his feet. He must have been wrong, however,
in fancying he identified Mont Blanc. The peaks of Dauphine
stand in the way, and one of these may have caught his eyes.

On the descent he came, hungry and thirsty, to a farm. Hia
guide assured him that their only chance of finding food or
drink was to appeal for it either for payment or in charity.

' We knocked, a young and good-looking woman came to the
window, and, in answer to our humble petition, said she would willingly
give us what she had, eggs, bread, and wine, if we would give our word
of honour not to set foot in the house, but to eat in the shade of a
mulberry close by what she sent out by the servant. We gave our
word and she kept hers, and came to her doorstep and entertained us
with lively conversation while we drank her health in the wine she
provided. We separated with an air of mutual satisfaction, but with-
out any question of breaking the restraint imposed.' [ Voyages, 1494.]

On the return journey the future home of Tartarin did not fail
to attract the de Saussures by its southern gaiety. Their visit
was on a Sunday :

' The little town of Tarascon, or at least the faubourg, was charm-
ingly gay ; despite the violent mistral, a crowd was dancing in the
middle of a square to the sound of the fife and the tambourine. All
the women in red corsets, short petticoats, with red stockings and
polished shoes, and kerchiefs of coloured muslin on their heads and
necks, with blue eyes and very lively countenances, formed a charm-
ing spectacle. We stayed a long time to watch them, and the pleasure
we had in doing so seemed to add to theirs.' [Voyages, 1603.]

At Chateaubourg, on the Rhone, de Saussure had a curious
encounter.1 He went down to the river bank to test the tempera-
ture at which water would boil for the purpose of comparison with

1 The date is given in the Voyages as 1781, but de Saussure was not in the
south of France in that year, and the reference to what might have been the
issue two years later shows that 1787 must be the true date.

350 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the experiments be proposed to make on Mont Blanc. The
villagers gathered round him with many expressions of curiosity,
which he satisfied, until a somewhat better -dressed man appeared
and told de Saussure in a threatening tone that he — the speaker —
was not such a fool as he was taken for, and that he knew per-
fectly well that de Saussure was making a survey. At the same
time he seized the stick de Saussure had laid on the ground. De
Saussure snatched it back and used vigorous language, and while
the villagers were hesitating which side to take, finished his
experiment and got back to the inn. ' This quarrel,' he adds,
' had no further result ; two years later, it might have been fatal.'
This was a year of frequent absences from home. In July, as
has already been told, the whole party, de Saussure and his family,
went to Chamonix to lay siege to Mont Blanc . After his victorious
return he and his son Theodore, now twenty, started for Turin,
apparently on an invitation from the Court. At St. Jean de
Maurienne they encountered the Intendant of the Province, M.
de Saint-Real, who had undertaken a study of the Mont Cenis
district, had spent six weeks in the past summer in a tent on the
mountains and climbed several summits, including the Rochemelon,
on which he had slept in the little chapel half full of snow. He
could not conceal that he was far from pleased at the prospect of his
particular field being attacked and his observations anticipated by
so famous a rival, but de Saussure was able to convince him that
their work need not clash, and that they might even be of some
mutual service.

' We ended by becoming very good friends. He gave me his own
room, which was a Noah's Ark. A huge eagle with open wings, badly
stuffed, hung from the ceiling by a slender cord— any movement made
it turn and gave it a ghostly air, the tables were littered with books,
papers, stones, instruments, all dirty and in the most horrible confusion.'

On the Mont Cenis they lodged at the inn in preference to
the hospice. They found guides of a sort. They are summarily
sketched as follows : ' Horot, bon enfant, bon muletier, mais pas
bien fort. Tours, grand causeur, mais vigoureux et hardi dans
la montagne.' Their services were not, however, seriously called
upon, for the ' Fraise ' of M. de Lamanon proved a very simple
matter. ' There was no snow, no ice, not a single " mauvais

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 351

pas " ; pastures and easy rocks, child's play. Mistouflet [his
grandchild] would have got up if I had been on the top
with my box of sweetmeats.' De Saussure went on to a loftier
summit, the Roche Michel (11,437 feet), whence he enjoyed
a fine panorama and took observations. Several of the guides
are reported to have suffered from the rarity of the air —
but there seems good reason for suspecting that the cold blast
on the summit which forced de Saussure to seek a more shel-
tered spot for his experiments had much to do with their alleged
sufferings.

Arrived at Turin, de Saussure found himself the lion of the day,
and seems to have enjoyed the position. He writes home :

' My Voyage [on Mont Blanc] has made a great impression here ;
an amiable Marquis [the Marquis de Breze] has translated it very well
into Italian, and everyone, down to the hotel waiters, is reading and
talking about it. We went yesterday to the Casino of the Nobility,
where we met two nieces of my protector, the Marquis de Breze,
pretty, but loud.'

He was presented to the King at Moncalieri, and sends his wife a
long account of the King's clothes and his own and Theodore's.
This new experience of a Court and its etiquette seems to have
given him a great deal of amusement. The King was gracious,
and promised to have the roads to Chamonix seen to. After the
fatigues of the royal reception the father and son sought for
refreshment at the Opera Bouffe :

' We went two or three times for our 25 soldi. Theodore was
immensely entertained by the ballets, which are charming. The
theatre, which is extremely pretty, was quite full of ladies, very much
dressed with unbelievable feathers on the back of their heads ; when
they turned them they entirely blocked the front of the box. Theo
and I were in the box of the Corps Diplomatique and in the two best
places — highly honourable, but one sees much better in the pit.'

Some more royal visits and an excursion to the Superga, where
de Saussure admired greatly the new tombs of the Kings of
Sardinia, filled up the rest of the stay. Then they ' put off
their beautiful lace, packed up their beautiful swords and their
beautiful buttons, and put on their mountain clothes.' During
this visit to the Court Madame de Saussure, we may fancy, got

352 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUBE

more entertainment from her husband's lively letters than on
any of his mountain tours. She in return was able to send him
an account of a dinner at La Boissiere, where the ' charmante
Minette' was staying with her father-in-law, Jean Robert
Tronchin. She had sat next Sir Samuel Romilly and found him
very agreeable : ' un melange du ton de Paris avec d'anciennes
phrases Genevoises, ce qui fait une conversation assez piquante.
Comme il a beaucoup vecu avec Diderot, avec Rousseau, il a des
anecdotes inteiessantes a raconter.'

It was in the following winter that de Saussure issued his
strenuous reply to Deluc's attack on his hygrometer. There
appears to be no doubt that he was in the right, though some of his
contemporaries thought his tone too severe. He certainly did
not spare his opponent's feelings. He told Deluc that ' in his
Recherches sur les Modifications de V Atmosphere,' he had given ' none
but false or confused ideas of all that has to do with the theory of
evaporation.' He continued : ' What he calls his theory is nothing
but my own. I shall proceed to show on similar evidence that the
theories that are really M. Deluc's are worth no more than his
hygrometer. Let me not, however, be thought to be an enemy of
contradiction ; on the contrary, I welcome objections to my opinions
when they are proposed with the object of proving or discovering
the truth. But when one recognises an obvious intention to
disparage a work, when one finds a writer hunting for mistakes
for the sole pleasure of exposing them, playing on words in an
attempt to involve the author in a contradiction, attributing to
himself or others the author's merits, attacking him on generally
accepted opinions as if they were peculiar to him, presenting his
views in the most unfavourable light, and finally assuming the
tone of a schoolmaster who is correcting his pupil's theme and
distributing impartial blame and praise, one is equally disgusted
at the criticism and the commendation.' 1

Three months later (April 1788) de Saussure 's claims to
membership of the Royal Society were at last admitted. That
body, which, despite the recommendation of Sir William Hamilton
twelve years before, had failed to accept de Saussure 's candidature,
now opened to the conqueror of Mont Blanc a gate not so narrow

1 See for a further consideration of de Saussure's meteorological work, Dr.
Mill's comments in the Appendix.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 353

as it has since become. This feat, however, was not mentioned
in his diploma, which somewhat quaintly specified the grounds
of election as ' his services to literature and solid philosophy.'
One would like to think that Sir Joseph Banks, while signing it,
was led to remember — not without remorse — his last supper
with de Saussure and Miss Harriet Blosset before sailing for
Otahiti, twenty years earlier !

At the end of June de Saussure started with his son for the
Col du Geant. They arrived at Chamonix on the same day as the
Duke of Kent, the future father of Queen Victoria, who had been
staying in Geneva since the previous year, and remained till
January 1790, when, says the official register, he left ' sans avoir
pris cong6 de personne.' The Duke had some excuse. He was
a youth at the time, and fled home without leave in order to escape
from the control of a severe tutor.

The winter of 1788 was marked by the renewal, after seven
years of commercial prosperity but political discontent, of the
constitutional struggle within the walls of Geneva. There were
adequate causes for an outbreak in the continued reluctance of
the Negatives to make any concessions to their opponents by
widening the franchise or removing the disabilities that still
pressed on the bulk of the growing industrial population. To these
specific grievances must be added the unrest that prevailed across
the French border and the influence of Rousseau on the Genevese
populace. A frivolous dispute about the expulsion of an actress
caused the first commotion. But the immediate spark that set
light to the highly combustible material ready at hand was an
injudicious act on the part of the Government. Owing to a
severe frost, ice interfered with the action of the watermills on the
Rhone, and the authorities raised the price of bread. Their
action produced street rioting ; barricades were erected ; there
was some loss of life. The Government was not in a position to
take prompt and vigorous action. Conscious of its weakness and
unpopularity, it was reluctant to use against its own citizens
the small mercenary force at its disposal. In January 1789 the
Councils capitulated without a struggle ; they yielded to the
demand for a general revision of the constitution and a reversal
of the reactionary settlement of 1782. The mercenaries were
dismissed, the Clubs re-established, the exiles recalled. Amongst

z

354 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the changes enacted was the abolition of the Military Committee
which controlled the garrison of the town, of which de Saussure
had ceased to be a member two years previously. In this year he
was put on the Council of Sixty, which met occasionally for the
management of foreign affairs. No doubt his position and
family connection with Necker were thought likely to be of service
in the negotiations on hand for obtaining the approval by the
guaranteeing Powers of the constitutional reforms.

The Edit de Reconciliation, carried in the General Assembly by
an immense majority, was celebrated in the traditional Genevese
fashion. There were processions with bands, rows of youths
dressed in scarlet scarves, embraces and salutations, and the
inevitable poetical effusions, of which the following couplets may
serve as a favourable specimen :

' Tout change ; un subit orage

Au lieu de foudre a jet6

Sur les fers de Pesclavage,

Les fleurs de la liberteV

All passes ; sudden showers

In place of lightning stroke
With piles of Freedom's flowers

Have buried Slavery's yoke.

Geneva, singularly poor in poets, has always been rich in
rhymers. Unhappily, in 1789, men's minds were not in a state
to be permanently soothed by feeble rhymes and sham sentiment.
The disquiet instigated by emissaries from Paris spread from the
streets to the villages of the little State, and the peasants, keen to
be relieved, like those of France, from the feudal burdens of their
tenures, eagerly joined the agitators of the town. Liberal reforms
were enacted, but it was too late. Equality was in the air and
anarchy at the gates. The revolutionaries of Paris regarded
Geneva as * a nest of aristocrats ' ; the proletariat of Geneva
looked on Paris as Utopia.

De Saussure, we are at first surprised to learn, was one of the
relatively small group by whom the Edict was opposed in the
Assembly. The reason for his action is, I think, not hard of dis-
covery, although it has hitherto been generally overlooked. The
celebrated Edict has been described by a Genevese historian,
M. Fazy, as a mediocre piece of patchwork, in many respects

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 355

imperfect and calculated to be a starting-point for fresh disputes ! l
On this ground, we learn from the same authority, a group, belong-
ing to the party of the Repr6sentants, voted against it in the
Assembly.2 Now the best a contemporary apologist could find to
say for the Edict was, ' Nous avons fait un arrangement aussi pas-
sable en soi que 1'urgence des temps et la disposition des esprits
nous le permettaient.' 3 It is surely reasonable to assume that
de Saussure's vote in the Great Council was influenced by reasons
similar to those ascribed by M. Fazy to the group of Represen-
tants in the Assembly ; and his action a year later in proposing
a revision of the Edict appears to afford convincing proof of the
truth of this assumption.

M. Fazy's violent outburst on a previous page of his work
with respect to de Saussure's attitude on this occasion would
seem therefore to be not only inconsistent but unjustifiable. I
quote it below with regret, but it is impossible for a biographer
of de Saussure to leave unnoticed language which obviously calls
for explanation.4

For the present the political crisis did not interfere with de
Saussure's usual summer visit to the mountains. On this
occasion he broke new ground, and at last approached Monte
Rosa, the great mountain he had nine years previously tried
to sketch the outline of from Vercelli. His diary of the tour
and some of his letters to his wife bearing directly on it have
already been quoted. Others have an interest, however, apart
from mountain exploration, which makes me return to them here.
It was at Macugnaga that de Saussure heard of the fall of the
Bastille, and his comment on it proves his liberal sympathies and
how far he was from being the obstinate oligarch he has been
sometimes represented. The entry in his diary shows that he

1 Gen&ve de 1788 a 1792 : La Fin d'un Regime, par M. Henri Fazy, Geneve,
1917, p. 71.

2 ' Dans le nombre des 52 rejetants, il y eut, dit-on, autant de Repr6sen-
tants que de Negatifs,' p. 61 of same work.

3 D'lvernois, Revolutions de Geneve, vol. iii. p. 301.

* ' n y eutfcependant de 1'opposition. Le croirait-on ? le celebre naturalisto
de Saussure fut au nombre de ceux qui se prononcerent centre le pro jet. II
arrive frequemment que des savants du plus grand merite temoignent d'une com-
plete incompetence, lorsqu'ils sont appeles a se prononcer sur des questions
d'ordre politique. En cette occasion de Saussure manqua de la clairvoyance la
plus elementaire.' Geneve de 1788 a 1792, p. 58.

356 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

fully shared the enthusiasm with which Fox is recorded to have
greeted the great news :

' July 27. — My letters bring very good news from home, and of the
happy revolution at Paris and Versailles. This brings balm to my soul.'

In his reply to his wife's letters he comments more fully

' on all these strange events, which you describe to me better and
more clearly than [Franyois] Tronchin does in the long bulletin Dejean
sends me. Ah ! how fine and good it all is ; but this wicked Queen
and all the authors of this odious plot, will they escape unpunished ?
What unheard-of horrors ! And this King, said to be good, to have
taken part in the assassinations ! l If they had accomplished their
crime they would not have been more advanced, for I am convinced
they would have had their throats cut by the people. I hope the
Queen will be so mortified, will find herself fallen under such opprobrium,
that she will be obliged to go back to her own country. Adieu ; had
you received my two letters you would have seen that I have never
had the least doubt as to the happy issue of this business. Still, I am
glad to know it is over and how it ended. So I shall not be reduced
to become a miner at Macugnaga ; in that case I should have brought
you here and built you a nice warm house ! The place is charming,
there are no such fine glaciers anywhere but at Chamonix, and here
there is more plain, the most beautiful meadows, delicious woods,
the houses all standing separate and surrounded by grass, to the
point that one cannot go out without getting one's feet wet. This is
a bit too like England ! '

A few days before he had written cheerfully to his wife on the
effect that the troubles in Paris were likely to have on the French
rentes, in which, as was general in Geneva, his father's fortune was,
in great part , invested. He mentions that there were at Macugnaga
several ' merchants ' who had connections with France and shared
his optimism as to the results of the Revolution.

' The news,' he writes, ' anxious as it is, does not alarm me greatly
for our fortunes, since, after all, if neither the King nor the nation
desire to be bankrupt, the victor will pay us. Besides, it is possible
that in the end these events will produce a more stable situation and
give a wholesome warning to the disturbers of the public peace.

' What appears to me doubtful is whether M. Necker will return,

1 The rumours which reached Geneva from Paris as to the action of the
Court at this moment would seem to have been very exaggerated.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 357

even if the King begs him, but if the Etats G4neraux win, as they
certainly will, they are sure to prevent a financial disaster, and force
the minister, whoever he may be, to pay the creditors of the State.'

Necker had just retired to Basle on his dismissal from office, and
was, it seems, expected at Geneva, and de Saussure, after sending
messages to him, goes on :

' You are very kind to assure me you would not complain of being
reduced to eat the Conches potatoes, if we shared them. For my part,
I protest I should mind reduced circumstances much more for you than
myself ; but then I should make no more long journeys, we should
cultivate our cabbages together, and our affection would supply the
dressing. But once more, I am really not at all anxious about our
fortunes.'

Towards the end of the year domestic trouble was added to de
Saussure 's political embarrassments. His wife suffered from a
serious attack of fever, and recovered only after a long convales-
cence, during which he is reported to have watched over her with
ceaseless anxiety.

The political situation in Geneva in the winter 1789-90 was
still anxious but hopeful. The Powers had more or less reluct-
antly given their sanction to the proposed reforms. There was
an opportunity for a wise and moderate statesman to bring in and
carry measures that might have made Geneva a democratic
Republic, and have united all the sound elements in the city in
resistance to the extreme demagogues, the so-called ' Egaliseurs,'
whose object was to make a clean sweep of the old institutions and
to start afresh from a dead level of perfect equality. If the little
State was to escape foundering in the stormy seas of the French
Revolution, strong statesmanship was essential.

On the 1st February 1790, de Saussure brought forward in the
Great Council a motion to the following effect :

' That a Committee be constituted of Members of the Senate and
Great Council which should carefully take into consideration the
changes called for in the Edict of 1789, with the help of the advice of
all citizens willing to offer it, so that the result may be brought before
the General Assembly on May 1st, since, in view of the new ideas set
afloat by the French Revolution, and the political ferment resulting
from them, it is impossible not to realise that we have need of a Con-
stitution carefully framed and acceptable to the commonalty.'

358 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

This statesmanlike proposal, according to a contemporary
chronicler, ' gave pain to many of the patricians, coming as it did
from one of their own body.' De Saussure's action on this occa-
sion is correctly appreciated by M. Fazy , the historian quoted above .
He writes : ' The Professor showed a wise and far-seeing mind : he
heard the storm grumbling in France, and he recognised that the
repercussion would soon be felt. His aim was to forestall by
opportune measures the revolution of which he recognised the
premonitory symptoms. But the Great Council was incapable of
any energetic action in the sense of reform.' De Saussure's pro-
posal was two months later politely shelved, though a majority of
the members was in favour of it. The Syndics Were charged not
to suggest improvements on the Edict of the previous year, but
to prepare a new code. The result of their labours proved so un-
popular, that in November 1790 a committee of twelve, of which
de Saussure was a member, was, after all, appointed.

I must interrupt here the political story for a moment to note
that in January 1791 de Saussure, after delays caused by the
strained relations between the King and the academical authorities,
was elected one of the eight Foreign Members of the French
Academy of Sciences. His friend and enthusiastic admirer,
Madame de Montesson, the widow of the scientific Due d' Orleans,
the father of Philippe Egalite, interested herself deeply in his can-
didature, and wrote agitated letters telling him of the various
obstacles that had to be surmounted.

In the course of the summer de Saussure paid a short visit to
the Brisgau, which furnished material for a geological pamphlet.

The next four years were to be a period of continual broils.
An improvised administration with no force at its disposal capable
of enforcing law and order was confronted by irresponsible bodies,
the so-called Clubs, which had sprung into renewed life, while the
' Egaliseurs,' or anarchists, of Geneva were bent on imitating on a
small scale the excesses of the rabble of Paris — apes imitating
tigers, Madame de Stael called them. Madame Necker expressed,
less epigrammatically, the same opinion : ' We have left Geneva ;
this little city follows in everything in the footsteps of France,
and pygmies excite only contempt when they imitate the terrible
gestures of Briarean giants. This criminal parody is destroying,
perhaps for ever, a city once so flourishing ; fortunes are being

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 359

brought to an equality by perpetual levies, as they are in France by
confiscation.'

The report of the Committee on Reform was not presented to
the General Assembly until the 15th February 1791. On the same
day the town was in uproar and the peasantry of the surrounding
villages threatened to break through the gates. Finally, on
22nd March, the report, greatly revised, passed the Assembly in the
form of an Edict, and the Committee which had prepared it was
called on to codify the laws of the Republic. At this point de
Saussure and two other members retired. On the 14th November
1791, the new code was accepted by the General Assembly. In
the opinion of competent chroniclers of the time it removed all the
more substantial grievances and was a compromise which, loyally
carried out, might have made Geneva a prosperous self-governing
democracy. But it was exposed to the danger fatal to so many
compromises, that it satisfied the partisans on neither side. The
extreme party, the ' Egaliseurs,' true to their name, were eager to
level to the ground the ancient institutions of the Republic.
Meantime, the state of affairs in France gave warning of the
troubles to come, and might well have urged the Genevese to set
their own house in order.

As the present generation has learnt, ordinary life goes on even
in the darkest days. In March 1792 de Saussure found time to
lecture at the Society of Arts ' On the Lack of any Expression of
the Sentiment of Gratitude in Greek Literature .' Gibbon, who was
at the time staying with the Neckers, attended the lecture, and sent
through M. Necker de Germagny, the brother of the financier and
the father-in-law of de Saussure's daughter, a criticism to be read
before the Society. Its point, apparently, was a reproach to de
Saussure for having questioned, not the expression, but the
existence of any sense of gratitude among the Greeks. De Saus-
sure's reply to Gibbon is characteristic of his impatience of any
criticism he thought misplaced, and of his vigour in controversy.
I quote a portion of it :

' Monsieur — I listened yesterday with much interest to your letter
to M. de Germagny which was read to our Society. But I was grieved
to find that you seemed to attribute to me a desire to establish that
the sentiment of gratitude was unknown to the ancient Greeks. I
spoke of the word, of the act of giving thanks, the form which ex-

360 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

presses them, but I was very far from questioning the feeling. I said
this expressly. I added that this feeling being shown even by animals,
it was impossible to suppose that man had ever been without it. I
employed further to prove the existence of the feeling and the duty
of gratitude the argument which you employ yourself, Monsieur ; I
said that anyone who asks a service of another would always begin
by reminding him of the services previously rendered to him.

' Doubtless, Monsieur, you were distracted during part of this
lecture, and when, like you, one has a brain full of great and beautiful
thoughts, it is permissible to follow them and neglect those of others.
But since the idea you attribute to me is at once infinitely absurd
and immoral, it is impossible for me to leave you to believe I ever
entertained it. ...

' I will not further insist on the literary side of this question, and if
you persist in maintaining that the Greeks gave thanks and expressed
gratitude as the modern Greeks and the Latins and we have since
done, I shall not be ashamed if I have been mistaken in opposing you.
But what would make me blush perpetually is to have thought that
the feeling of gratitude is a modern invention and almost a matter of
fashion. This would really be worthy of a tiger or a Jacobin, to use,
Monsieur, the ingenious combination you employ in your letter. . . .
I seize with eagerness, Monsieur, this opportunity to prove to you
how much I value your good opinion, and how charmed I and my
family have been to make our acquaintance more intimate, and how
much we all hope to be in a better position to cultivate it.' l

During the summer of 1792 there was a period of temporary
tranquillity at Geneva, a calm before the storm, and de Saussure,
freed from his committees, seized the occasion to renew his
acquaintance with the Monte Rosa group by a second visit to the
St. Theodule Pass. It would seem, however, that he left home
with even more than his usual fear of a parting scene, for his
diary particularly notes that he slipped off unnoticed at early dawn,
and in a letter to his wife from Breuil he expresses his remorse
for his conduct :

' I curse,' he writes, ' this passion for the mountains which causes
such torments to a soul so sweet, so tender, whose happiness is my
most ardent desire. I have bitterly regretted the farewell kiss which
I might have given you before starting, but then, how could I disturb
your tranquil slumber by causing a flood of tears ? '

1 Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. p. 436. Edition of 1814.

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 361

His wife's letters to him during his absence show that if she
was apt to break down at partings, her courage and high spirits
soon returned. If, as she tells him, ' I wept as only I can weep,'
she soon dried her tears and turned to household cares. At the
farm at Conches, to which she had retired, these were more varied
than in town or at the villa at Genthod. She is at pains to re-
assure him as to her welfare :

' I find I live too little at Conches ; to tell the truth, it is the place
where I am happiest. ... I shall be very happy when I get you back,
and meantime I assure you I am not sad ; yesterday at La Boissiere
they said I laughed as in old days.'

Madame de Saussure gives details of all the terrible things
that are passing in France, the massacre of the Swiss Guard, the
King's removal to the Temple. She tells how Paris is the only
topic of conversation ; how one of their friends in the Swiss Guard
has escaped to England after leaving his sword and uniform in a
cellar. All amusements had ceased at Lausanne. At Geneva,
however, there was still society ; at Evian there were even dances.
Necker had gone to refresh himself by a trip to Chamonix ; an
Englishman had failed to get up Mont Blanc,1 and there had been
an accident to his guides. Lord and Lady Palmerston, with a
number of English ladies, had called on her. She had refused an
afternoon party at the du Pans — preferring to remain at home
' with her book, her bull, and her donkey — I don't mean Alphonse,
but the bull's doctor, for the poor beast languishes and makes
no progress.' She completes elsewhere the portrait of the in-
competent veterinary :

' What an imposing figure the doctor of Carouge makes, with his
glass in his hand ! He arrives mounted on his donkey. He has fought
at Fontenoy and studied in the veterinary schools ; he went into the
garden to pick herbs, of which he made a potion, promising me a
second much more carefully prepared. In fact, I am so much persuaded

1 EbeTs Guide adds further and more exact details of this accident. The party
consisted of four Englishmen with guides. Their attempt came to a premature
and unfortunate end. One of the travellers slipped in traversing some loose
rocks at the top of the Montagne de la Cote, and they all fell. Two of the
travellers were seriously injured, the guides were more or less bruised. No names
are supplied.

362 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of his skill by the stories he tells of the number of beasts he has cured
that should I fall ill — which, please God, may not happen — I should
send for him sooner than for Dr. Odier ! '

On another day, after saying they get no Paris newspapers, she
sends her Gazette de Conches :

' The Court has gone into deep crape mourning for the noble Bull.
The Queen of Conches has been the more affected since the Grand
Medecin of Carouge had promised his recovery. There is a gala dinner
to-day. Mme. Hubert and Mme. Necker and all the princes of the
blood. Mme. de Saussure is very pleased to offer this fete before the
return of her dear Seigneur, for it would have bored him. The dogs
Loup and Le Bleu send their greeting.'

Loup was de Saussure's companion on at least one of his tours.

And so on, through pages of local gossip and affectionate out-
pourings, with several pleasant allusions to de Saussure having
in some remote Alpine village been taken for Rousseau (who had
been dead fourteen years). There is no reference in the letters of
this date to the loss of fortune caused by the troubles in France,
which was, no doubt, the reason why Madame de Saussure had
gone to Conches instead of Gtenthod for the summer. But we
learn that at this time de Saussure borrowed from Necker thirty
thousand li vres . The debt was after his death released by Madame
de Stael, as Necker 's heir, transferring the security to her cousin,
Madame Necker-de Saussure.

Shortly after de Saussure's return, we find the Marquis de
Grouchy (a name Waterloo makeg familiar to English readers)
writing to thank de Saussure for a copy of his Voyages, and for
the pleasure he has had from a visit to Chamonix. Grouchy was
a brother-in-law of de Saussure's friend, Condorcet, and his wife
had literary tastes. On his return he offered de Saussure in
exchange some geological specimens.

In the autumn of 1792 the popular party was again turbulent
and little disposed to accept the settlement of the previous year,
while the Government, alarmed of enemies both without and
within the gates, could think of nothing better than to invite a
Bernese garrison to protect it. With the chief of the Mediating
Powers, France, no longer on their side, this was an act of suicidal
folly. The Convention naturally replied by threatening, unless

POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 363

the Swiss troops were dismissed, an occupation of the city. The
Government yielded. Bereft of its only support and left face to
face with an angry populace, it hastily proposed to offer still
larger concessions. Before these could be discussed it was no
longer in power ; the time for reform had passed and revolution
was within the gates. The old constitution of Geneva, its Syndics
with their wigs and silk coats and staves of office, its ' Spectables '
and ' Nobles ' and ' Venerable Compagnie,' had all passed away,
or were to linger only as ineffectual shades. The revolutionary
Clubs now became masters of the situation.

In the last days of December 1792, a Committee of forty mem-
bers was charged to devise a new form of government. A month
later the task was transferred to a Constituent Assembly of
one hundred and twenty members. Meantime, two Provisional
Committees, one of Public Order, one of Administration, were
created to carry on affairs. At this crisis de Saussure acted with
noteworthy public spirit and courage. Many of the patrician
families had already left Geneva ; he remained in order to make
a gallant effort to act as a check upon the anarchist group who,
excited by the events in France, had lost whatever heads they once
possessed, and, aided by the French Resident, Soulavie, were now
threatening by their excesses to bring the ancient Republic to ruin.

On the Civil Committee de Saussure and his fellow-professor,
Bertrand, were at once nominated, and ' through excess of
patriotism and at the request of the true friends of liberty,'
consented to act as members, while the Military Committee
begged the two professors to serve as captains of companies
of the Citizen Militia. Yet this patriotic effort did not escape
malicious criticism. De Saussure thought it right to bring
before the Civil Committee an anonymous letter in which he
was informed that his presence and that of other aristocrats
impeded the work of their colleagues, and that steps, possibly
involving bloodshed, might shortly be taken ' to sweep them
out of the Council Chamber.' He added that he was firm in
his wish to serve his country in any way practicable, but that
he thought it right to consult his colleagues as to what course it
seemed to them best for him to take in the public interest. The
Committee unanimously assured the members impugned of their
appreciation of ' the wisdom, moderation, and true patriotism '

364 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

which they had displayed, and of their desire to retain their
service. In conjunction with his friend Trembley, who was
also a member of the Civil Committee, de Saussure lost no time in
presenting to his colleagues an address urging the Government to
take measures ' for the maintenance of order and of brotherly
feeling under the rule of Liberty and Equality.'

Meantime, the victorious ' Egaliseurs ' did their best on a
small scale to imitate Paris. They planted Trees of Liberty;
they organised, in honour of Jean Jacques Rousseau, a theatrical
out-of-doors fete of the kind dear to the local mind ; they
wreathed his bust with flowers and danced and embraced round
it ; they feasted in the streets, singing :

' Oui, desormais libre et tranquille,
Le Genevois en paix vivra,
Tons ne feront qu'un dans la ville,
Le bonheur y residera.'

These pleasant anticipations were not to be realised.

CHAPTER XV
THE LAST YEARS

IN January 1793 de Saussure, as a member of the Civil or
Administrative Committee, was busy in preparing a scheme
for establishing the Constituent Assembly. In combination with
Etienne Dumont, a moderate Radical, who was a friend of
Mirabeau and had spent some time in England, he sent to
one of the Genevese Clubs an argumentative letter, urging
that in the proposals to be laid before the citizens for the
election of the Constituent Assembly the number of members
should be fixed, or at any rate only a limited choice between two
or three alternative figures offered. He was at pains to point
out that unless this course was followed, the result was likely to
be a prolonged series of meetings and debates and a consequent
delay which might prove a serious danger to the State. The
suggestion was obviously a practical one, and it was acted on.
De Saussure's action in this instance fully bears out Dumont's
expressions in a letter written probably a year earlier to Reybaz,
the Genevese Agent at Paris. ' Messieurs de Saussure and Bertrand
rally to the democracy and to all it involves for the sake of the
independence [of Geneva], and out of weariness of a system which
has harassed them.'

Early in the same month we find de Saussure, acting as a
member of the Provisional Committee, adding his signature to
a despatch to Lord Granville, the British Minister for Foreign
Affairs, in which, after an allusion to the close ties that united
England and the Genevese Republic, the writers declare that the
recent troubles in the State have resulted in the formation of a
Committee charged to draw up and promulgate a constitution,
which it is hoped may satisfy all parties and lead to a permanent
settlement. A month later the Committee nominated a list of
240 names for a Constituent Assembly, from which, according to

365

366 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the old Genevese custom, the General Assembly was invited to
select half.

At the end of January the esteem in which de Saussure was
held by his fellow-citizens was shown by his selection as one of
the delegates to receive General Kellermann, who came on behalf
of the French Republic to admonish the Genevese not to look
too much towards Switzerland for aid in their troubles. A
banquet in honour of the General was held on the day on which
the news of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth reached Geneva.

In March de Saussure was put on a small Committee of eleven
charged to frame the articles of a new constitution, and in April
was further nominated one of three members of a Diplomatic
Committee.

In the Constituent Assembly, which was now sitting, we find
de Saussure taking the Presidency, which was a frequently
shifting office, for a short term. His family, his wife writes,
liked him better in his professor's robes than in his presi-
dential garment. In the Assembly he had as a colleague his old
acquaintance and companion, Bourrit, the cathedral Precentor.
Born a Natif , and never admitted into the society of the Upper
Town, 'notre Bourrit,' as his townsfolk called him, now found
himself exalted to a share in public life. His two sons, whose
Alpine performances we have recorded, had both become pastors
and popular preachers. It is to Bourrit's credit that in the
present crisis his lifelong connection with the Church proved
stronger than his political associations. He stood up manfully
for the clergy when it was proposed to exclude them from any
part in the control of popular education. Nor was this the only
occasion on which he showed the courage of his convictions. Of
another debate in the Assembly we have a satirical report from
Desonnaz, one of the more violent of the demagogues :

' Nothing could be more entertaining than the sitting of the
National Assembly to-day. The subject was the renaming of the
churches. A citizen proposed, reasonably enough, names connected
with some event, or some particular connection, for each of these
houses of God. What greatly amused me was to hear a philosopher
(de Saussure) praising the Saints, while a simple artisan (Fol) de-
nounced them. The former maintained that to dedicate a church to
Reason was to personify an ideal metaphysical abstraction. Fol

THE LAST YEARS 367

replied, " That is true ; I agree, one cannot dedicate a church to
Reason." Bourrit, Vhomme des Alpes, judiciously argued that what
Calvin had not reformed ought to be let alone. And you will tell
me that man has not wit for four ! No doubt it was on Mont Blanc
that he acquired it. The Assembly decided nothing, but referred the
matter to a Committee to report.' l

This is Bourrit's last appearance in connection with de
Saussure. The Precentor was to live on to the age of eighty ;
he died in 1819. His French pension was renewed after the
Restoration, and when he could no longer conduct his patrons to
the glaciers, he continued to issue his Guide-books to Chamonix.
It is pleasant to leave him engaged in proving his loyalty to his
old church associations and showing the courage of his opinions.
For, despite his too many and obvious foibles and failings, the old
Precentor keeps a certain hold on our affections. His enthusiasm
for the mountains, the pluck and pertinacity with which he tried
to be a climber, even his naive exaggerations, which were to some
extent illusions, recommend him to our kindly recollection and
go far to make us forget the mischief he wrought. It was not
malice so much as vanity that constantly led him astray.
Bourrit was not only an honest lover of the Alps, but the author
of the first volume in our language of Alpine literature in the
modern sense of the words, and we wave a friendly farewell to his
fading figure.

Cornuaud, the busy pamphleteer and political agitator already
mentioned, bore in a Journal that has only recently been published,
the following emphatic testimony to de Saussure's wise counsels
during this period :

' Professor PreVost was the most brilliant and subtle of the orators
on the side of the ancient constitution, but Professor de Saussure was
the most adroit. The latter had a great influence over the debates of
the Assembly, and was the last of the men of importance of his party
to remain in it. The Republic owed him much ; he diminished the
harm that would have been done in his absence. A happy mixture of
flexibility and firmness which formed the base of his character —
though he could be reserved and haughty in ordinary life — procured
for him in the Assembly an influence which was valuable to the

1 Correspondance de Orenus et Desonnaz, ou Etat Politique et Moral de la
Republique de Geneve, Gen&ve, 1794, vol. i. p. 65.

368 LIFE OF HOBACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Commonwealth. He recognised from the first that the situation was
one in which it was not possible to resist the destructive torrent, but
rather expedient to appear to follow it, so as to obtain means to check
its speed and, when possible, to divert it. He enjoyed, moreover, in
the esteem of his fellow-citizens, a well -deserved respect independent
of the reputation given him by his position in the scientific world. As
a citizen they had seen him show himself a brave and honest aristocrat
in the sort of blockade to which his house had been subjected in 1782,
a serious and resolute character in 1789, an excellent and serviceable
Genevese when the French threatened a siege of the city, and he was
gladly recognised as a reasonable and moderate citizen in the National
Assembly. To sum up, Professor de Saussure was the citizen of his
class who knew best in each change of the political situation to adapt
himself with straightforwardness and dignity to the spirit of the time.' l

Higher praise could hardly be given.

In May 1793 de Saussure lost his beloved neighbour, friend, and
master, Bonnet. Despite his many infirmities, Bonnet had lived
to be seventy-three. Even the disturbed state of local politics
did not prevent his fellow-citizens from desiring to do honour to
his memory. It was resolved to place on his house the tablet
which may still be seen opposite the Place du Molard in the Rues
Basses. After delay caused by one of the many political riots
of the period, de Saussure delivered in the church of St. Germain
a funeral oration, which is of interest not only for its eloquent
appreciation of his uncle's qualities of head and heart, but also
as an indication of his own standpoint in religious matters. The
service was attended by all the authorities of the city, who
marched in procession from the Town Hall through the crowded
streets. The band, it is recorded, played the Marseillaise 'even
in church.'

We have an account from the pen of Madame de Saussure of
Geneva as it appeared on the day on which it had been first
intended de Saussure should deliver his eulogy of his uncle :

' Yesterday I passed one of those days of emotion of which the
habit we have acquired does not diminish the impression. There was
a call to arms at the orders of the Committees, or the Clubs. The
gates were shut, cannon rumbled, women, weeping and screaming, hung
out of the windows, in the evening the town had the martial appear-

1 Mimoires £ Isaac Cornuaud sur Geneve ft la Revolution de 1770 a 1795,
publtees par Mile. E. Cherbuliez (Geneve, 1912).

THE LAST YEARS 369

ance you know — the streets full of armed citizens, lit torches, and
challenges. All this hubbub went on till two or three o'clock this
morning, and then to-day everyone is back in his shop, his caf6, or
his office. . . . This stormy day had been destined for the celebration
of a very quiet citizen, your uncle Charles Bonnet. We were thinking
only of securing places for the ceremony. The country folk, even
the timid ones, had all come into Geneva attracted by the show : they
have firmly vowed not to put their feet in town again. . . . Your
sister called for a moment to find if I was dying of fear. We have
shown the world, we old ladies of Geneva, that we are not to be killed
in that way.'

In the following June the ' Egaliseurs ' proposed that the citizens
should be invited to take a voluntary oath of allegiance to Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity. The object was transparent — to pro-
vide a black list of abstainers. De Saussure, anxious in every
way in his power to promote unity, took the oath, but both his
sons refused.

His multiplied political functions did not deter de Saussure
from making yet another effort in the cause which from his youth
he had had deeply at heart. In August, returning to the field of
his first endeavours, he put forward a scheme for free national
education. It is interesting to note that his collaborator was
Isaac Bourrit. The pert youth of the Aiguille du Gouter had now
developed into a sober minister and administrator.

The primary schools were to serve for boys and girls up
to the age of ten. The subjects taught were to be reading,
writing, arithmetic, the principles of religion and morals, the
rights and duties of citizens, and a summary of the laws. Country
children were to be instructed in rural economy and domestic
and veterinary medicine, which were to be put in the hands of
the local pastors ! Girls were to learn needlework.

De Saussure would have wished to add geography, general
history, and elementary science to his scheme. ' But,' he
writes, 'my colleagues, less ambitious, and perhaps knowing
better than I do what is practicable in existing conditions, have
persuaded me that it is better to class these subjects as voluntary
studies.' There were to be three divisions : primary, secondary,
and final classes. The secondary classes were not to be com-
pulsory. Advanced students were to have the opportunity of

2A

370 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

learning Latin, Greek, and music. Popular concerts were to be
provided. The final classes, destined for pupils over fifteen, were
to be given in French, instead of Latin as hitherto. Swimming,
gymnastics, and riding were to be encouraged. The pupils were
all to wear a simple black uniform. Three annual fetes were pro-
vided for, with, of course, a procession, and a good-conduct prize,
to be determined by the pupils' votes. There was to be in
addition an Administrative Council, which would exercise paternal
discipline, and also look after orphans and illegitimate children.
Calvin would seem not to have altogether expelled Cupid 1
Indeed, the police records provide a good deal of evidence that,
despite sumptuary laws and the vigilance of the Consistory, the
morals of the town had never been beyond reproach.

Like other political schemes of the date, de Saussure's was
swept aside by the French annexation in 1798.

Meantime, de Saussure's elder son, Theodore, unconscious of
the disasters impending on his family and country, was absent in
England, investigating the manufacturing districts, and greatly
enjoying himself in visits to the Isle of Wight, Stow, and Derby-
shire in company with Sir John Swinburne and his wife. Lady
Swinburne, the daughter of Mr. Bennet, his mother's cousin,
who lived at Beckenham, was a distant relation, and Theodore
in his letters home expresses the warmest admiration of her wit,
talent, and charm. Passing through Oxford, he records that he
dined, probably in one of the College Halls, with ' twenty doctors
in square caps.' In London he attended the meetings of the
Royal Society, of which he was at a later date to become a
Foreign Member, and his name is found in the list of guests at the
Society's Dining Club.

Madame de Saussure's letters written to her son whilst he was in
England throw much light on the situation, political and personal.
In the summer of 1793 she describes the terrible heat, ' which
drove everyone into the lake,' while her husband and Alphonse,
her younger son, as members of the local militia, had to per-
form their military duties. The city had been scandalised by
a masquerade — a mock procession of figures burlesquing the
Syndics, dressed in their time-honoured costume, crowned by
immense wigs, holding their staves of office, and preceded by
ushers in the traditional blue and purple mantles, which went

THE LAST YEARS 371

round the town and levied contributions from the butchers and
bakers.

In September 1793 Madame de Saussure throws out a first hint
that her son's stay in England may have to be cut short on the
ground of expense. In December she has to tell him that all the
Genevese, her husband among them, have lost their fortunes :

' The only reproach,' she writes, ' that can be brought against your
father is that he was too hasty in coming to the help of a friend he
believed to be prudent and trustworthy. I am only too glad that
my fortune has so far prevented a crash we all dread, but it can no
longer, my children, provide you a brilliant existence or even the
ease to which we have all been accustomed. If nothing fortunate
happens for him, you must look out for a travelling tutorship, or a
wealthy bride ; if these fail we shall have to live in our old stuffs and
our old green tapestries, with a little maid in a black cap.

' But we must be contented, and think it is our own choice, and
not be making comparisons with what we have seen and been accus-
tomed to. You have the opportunity, my friend — see if you can
accustom yourself to the simple life, at least for a long time. Perhaps
we shall not be less happy.'

The practical position was that the de Saussure fortune was
lost, at any rate as far as any present income was concerned, and
Madame de Saussure 's very seriously impaired. Investments paid
no interest, rents could not be collected, very heavy taxation was
supplemented by levies on capital. As a last blow, a certain
Dejean, an ' agent de change,' or stockbroker, who had acted for
de Saussure, had become bankrupt. The Neckers had, as has
been already mentioned, come to his help with a substantial loan.

The letter ends with a description of yet another of the in-
evitable processions in which the Genevese were wont to express
their feelings and forget, for a time, their quarrels. This time,
however, it was the annual and time-honoured one in celebration
of the ' Escalade,' the famous repulse of the Duke of Savoy from
the walls in 1602.

Theodore, who was very happy in England, failed at first to
realise the gravity of the situation. He evidently thought his
mother was needlessly alarmed, and it was not until he received
confirmation from his father of the state of affairs that he took
matters at all seriously. Then he at once expressed his anxiety

372 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

to find some occupation which would give him an independent
income. To his father's suggestion that he might take a tutorship,
he replied that owing to the war the English were not travelling,
and that the bent of his studies — scientific rather than classical —
was little likely to recommend him to an English patron.

About this time Madame de Saussure mentions a startling
visit :

' At supper your father was asked for. The caller was brought
into the salon, and Tetu [the domestic who climbed Mont Blanc with
de Saussure] lit one of the candles on the mantelpiece, which gave
but a dim light. Your father left the joint, and saw before him a dark
man, who exclaimed, " I am Marat." At the first moment he was
tempted to think it was a ghost ! It was Marat's brother, of whom
we had never heard.' J

It was towards the end of 1793, we learn from the report of
Dr. Odier already mentioned, that de Saussure's health, always
uncertain, for his digestive troubles had never been wholly over-
come, gave cause for serious anxiety. Dr. Odier's account
(greatly abbreviated) is as follows :

' To de Saussure's long and painful efforts to arrest or direct the
torrent of our political revolutions were now added the anxieties caused
by the grievous inroads on a fortune already seriously reduced. Similar
losses befell most of our capitalists, but in his case the noble use he
had always made of his wealth gave him a better right than others
to view its loss with bitterness. These mental troubles reacted on his
health, and he was attacked by frequent fits of giddiness, followed by
a feeling of stiffness in the left arm and the left side of his face, which
no remedy could overcome.'

In the following February (1794) de Saussure was invited to
stand for election as one of the four Syndics.

' We might,' writes Madame de Saussure, ' have had the honour
of being wife and daughter of a Syndic. Your father yesterday declined
the prospect of this elevation, to the great content of the Syndic
Dentand, who assured him he did well, because his health would have
suffered. Your father retorted that it was because he thought he
would have obtained a large number of votes that he did not care
to take the risk. This conversation between the two candidates made
the hearers, who were far from agreeing with Dentand, laugh.'

1 The Marata came from Neuchatel; but Marat's father, a doctor, had at
one time lived in Geneva.

THE LAST YEARS 373

In a letter of 18th March 1794 we get the first definite warning
of the greater misfortune of which Dr. Odier described the first
symptoms. Madame de Saussure writes to her son :

' Your poor father — I say your poor father, for he has given me a
great fright — at the Assembly ten days ago had a seizure which de-
prived him of any sense of touch in his arms and fingers, but not of
the power of movement. A plaster has lessened, but not yet cured,
his stiffness. He calls himself, in joke, the Paralytic ! But I cannot
play with this suggestion ; it makes me tremble, though I have long
foreseen it. Our paralyses do not attack the heart ; you will see.'

From this time forward de Saussure was not only a ruined
man constantly engaged in anxious inquiries for some honourable
post which would supply an adequate income, but also an invalid
driven from time to time to have recourse to Baths in the hope of
restoring his health. His position in these respects may recall
the last days of Sir Walter Scott. He showed an at least equal
courage and energy in the protracted struggle of the following five
years.

We next hear of him congratulating — it must have been
satirically — the renegade priest Soulavie, who was the French
Resident at Geneva, on the recognition by Robespierre of the
existence of a Deity shown in the Fete de 1'Etre Supreme held at
Paris, and receiving the reply : ' Robespierre mocks at le bon Dieu
as much as I do.'

The troubles of all sorts in which he was now involved pro-
duced in de Saussure, never too patient towards scientific dabblers
and impostors, a marked increase of irritability. An unfortunate
' Citoyen Boissel ' had floated down the part of the Rhone between
the Jura and Lyons and published a Voyage Pittoresque, to which
the French National Convention was pleased to accord an honour-
able mention. In the course of his narrative he attributed to de
Saussure a statement which drew forth this crushing reprimand :

' I thank you, sir, a thousand times for sending me your Voyage
Pittoresque.

' But I cannot thank you for the compliments contained in your
letter. I should have preferred that, in place of flattering me in
private, you had refrained from attributing to me in public an opinion
which I never held. You suggest that I believe that the Rhone
swallows light bodies thrown into it where it emerges [from the Perte

374 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

du Rhone]. Now, I have never spoken of what is thrown in at its
emergence — that is too obviously stupid and absurd; the question
was as to bodies thrown in where it disappears which are not seen to
emerge again where it comes out. It is very strange that it should
be possible to attribute a blunder of this sort to a creature that walks
on two feet. I should have thought that all the details proved that
I had never spoken of bits of wood thrown in at the emergence, but of
those thrown in at the engulf ment. Allow me to tell you. sir, that
the very fact that an opinion appears to one absurd ought to make
one more careful, before attributing it to an author, to assure oneself
he has really held it. Now the word reappear which I used in itself
proves that I was not talking of a body which one launches at the
point of emergence, as one might a boat.'

As a rule, de Saussure's letters follow scrupulously the
elaborately polite forms of the period. But when the occasion
seemed to him one in which to dispense with them — as in this case,
and several previously cited — he could be more than blunt.

The close of the year 1793 had been marked by frequent dis-
orders fomented by the French Resident. On 5th February 1794
a radical constitution, formulated by the Constituent Assembly,
was accepted by a popular vote.

On receipt of this news the British Minister at Berne, Lord
Robert Fitzgerald, promptly appealed to the Governments of
Berne and Zurich to refuse to recognise the new democratic
regime of Geneva, which he denounced as ' founded on the same
system as that which had already in France produced so many
crimes and calamities,' and as ' the fruit of intrigues and acts of
violence instigated by the agents of enemies of His Majesty,'
adding that * it had allowed the partisans of anarchy to insult the
Allied Powers by permitting public rejoicings over defeats suffered
by the armies which were fighting for the preservation and the
civilisation of all the States of Europe.' 1

Little effect seems to have been produced by this forcible
remonstrance. At Geneva there was a relative calm for a few
months ; the annual ' Promotions,' or School Speech-day, was
celebrated as usual. But the city was still divided against itself,
and the midsummer heat was to prove deadly to the new-born
constitution.

1 Archives Cantonalea de Berne, Aden Geheimen Raths : Genfer Unruhen,
vol. xix. No. 23.

THE LAST YEARS 375

For the three years following (1794-6) a private diary written
by de Saussure, mostly in Greek, with occasional lapses into Latin,
has been preserved and kindly put in my hands byM. Henri Necker.
The handwriting is that of a scholar, small and fairly clear, but
varies greatly with the state of the writer's health, and towards
the close (November 1796) becomes hi places almost illegible.

Unfortunately the contents are in the main medical. De
Saussure recorded his daily actions and his own symptoms with
singular and curt preciseness. Each day's entry begins with an
account of the past night, of the baths, the exercise, and medicine
taken. From time to time there are pathetic notes, such as
' weaker and thinner,' ' legs giving way,' * writing difficult.'
He was obviously ordered gentle exercise, and records his daily
' walks in the house ' or out of doors, always with his devoted
wife or daughter. In the earlier portion he records the public
committees he was still attending. But the political entries are
very few and brief ; for example, ' Murder of the Seven,' ' Murder
of Baudit and Pradier ' are the only record of the two most tragic
moments in Genevese history. For the rest we find notes of
incidents of daily life, his visitors' calls, and his correspondence.
His literary occupation is carefully set out, and the reader can
follow week by week the composition of the two latter volumes of
the Voyages, through the chapters on Mont Blanc, the Col du
Geant, Monte Rosa, and Mont Cervin, to the Agenda and Index.
A trip to Neuchatel, probably to see his publisher, in the spring
of 1795 is mentioned. At the same time he was writing to a de
Saussure at Charleston, South Carolina, and seeing a good deal
of his brother geologist Dolomieu.

The diary gives details as to his daily strolls from Conches,
such as ' under the oaks to the weir,' * through the island to the
river,' and ' to the bridge.' Since he was too much of an invalid
to go more than a few hundred yards, these entries may serve to
identify the exact site of the old farmhouse where his earliest and
last days were passed.

One entry runs : ' The Neckers [his daughter and son-in-law]
leave, tears of my wife.' It is not the only occasion on which
Madame de Saussure's famous tears figure in the diary. Every
page of it bears witness to the devotion of a wife who idolised
him, and of a daughter who understood and entered into his

376 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

interests and lightened his last days by her affectionate and
untiring care.

In May 1794 Madame Necker, the wife of the financier, died,
and in her the de Saussures lost a true and valuable friend.

In the summer of that year Theodore returned to Geneva.
His parents, in order to reduce their expenses, had retired to their
farm at Conches, while Frontenex, the home of de Saussure's
childhood, was sold. We also hear of the sale, through a Frankfort
bookseller, of part of his library.

The first waters de Saussure visited in search of health were
those of Aix in Savoy, where we find him in May 1794. His wife
did not accompany him. The explanation is contained in a
letter from which we learn that the de Saussures hesitated both to
leave Geneva at the same time on account of the risk of their
properties being confiscated as those of emigrants. Empty houses
were the first to be seized by the Revolutionary Government.

On the 28th June Madame de Saussure wrote from Conches
to her husband at Aix. As usual there had been a festival, the
second in twelve months, in honour of Rousseau.

' A great deal of powder was burnt to-day. I am told it was very
successful ; a procession of girls, some crowned, others half veiled,
all carrying garlands they piled on the monument ; another of old
men leaning on sticks and supported by boys ; then the crowd and
bands. As there was no rain and no feasting, the festival went ofi
better than that of last year ! '

A week later Madame de Saussure was recording the departure
for America of several of their friends. The coming storm was
throwing its shadow in advance. Before it broke de Saussure had
returned to his family at Conches.

A city distracted by civil broils, in the course of which all its
ancient institutions had been thrown into the melting-pot, was in
no condition to resist the contagion on its borders. The Revolu-
tion in France had excited class hostility and suggested the
spoliation of the well-to-do ; the fumes of the Terror had infected
the brains of the Genevese rabble, and made it eager to emulate
the crimes of Paris on the peaceful shore of Lake Leman.
There was no leader and no force at hand capable of controlling
the situation. On the evening of July 19th the town was in the

THE LAST YEARS 377

hands of the mob. The Government temporised, the Clubs —
always to the front in times of disorder — were invited to send
delegates to the Hotel de Ville. To this irregular meeting was
left the appointment of a Revolutionary Committee. A number
of prominent citizens were hastily arrested and brought before an
improvised tribunal.

The 24th July 1794 remains marked with a black stone in the
annals of Geneva as the date of the Massacre on the Bastions.
I give Theodore de Saussure's account, written to his sister three
days later, of the events that led up to it, and of his own and his
brother's escape from the distracted city :

* ROLLE, 21th July 1794.

' The presentiment which led us to pass the summer outside Geneva
was not ill-founded. The political situation in the city offered no
stable base for any long continuance of tranquillity. It seems as if
France had not lost sight of us, and that the misfortunes which afflict
us are brought about by her, so that we may be driven to seek
happiness by throwing ourselves into her arms. For some time the
Egaliseurs have affected to be dissatisfied with the Government. The
French Resident instigated them. He gave at Monty a splendid
party to the more violent of them who took the name of Montagnards :
there were about eighty. He advised them to work for their own ends
and to start a second revolution. For that it was necessary to have
a riot, and a pretext was soon found. It was reported at the Great
Club on Friday evening, 17th July, that a plot in which several
Genevese were implicated had been started in Switzerland, to raise
the neighbouring French Departments. At the word " Plot " several
individuals proposed to take up arms and seize the conspirators, whose
names were not even mentioned. The minority persisted, announced
that it would take up arms, and rushed tumultuously out of the
Club with shouts of "To Arms." All the Genevese then in Geneva
flew to arms. But the honnetes gens were at once disarmed. The
Montagnards proceeded, without order or distinction, to seize by
night the greater number of the so-called Aristocrats and shut up
more than six hundred in the Granges and the Granary. At the same
time they broke open bureaux, seized papers, money, and in some
cases plate. My father's house was respected, as well as those of a very
small number of others, without any known reason. Neither he nor
Alphonse nor I were arrested. Probably our father covered us with
his wings, for, as you know, we had not taken the famous oath, which
was quite a good enough reason at the moment for imprisonment.

378 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUEE

' The Montagnards asked for a revolutionary tribunal of twenty-
one judges to try the prisoners. All Genevese citizens were summoned
to attend in arms on the bastions in order to proceed to their election.
All came, but the Egaliseurs arrived first, and disarmed, or sent home,
those whom they recognised as anti -revolutionaries. Despite this
exclusion the voting, according to some, was less bad than might
have been expected, and among the judges whose names excited no
fear, were Deonna, Flournois, de 1'Isle, Lissignol, Bourdillon, Dieday,
Romilly, Argand, Bousquet, and others who were held good Genevese,
if violent democrats. Events proved the contrary. The judgments
had to be confirmed by the people. De Rochemont, the son, was
examined. He replied with so much eloquence, firmness, grace, and
wit that his speech was drowned in applause. The judges and the
audience were touched and satisfied, so that they refused to examine
his papers. One heard nothing but voices which exclaimed that the
people were being deceived, that it was unworthy to make arrests on
such pretexts. M. le Syndic also satisfied his judges. Still the
Montagnards declared that victims were necessary to establish the
revolution ; as, if the revolutionary tribunal did not satisfy the people,
it would act for itself. Others suggested that the accused in obtain-
ing their pardon from the people would be more secure than if acquitted
by the tribunal. Others that a victim was needed to save the lives of
the six hundred prisoners who without this would be in danger. On
these considerations the tribunal out of the fourteen it had examined
during the day condemned seven to death.

' The people were called together next day, 24th July, on the
bastions to confirm the sentence. No one doubted of a pardon ; the
Montagnards, however, again excluded all the moderate revolutionaries.
Despite this, the majority was still for a pardon. Counting the votes
began at five in the afternoon. At nine it was still incomplete. Then
the scrutineers announced that the counting was sufficiently advanced
to show that five were pardoned and that only two remained in doubt.
At the word Pardon, Le Clair, a locksmith, a member of the revolu-
tionary tribunal, drew liis sword and cried out, " No pardon, they
must die ! " The Montagnards at once started for the prisons : the
partisans of pardon got before them and guarded the doors. The
prisoners might have been saved, but the Montagnards came up and
threatened attack, the others yielded like cowards, the doors were
opened and the seven prisoners were led behind the Montagne des
Bastions. The garrison was ordered to fire on them ; it refused. The
Montagnards themselves did so and the seven unfortunate men lost
their lives at ten o'clock with the greatest courage. Nothing was

THE LAST YEARS 379

seen in Geneva but tears and consternation. The Montagnards said
they had only made a beginning of purging Geneva of its enemies.
This unhappy city is a desert, all the honest people have fled or are
in prison. Arrests continue. Alphonse and I were warned that we
were being looked for and that we might expect to be arrested. Our
father urged us to fly immediately.1 You will realise how difficult it
was for us to seek safety while leaving our friends in prison and our
parents in danger ; that if we could have seen any probability of a
rally or resistance we should never have consented. But the case was
hopeless, we were useless and a burden to our parents who desired
to remain to protect their property, which is almost their only source
of income.

' We gained at night by bye-paths the shores of the lake. The
Montagnards had already seized all the boats. We crossed the French
frontier, found a boat, and landed at Rolle at my aunt Tronchin's,
where we are lodging. The two Calandrini are in prison as well as
Pasteur and the Pictets, Marcet also. My other friends have escaped.
Diodati, the Major, escaped by swimming from " Behind the Rhone,"
to S6cheron, whence he got into Switzerland. Yesterday and to-day
they have released one hundred and fifty prisoners. Some have been
completely acquitted, others have been condemned to confiscations,
fines, and banishment. Six Montagnards, who called themselves
French, have been arrested. Anxiety is now felt only for Duroveray
and Bellamy among those under arrest.'

Theodore concludes :

* The moment may come when my parents will be obliged to
abandon their property. The confiscation of that of emigrants is
already proposed. The wish to be some help to them is the only link
that attaches me to life. This idea puts aside all my tastes and all
personal considerations. I eagerly desire a post as a tutor or travelling
companion. It is the only thing I can do. Geneva is marked with
a stain that can never be effaced, it is for me an accursed spot, which
I shall never see without horror ; I am ashamed of it. I should like
to deliver my friends and then burn the town. Let it be no more
mentioned.'

Several of the letters written by Madame de Saussure during
this brief Reign of Terror have been preserved. They show very
remarkable calmness and courage in the terrible circumstances of
the moment. The husbands of her friends Mesdames Cayla and

a Ttav vlStv is the concise entry in de Saussure's Greek diary for the
day before the murders. It follows on the words ' very bad news of the seven.'

380 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Naville had been murdered by the Revolutionaries. M. Necker
de Germagny, her daughter's father-in-law, was held a prisoner
for a few days, but ' his charity, his kindness, and his patriotism '
led to his speedy release. She adds : ' Your father's courage,
his fine spirit have supported mine, and the tendency to resignation
which I am supposed to inherit from my grandfather Lullin has
been, he says, of use to him.'

On the last day of July, a week after the massacre on the
bastion, de Saussure writes to his daughter :

' I am remaining quietly at Conches. I went, however, once into
town, the day before this terrible trial ; it seemed to me that to remain
inactive at such a moment would have shown blameworthy indiffer-
ence or cowardice. I was well received by those I called on, and
returned full of hope and without having suffered any personal annoy-
ance, but I was strongly recommended not to come back before either
order was completely restored or I was summoned — which has not
happened ! '

His wife, he adds, is wonderfully calm, and he is providing
her with occupation in copying his Voyages. The third volume
was already finished and the fourth in hand. Fauche of Neu-
chatel was to be the publisher. He has sent a memoir on the
Extinct Volcanoes of the Brisgau to the Journal de Physique at
Paris.

' Thus between my work and the dear society of your mother 1
find some relief from the troubles and the anxieties which desolate
at this moment almost the whole world.'

De Saussure's sons thought it better for the time to follow
their parents' earnest wish and not to return to Geneva. The
mob, now masters of the city and impatient of their leaders'
delays in confiscating and distributing the property of the well-
to-do, seized control and appointed fresh committees and tribunals.
Four hundred prisoners were held at their mercy. The aspect of
these tribunals is thus described in a popular history for school
use published in Geneva :

' The tribunal presented a hideous aspect. The judges, for the
most part workmen, affected a sullen air and coarse manners, they
were in turned-up shirt-sleeves, bare -breasted, wearing red bonnets,

THE LAST YEARS 381

from which escaped dishevelled locks, bearded, with pipes in their
mouths, and often pistols in their belts, bottles and glasses between
their legs, swords and pistols on the table.' *

Other executions, or rather murders, quickly followed on
the crime of the bastions. The gang who were responsible for
them sat for eighteen days, during which they pronounced 500
sentences, 37 of death (of which, fortunately, 26 were on absentees)
and 98 of exile. Meantime a second tribunal occupied itself in
organising pillage by confiscating the property of the rich and
distributing daily allowances to the insurgents and their families,
a welcome boon to those who having ceased to be workers learnt
that idleness has its drawbacks. The activity of this body pro-
duced a fund of five millions of francs — the undistributed residue
of which was subsequently declared to be national property.
Idleness was encouraged and trade lost, the watchmakers and
shawl producers ceased to work, the upper class left the town, or
if forced to stay did their best to avoid attracting attention.

It must be put to the credit of the Genevese, always emotional,
that their brief Reign of Terror left behind it some feelings of
remorse in the hearts of the mass of citizens. But these did not
result in any practical effort to put an end to disorder or a curb on
cruelty.

Up to this moment de Saussure had grudged no expense of
energy or time in the attempt to save his country from the
destruction to which it was being brought by the folly of its own
children and the intrigues of French anarchists. But the murders
of 1794 drove him finally out of politics. He refused to be
associated with an administration stained by the blood of its
fellow-citizens. Called on to give his reasons for his retirement,
he explained that the events of the last summer had made on him
an impression which time only deepened. He would, he added,
have left his unhappy country had he not the hope that the day
would come when the punishment of the guilty would be demanded
by those who had had no share in their crimes. Until that day
came he could take no part in public affairs.

1 Histoire de Geneve racontee aux jeunes Genevois, Jullien, 1863. I quote
from a school-book which attempts to be impartial. The picture of the tribunal
drawn by Cornuaud, the leader of the ' Natifs,' who successfully defended himself
before it, is even more revolting.

382 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

In July 1795 the state of his health again gave alarm to his
friends, and he visited with his wife the baths of Bourbon
FArchambault, near Moulins, whence he went on to those of
Royat, close to Clermont-Ferrand. His son, writing from Rolle,
sent him an account of a relatively insignificant riot between
Terrorists and Stalwarts (' Englues ' is the term Theodore
employs), which was followed by a more than usually effusive
reconciliation with banquets in the streets, where passers-by were
stopped and made to drink to Oblivion and to stick a patch, called
an ' oubli,' on their faces. A pastor even preached a sermon
with one of these red patches on his forehead. This ' paix
platree ' Theodore expected to last two months ! He mentions
that he is busy correcting the proofs of the third volume of the
Voyages.

From Bourbon 1'Archambault de Saussure writes to con-
dole with Pictet on the proposal of the Revolutionary Govern-
ment to do away with the philosophy professorship at the
Academy and to encourage him to protest against so illiberal
a proceeding. He also writes to Madame de Stae'l to clear
up a misunderstanding with respect to a suggestion she had
made to his daughter of being able to procure for him a chair
in the French Academic des Sciences, together with an official
post at a handsome salary under the French Republic as an
Inspector of Mines.1 In a second letter Madame de Stae'l had
expressed her surprise that he had not accepted her proposal that
he should be ' Directeur en Chef ' of the Academy. He replied
that as to the Presidency of the Academy (which she had not,
he tells her, previously mentioned) it seemed to him obvious that
a post that had always been elective was not likely to be conferred
on a foreigner. For the rest, having his Voyages to finish he would
not for some months have the time to take up an Inspectorship of
Mines. Madame de StaeTs energy, however, was not to be put
off ! She applied to Gottingen and Berlin, to Sweden and St.
Petersburg. In November we find de Saussure writing to his
daughter about his plans.

' I see,' he says, ' that your adorable cousin has really done the
impossible, that she has knocked at every door. Assure her of my

1 A similar post was held at this time by another geologist, Dolomieu.

THE LAST YEARS 383

lively and deep gratitude. Your mother and I agree with you, and
we prefer beyond comparison the post at Gottingen to Berlin or
St. Petersburg. My only fear is lest the work should be too fatiguing
for my state of health. I must find out for how many lectures a week
I should be called on, and how long they would be ; if one would have
to talk loud and in what language. I believe and hope Latin, because
though I read German easily enough I don't talk it easily, and I know
enough of the difficulties of the language to be sure that I should
never master them.

' I have passed, my dear child, the age of ambition ; you are
assured if not of being rich, of having enough to live on. So I shall
take quite contentedly the part of ending my days with your mother
in the strict economy to which we are reduced. But the idea of a
bankruptcy is one to which I cannot accustom myself, and unless the
French funds recover their value, or I succeed in finding some means
of adding to my income, it is almost impossible for me to escape this
misfortune. But if I could find a post which would allow me to put
aside some five or six hundred louis a year, I should be almost certain
to avoid it. This is the object of my ambition. As to personal
security I trust we shall enjoy it at Geneva, and I should be tranquil
and without anxiety if I had no other cares. The horrible intoxica-
tion which caused the crimes which disgraced the last revolution has
entirely passed and given place to repentance and remorse. A revolu-
tionary club has proposed that a monument should be erected to the
innocent victims of this insurrection It is an idea which I have
planted in some warm and honest hearts, and I see with great pleasure
that it is spreading and makes progress, but its origin must not be
suspected. I cited the sorrow and tears of Alexander on the death of
Clitus. Such a monument might give occasion for the finest efforts of
oratory and is the only way to wash out the shame of these crimes
and prevent their repetition.'

In another letter of about the same date de Saussure goes in
fuller detail into the Gottingen project, and points out that he
would prefer a post which gave him greater leisure for independent
research.

Meantime the news of his difficult circumstances had been
widely spread. A Paris newspaper in February 1795 had put in a
paragraph : * Poor Professor Saussure is reduced to such poverty
that he is soliciting a post in Germany.5 This crude announce-
ment was copied in Italian journals and drew forth the following
letter from Lord Bristol, the eccentric and picturesque Bishop of

384 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Deny,1 then travelling in Italy, to the Genevese bankers Delarue
at Genoa :

' SIRS, — Having read this morning in a foreign newspaper that
the famous M. de Saussure, the intimate friend of my brother, General
Harvey, era redotto alia, poverta, I beg you to write to him on my
behalf and offer him an annuity of fifty louis d'or. And should he
find it agreeable to pass the rest of his life as my guest he would receive
the same sum paid half-yearly, his board, etc. etc., and might travel
at my cost in a country the most rich in the world in natural history,
a virgin country, untouched by naturalists, Ireland.'

De Saussure 's answer was as follows :

' MY LORD, — I have been moved to tears by the proof of interest
and esteem with which you have honoured me, when, on reading in
a newspaper that I was reduced to poverty, you at once ordered
your bankers to assure me an annual income of fifty louis.

' Certainly, were I in actual want I should not blush to accept the
help of a man, my lord, who from love of those who devote their lives
to the study of science, and from attachment to an old friend of his
brother, desired to protect me from the pangs of extreme misery ;
but my situation is not yet of this kind. It is true, I have nothing
left, but my wife is able to supply the wants if not lavishly at least
adequately of myself and my family. So, my lord, I shall not take
advantage, at any rate for the present, of the generous offer you make
me of an annuity, an offer for which I shall none the less retain the
most lively and profound gratitude. As to the further proposal which
is equally the result of your kind consideration for me and your love
of science, that I should come and study at your home and with means
furnished by you the Natural History of Ireland, I should be ex-
tremely tempted were I not absolutely inseparable from my wife,
not because I live upon her fortune, but because I have for her an
attachment of thirty years founded on all the links which can be
formed by mind, virtue, and character. . . . Whatever lot Providence
has in store for me, your kindness, my lord, will remain engraved in
my heart to my last breath.'

The Revolutionary Authorities were now taking steps to put
in force an elaborate scheme of taxation on the wealthier class of
citizens. On his return to Geneva de Saussure wrote a sharp
note to the tax-collector, pointing out that the arrangement he had

1 See Dictionary of National Biography.

THE LAST YEARS 386

been recommended to offer with regard to his liability having
been rejected, he should find himself compelled to suspend
payments — that is, to acknowledge bankruptcy.1

Throughout that year (1795) de Saussure was still looking
anxiously for some scientific employment either abroad or in
France. He consulted with his daughter as to Gottingen, suggest-
ing that she and her husband should accompany him there, as he
could ill endure the parting with his beloved family. He also
wrote a letter of remonstrance to St. Petersburg complaining that
the proposal put before him through his friend Tingry had not
been followed by the definite offer promised. Meantime an
invitation came from across the Atlantic. Jefferson was at the
time looking for a Faculty to occupy the quaintly Georgian halls
and colonnades of his new University at Charlotte ville, Virginia .
He wrote to Washington from his home at Montecello suggesting
that some of the professors of the Genevese Academy might be
glad to find a refuge and employment in the States, and among
the names he put forward were those of de Saussure and of his
friends Pictet and Senebier. The offer was made and repeated in
a definite form through d'lvernois in the same autumn, but
nothing came of it.2

In his negotiation with Paris, the new French Resident
Desportes, the builder of the Temple at the Montenvers, a man
of some cultivation, whose frequent and friendly relations with
an aristocrat became matter of suspicion to the Genevese
Terrorists, was very helpful. De Saussure 's Journal shows that
frequent visits were exchanged between Desportes and de
Saussure. A letter from the latter to Desportes thanking him

1 For the purposes of this tax or rather levy on capital the citizens were
divided into three classes — Aristocrats, Engines, and Patriots. Aristocrats had
to pay most, 5 per cent, on the first 12,000 livres and 5' 12 extra on every thousand
livres in excess of 12,000. The total tax was not to exceed 90 per cent. De
Saussure's liability amounted to 25,652 florins.

2 Sparks' Correspondence of Washington, vol. ii. (Boston, 1839) : ' The colleges
of Geneva and Edinburgh were considered as the two eyes of Europe in
matters of science insomuch that no other pretended to any rivalry with either.
Edinburgh has been the most famous in medicine since the time of Cullen, but
Geneva most so for other branches of science, and much the most resorted to
from the Continent of Europe because the French language is that used.
M. d'lvernois of Geneva, and a man of science known as the author of a history
of the Republic, has proposed the transplanting of that college as a body to
America.'

2B

386 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

for a passport is written in very cordial and complimentary terms.
In April 1796 he forwarded to Paris de Saussure's acceptance of
the position of teacher of Chemistry and Physics in the Ecole
Centrale. De Saussure, while pointing out that he had to finish
the proofs of his fourth volume, which was already in the press,
asked for adequate notice of the date at which he would have to be
in Paris, and also for his travelling expenses. He wrote :

' I am in despair at having to make this request, but my father,
having the most complete trust in France, placed there all his and
my mother's fortunes, so that I have found myself fallen from a hand-
some income, such as the expenses incident to my travels and researches
called for, to a state of penury which makes it impossible for me to
provide the cost of the journey.'

A correspondence ensued, in which the Department concerned
exhibited a dilatoriness and pettiness combined with a self-
complacent pomposity frequently met with in the dealings of
similar bodies, whatever the form of government. A year later
we find it regretting that it cannot afford the money for de
Saussure's travelling expenses. A letter from Dolomieu, the
geologist, whose name lives in one of the most romantic dis-
tricts of the Alps, lets us into the bare facts of the situation.
It is dated 1st November 1796 :

' I had cherished the hope, Monsieur, of having you this winter
hi Paris up to the moment when I saw M. Ginguene, but I had to
abandon it entirely when the Director of Public Instruction told me
that he had never, despite his most earnest entreaties, been able to
obtain from the Government the small sum needed for your travelling
expenses, and that he could not even offer you lodging as the house
he had meant for you was no longer at his disposal. He is even glad
that you did not yield to the first proposals made to you and come
at once to Paris ; the salary promised you would not have been paid
and your embarrassments hi a new household might have been ex-
treme. The Government does not pay even the most urgent claims,
and those relating to Public Education are far from being held of any
urgency.'

Simultaneously with this negotiation the educational autho-
rities of the Department of the Puy de Dome were pressing
in their invitation to de Saussure to accept a Chair of Natural

II. B. UE SAUSSURE

Front a Portrait by Saint Ours

THE LAST YEARS 387

History at Clermont-Ferrand, an offer which he naturally post-
poned to his prospects at Paris.

After another twelve months ' Fra^ois de Neufchateau de
1' Academic Francaise,' then Minister of the Interior, in a pompous
letter offered to put de Saussure on a Pension List for the paltry
sum of 200 livres (about £8) a month ! It would appear that a
nominal Professorship at Lausanne, the duties of which he was
incapable of fulfilling, was attached to this tardy gift, which never
took effect.

At this date the only oil portrait of de Saussure in existence
was one painted by the Danish painter Juel some eighteen years
earlier. In 1796 the Society of Arts expressed a desire to possess
before it was too late a portrait of its founder, and after some
persuasion de Saussure was persuaded to sit to Saint-Ours, the
celebrated portrait painter of the day.

Madame de Saussure describes the many discussions that
took place as to the accessories. De Saussure insisted on Mont
Blanc being brought in. He wanted to be painted in the act of
climbing the mountain, or at any rate gazing at it. The painter
objected it would be difficult to manage, and suggested the snows
might be shown through the window of de Saussure's study. Every
one, Madame de Saussure complains, brought forward a different
idea. The result was a compromise. De Saussure is represented
sitting under a pine tree with his geologist's hammer in his hand
and a theodolite beside him, while a very conventional Mont Blanc
towers in the background. In the finished picture, which has been
frequently reproduced, the painter's skill has tried in vain to
conceal the ravages of illness, the eyes, always described as
prominent, have become painfully bulging, while the expression
lacks animation. The sketch on the other hand has an air of
absolute fidelity, and is a lifelike if pathetic memorial of the great
naturalist in his latter days.1

The official correspondence relative to the commission has
been preserved in the annals of the Society of Arts. A deputation
of its members visited! Saint -Ours' studio and expressed their
satisfaction with the likeness and the composition, and the
Society subsequently ordered its secretary to convey to the painter

1 Now in the collection of Dr. Maillart-Gosse of Geneva, who kindly allows
me to reproduce it as the frontispiece to this volume.

388 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

its regret that owing to the hard times it could not afford to pay
him more than twenty louis for the work.

At the close of 1796 the third and fourth volumes of the
Voyages were published. The proofs were mainly corrected by
Theodore, who must be held responsible for the frequent lapses
found in them.

In the previous year de Saussure in order to test his mental
powers had compiled a paper on ' The Use of the Blowpipe in
geological research.' He was again to return to his first pursuit,
botany, in one of his last publications,1 a little tract, ' Conjectures
on the cause of the constant direction of the stalk and the root
at the moment of Germination ' (1798). But his working days
were over. The concluding volume which was to have summed up
his conclusions on the problems of geology was never written.
Senebier tells us he had examined two schemes for a system of
geology or Theory of the Earth set down by de Saussure in 1794
and 1796, and that they ' indicated generalisations on various
branches of the science without putting forward any trace of a
general conception which might bind together all the others by
submitting them as part of a theory, which might have added one
more to the theories invented and abandoned on this vast subject.'
But Professor Favre cites a fragmentary MS. dated 7th August
1796, which appears to have been a sketch for the theory that was
never written.2 Some imperfect Memoranda and the Agenda at the
end of the Voyages are all that we have to indicate what might
have been its contents. Even de Saussure's private diary ends at
the close of 1796. A second seizure left him from that time for-
ward physically and mentally a wreck. He was unable to attend
to his own affairs, and his wife in writing for him constantly speaks
of her husband's feebleness. But he was still to live on for a
little over two years, which were spent mostly at Conches. In a
letter of the time we get a pathetic picture of him while staying
with the young Neckers, his daughter and son-in-law, during
the winter of 1796 :

' Madame Necker [-de Saussure] has her father and mother with her
for the winter. It is a sad sight to see this poor M. de Saussure, his

1 A paper on the fluctuations and temperature of the Arve was also pub-
lished in 1796.

2 See Chapter xvn. on De Saussure in Science and Literature, p. 425.

THE LAST YEARS 389

eyes starting, his walk tottering, and hardly able to speak intelligibly.
His mind has not suffered. He is conscious of his condition and yet
feels the need of society and distraction. Madame Necker is very
interesting between her father and her children.'

Another intimate sketch, from Mile, de Constant, helps us to
realise the domestic situation, and the bravery of the wife and
daughter in attempting to furnish some interest to pass the hours
of the sorely stricken invalid :

' We often see my neighbours ; Madame de Saussure, the mother,
has written a romance and we meet to hear it read, which provides
pleasant evenings. The good lady is quite ashamed of her effort,
she apologises for it as a folly, assuring us that it was the result of a
convalescence [Madame de Saussure had been seriously ill in 1790]
that had reduced her to writing it, and that she wondered how she
could have the courage to read it in company. " It passes my under-
standing," she says, " how in this country people set up without
scruple as beaux esprits" In effect to write romances is to be in the
local fashion. There is no one who cannot draw from his or her pocket
a manuscript sufficient to meet the occasion. M. de Saussure takes so
much interest in his wife's production that directly the story becomes
at all moving it is interrupted by his sobs.' 1

Madame Necker-de Saussure herself has completed the picture :

' What a sad return for his noble and useful labours. If old age
in itself commands respect, what sentiment ought to be excited by
this premature decay, this voluntary sacrifice. How much more
ought we to reverence the victim of science than the victim of years.
His mind has preserved all its energy as his works prove, but if he
still lives for his own reputation and the progress of science he no
longer lives for happiness. These are the limits on every side set
round the destiny of man ; the devouring activity which raises him
is fated to consume him, for thought as for the summits of the Alps
there is an elevation where it is no longer possible to breathe.'

The great botanist de Candolle records visits about the same
date, and the singular advice de Saussure gave him ; advice
interesting, as it shows how completely geology had absorbed his
attention, and leads us to believe that if his last publication was a

1 MSS. letters from Rosalie de Constant to her brother. One of these letters
is quoted in a volume, Rosalie, de, Constant, sa famille et ses amis, par Mile. L.
Achard (Geneve, 1902).

botanical tract this was a concession to his physical weakness
rather than a willing return to his first pursuit.

' It was about this time (1796) that I was introduced to the cele-
brated de Saussure ; he had already been attacked by the singular
sort of partial paralysis which brought him to his grave, but his
expression was still that of a man of intellect, and so long as he was
allowed time, his conversation was full of interest. He seemed to
attach some kind of importance to enlisting us in the sciences he
loved and in deterring me from botanical studies. Each time I saw
him he repeatedly assured me that this study promised no success
and was not worth pursuing except as a recreation.'

In July 1797 a final resort was had to the waters of Plombieres
of which no details are at hand. This was the last time the
traveller was to leave his home.

Before we come to the final scene, the political events of the
last years of de Saussure 's life, after the destruction of the
Genevese constitution, must be briefly summarised.

In September 1796 the anarchists again broke loose ; two
more victims were seized, and after some delay and a futile trial
allowed to be massacred by the mob. The incident did not lead
to an immediate crisis. For another eighteen months the feeble
Revolutionary Government continued to exist. But by this time
the French Directoire was getting tired of the disorderly travesty
of a republic on its borders and alive to the advantage of annexing
Geneva as the natural capital of its newly acquired Departement
du Leman. Napoleon, it is true, passing through on Ms way to
Rastadt in November 1797, felt able to repeat the assurances
given four years before by Kellermann and to promise his hosts
that their independence should always be respected. He even
added that France would like to be surrounded by fifty Genevas !
He spent a morning in visiting the College and the Society of
Arts and held conversations with the leading men of science. His
visit was not without result. When he founded an Imperial
University of France, the Academy of Calvin alone of provincial
institutions preserved its ancient constitution. But his promise
was soon broken. Four months later the adroit Desportes, the
French Resident, was instructed to inform the Genevese Govern-
ment that they would do well to prepare to accept quietly and
gratefully the honour of becoming the chef-lieu of a French

THE LAST YEARS 391

Department.1 The people of Geneva, whatever their faults, clung
to the independence their petulance had endangered and showed
no disposition to abandon it voluntarily. Appropriate pressure
was accordingly brought to bear on them. The old fable of the
Wolf and the Lamb was repeated. The French Resident remon-
strated again and again with regard to the smuggling that went
on across the frontier ; he complained of petty, or invented, dis-
courtesies, he imposed a sort of blockade on the town. A Com-
mission was appointed, at his instigation, to consider the situation.
While, torn by divided counsels, it hesitated and delayed, French
troops entered the city. On the 15th April 1798 the independence
of Geneva came to an end. When it was too late the Genevese
realised the result of their civil brawls and dissensions. Not only
their independence but their commerce was lost. Distress was
prevalent, the Society of Arts was reduced to founding a soup
kitchen !

The political story extending over nearly a hundred years I
have here tried to summarise is surely a lamentable one. The
whole of the eighteenth century at Geneva was marked by a
series of popular outbreaks and fictitious and short-lived recon-
ciliations brought about mainly by foreign interference. The
patrician oligarchy, honest but slow and obstinate, proved to the
end lacking in the political intelligence that might have led it to
adapt itself to changing conditions, while the populace recognised
only when it was too late that by indulging the passions they
had imbibed from France they had wrecked their country's inde-
pendence. A constitution no longer adapted to the times could
not resist the external pressure of the French Revolution.

The charming Genevese writer, Amiel, has pictured his native
city as she appeared in his patriotic eyes :

' Geneva is a caldron always boiling over, a furnace of which the
fires are never extinguished. Vulcan had more than one forge.
Geneva is certainly one of the anvils on which most projects have
been hammered out. When one reflects that the prescripts of every
kind of cause have harboured here, the mystery is partially explained ;

1 See Felix Desportes et Fannexion de Geneve (F. Barbey, Paris, 1916). It
appears that Napoleon was not wilfully deceitful in promising the Genevese that
their independence should be respected. The annexation was the work of the
Directory in his absence, and contrary to his wish. But he subsequently
endorsed it in 1800.

392 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUEE

but the better explanation is that republican, protestant, democratic,
learned and enterprising, Geneva has through the centuries shown
an aptitude to work out her own salvation. Since the days of the
Reformation she has been on the alert and marches on, a lantern in
her right hand and a sword in her left.'

A caldron and a forge — we may agree — but the heroic attitude
of the figure in which Amiel personifies his city must to the foreign
observer seem scarcely the most appropriate ! In the annals of
Geneva the sword has in truth played no conspicuous part. Setting
aside domestic brawls, her weapon has been habitually a pen.

The Geneva of the eighteenth century, the historian must
admit, earned her fate — or rather her lesson, for sixteen years was
the moderate term of her punishment. Her ' salvation ' was won,
less by her own exertions than by the victories of the Allies in
1813. It consisted in being permanently attached as a self-govern-
ing canton to that remarkable association of peoples of different
races and languages, the Swiss Confederation. Politically, this
decision was probably the best possible ; and it may be held to
have proved, on the whole, successful. But from the intellectual
and literary point of view, the sympathies of Geneva turn naturally
to the great nation whose language and civilisation she shares.
It is from contact with French, not with Teutonic, influences that
her literature has been at all times most benefited. Quickness
and lightness of imagination and touch are the ingredients of
which it has had most need, and these are nowhere to be found of
such quality as on the banks of the Seine.

To summarise : the three main dates to remember in Genevese
politics as they affect the life of de Saussure are 1763-6, the period
of the protracted struggle of the democratic Assembly against the
aristocratic Councils, ending in some advantages for the former ;
1782, the oligarchic reaction, when the Councils, by the aid of the
Mediating Powers, recovered more than they had lost ; and
1789-94, the years of revolution, culminating in the abolition of
the old constitution of the State, and finally in 1798 in the annexa-
tion of Geneva by the French Directory.

De Saussure did not long survive the fall of the Republic he
had done his best to save. In the first days of January 1799 he
was known to be dying in his townhouse. The Society of Arts
charged his lifelong friend Pictet to express its sympathy to his

THE LAST YEARS 393

relatives. On the morning of the 22nd January the end came ;
after a restless night de Saussure passed away peacefully in his son
Theodore's arms before his wife and daughter could be summoned
to his bedside. A letter from Madame Necker-de Saussure to her
husband gives touching details of the scene, and of her own
despair at not having been able to be present at her father's last
moments, ' a privilege,' she wrote, ' I had surely earned.' l Both
his sisters-in-law joined the mourners on the next day. Five
deputation* from public bodies paid visits of condolence. On
the 24th he was buried in the cemetery of Plainpalais outside
the walls. The funeral was public. The Professors of the
Academy and the College walked on either side of the coffin ;
it was followed by officers of the municipality in their robes,
by the French general in command and his staff, by the mem-
bers of the Societies of Arts and of Natural History, by a crowd
of the students whose interests de Saussure had always had at heart .
The drums beat as it passed the Hotel de Ville and the city gates.
No ceremonial honour was lacking. Geneva realised, if only for
a few hours, that she had lost the most distinguished of her sons
and the most loyal of her citizens .

Three months later Tingry, an eminent man of science who has
already been mentioned in these pages, suggested that a suitable
slab should be placed over de Saussure 's grave to mark its position.
This proposal, strange to say, was never carried out, and the
exact spot is now unknown, though it is believed to be close to the
grave of Sir Humphry Davy, who died at Geneva in 1829. It
must surely be a matter of lasting regret to the inhabitants of
Geneva that the resting-place of one of their most famous fellow-
citizens should thus remain uncertain and without record. It
may perhaps be urged in extenuation of a contemporary neglect
which seems strangely inconsistent with the honours of a public
funeral that tombstones were among the ' articles of luxury '
long denied to the inhabitants of Geneva by their Calvinistic
legislators.

In the year before his death de Saussure had come to an
arrangement with the fiscal authorities with regard to the tax on

1 Madame Necker-de Saussure's account of the death-bed scene obviously
supersedes that derived by Professor Naville from a journal of the time. See
Bibl. Universette, tome xvii., No. 61, mars 1883.

394 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

capital levied by the Terrorist Government. But he died practi-
cally insolvent, and his sons were advised to refuse to take up the
succession. His wife's income, however, would seem to have
recovered to some extent after the annexation of Geneva by
France, and we find her property at her death eighteen years later,
when it had no doubt further regained in value, estimated at a
very considerable sum. She was apparently able next year to
reside in the townhouse, for we hear of her receiving a visit from
Napoleon on his way to the war in Italy in May 1800. From a
letter written by her sister-in-law, Mile, de Saussure, we gather
that the First Consul had been cordial and sympathetic, and had
expressed his readiness to grant any personal requests she might
wish to put forward. 1

Madame de Saussure gives the following account of herself at a
later date :

' I, my good sister, go out where I shall meet my sisters and my
husband's old friends, but I prefer solitude. My sorrow is always
there as lively and as deep as last year, every day that passes and
adds to the length of this terrible loss makes me feel the weight of
it more. In the evening I can sometimes pass a few hours in society :
but as I recall having blamed those who bring their own sorrows
into the hours devoted to the distractions of which every one has
need at the present moment, I remain by my chimney corner when
I cannot conceal mine.'

Madame de Saussure died hi 1817, at the age of seventy-two.
Her younger sisters both survived her. The last glimpse we have
of them is as two old ladies with kindly, smiling faces starting
in their landau from the portal of the great house in the Rue de

1 On this occasion Napoleon stayed three days at Geneva with his staff. In
order to conceal his intention of passing the Alps by the Great St. Bernard, he
had hired a villa, and expressed his intention of taking a cure of asses' milk.
He was at pains to explain to the Genevese the advantages they would gain by
annexation to France. He gave a dinner and held a reception at the Prefet's
house, at which he entertained the local savants and asked to be^shown the
Genevese ladies, fifty of whom were presented to him. This is the description
of the scene given by an eye-witness : ' II se fait un grand silence a son entree ;
il fixe les femmes sans leur parler et recoit ensuite la cour que les homines
s'empressent de lui faire . . . il est petit, habille en general de division, cheveux
noirs sans poudre et ne frisanb point, teint jaune, maladif, figure expressive,
regard terrible ; il reste deux heures debout au milieu de la salle causant chimie,
mathematiques et autres sciences avec les hommes qui 1'abordent.' Papiers de
Picot, quoted in Borgeaud's UAcadimie de Calvin.

f

NICOLAS THKODOKE DB SAUSSURE

THE LAST YEARS 396

la Cite1 for their afternoon drive. Madame Tronchin died in
1824, aged seventy -six, and Madame Turrettini in 1838, when
ninety-two. She is described as 'the prettiest and most attractive
old lady it is possible to see, a specimen of the best and most elegant
type of the old Genevese society. She had visited Voltaire and
assisted at his theatrical performances, of which she had many
entertaining recollections/ *

It only remains to add some brief notice of de Saussure's imme-
diate descendants. His resolve to bring up his children at home
in place of sending them to the College met with considerable
success . He took himself a constant interest and a principal part
in their education. His elder son, Nicolas Theodore, after passing
with credit through the Academy, adopted his father's pursuits.
He was, as we have seen, his companion in his later Alpine journeys
and his competent assistant in his scientific work. When forced
to leave Geneva by the revolution he went to England with Dr.
Marcet, who became physician to Guy's Hospital. In 1796 Theo-
dore was again at Geneva, and married Mile. Ren6e Fabri. At a
later date he spent several years in Great Britain, where he earned
for himself an independent reputation as a man of science and an
agriculturist. On his return to Geneva in 1802 he was appointed
and held for many years Honorary Professorships of Geology and
Mineralogy in the Academy. His chief efforts, however, were
devoted to the study of the physiology of plants, and their results
were embodied in an important work, Eecherches chimiques sur la
Vegetation, which led to his becoming a Correspondent of the Paris
Institute. It was frequently referred to by Sir Humphry Davy,
who endorsed many of his conclusions, and his name is still quoted
with respect in current text -books on Farming. In 1820 he was
elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. He died in 1845
at the age of seventy-eight.

Of his younger brother Alphonse but little is recorded. The
brief references to him in his mother's letters suggest that he was
socially inclined, and did not share to any considerable extent in
the scientific interests and pursuits of his family. His son,
M. Henri de Saussure, to whom I owed some valuable help when

1 See Madame Rigaud-Picot's Souvenirs, La Maison Picot el la Rue des Granges
(Geneva, 1913, privately printed).

396 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

first contemplating his grandfather's biography, was a distinguished
traveller and biologist. He died in 1902.

De Saussure's only daughter and eldest child, Albertine
Andrienne, demands fuller mention. Born in 1766, she inherited
a large share of her father's intellectual energy as well as of his
enthusiasm for educational reform. She records that her father
took great pains to help her in her studies and to explain her
difficulties. We have read of her social successes as a child of six
while travelling with her parents in Italy. At a later age she
repaid her father's constant and affectionate interest by a passionate
devotion. In her diaries she dwells frequently on his fairness of
mind, his sense of justice and his charm of manner. She delighted
in his companionship and shared largely in his interests. Her
own qualities of mind were derived from him rather than from
her mother, whose heart was, as she herself confessed, the strongest—
or weakest — point in her character.1 Albertine's letters to her
future husband show her to have been a girl of deep feeling and
with a high ideal of woman's role in life . As a thinker and a writer
of exceptional force and ability she left her mark on her generation.
The talent for social observation and shrewd appreciation of char-
acter indicated in de Saussure's correspondence was transmitted
to her in a marked degree. At nineteen she married a son of M.
Necker de Germagny and nephew of M. Necker, the financier,
who had served as a captain in the French army, but on his marriage
returned to Geneva, and for some years took an active part in
public affairs. During the revolutionary period he turned to the
study of botany and chemistry, but after the restoration of the
Republic he resumed his place in politics and served twice (in
1817 and 1819) as Syndic. He died in 1825. By this marriage
Albertine became the first cousin of Madame de Stael. The two
young women were the same age, and the friendship that had
already sprung up between them became a very close one ; they
were attracted to one another by their dissimilarities. Madame
de Stael felt the warmest admiration for Madame Necker-dc
Saussure's gifts, her beauty, and her talents, and she fully appre-

1 A recent author, however, writes : ' An interest in education was a tradition
in the family of Mme. H. B. de Saussure. Her mother, Mme. Boissier-Lullin,
occupied herself ably with education, and her father, Ami Lullin, had the same
taste.' (See P. Kohler's Mme. de Stael et la Suisse, p. 441. Paris, 1916.)

THE LAST YEARS 397

elated a steadfastness of character and outlook on life that con-
trasted markedly with her own impulsiveness. In the salon at
Coppet Madame de StaeTs brilliant paradoxes formed a stimulant
to her friend's quick and ready appeals to reason. ' My cousin,'
she wrote, ' has all the wit I am given credit for, and all the virtues
I lack.' And again, ' I would willingly give half my wit for half
your beauty .' Madame Necker-de Saussure 's portrait is thus drawn :
' She had regular and finely modelled features, her eyes, large and
dark, threw up the whiteness of her complexion ; her hair, which
was brown, she wore powdered in her youth ; she was short, but
with a perfect figure, which she preserved to an advanced age.'
Nor was it only on the surface of social life that the tie of friendship
held fast ; Madame de Stael, when forced to quit Switzerland, left
her father to die in Madame Necker-de Saussure 's arms. On the
other hand, Madame Necker-de Saussure delighted in a spontaneity
and brilliancy of wit rare in the conversations of what she calls
' our regular Genevese set,' whom, it may be remembered, Gibbon
found dull compared to the literary ladies of Lausanne. Her
affection for Madame de Stael had a depth that enabled it to over-
look her friend's occasional whims and frequent caprices. She
easily pardoned the self -absorption that at times drew from her a
passing complaint ; she made the largest allowances for irregu-
larities of conduct resulting from a mind and a nature touched
with genius and incapable of any repose. Yet her admiration was
by no means blind, she understood her cousin thoroughly, and in
minor matters watched her with the critical eye of an elder sister.
Thus she writes, ' My cousin could not believe for a moment
that I was ill. She thought it very odd that I did not want to
receive visitors, or to have a little dinner party round my bed.
In short, I have fallen greatly in her estimation.' At another
moment she protests after some recital, ' Why do you say I felt
less than my cousin ? Have you forgotten that she was there,
and that her prerogative of taking the lead in appreciation and
praise, and also her certainty — well founded, no doubt — that she
is the one person appealed to, take away from others all power
of utterance — and possibly of more than utterance ? ' The
relations of the two ladies are perhaps best illustrated in a vivid
picture of the salon at Coppet and of the parts played by its
hostess and her friend in the social tournaments of which it was

398 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

the scene given in an article by a shrewd contemporary observer,
Pictet de Rochemont, a brother of de Saussure's friend and
successor in his Chair of Philosophy.

' In the presence of Mme. de Stael, Mme. Necker showed no in-
feriority. Their styles were different, their force equal. Nothing
could be more admirable or more piquant for those who had the good
luck to be admitted than the conversations in which the two cousins
each displayed in turn her own skill and showed off the other's wit
in the discussion of the most interesting topics.

' Mine, de Stael was generally the assailant, and always without
plan, never knowing what she was going to say, but always saying it
in the best way possible, and growing the more vivacious as the argu-
ment, the calm force, and the perfect fairness of Mme. Necker drove
her more and more to the use of all her weapons. Then Mme. Necker
also got animated, and called on the resources of close reasoning and
her superior judgment. It was a hand-to-hand fight, where shrewd
and rapid blows followed one another without a pause. If on one
side the fire of eloquence flashed out more freely, on the other a more
compact argument resisted its onset. As a rule, the serious yet lively
debate ended hi an unexpected jest. So in the tricks with light we call
fireworks, when the dazzled eyes begin to weary of a revolving sun, a
brilliant jet suddenly shoots up and loses itself in a shower of sparks.' l

Mme. de Stael died in 1817. In 1820 Mme. Necker-de
Saussure wrote a notice, Sur le Caractere et les Ecrits de Mme.
de Stall, which was admittedly the work of a friend, and rather
an apology than an impartial biography. The author was at
pains to analyse Mme. de StaeTs natural gifts and impulsive
character, rather than to explain or apologise for the vagaries
of conduct into which they led her. She told the truth, but not
the whole truth. Yet her portrait satisfied contemporary critics.
One of them wrote to her, ' We have lived with Mme. de Stael
for several days ; the book is herself.'

The best part of life for Madame Necker-de Saussure was over
with her friend's death. In later years deafness gradually cut
her off from the pleasures of society and drove her to find a resource
in literature. But her loss was, as far as posterity is concerned, her
gain. She had already in 181 4 translated J. E. Schlegel on Dramatic
Literature. Between 1828 and 1838 she composed L'Education

1 See Mme. de Stael et la Suisse, p. 452.

THE LAST YEARS 399

Progressive, a work in three volumes, two dealing with the manage-
ment and education of infancy and childhood, the third with that
of girls. We have to picture the brilliant young star of the Coppet
salon as a stately grandmother, seated at her writing-table and
rounding her full and smoothly flowing sentences with a careful
touch. Her style is leisurely, laboured, at times didactic ; the
periods run on with little variety or interruption, the reader's
attention may slacken under a monotony of polished exposition,
and he may find a multitude of what seem to him somewhat
obvious recommendations set out with needless diffuseness. But,
as he reads on, he recognises that from her own point of view
Madame Necker-de Saussure is sensible and understanding.
Novels she holds dangerous — they put romantic ideas into young
people's heads. Sir Walter Scott is only grudgingly admitted
for the sake of his history. Like her contemporary, Miss Edge-
worth, Madame Necker-de Saussure is of her age. The two
authoresses met hi Pictet de Rochemont's salon when Miss Edge-
worth was in Geneva in 1820. This was a place of reunion where
various circles, philosophers and professors, literary celebrities
and politicians encountered one another. Pictet de Rochemont
was himself a distinguished diplomatist, and in this capacity re-
presented Switzerland at the Congress of Vienna. He was also
a scientific farmer and sheep-breeder. His contributions to
literature ranged from papers on potatoes and treatises on merino
sheep to translations from Byron, Moore, and Walter Scott, and
included one of a work of Miss Edge worth's on education. The
Englishwoman in her diary gives her first impression of her
fellow -authoress .

' Met Madame Necker-de Saussure — much more agreeable than
her books. Her manner and figure reminded me of our beloved Mrs.
Moutray : she, too, is deaf and has the same resignation void of mis-
trust in her expression when she is not speaking, and the same gracious
attention to the person who is speaking to her.' 1

There is interest in the view Madame Necker-de Saussure puts
forward that the study of the grammar of a dead language affords
the best elementary discipline for the mind, that it is the nearest
road to clearness in thought and accuracy in expression, qualities

1 Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, edited by A. C. Hare (Arnold, London,
1894).

400 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

nowhere more essential than in science. In support of this now
much contested position she was able to quote her father's pre-
cepts and example. She could herself read Greek and Latin, as
well as English, German, and Italian. As was to be expected,
Madame Necker-de Saussure is at her best in her last volume, which
deals with the education of her own sex. Here she offers a dis-
criminating analysis of the weaknesses to which the female mind
is most inclined, and a judicious criticism of the lack of any
adequate attempt to control or combat them in the home circles
of her time. With advancing years she insists more and more
on the part of religion in life.

I have done my best to set down the impression made on a
foreign reader of our own day by IS Education Progressive. In
doing so I have perhaps failed to do justice to Madame Necker-de
Saussure's volumes. Let me in fairness conclude by quoting the
high eulogy passed on them by a distinguished critic, her fellow-
countryman Amiel, in one of the last pages of his Journal (vol. ii.
p. 288) :

'Je relis Mme. Necker-de Saussure; U Education Progressive, est
un oeuvre admirable. Quelle mesure, quelle justesse, quelle raison,
quelle gravit6 ! Que cela est bien observe, bien pense, et bien 6crit.
Ce livre est un beau livre, un traite classique, et Geneve pent etre fiere
d'une production qui resume une si haute culture et une ei solide sagesse.
Voil& la vraie litterature genevoise, la tradition centrale du pays.

' Achev6 le troisieme volume de Mme. Necker. C'est beau, grave,
sens6, delicat, parfait. Quelques asperites ou incorrections de langage
ne comptent pas. On eprouve pour Pauteur un respect mele d'atten-
drissement et Ton s'ecrie, " Livre rare ou tout est sincere et ou tout
est vrai ! "

M. Ernest Naville, formerly Professor of Philosophy at Geneva,
who knew Madame Necker-de Saussure well, bears equally strong
testimony to her merits, declaring that in her great book ' she
left a luminous trace of her passage through life.'

Madame Necker-de Saussure had four children, two sons and
two daughters. Her elder son inherited the tastes of his maternal
grandfather. He was introduced to the glaciers at an early age.
There was an entry in the old book of the Montenvers :

' Louis Necker, ag6 de douze ans et demi, et petit-fils de M. de
Saussure, accompagne de sa soeur ag6e de onze ans, est mont4 au

THE LAST YEARS 401

Montenvers, Vendredi 20 Juillet, 1798, sous la conduite de son pere, et
il a vu avec beaucoup de regret ces montagnes que son grand-pere ne
pourra plus revoir.'

The youth completed his education at Edinburgh.

In after life Louis Necker served for a time as a Professor at
Geneva. He was an extensive Alpine traveller. In a Preface to
the first volume (the only one published) of a work entitled
Etudes Geologiques dans les Alpes he mentions that he had crossed
the Mont Cenis, the Grimsel, the Spliigen, and St. Gotthard, and
visited not only Zermatt and Grindelwald, but also the Alps of the
Tarentaise, the Maurienne and Carniola. He afterwards returned
to Scotland and published three volumes of his travels in that
country (Geneva, 1821). Three years later he published in the
Bibliotheque, Universelle (vol. xxiii.) an article on the History
of Geology, in which he paid a tribute to the part played in it
by his grandfather. In his old age he settled in Edinburgh and
became the friend of Professor Forbes, who refers to his
geological work on the Alps as rich in observation but wanting
in the liveliness of his grandfather's Voyages. Professor Bonney
quotes from his pages a very minute and closely observed de-
scription of a sunset on Mont Blanc as seen from the Lake of
Geneva.1 Forbes contributed an obituary notice of him to the
Proceedings of the Edinburgh Royal Society (vol. v. p. 53). Louis
Necker died and was buried at Portree in the Isle of Skye, in
1861, at the age of seventy -seven.

1 The Alpine Regions, by T. G. Bonney (London and Cambridge, 1868).

2o

CHAPTER XVI
BONNET AND HALLER

IN the opening chapter Albrecht von Haller was spoken of as the
last link in the chain of writers connected with Alpine subjects
who preceded de Saussure. I there pointed out that it was to his
uncle, Charles Bonnet, that the young Professor owed his early
introduction to the famous Bernese physician and botanist . These
two men were destined to influence him through life, to give a
direction and encouragement to his travels and scientific pursuits.
Hk name was fated to be coupled with theirs in the minds and
mouths of the next generation of his fellow-citizens :

' Emules et jamais rivaux
Ne cherchons que verites sures,
Rassemblons dans nos travaux
Plus de faits que conjectures :
Ayons toujours devant les yeux
Haller, Bonnet et de Saussure,
Nous saurons nous montrer comme eux
Les vrais amis de la Nature.'

Thus chanted, a few months after Waterloo, the guests at a
banquet held at Geneva to inaugurate a Helvetic Society of
Science. In the course of more than a century the fame of the
two elder philosophers has grown somewhat dim, but as the chief
formative influences on the character and career of de Saussure
they seem to claim a more particular notice, which may con-
veniently find a place here before we attempt a final summary
and estimate of the scientific achievements of their more
illustrious disciple.

Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) belonged by birth to the aristo-
cracy of the Upper Town. His father owned a country-house and
property at Thonex, a few miles out of Geneva, on the Savoy side.
Here the boy was mainly brought up. He was backward for his
age in his lessons, and was also hampered by a deafness which

402

BONNET AND HALLER 403

exposed him to the gibes of his playfellows. Removed conse-
quently from school, he underwent a course of private tuition, and
was then sent to the Academy at Geneva. But his inclination
did not lie in the direction of literature. ' Nature,' he writes,
' did not intend me for a man of letters. I was born to be an
observer.' At the age of sixteen a work on natural history of
some reputation and influence at that time, the Spectacle de la
Nature (1732, nine volumes) of the Abbe Pluche fell into his hands.
It revealed to him his proper pursuit, the minute observation of
the lower forms of life. He succeeded with some difficulty in
inducing one of his teachers to lend him Reaumur's work on
Insects. His next step was to capture some caterpillars and to
send the observations he had made on them to that eminent man
of science. To the boy's intense joy, his bold step was rewarded
by a highly complimentary letter. Bonnet's vocation was sealed.
But he had first to obtain degrees in Law and Philosophy. He
would seem also to have studied the Classics to some purpose,
for the page in his reminiscences in which he describes this ordeal
of university examinations is a specimen of an unhappy passion
for classical allusions which pursued him through life. Law after
Philosophy, he says, is Tartarus after Elysium ; Roman Law is
the hydra of the Lernean march, and he no Hercules.

Once free from legal toils, Bonnet returned to his researches in
Natural History. In these he had an ultimate and philosophical
aim, the investigation of the origin of life and of the connection
between mind and matter. But the inquiry into these deep
subjects began with an attack on a minute question left unsolved
by Reaumur : Do woodlice breed without coupling ? In order
to decide this problem, he kept watch over his insects for five
weeks. He compared himself to Argus, or Acrisius, guarding
Danae ! He had his reward. A letter came from Reaumur telling
him that his communication had been read to the Paris Academy,
that its great importance was fully recognised, and that its author
had been at once nominated a correspondent of the illustrious
body. ' You can imagine,' wrote Bonnet, ' what ambition so
premature an honour aroused in the soul of a youth of twenty.
I came very near to believing myself already on the road to
immortality.' His hopes must have been strengthened when
three years later he was elected a Fellow of our own Royal

404 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE SAUSSURE

Society. But it was not till 1783, after an interval of forty years,
that he received the crowning honour, that of being nominated
one of the eight Foreign Members of the Paris Academy.

The young student continued to devote himself to further
research among the lower forms of life and into their modes of
reproduction. But the continual use of the microscope began
to affect his general health and eyesight, and he was forced to
turn to less exacting inquiries. He took up the investigation of
the nature and development of plant -life. His Recherches sur
V usage des Feuilles dans les Plantes (1754) represented the labour
of twelve years, and was perhaps his most important contribution
to Natural Science. In his observations on the functions of
leaves, on their powers of sensation, discernment, and adaptation,
he led the way in an obscure branch of investigation that has been
successfully pursued since by Charles Darwin and his son, Sir
Francis Darwin. Bonnet's work — as de Saussure was at pains
to point out — may on one point serve as an illustration of the
connection between science and practical results. It is owing to
their power of inhaling nourishment through their leaves that
broad-leaved vegetables need to draw less from the soil than corn
does. The fact is a reason for the rotation of crops.

Bonnet had a speculative mind as well as an observant eye.
As a youth philosophical studies had seemed to him 'Elysium.'
He now resumed them and combined his natural history with
psychological and metaphysical speculations. It was a time
when Buffon had set men thinking on the origin and transmission
of life, on the distinctions between men and animals, the limits
between the animal and the vegetable world, the connection
between nerves and sensations. Buffon was maintaining stoutly
his theory of organic molecules . Bonnet asserted the conservation
of pre-existing germs. It was a struggle between Buffon's theory
of a continuous process directed by an immanent Creator and
Bonnet's of a single act of creation. Buffon denounced Bonnet's
hypothesis as an absurdity and ridiculed his minute observations,
declaring that the microscope had produced more blunders than
truths. Bonnet on his part repeated the current criticism of
Buffon's excessive love of generalisations that had no adequate
foundation in observed facts.

Bonnet was at heart a firm Christian, though he could smile

BONNET AND HALLER 405

kindly at the more dogmatic orthodoxy of Haller. He was bent
on reconciling Science and Metaphysics, Philosophy and Religion.
He succeeded in doing so to his own satisfaction ; for his wishes
often controlled his thoughts. Starting from the conviction that
the world and life are the result of a single act of creation, that
matter and spirit, though separate, are susceptible of the
most intimate connection, capable of infinite development, and
both indestructible, he believed in an advance of the whole crea-
tion towards perfection. Assuming a supreme and benevolent
power outside and above phenomena, he argued that the uni-
verse moves onwards by a continual progression of innumerable
germs in ever-varying and developing combinations in which
nothing perishes, but every germ passes on to a higher degree of
consciousness. He recognised in man a spiritual energy, a soul,
incorporated in the human body and working through it, which
survives its temporary frame and passes on to higher forms of
existence. But while professedly an idealist, he assigned so large
a part in the formation of ideas to sensation, to the action of the
nerves and tissues of the physical frame, that he fell under some
suspicion of materialism.

Bonnet's physiology may seem to modern students in parts
faulty, his metaphysics vague, many of his assumptions question-
able. Yet his teaching supplied a want in his generation. It
served more or less as a buffer between the orthodox creeds of
Geneva and Rome and the negative dogmatism of the Encyclo-
paedists. 'Bonnet,' writes Sayous, a competent and impartial
critic, ' is met with everywhere in the moral and philosophic
literature of the eighteenth century. There was hardly a country
where he did not find admirers, he had correspondents in Sweden,
Denmark, and Russia, at the Hague, Berlin, and Hamburg.'
London might have been added. Yet so persuasively did he
put forward his theories that he never came into any serious con-
troversy with the rigid Protestantism of Geneva. This was no
doubt in part due to the personal charm, the charity and modesty,
which his contemporaries vie in recognising.

Cuvier, in a passage in the eulogy he pronounced on Bonnet
some years after his death, while summing up the argument of
Bonnet's last and chief work, the PalingenesiePhilosophique(nQQ),
pays a singular tribute to his character and its influence on his

406 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

opinions. ' It is in this work,' Cuvier writes, ' that he paints best
the kindness of his soul. The evils of this world and the irregu-
larity of their distribution made another life too necessary a com-
plement of divine justice for him to admit of the existence of the
one without the other. He had seen too often in all moving things
pain as an accompaniment of sensation to be willing to deprive
any of them of this consolation. He admitted, therefore, for
animals the upward progress which seemed to him their due, and
for human beings a proportionate advance, which would be our
principal recompense. Thus every being would mount in the
scale of intelligence, and happiness would consist in increase of
knowledge. The works of God seemed to Bonnet so excellent
that he identified knowledge with love.' His attitude towards
science is perhaps best summarised in a single sentence addressed
to his nephew : ' The world was not made for observers so like
moles as we are. Let us console ourselves and profit gratefully
by the portion of the works of the Creator which it is permitted
us to examine, trusting that His goodness will one day introduce
us to the supreme light.'

Yet Bonnet's fame did not long survive him, and his books
have fallen into complete oblivion. Bonstetten, the friend of
Gray, visiting Bonnet's old home at Thonex, twenty years after
his death, exclaims : ' How he is forgotten ; his name is as dead
as himself ! ' This neglect is largely due to his style. It was, it
is true, praised by de Saussure and Cuvier, but the judgment of
posterity has revised their partial verdict. Bonnet, we learn,
composed in his head and dictated ; the results inherent to this
method, in the lack of close revision, followed — prolixity and repe-
tition. To these faults must be added an excess of the ornate
sensibility which was congenial to an age of which Rousseau was
the accredited mouthpiece, and Jean Antoine Deluc a warning
example.

For sixteen years in his middle life (1752-68) Bonnet was a
member of the Council of Two Hundred ; in the latter year he
was elected a member of the Council of Sixty, which met occa-
sionally to discuss foreign affairs. But he never seems to have
taken any active part in politics. At the age of thirty-six, by his
marriage with Mile. Jeanne Marie de la Rive, de Saussure 's
maternal aunt, he became the fortunate inhabitant of a beautiful

BONNET AND HALLER 407

country-house at Genthod, on the slope above and within a few
hundred yards of the Lullin property which was subsequently
the country residence of de Saussure. Here he spent a life of com-
parative seclusion, content to be an interested and at times agitated
spectator of the political storms that raged in the neighbouring
city, and unmoved by any curiosity to explore the hills that looked
down on his home , or the greater world beyond . His only reported
excursion was a visit to Haller at Roche, at the other end of the
lake. But he was no recluse, and was always ready to receive
and hold interesting converse with the visitors his fame brought
to him. We get a glimpse of him in the travels of Sir J. Edward
Smith, the founder of the Linnsean Society. After recording a
visit of a few minutes only to de Saussure, who had just returned
from Mont Blanc, our countryman goes on, 'But the most illus-
trious philosopher of Geneva, Mr. Bonnet, must not be forgotten.
He received me with the greatest kindness, and although almost
deprived of sight and hearing, he conversed long and most instruc-
tively on his favourite subjects.'

Bonnet was frank and incapable of taking offence, modest in
putting forward his own views, and patient in listening to those of
others. Trembley, the mathematician, his friend as well as de
Saussure's, thus describes him : ' The works of celebrated men are
often the best parts of them ; those who knew M. Bonnet felt how
much superior he was to his works. His conversation was as
agreeable as it was instructive. His memory recalled at the right
moment whatever was pertinent to the subject under discussion,
and he elucidated it without pretence or display. He knew how
to make himself understood by the young, to seize the general
ideas that might be serviceable to them, to direct their activity
without controlling it ; he made them feel their failings without
humiliation, and encouraged them without making them conceited.'

Another witness to Bonnet's kindness of heart is the historian,
Jean de Miiller, a friend of Bonstetten. At a time when he had
fallen out of his post as a tutor in the Tronchin family, and was
at a loss for a home, he was received as a guest by Bonnet at
Genthod. After describing at length his relations with his host,
de Miiller concludes in the following terms : ' Bonnet seemed to
me almost divine. I have never met either in life or in history
a truer philosopher or a nobler or more amiable character, and

408 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

what makes him the more admirable is that he owes what he is
not to nature, but to his philosophy.' Bonnet's letter of invita-
tion to de Miiller has been preserved, and is a perfect model of
delicate consideration for the recipient of a substantial benefit
whom it is desired may feel himself a welcome guest.

For his physical inertia the infirmities which grew with years
gave Bonnet sufficient excuse, apart from the fact that his wife,
soon after their marriage, was permanently injured in a carriage
accident, and became an invalid. Easy-going, too kind-hearted to
cherish a grudge against his opponents, though not at all incapable
on occasion of a smart retort, such is the picture we get of this
amiable philosopher. If Voltaire jeers at his dullness, if he calls
him a dreamer and his Palingenesie a collection of idle pleas-
antries, Bonnet is not slow to reply by labelling his assailant as
' the shop-boy of science, who treats the outside world as he
does his Bible,' and telling him that he criticises ' Locke, whom
he has never read, and Leibnitz, whom he cannot understand.'
Yet Bonnet's resentment was apt to be short-lived. On another
occasion he writes : ' An unlooked-for chance brought Voltaire
to my country home. I had not seen him for six years. He came
to talk to one of my neighbours about the unhappy affair of the
Galas. There is no denying he has done a number of humane
acts, and this one ought to make me forgive him many extrava-
gances.' Bonnet shows the same charity towards Rousseau, whom
he looked on as a dangerous demagogue. He dismisses him in a
sentence of singular generosity : ' If all those who have played a
part on the theatre of life were to make confessions as frank,
should we find them less guilty or less degraded than Jean Jacques?
How many would there be who would be found lighter in the
scales of Eternal Justice ? '

This is the uncle whom de Saussure gained at the age of
sixteen. With so many points of sympathy, there was one of
marked difference between them. They approached nature from
a very different angle. The uncle's pursuits lay in the minute
and animate ; the nephew's in the opposite direction. Bonnet
never took any account of mountains, and only showed an amused
interest in de Saussure 's studies and exploits. De Saussure
ventured on occasion to write very lightly to his uncle about
some of Bonnet's particular theories. The one was a chamber

BONNET AND HALLER 409

philosopher, the other an out-of-door man of science. But the
best evidence of the influence Bonnet had on his nephew's life
is contained in the Eloge that de Saussure pronounced after
Bonnet's death. It is doubly interesting as one of the last public
utterances of de Saussure before his own final bodily and mental
breakdown. I must quote one sentence here : ' Bonnet was made
happy through the source of the greatest good fortune of which
man is susceptible — that of loving and being loved. There never
was a more loving heart than his ; the friends of his childhood
were those of his old age ; never did any cloud or any difference
cast a shadow on his friendships or his family life.' J

Bonnet was responsible for encouraging the young de Saussure
to enter on an active scientific career. But it was under another
influence that the lad was led to concentrate himself on the
study of the Alps. In 1758, two years after his aunt's marriage to
Bonnet, de Saussure came in contact with an intellect which had
a greater effect even than Bonnet's on his after-life. His uncle,
as has already been mentioned, introduced him to the leading
man of science in Switzerland, Dr. Albrecht von Haller of Berne.
' The great Haller,' as his contemporaries liked to call him, partly
perhaps on account of his physical stature — he was tall and large-
framed, and his presence was imposing and somewhat formidable —
was one of Bonnet's closest friends and most frequent correspon-
dents. In Protestant Switzerland their names were constantly
coupled together as the chief opponents of the revolutionary and
irreligious doctrines of Rousseau and Voltaire .

Albrecht von Haller was at this time just fifty. His interests
and activities were manifold. He was a sturdy Protestant, an
active conservative politician, a well-known medical writer and
physiologist, a botanist responsible for a splendid work on the
Alpine flora, a poet whose verses on the Alps went through thirty
editions, and lastly, the author of three tales with a political
purpose, two of which were translated into English. He was
compared to Buff on , and hailed as the Pliny of Switzerland . Sainte-
Beuve describes him as ' the Hercules of Physiology, a robust and
athletic savant, opinionated, active, ambitious, and versatile.'
This remarkable man seems to have made an impression on his

1 Sayous' Dix-huitieme siecle & T Stranger, vol. i., contains an excellent appre-
ciation of Bonnet's character and writings.

410 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

generation out of proportion to the value of his literary or scientific
remains, solid as these are. His celebrity during his lifetime and
for some years after his death in 1777 was European. According
to his son, nineteen separate lives and panegyrics of him appeared
before 1784. Archdeacon Coxe, in the standard English work on
Switzerland of the eighteenth century, devotes no less than
forty-five pages to ' Anecdotes of Haller.'

Haller's father was a citizen of Berne and a lawyer. As a boy
Albrecht had delicate health but a precocious intellect. To this
he added prodigious power of work. Before he was ten he is said
to have produced an excellent piece of Greek prose ; at thirteen
he was studying the metaphysics of Descartes. At the same age
he employed his leisure in the dangerous pursuit of composing
a satirical Latin poem on his schoolmaster ! He also dabbled
deeply in verse, completing an epic of four thousand lines on the
Rise of the Swiss Republic. It is reported that in an alarm of fire
he seized the MSS. in his arms before he fled for safety. But six
years later, when twenty-four, he showed more judgment and a
rarer courage by committing to the flames his youthful effusions.
In after-life his memory and his facility in languages were alike
prodigious. He is said to have been able to run off without notes
the names of the Emperors of China. He wrote and conversed
in English, French, and Italian like a native, his Latin was
modelled on Tacitus, he had studied Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldaic,
and could read almost any European tongue. This abnormal
activity of brain gave no satisfaction to worthy parents who
destined the fourth son in a large family for the Church. On his
father's death his relatives seem to have had no hesitation in
letting him go off at the early age of fifteen to study medicine at
Tubingen. Discontented with the lectures at that University,
the youth soon wandered on to Leyden, where, at the age of
nineteen, he took a doctor's degree.

He next visited London, and was introduced by J. K. Scheuchzer,
a son of the author of Itinera Helvetica and the translator of
Kaempfer's work on Japan, to Sir Hans Sloane, the President of
the Royal Society, and to Dr. Pringle, who was soon to be his
successor. After spending a few weeks in this country he passed
on to Basle, whence in 1728 he made with his friend Johann Gesner
a fairly extensive botanical tour in the Alps, crossing the Gemmi

BONNET AND HALLER 411

and Joch Passes. The return to his native mountains after five
years' absence awoke his muse, and he composed the poem on The
Alps, which, published in 1732, was to give the youth a European
reputation. It is somewhat difficult now to appreciate the quali-
ties that caught the public ear. A prose translation can do little
justice to poetry. But the following paraphrase may serve to
give some idea of Haller's descriptive method (stanzas 34-5) :

' A medley of mountains, lakes, and rocks presents itself clearly
to view, clad in colours which fade gradually as the distance grows.
On the horizon shines a crown of gleaming summits ; the nearer heights
are covered with dark forests. A neighbouring hill stretches out
gentle terraces on which feed flocks whose lo wings wake the dales.
Here a lake spreads its beautiful mirror in the depths of a valley and
gives back the quivering light which the sun throws on its ripples.
There valleys, carpeted with verdure, open before the eyes and form
folds which grow closer as they recede. Elsewhere a bare mountain
displays its steep and smooth flanks, while it lifts to the skies the
eternal ice, which, like crystal, throws back the sun's rays and dares
the attack of the dog-days. Near it a vast and fertile alp supplies
abundant pasturages ; its gentler slopes glow with the sheen of ripen-
ing crops and its hillocks are covered with herds. Climates so opposite
are separated only by a narrow vale, where the shade is always fresh.'

I add a passage from one of his prose works in which, after
enumerating the hardships that the botanist has to encounter in
the mountains, he exclaims :

' But he has his recompense, the aspect of this majestic nature,
these eternal ice-fields, these rocky pyramids, always white with snow,
these dark valleys where the impetuous torrents precipitate themselves
in a hundred cascades, these silvery lakes, these deserts where no
song of birds breaks the silence and solitude ; all these in combination
produce a landscape at once moving, magnificent, and sublime, which
one recalls with a secret delight and a ceaseless longing to return to it.'

Haller's verse, despite its vigour, may not reach the higher levels
of poetry, but there can be no question as to the poetical feeling
shown in his prose. The secret of the immense popularity of his
poem is obvious. The author struck and gave forcible expression
to a new vein of sentiment which was in the air. The age was
getting tired of formality and affectation ; the Swiss doctor's
verses might be prolix, his descriptions of scenery obvious, but

412 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

they were genuine and they expressed what the average man was
beginning to feel. Touches like the ' secret delight ' in recalling
mountain landscapes and the longing to return to them ring true.
Haller dates the commencement of a transition, the approach of
a new era. Snowy mountains had hitherto been looked on by
the crowd as blots on the face of creation. At best they had been
tolerated, at a distance, for their practical uses in acting as frontiers,
feeding rivers, and providing dairy produce. There was already,
doubtless, no lack of sham sentiment. A rustic glade might serve
as a background for amateur shepherdesses a la Watteau, or as
a framework for a tableau of idealised pastoral life. But nature
in her more austere moods was still repellent to the orthodox
taste of the day, and was consequently neglected both in its litera-
ture and art . Haller anticipated Rousseau and de Saussure in cele-
brating the mountains as the cradle of an uncorrupted peasantry,
of a race who had exchanged the savage for a civilised state, with-
out having lost its primitive simplicity.1 But he went beyond
Rousseau when he proclaimed the picturesque charm of the
scenery of the Bernese Oberland, and dwelt on the feelings snowy
mountains excite in a mind sensitive to their appeal. In recognis-
ing in his poem on The Alps, the snowy wastes as ' the palaces of
nature,' he prepared the way for Byron.

Haller gave out that one of his objects in writing poetry was to
prove to the European public that the German language was not
inferior to the English as a vehicle for serious verse. His success
was amazing, and extended far beyond his own country and
Germany. In forty-five years his poem had run through thirty
editions, and been translated into French, English, Italian, and
Latin. It brought to the young poet at least one start ling honour.
Prince Radziwill sent him a commission as major-general in the
Polish army. ' Habent sua fata libelli/ a single edition of a thou-
sand copies of Wordsworth's Excursion sufficed the British public
for thirteen years.

In 1728 Haller returned to his native city and set up in prac-
tice as a surgeon and physician. His leisure was devoted to the
study of botany, which was to be the chief occupation of his life.
His ' sincere but heavy ' fellow-citizens — the epithets are Addison's

1 ' Hommes assez civilis6s pour n'etre pas f 6roces et assez naturels pour n'etre
pas corrompus.' — De Saussure in Preface to Voyages.

BONNET AND HALLER 413

— were probably not favourably impressed by such versatility in
a family doctor. The publication of his verses, including a local
satire, can hardly have conduced to his professional prospects.
He had, however, won reputation outside his own town and
country. In 1736 he made a second tour in the Alps, which in-
cluded the more famous sites of the Bernese Oberland. An un-
expected Deus ex machind now appeared in George the Second,
King of Hanover and Great Britain. The young University of
Gottingen needed a Professor of Botany, Medicine, and Anatomy.
They asked much of professors in the eighteenth century ! Haller
was offered and accepted the post. Misfortune at first attended
his change of residence — his wife died from the effects of a carriage
accident in the ill-paved streets of Gottingen. She was the first
of three wives to two of whom he wrote memorial verses shortly
after their death ; the third evaded this tribute by surviving him.
But the success of his teaching was great, and his many scien-
tific treatises earned him a widespread reputation. The learned
societies of Europe hurried to enrol him in their lists . The Royal
Society elected him in 1751, and three years later he won the blue
ribbon of science by becoming one of the Foreign Members of the
French Academy. Kings competed for his services ; Frederick
the Great clamoured for him. He wrote in 1749 to the president
of the Berlin Academy : ' Haller is the best physiologist in Europe,
the greatest botanist in Germany, and at the same time a man of
genius. I give you carte blanche for Haller. Kings are too happy
when they can get for a little money what all the diamonds in
the world cannot purchase.'

Berne had now, after nine years, begun to realise the merits
of her absent son, and Haller was no longer without honour
in his own country. In 1745 he was given a seat on the
local Council of Two Hundred, and eight years later a magis-
tracy falling to him by lot, and his health somewhat failing,
he could not resist the impulse to return to his native air and
surroundings. At Berne he found administrative and political
employment of various kinds. Ill-luck, coupled with some party
prejudice, still hindered him from obtaining the rank of senator.
But he received the agreeable post of Director of the salt mines
of Bex, which he held for six years, adding to it for two years
that of Bailli of Aigle, near the mouth of the Rhone valley. It

414 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

was here that in 1758, while residing at the Chateau of Roche,
near Villeneuve, a modest country-house that now serves as the
vicarage, he made acquaintance with de Saussure and his mother,
through an introduction from Bonnet, his friendship for whom
dated from earlier meetings at Lausanne. A little later, in 1766-7,
he was elected assessor on the Secret Commission that had to
deal with the disorders at Geneva, in which Berne was concerned
as one of the three mediating Powers.1 But though kings were
again begging him to accept chancellorships of universities, local
difficulties prevailed, and he was repeatedly unlucky in the lottery
which determined the elections to the Supreme Council. In the
end, however, his fellow-townsmen, seriously alarmed at the
temptations offered by London and Berlin, created for Haller a
special appointment with a salary of fourteen hundred francs a
year. ' This small sum,' Haller says, ' was sufficient, coupled with
his other emoluments and the state of his health, to make him
content to spend the remainder of his life in his own country.' 2

At Berne he was fully occupied by his public duties and
scientific pursuits. He wrote many tracts on surgical and medical
topics ; he revised his poems. Among the mountains he naturally
took up with renewed zest his botanical studies. His great work
in three folio volumes, provided with many admirably engraved
illustrations, Historia stirpium Helvetiae indigenarum inchoata,
was dedicated in the most effusive terms to his patron, George m.
The preface includes a summary of his own excursions and of those
of the collectors who travelled for him, and is a valuable piece of
autobiography. Haller tells us that his disposition was all towards
a sedentary life, to the study of medicine and books ; but that,
recognising that his health, never very robust, would suffer, he
looked about for some pursuit that might serve as a stimulant and
a remedy for his lack of physical energy. He could think of
nothing better than botanical studies ; these he hoped might
compel him to walking exercise. At the start he tells us, ' rupes
et horrida saepe praecipitia perreptavi.' ' I often scrambled over
rocks and horrid precipices ; for at that date I could climb the
most difficult rocks without any fear of giddiness.' But his Alpine

1 See chapter xii.

* Condorcet points out that Haller, Jussieu, Linnaeus, Voltaire, and Rousseau
all died within eight months of each other.

BONNET AND HALLER 415

adventures extended hardly, if at all, beyond the ' alps ' in the
original and local sense of the word — the cow-pastures where the
Alpine flora is richest. The recesses of the Pennine Alps were to
him ' terrible solitudes.' The Stockhorn and Niesen, the Gemmi,
the Grimsel, the Furka and the Joch Pass, the Scheideck, the
Upper Steinberg and Tschingeltritt, the heights above Aigle —
these were the scenes of his botanical raids.

It is true that in a letter written in 1760 he asserts that he has
recently been ' half a league above the snow level in a horrible
place surrounded by rocks, snow, and ice,' but a league in those
days usually meant an hour's walk. He had to struggle in middle
life against physical disability. In the same year he reports that
he was very much fatigued by an ascent of the Chamossaire
(6950 feet), a grassy viewpoint behind Villars, and next summer,
at the very moderate age of fifty-three, he discovered that his
own legs were no longer capable of carrying him uphill, and that
no horse could be found equal to his weight, so that he had to con-
fine himself to the lower slopes and leave the heights to his numerous
band of assistants. But if Haller did not come up to the modern
definition of a mountaineer, he was for many years a persistent
Alpine traveller. Li this respect his record compares very favour-
ably with that of Rousseau, who never crossed a pass or climbed
a single summit for pleasure. That Haller looked on mountain
landscapes with appreciative discernment is proved not only by his
successful poem, but also by passages in some of his minor works,
as where he describes the Wetterhorn ' raising its unconquered
peak lit by the russet glow through a dark crown of clouds above
the blue ridges of the lower hills.' When in 1776 he exclaims,
' What a poor observer is this Bourrit ! And what a misfortune
that so much exertion and danger should be undergone for the sake
of a view, beautiful or frightful,' we must put down the outburst
against view-hunters to petulance excited by Bourrit 's lack of
botanical observation and exuberant style rather than to any
indifference on Haller's part to the scenery he had sung the
praises of with so much success. Haller was unquestionably irrit-
able. An engraving of a portrait of himself, which he thought
' abominable,' made him vow to tear it out of all the copies of his
book he could lay hands on.

The extent of the travels of Haller's swarm of young botanists

416 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

is noteworthy, and goes far to show that there were no serious
difficulties for hardy pedestrians at that date in wandering through
the more remote valleys of the High Alps. The Zermatt and
Saas valleys were entered, the St. Theodule crossed and Val
Tournanche and Courmayeur visited. The Val de Bagnes,
Chermontane, Arolla, Ferpecle were explored. In the Bernese
Oberland the collectors penetrated, besides more familiar sites, the
Gasteren Thai and Kien Thai. In the Orisons they visited the
Albula, Maloya, Septimer, Bernina, Scaletta, Val di Fraele ; in
Canton Ticino, Monte Generoso.

Haller expresses the hope that his high flora may be nearly
complete, but recommends a serious student to spend two or
three months at the Baths of St. Moritz, or at one of the highest
villages in the Rhaetian Alps, or at the hospice on the Simplon.
' Thus he would not pay a mere passing and breathless visit to the
highest crests, but be able as a neighbour to despoil them at his
leisure of their riches.' The choice of localities could hardly be
improved on, and testifies to Haller's local knowledge of the High
Alps from a botanist's point of view.

Haller's duties and pursuits did not prevent him from keeping
up an immense correspondence, much of which has been preserved.
His letters , on the whole , are disappointing . Largely occupied with
commissions, botanical exchanges, and political details, they are
only occasionally lightened by sententious apophthegms. He was
constitutionally something of a pessimist and given to be troubled
about many things. In politics and religion he was uncom-
promisingly conservative and orthodox. He looked on his
dearest friend Bonnet as a dangerous freethinker, and on demo-
cratic Geneva as a city on the path to perdition. He stood as the
champion of the Reformed Church, of establishments civil and
religious ; he was as a rock of refuge to men perturbed by the
waves of revolution and scepticism that were fast rising on all
sides. A mind so constituted and so active might have been
expected to escape the morbid religious terrors fostered by the
stricter forms of Protestantism. That Haller fell a victim to
them in his later years must be attributed mainly to an overtaxed
brain and an anxious temperament. His correspondence with
Bonnet, which fills seven volumes of manuscript, deals largely
with religion and dogma : he is dissatisfied with his old friend's

BONNET AND HALLER 417

laxity and his too great readiness to set up private judgment
against authority. Bonnet tells de Saussure of Haller's agitation,
and of his resolve not to aggravate it by carrying the argument any
further. He writes : ' You know the sort of orthodoxy our
excellent friend held — it resembled that of his equal, the great
Pascal, and it is astonishing that the genius of these two men,
unique in their kind, was not crushed under the overpowering
weight of such a creed.' Haller complains in 1766 : ' I recognise
with pain that I grow heavy with age and incapable of taking
exercise from lack of energy. Then I have no one to encourage
or aid me. Thus our field of action contracts — once it was the
world, to-day it is the town, soon it will be the house, the room,
the bed, and the tomb.' These moods were, however, only a
passing cloud. He retained to the end his mental qualities ;
memory and industry coupled with a sound judgment of men as
well as of things. He could criticise a nation or an individual
with equal trenchancy and shrewdness. Thus of Germany he
said : ' Science is a chest full of coin ; nothing is added by
counting a hoard already in existence. The German man of
science is only a cashier.' Again to de Saussure he wrote : ' I hold
you happy to have devoted to nature time which more studious
youth is apt to devote to books. I felt myself instinctively the
disadvantage of this and drew myself close to nature, contrary to
the custom of the Germans.' He could frame epigrams on
politics : ' Tender hearts must not love . If one loves one's country
dearly one must not serve it. A paradox, but unluckily true.'
Again, ' Public calamities are the only remedies to check the
progress of luxury and irreligion. From this point of view public
misfortunes may be presents from Providence more precious even
than peace and abundance.' In personal criticism of his con-
temporaries he could be caustic and uncompromising. Buffon
he dismissed as too pretentious, Reaumur as too popular, Duhamel
as too dry.

Haller's character and learning were such that he obtained a
certain respect even from Voltaire, who on occasion was very
polite to his stalwart adversary. Haller seems to have amused
rather than annoyed the old cynic. For instance, Voltaire wrote :
* I shall always find time to assure you of my esteem, and even of
my love, for I should like you to realise that you are very lovable,'

2D

418 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Haller in response is far less cordial. ' I do not care,' he replied,
' for tolerance as Voltaire offers it me. These philosophers, no
sooner tolerated, would become our persecutors.' In formal com-
munications he could sermonise his rival with a pulpit air : ' Pro-
vidence is bound to keep an equal balance for all mortals. It has
heaped you with benefits, it has crowned you with glory. You
needed misfortune, it has found a compensation in making you
sensitive. Had wishes any power, I would add one more to your
gifts. I would give you peace of mind, which flies before genius,
which as far as society goes is no match for it, but which is worth
far more to the owner ; granted this, the most famous man in
Europe would also be the happiest.' In private talk Haller was
wont to denounce the arch-heretic more roundly. Voltaire, in fact,
became a red rag to him. He writes to de Saussure in 1765 : 'He
is born and will die a mischief-maker ; he cares for nothing but his
own glory. Vanity will lead him to anything. I view with horror
men who employ their talent for the destruction of their country
and society in general. At one instant he is working for Servin
and benefiting a family ; at the next he is troubling a whole city,
or vexing right-thinking folk by the shocking impiety of his
writings.' There remained for Haller a consolatory reflection ; he
finds relief in an exclamation, which is very like swearing writ
large — 'What a moment will be that of his arrival before the
Judge ; and that moment will be eternal ! ' But if Haller's
temperament and his language were at times ecclesiastic, his rage
did not last long. The patriarch of Ferney is condemned one
day as a ' mischief-maker, vindictive and false,' but the next Haller
writes : ' I do not want to vex Voltaire ; I detest his passion for
maligning Jesus, and even God, but he remains a man, and as
such my brother.'

To Haller's qualities of heart, and also to the charm of his con-
versation, we have the strongest contemporary evidence. De
Saussure may not be an impartial witness, but he is one it is diffi-
cult to question when he writes :

' It is impossible to express the admiration, the respect, I had
almost said the sentiment of adoration, which were inspired in me
by this great man. What variety, what richness, what depth, what
clearness were in his ideas ! His conversation was animated, not
with the spurious fire which at once dazzles and fatigues, but with the

BONNET AND HALLER 419

gentle and deep glow which penetrates and warms you and seems to
lift you to the level of the speaker. If he felt his superiority — and
how could he not be conscious of it ? — at least he never asserted it
offensively; he listened to objections with the greatest patience,
cleared up ambiguities, and never assumed a trenchant and dictatorial
air, unless on any question which touched on morals or religion. The
week I passed with him [in 1764] left on my mind ineffaceable impres-
sions ; his conversation fired me with the love of study and of all
that is good and honest ; I passed the nights in thinking over and com-
mitting to paper what he had said during the day. I separated from
him with the deepest regret, and our intimate relations ended only
with his premature death.' [Voyages, 1094.]

Haller's summary comment on this visit was conveyed
in a letter to Bonnet : ' I talked too much to your
nephew.' Was there not a touch of Dr. Johnson in the Swiss
philosopher ?

De Saussure's impression was shared by other visitors . Haller's
fellow-countryman, Bonstetten, wrote : ' Haller was tall, well
made, and, despite his stoutness, had dignity. Nothing could be
finer than his glance, which was at once penetrating and sympa-
thetic. Genius shone in his fine eyes. Of all the men I have
known he was the most intellectual and the most amiable ; his
vast knowledge had the charm of impromptu. He spent his time,
as a rule, in his large library, where he was always to be found
alone and writing.' Haller had many children, with whom he
seems to have occupied himself but little. In Bonstetten's
Souvenirs there is an amusing reference to the tall girls with
holes in their stockings, whom as a boy he used frequently to
see climbing on the rocks like chamois and darting in and out
of the Chateau at Roche, but never succeeded in making friends
with.

Similar tributes might be quoted from other contemporaries ;
but I cannot omit the remarkable one paid by Gibbon in
his Journal : ' I am little interested in a work on botany, but
very much in Mr. Haller. This universal genius unites the fire
of poetry with the sagacity and discernment of the philosopher :
his natural abilities are equal to his acquired knowledge. His
memory is retentive to a degree almost miraculous.' He goes on,
however, 'With all his admirers, Haller has few friends. Where-

420 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

ever he has happened to reside, at Gottingen, Berne, or in the Pays
de Valid, his harsh, haughty, and ambitious character has offended
all his acquaintances.' I suspect that there were two Hallers, the
devoted friend, and the formidable and, at times, truculent pro-
fessor ; the combination is far from rare. I feel sure Voltaire's
acuteness did not fail him when he told his Swiss rival, ' you are
very lovable.' 1

1 For a full notice of A. von Haller see Wolf's Biographien zur Kulturgeschichte
der Schweiz, vol. iii. (Zurich, 1859), and Sayous' Le Dix-huiti&me Siede a V Stranger,
vol. ii.

CHAPTER XVII
DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE

To the Genevese patrician of whose life some account has been
given in these pages, the branch of physical inquiry which
deals with the structure and story of our globe owes not only
its name, but also the earliest serious attempt at a definition of
its scope and method. Two years before the publication of the
first volume of the Voyages, Deluc had hesitated to employ the
term Geology. It was de Saussure who gave it official sanction
and currency. It was under his auspices that the science made
its first steps forward in the right path.

Before de Saussure's day an imperfect study of the earth's
crust had, it is true, given rise from time to time to hazardous
speculations on the part of ' natural philosophers ' whose theories
now survive mainly as historical curiosities. But his predecessors
had been either mineralogists who pondered over fossils, which
they surmised to be ' lusus naturae ' — freaks of nature — or
possibly proofs supplied by Providence to confirm Holy Writ and
confute unbelievers in a universal deluge ; or else ' cosmogonists,'
who propounded such vague Theories of the Earth as could be
brought into some sort of harmony with the tenets of the Church.
When observation failed them, imagination was ever at hand to
fill the gap. On such vague imaginings de Saussure put a check.
He led inquirers back to the true path by insisting, both by his
precept and example, that the history of the earth in its past ages
was only to be elucidated by a sedulous examination of the
substances composing its crust, and that this could nowhere be
carried on so effectually as among mountains, in whose cliffs and
defiles the successive formations and strata lie exposed to the
eyes of the intelligent student.

While de Saussure was writing — the publication of his Voyages l
1 Vol. i. of Voyages was published 1779 ; vol. ii. 1784 ; vols. iii. and iv. 1796.

421

422 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

extended over seventeen years — his contemporaries, A. G. Werner
and Buff on, held the field and were busy in Germany and France
in propounding so-called ' Theories of the Earth.'

The ' Geognosy ' of Werner (1750-1817), to which de Saussure
often refers, in so far as it was founded on observation was
an inquiry into the nature of the materials constituting the
present crust of the globe without any reference to their
bearing on its past history. It made no attempt to read
the record of the rocks. For the rest, it mostly veiled its
limitations in a cloak of fantastic speculation. Its deus ex
machind was a series of floods and deluges caused by the sudden
retreat of a universal ocean.1 Buffon's imagination took a more
definite scope. He based a large superstructure of fancy on
scanty foundations in fact. He was ready to offer a ' Story of
the Earth ' divided into seven chapters, or epochs. Yet, despite
the eloquence of his style and his widespread reputation with the
European public, his lucubrations inspired little confidence among
his own countrymen. He shared the proverbial fate of prophets.2

While in Paris in 1768 de Saussure was brought into relations
with two notable geologists of that day, Desmarets (1725-1815)
and Guettard (1715-86). Both were concerned in the disco very of
the volcanoes of Auvergne and the consequent argument on the
character of basalt, in which de Saussure subsequently took part.
Desmarets visited ' the glaciers of Savoy ' in 1765, and published
a paper on the progressive movement of glaciers.3 Guettard com-
piled a Mineralogy of Dauphine, and visited Geneva on his way

1 Werner published in 1774 a Travtk des Caracteres des Miniraux. His
Classification et Description des Montagnes did not appear until 1787. De
Saussure's diary shows that he was reading the latter in the nineties. De
Saussure, in his Index, mentions that he had not seen, in 1786, Werner's earlier
work.

a The chapter on ' Glaciers ' in Buffon's Natural History (English edition, 1785)
is vague and full of inaccurate statements, which is less surprising since the
authority he cites is Bourrit, on whose evidence he expresses himself convinced
that ' the glaciers must always continue to have a progressive increase.' His
omission to refer to de Saussure, with whom, as has been previously shown, he had
been in friendly relations, is curious. Their minds were more or less antagonistic
and their methods opposed. Buffon patronised Bourrit on his visit to Paris
and introduced him to Louis xvi. (See p. 184.)

* ' Precis d'un Memoire sur le Mouvement progressif des Glaces dans les
Glaciers et sur les Phenomenes qui dependent de ce Deplacement successif ,' par
M. Desmarets, Journal de Physique, vol. 13, 1779. See for further mention of
Desmaret's treatment of glaciers, p. 431.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 423

to Chamonix in 1772. De Saussure records that he liked him
very much, 'though he had compared Switzerland to Canada.' l

Another contemporary geologist who carried on work of a
wider scope and significance was Pallas, a German of encyclo-
paedic mental activity who was sent as a member of a scientific
mission to Siberia by the Empress Catherine. After six years
of sedulous travel and toil he returned to St. Petersburg in
1774. The results of his journeys — several ponderous volumes
dealing with various branches of natural history — were first issued
in German. A French edition in five volumes, published at Paris,
did not appear till 1788. De Saussure, writing in 1779, must have
had before him at least Pallas 's treatise on The Formation of Moun-
tains, published in 1777. He writes in the Preface to the Voyages :
' Pallas's work is possibly the greatest and best model of its class ; he
has collected out of the vast treasury of his observations what seemed
to him most valuable with regard to the formation of mountains.'
Taking the Ural chain as a type of mountain structure, Pallas
proposed to recognise in it primary, secondary, and tertiary
formations, the first forming the centre of the range. 'These
geological terms,' writes Sir A. Geikie, ' were not used by him in
their more precise modern definition . . . the main value of his
observations lies in his clear recognition of a geological sequence
in passing from the centre to the outside. He saw that the oldest
portions were to be found along the axis of the chain ; the
youngest on the lower ground on either side.' With this praise
we may compare Cuvier's verdict in his Eloge of Pallas. He
points out that Pallas's experiences in Siberia led him to the con-
clusion that ' as a rule mountain chains consist of a granite core
flanked by successive zones of schistose and calcareous rocks.
This great fact which he records gave birth to modern geology.
De Saussure, Deluc, and Werner make it the foundation of a true
knowledge of the structure of the earth, as distinguished from
the fantastic notions of their predecessors.' It must not, how-
ever, be inferred from Cuvier's language that it was wholly due
to Pallas that this succession of formations was pointed out.
De Saussure had observed it independently, if he was not the
first to give it publicity.

The work of another contemporary, the Scotsman Hutton,
1 See for an account of Guettard's work, Sir A. Geikie's Founders of Geology.

424 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAXJSSURE

one of the most eminent founders of current geology, and the
chief of the early advocates of the Plutonic theory, was not
brought clearly and prominently before the world until de
Saussure's career was near its close, and there is no trace of his
having profited by it.

In the building up of a new branch of scientific inquiry there
must always be room for various types of intellect. There is need
for both the flash of intuition and the more steady light thrown
by the collection, collation, and classification of field observations.
The former may often seize on a hypothesis which bears success-
fully the test of further inquiry. But though genius may thus aid
and shorten the task of research, it can never dispense with
it. It fell to de Saussure in an age too much given to theorise
to assert the prominent part that fieldwork must play in all
geological investigation, to recognise and enforce the lesson that
the story of the earth was not to be revealed by flights of poetical
imagination, but unravelled by laborious examination of the nature
and origin of the materials of which our globe is composed, of the
sequence of the different formations and of their relations to one
another. His distinguishing claim to be a precursor is that he
was the first in his century to recognise and insist that a great
mountain chain such as the Alps, where the successive strata
have been twisted, broken, and exposed, affords the geologist the
most favourable opportunity for pursuing this inquiry. 'It is,'
he wrote, ' the study of mountains which above all else can quicken
the study of the earth, or geology.' I write, ' in his century,' for it
must never be forgotten that Leonardo da Vinci, who, had he not
been a supreme artist, might have been famous as one of the
greatest as well as one of the most versatile of scientific inquirers,
had two hundred years earlier touched in his Notes on many of
the problems of mountain structure and valley formation.

' H ne concluait pas assez,' said Buffon of his Genevese visitor.
The criticism was not without some foundation, if the retort was
obvious. But it was de Saussure's highest title to praise that he
declined to submit his conclusions to the world until he had
secured a sufficient base for them. He was content to be a
quarrier, to provide material for the future use of himself and
others. I say of himself, for Cuvier in his Eloge must have been
under a misapprehension when he praised de Saussure for a delib-

BE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 425

erate purpose to refrain from basing any theory on his observations.
It is clear from the concluding words of the ' Avertissement ' in the
third volume of the Voyages ,*• from passages in the fourth volume
of the Voyages, and also from de Saussure's private letters and
memoranda about 1796, that in his intention it was only a post-
ponement. Had his labours not been interrupted by political
troubles, or had his life attained its full span, he would have
carried out, in part at any rate, his scheme, and have put forward
as an outline of a History of the Earth conclusions drawn from his
accumulated facts. In any criticism of his work it has to be borne
in mind that at fifty-four, when he might have hoped for twenty,
or at least ten, years of leisure to arrange and consider his material,
he was struck down by successive strokes of paralysis. The last
two volumes of his Voyages were issued after a second and more
severe seizure, and after his fortune as well as his health had
been shattered by the great convulsion of the French Revolution
and the consequences it brought on Geneva. There is, therefore,
a pathetic interest in the sixty pages of ' Agenda, ou Tableau
General des Observations et des Recherches dont les resultats
doivent servir de base d la Theorie de la Terre,' appended to the
last volume of the Voyages.2 They form de Saussure's bequest to
posterity, and it is a bequest which posterity is far from having
exhausted. Of the problems he presented many doubtless have
long ago received their solution, but there are still not a few which
await a further and conclusive investigation. Nor were these
Agenda his only effort in the direction of making use of his material.
In 1796 he wrote to the astronomer La Place : ' I am going to
work at a Theory of the Earth now that I have ended my travels.
Well satisfied if I can explain the physical story of our globe, I
shall leave the problem of its formation to those, like yourself,
whose genius embraces the plan of the universe.' A memoran-
dum of the same date which has been preserved and quoted by

1 * As to the theory, I have in this volume followed the same method as in the
preceding ones. I have set down principles in so far as I have found facts on
which to base them. But for the scheme I put off publication. I wait for the
completion of observations I have in contemplation, which I need in order to
enable me to decide on questions that appear to me still doubtful.'

* Published also in the Journal des Mines, iv. (No. 20), in 1796, pp. 1-20, and
in the Philosophical Magazine for 1799, iii. pp. 33-41, 147-156 ; iv. pp. 188-190,
259-263, 351 and 359 ; v. pp. 24-29, 135-140, 217-221. It was also published
separately at Geneva.

426 LIFE OF HOKACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Professor Alphonse Favre probably contains the germs of what
de Saussure had in his mind. The Theory of the Earth, de Saus-
sure writes, ' is the science which explains the causes of the modi-
fications which the earth has undergone since its first formation
up to our own days, and aids us to foresee those it will undergo
in the future. Our only means of arriving at a knowledge of these
modifications and their causes is by studying the present state
of the globe in order to remount gradually to its preceding states,
and to arrive at probable conjectures as to its future. The actual
condition of the earth is the only solid base on which it is possible
to theorise. Reason therefore requires that we should begin by
giving a description of the terrestrial globe. This description, in
order to be methodical, must start from general features and come
afterwards to details which should be gone into in proportion as
they seem more important and less known.' *

Unhappily, all that survives of this proposed statement of the
Theory is its skeleton. It was to have been divided into three
parts. The first would have comprised the general results ob-
tained by workers in natural science. De Saussure 's intention
was to describe the various characters of the rocks that compose
the mountain ranges, and to deal more fully than he had hitherto
done with the conclusions to be drawn from the fossils found in
them. Since the earth's surface is profoundly modified by its
outer envelope, the effects of air, moisture, heat, light, and elec-
tricity were to have been treated. The second part was to have
been an exposition of physical and chemical laws, including that
of gravitation ; in the third part he proposed to arrange the
facts set forth in the first section under the laws laid down in the
second.

Had this programme been carried out we should doubtless
have had a work of great interest, and one full of suggestions for
de Saussure 's immediate followers. In a sense it might have been
only a temporary stepping-stone. For de Saussure, if prudent
in advancing any new hypothesis of his own, was also cautious
in dismissing those of his predecessors. Brought up to accept the
theory insisted on by Werner and known as the Neptunian, he
remained to the end of his life more or less under its influence.

1 ' H. B. de Saussure et les Alpes,' Bibl. Univ. 1870. Read before the Swiss
Alpine Club at Geneva, 1869.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 427

Its author maintained that the solid materials of the globe
had been formed under a primeval ocean, the withdrawal of which
in some unaccountable manner into the bowels of the earth had
led to a series of catastrophic floods.

It is obvious that, given such an agency, the physicist was
spared much trouble in ascertaining causes for any unusual
phenomena he might meet with. They could conveniently be put
down to the deluge, or one of the deluges, caused by the retreating
waters. Erratic blocks and moraines were accepted as among
the quite minor monuments of Neptune !

The theory in its more extreme form has long since fallen into
discredit, so much so that it was dismissed by Sedgwick as ' Wer-
nerian nonsense/ or ' water on the brain ' ; but in its day it held
the field, or was at least treated with respect by competent
investigators.

Under its influence de Saussure was disposed to look
on all strata as marine sediments ; the differences between
stratified and unstratified rocks he attributed to the state
of the waters in which they were deposited. The conception
of a slowly contracting globe the surface of which as it
shrank wrinkled into bosses and ridges, hollows and clefts,
which were left as raw material for the great sculptors, heat and
cold, water and ice, had not yet fully dawned on his generation.
The violence of the forces resulting from this contraction — up-
thrusts which bent one rock over another, removed some strata
and forced others out of their place — was still wholly unrealised.
It is true that towards the end of de Saussure 's career we find in
his Agenda traces of a growing disposition to question how far
the theory fitted the facts, to look outside it for possible explana-
tions of natural phenomena. But it remained to the end more
or less of a stumbling-block in his investigation of Alpine features.

The most remarkable instance of how slow a scientific eye and
mind may be to recognise for the first time facts that, once pointed
out, become obvious to every tourist, may be found in de Saus-
sure's treatment of glaciers. The 'Glaciers of Savoy' had been
the prime motive of his travels. Before starting for his fourth
trip to Chamonix in 1767, he had consulted Haller as to whether
he could profitably write a supplement to what was then the
standard work dealing with them — Griiner's Eisgebirge (1760). He

428 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

might, therefore, have been expected to treat glacial phenomena
with particular care and insight. Yet his contributions to the
better understanding of the movements and action of the ice-
stream are relatively incomplete and unsatisfactory.

With regard to the advance of glaciers valleywards, he recog-
nised that the frozen mass was pushed down the mountain slope
by its weight, and by the pressure of the snows in the upper basins,
while he suggested that the natural heat of the earth, of which
he exaggerated the effect, assisted the process by melting the ice
where it touched the ground.1

He insisted on the main fact that the substance of glaciers,
neve or ice, moves continually downwards from the heights towards
the valleys. He was ready to hurl sarcasm at a foolish professor
of Tubingen, who had confidently asserted 'that any forward
movement of ice was a physical impossibility.' But here he
stopped ; he took no practical steps to ascertain the nature of
glacier movement , or to measure its rate . This is the more surprising
since the need of such measurements was already being insisted
on. In the chapter on ' Natural History ' in Laborde's monu-
mental work on Switzerland2 — published about 1780 — the writer
says : ' We have proposed to plant stakes on the glaciers, and to
arrange them in a line with trees or other recognisable objects,
so that the rate of movement of the ice may be ascertained. . . .
We have urged this on priests and presbyters ; will it be done ?
We doubt it.' He goes on in a footnote to tell us that Monsieur
Hennin, while acting as the French Resident at Geneva, had seven
years before persuaded the Vicaire of Chamonix to have three
stakes set up on the Mer de Glace opposite the Pierre des Anglais,
and that in the first year they had advanced fourteen French

1 It may be interesting to set beside de Saussure's statement the concluding
sentence of M. Vallot's Annales de VObservatoire du Mont Blanc, vol. iv., 1900 :
' The conclusion of this work is that the advance of glaciers is caused by the
sliding of the mass caused by the slope of their beds, and aided by the thrust of
the upper portions. Weight appears to be the only agent, to the exclusion of any
action of heat.'

2 Tableaux Topographiques, Pittoresques, Physiques, Historiques, Moraux,
Politiques, et Litt&raires de la Suisse, 4 vols., Paris, 1780. Owing probably to its
unwieldy dimensions, the amount of information, both topographic and scientific,
contained in this work has been generally overlooked. It was published only a
year after the first volume of the Voyages. The plates (in some copies coloured)
of the principal Swiss ice-streams are excellent, but there are none of the glaciers
of Savoy.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 429

(about fifteen English) feet. He adds that some Englishmen had
applied the same test with heaps of stones and had got a like re-
sult. These rough attempts probably formed the basis of a corre-
sponding statement in Ebel's Guide (1793), severely commented on
by Forbes, whose own observations gave the yearly motion at the
same spot as 482 feet ! It is curious to find that Forbes' measure-
ment had been anticipated by an observation recorded in the
work of a Genevese pastor published in 1817. l A boulder that had
fallen from the Dru on to the glacier had moved eighty and a half
toises in eleven months — at a rate, that is, of about 520 feet in
the year.2 Again, it is strange to find that de Saussure believed
that the middle of the glacial surface advances more slowly than
its sides ; although the dirt -bands, visibly convex towards the
lower end of the glacier, serve to prove the contrary. Once more,
the origin of medial moraines from the meeting of inner lateral
moraines where two ice-streams join is nowadays generally recog-
nised even by an average peasant. I can only endorse with regret
the comment of Forbes on de Saussure 's treatment of this feature :
* There is nothing more surprising to be found in his writings
than the most unsatisfactory explanation which he gives of
medial moraines.' It is fair to quote the passage (Voyages, 537)
which called forth this severe comment. I have slightly abbre-
viated it :

' In the heat of summer, streams, formed by the melting of the ice,
flow on the surface of the glacier and crevasses open, and as the
trough of the glacier has the form of a cradle, the ice in the middle
shrinks and falls, while the stones on the sides of the glacier [the
outer lateral moraines] slide away from the mountain towards its centre.
The accuracy of this statement is shown by the fact that towards the
end of summer one sees frequently, and particularly in the larger
valleys, a considerable gap between the foot of the mountain and the
edge of the glacier, and these gaps arise not only from the melting
of the glacier's edges, but also from their having shrunk away from
the mountain in falling towards the centre of the glacial trough.

1 Promenades Philosophiques et Religieitses aux Environs du Mont-Blanc,
Geneva and Paris, 1817.

2 In the eighties of the eighteenth century the Chamonix glaciers were
on the increase. Of the Glacier des Bois Mr. Brand, in a manuscript diary of a
tour in 1786, writes : ' It was really curious to see the green tops of larches
which the glacier had borne down by its pressure showing themselves amongst
the fragments of ice and granite.'

430 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

During the following winter these gape fill with snow ; this snow, satu-
rated with water, turns into ice ; the edges of the new ice next the
mountain are covered with fresh debris ; these covered banks move
in succession towards the middle of the glacier, and it is thus that
are formed the parallel ridges that move obliquely with a composite
movement resulting from the slope of the trough towards the middle
of the glacier and the slope of the same trough towards the lower
valley.'

De Saussure's observation is here singularly at fault. Glaciers
are not in the habit of waxing laterally by the help of plasters of
winter snow locally applied, nor do they at any time of the year
slope downwards to their centre, though, where the glacier has
shrunk, old lateral moraines may occasionally rise above it.

Again, of the surprising abilities of the ice-stream as a
sledge, or carrier, de Saussure had a very inadequate idea. He
mentions here and there that boulders have been brought to their
present site by the advancing ice, but this fact never suggested
to him that a former extension of the ice might be the key to many
of his perplexities. The idea of a glacial epoch, or of several,
never occurred to him. The great belt of granite boulders that
girds the wooded slopes of the vale of Sallanches below Combloux,
the erratic granite blocks near Monthey and on the Jura, the vast
series of moraines that encircle the mouth of the valley of Aosta
below Ivrea, failed to tell him their story. He was too entirely
convinced that all such phenomena owed their origin to gigantic
catastrophes, or floods, to look for any less heroic agency. ' The
explanation/ he writes, ' I have given of the origin of these frag-
ments of primitive rocks ought to be sufficient for naturalists.
They are aware that granite boulders do not spring up in the earth
like truffles, or grow like pines on limestone. So the only possible
difference of opinion on the matter is whether the transporting
force was a catastrophe or a deluge.' [Voyages, 209.]

Controversy still smoulders over the exact constitution of
the substance of the glacier. Students may argue or quibble
over terms, but no one at the present day will deny that glacier
ice possesses qualities which, whether we call it viscous, or plastic,
or, with Heim, ' thick -flowing ' (dickflussige), assimilate it rather
to a semi-fluid than to a solid body. Of the inner structure
of the ice, of the character of its particles, matters recently

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 431

minutely investigated, de Saussure took small account.1 Assum-
ing it to be a solid and rigid mass, he paid little attention to the
features inconsistent with this theory which were subsequently
pointed out by Rendu and Forbes, and were in his own day
indicated — in a casual fashion, it is true — by an obscure ' Visitor
to the Glaciers,' one of his fellow-citizens.2

That de Saussure, always suspicious of theories without facts,
should have paid no attention to an ingenious speculation intro-
duced casually into the narrative of a slender volume entitled a
Voyage Pittoresque, is surprising, but explicable. In his own mind
and writings the picturesque was always kept in strict subordina-
tion. But a paper on glaciers by a geologist of repute, read before
the Academic des Sciences at Paris, and published to the world,
could not fail to call for notice on his part. His comments were
contained in the chapter on glaciers in the Voyages (section 528).
Elsewhere in the work, and in connection with other subjects,
Desmarets is mentioned by name, but here, for some unknown
reason, the paper criticised is referred to only as by a ' very
capable modern author.'

Desmarets' article, as published in the Journal de Physique, in
May 1779, appears to be an abstract of a lecture he gave before
the Paris Academy three years previously, in which he described
the results of a visit to Chamonix in August 1765, made with
the object of studying the glacial problem.

Desmarets examined most of the glaciers of the valley, paying
particular attention to the Glacier des Bossons and the Mer de
Glace. He noticed with a careful eye their less obvious features
as well as those that strike every traveller. Thus he called atten-
tion not only to the moraines, seracs, and crevasses, but also to
the structure of the ice, its layers, or bands, its blue veins and
opaque white patches. He pointed out that the nature of the
rocks carried and deposited by the ice showed that they had
been brought from the centre of the range. But when Desmarets

1 De Saussure, as has been pointed out (p. 152), observed and recorded in
1781 in his manuscript diary the veined structure of the ice ; but, since he was
unable to discover a satisfactory explanation of it, never troubled himself to
call attention to a feature which, recognised by Forbes, led in after years to
prolonged discussions.

2 See chapter viii. for an account of the remarkable anticipation of the views
of Rendu and Forbes on glacier motion contained in Bordier's Voyage Pittoresque.
aux Glacieres, 1773.

432 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

turned from observation to theory, and attempted to account for
the formation and movement of glaciers, his intelligence failed
him. He had visited the Alps only at midsummer, when much
melting goes on in the day and some freezing at night. He
came to the conclusion that the upper snowfields were converted
into ice by these daily alternations of temperature during the
warm months. De Saussure, on the contrary, asserted that it
was the cold of winter acting on the mass saturated by the summer
heats that affected the transformation. Neither of the savants
made due allowance for the results of pressure ; Desmarets alto-
gether ignored it. As for motion, Desmarets' idea was crude in
the extreme. He argued that the diurnal melting and freezing,
having produced blocks of ice, soon proceeds to undermine them,
until the fall of one block leads to that of the next to it, and then
of others, so that the whole glacier, like a bank of loose stones,
cascades valleywards. De Saussure had little difficulty in dealing
with so simple a solution of glacial advance, the main causes of
which — mass, pressure, and gravity — he had firmly grasped.

De Saussure, if in glacier problems he made a less advance
than might have been looked for, at least provided the technical
terms in which we discuss them to-day. He was the first to
substitute definitely * glacier ' for * glaciere,' *• to give the Savoyard
words ' moraine ' and * serac ' literary sanction. He invented
for the ice-rubbed rocks the phrase moittonnees, which had previ-
ously been applied, he tells us, to a smooth, curly variety of the
wigs then in common use. He divided glaciers into two orders —
primary glaciers, that fill trenches in the mountains, and secondary,
that rest on their slopes. It is to de Saussure also that we owe
the first authoritative contradiction of the myth promulgated by
Bourrit, of several continuous longitudinal troughs, or ' valleys
of ice/ extending between the highest ridges of the Alps, and
forming a common reservoir for their glaciers. He refers to the
Chermontane Glacier as the only instance he knows of such a
trough. In the still undecided controversy that throughout the

1 Bordier suggests that ' glaciere ' is properly used for the upper basins, the
' neve' (?), and 'glacier' for the snout protruding below the summer snow-level.
But this use, if it ever prevailed, was soon dropped. The form ' Glassier ' is
found in a document of 1605 preserved in the Chamonix Archives and cited in
La Oiographie. Bull, de la Section de Oiographie, Ministere de V Instruction
publique, vol. xxviii. nos. 1 and 2, 1913.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 433

last fifty years has raged with regard to the action of glaciers on
the beds they flow over, whether they serve as an erosive, or as an
abrasive, or as a protective agency, de Saussure took no part . That
the ice rubbed off corners, scoured hard surfaces, and moved soft
material, he could scarcely fail to notice. But since the records
of the extension of the ice in past ages escaped him, he was never
tempted to anticipate the rash speculations of the modern geo-
logists who have attempted to credit glaciers with the excavation
of the great valleys and sub-alpine lake-basins.

It is impossible, in an attempt to deal more or less compre-
hensively with de Saussure 's scientific work as an Alpine ex-
plorer, to pass over the weak points in his contribution to our
knowledge of glaciers. But it would be unjust to him to let
them affect seriously our estimate of his general work among the
mountains. The glaciers — those 'miracles of nature,' as the old
Swiss writers liked to call them — had first attracted his youthful
enthusiasm. But his frequent visits to Chamonix and his further
travels had imbued him with the consciousness of larger problems
waiting to be solved. He recognised that in the crags of the Alps
the skeleton of the earth was, as it were, displayed to the scientific
eye, and that there, if anywhere, was to be found the key to its
past history. His leading object came to be the investigation of
the great processes of world-building. Absorbed in this inquiry,
the glaciers appeared to him as little more than decorative details
in the work of the great architect, Nature. He found no time to
give their phenomena the close study that was essential to their
elucidation, and as a consequence he failed to realise that in
former ages ice as well as water had played an important part in
shaping the surface of our globe as we now see it.

In other inquiries open to the geologist and mountaineer de
Saussure was more successful. If his modesty and caution in
speculation had not equalled his energy and industry in research,
if his reluctance to theorise had not been accompanied by an
equal hesitation to discard the theories of others, he might have
done even more than he did to advance the progress of geology.
Yet the list of Agenda at the close of his work proves that his obser-
vations were leading him to question many of the received beliefs
of his forerunners. For example, he realised the importance of a
close study of the succession and juxtaposition of strata as a clue

2E

434 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

to the story of the evolution of our planet. In this connection he
insisted on the value of the examination and comparison of fossils,
about which the old naturalists had frequently made absurd
blunders. He recognised in the Alps the typical structure
that is repeated in so many great ranges, a core of granite and
crystalline schists forming the central axis, flanked on either side
by limestones showing a writing-desk formation — that is, dipping
steeply on the flanks of the central crystalline core while their
slope declines gradually towards the outer foot-hills, which are
composed of more recent beds of softer material. He showed
that the base of the secondary rocks in the Alps is formed of a
conglomerate, marking a pause between the formation of the
primary and secondary mountain chains, and that this pheno-
menon is again met with at the base of the tertiary range . Though
at first reluctant to recognise any upthrust capable of raising the
mountains and dislocating their materials, he was gradually led
to admit that the stratified rocks had been originally deposited
in a horizontal position, and as a consequence that the dip of the
strata must be accounted for by the action of forces subsequent
to the formation of the earth's solid crust. Wherever he found
that joints, perpendicular to the stratification, were inclined at a
sharp angle to the horizon, he accepted the fact as conclusive
evidence that the mass of the mountain had shifted from its
original position.

Conscious as he was of the great influence of atmospheric con-
ditions in moulding the earth's surface, de Saussure did not limit
his investigations to its solid crust. He was equally interested
in the conditions of its outer envelope.

To the advance of the kindred science of meteorology he made
very important contributions. It is true that he took up and
pursued its study rather for its bearing on other branches of
inquiry than for its own sake, and that his attention was mainly
concentrated on the comparison of meteorological phenomena at
different altitudes and the practical application of them in the
measurement of heights . But his patience and accuracy in observa-
tion, coupled with his very exceptional ingenuity and adroitness
in inventing and constructing instruments, made him the leading
meteorologist of the Alps, and set an example to be followed
by many observers to whom a wider field of observation has

since been open. On so technical a subject only an expert can
speak with confidence, and I am glad to be able to refer readers
to the critical remarks on de Saussure's meteorological work with
which my friend, Dr. H. R. Mill, has kindly furnished me.1

Professor Raoul Gautier, Professor of Astronomy, and now
Rector of the University of Geneva, has called my attention
to a particular observation made on the Col du Geant. He
writes : ' At this date the question of the atmospheric or
cosmic origin of shooting stars was still under discussion, and
they were commonly held to be produced in the lower regions
of our atmosphere. The great good sense and shrewdness of
de Saussure led him to make two crucial remarks : "I have
observed," he says, "all these stars above the horizon, and none
below ; this seems to me to prove that these meteors are only
formed in extremely lofty regions of the atmosphere." He goes
on : " The cause of these phenomena, though they are so frequent
and remarkable, appears to be still unknown. Even the upper
limit of their range is uncertain. It could, however, easily be
determined. In order to do this it would be enough for two
observers, placed at stations the distance between which was
known, to arrange to take simultaneous observations of all that
appeared on the same night, comparing them with known stars
and noting their characteristics and the precise moment of their
appearance. Their parallax would give their elevation and their
distance." This is precisely the method which some years later
was employed by Benzenberg and Brandes at Gottingen to
determine the height of the appearance of shooting stars (about
one hundred kilometres) and their velocity.'

In his meteorological work de Saussure found frequent
occasion to display his ability as an inventor. Among the
instruments he constructed was the Hygrometer, with which he
settled the problem of moisture in the atmosphere. He also
contrived a Diaphanometer and a Cyanometer to test the relative
transparency of the air, and an Anemometer to ascertain the
force of the wind. He invented an apparatus for testing the
sun's heat ; he even attempted to apply ' bottled sunshine ' to
heating purposes. He devised a practical instrument for the
study of the evaporation of water and ice, and applied his

1 See Dr. Mill's Note.

436 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

experimental observations to the phenomena of respiration on
the High Alps and on the plains.

De Saussure was also a pioneer in several branches of electrical
research, and in 1766 in his Dissertatio physica de electricitate
he strongly supported Franklin's views. Two years later he made
his acquaintance in England. In 1784 de Saussure perfected
a portable Electrometer with which he studied atmospheric
electricity and that produced by the evaporation of heated water
under various conditions. He communicated to Spallanzani,
who was investigating the animalcules of infusoria, a method of
killing them by electricity. The concluding sentences of his
chapter on the ' Electricity of the Atmosphere * are characteristic
of his mental attitude : ' Do not the investigations here described
show by their very imperfection how imperfect is our knowledge of
the action and force of electricity, and in particular of atmospheric
electricity, its causes and relations with other variations of the
atmosphere ? Happy will be the student who finds the time and
the means to cultivate this fruitful field and to develop the truths
of which it holds the germs.'

Again, de Saussure was one of the earliest observers to insist
on the very important work water, by means of streams and
rivers, has done as an agent in moulding the details of the earth's
surface, in deepening valleys and forming estuaries.

While living on his estate at Conches, if deprived of a view of
Mont Blanc, he could still feel a link with the glaciers in the
Arve, along whose banks, as Senebier tells us, he loved to
stray. He found occupation in observing the variations in the
volume and the temperature of its waters. At the time the
stream was highest the temperature was lowest. He accounted
for this fact by showing that the rise of the river resulted from
the diurnal melting of the glaciers, which increased the pro-
portion of ice-water in the stream. A calculation of the hours
the flood would take in reaching the environs of Geneva showed
that the previous day's melting passed Conches early the next
morning.1

It is also to his credit that he introduced new methods of

1 See 'Memoire BUT les variations de hauteur et de temperature de
1'Arve,' par M. Desaussure, Journal de Physique, vi. 1798. Observe the revolu-
tionary spelling of the author's name 1 This was, I think, de Saussure's last
literary output.

experimental geology, devising an elaborate series of chemical
experiments in order to ascertain the composition of different
rocks, and whether one variety could by fusion be transmuted
into another.

Having been initiated by Monget, the explorer of the South
Seas, into the art of using the blowpipe, de Saussure employed it
extensively in mineralogy. He invented a method of soldering
fragments of rock to small glass tubes for the purpose of sub-
mitting them to intense heat and decomposing their constituents.
He thus ascertained the fusibility of one hundred and thirty
minerals, and divided them into six classes, forming a scale of
fusibility. His results were published in a treatise, Sur Vusage
du Chalumeau.

De Saussure was not content with determining heights. He
was very active in taking observations of the temperatures and
depths of ten of the Swiss lakes, and on two occasions (in 1780 and
1787) proceeded to do the same in the sea deeps off the Mediter-
ranean coast. For this purpose he devised a special form of
thermometer capable of resisting the pressure at great depths,
constructed on a principle which is still in use.1

During the last five years of his life de Saussure made several
attempts to determine the temperature of the earth at different
depths, a matter which has since his time been made the subject
of more detailed observations.

Much interested by the efforts of Montgolfier at Lyons for the
raising of balloons by means of heated air, he made experiments
on his own account. He ventured a prophecy, the fulfilment of
which seems close at hand, that aeronautics would one day play a
part in mountain exploration. He introduced, not without con-
siderable opposition, the use of lightning conductors at Geneva and
in Italy ; he also invented a self-adjusting windmill, with vanes
that opened or closed according to the strength of the wind, the
construction of which, according to the Report of a Committee of
the Genevese Society of Arts, 'involved difficult and curious
physico-mathematical problems.'

The desire to collect flowers for his invalid mother, the object
of de Saussure 's boyish rambles, had been the origin of his earliest
vocation, botany. Under Haller's influence, it developed into a
1 See Dr. Mill's Note.

438 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

scientific pursuit. As early as 1762 he published his Observa-
tions sur I'Ecorce des Feuilles et des Petales, in which he was
the first to distinguish between the cortex and the epidermis of
plants. He dedicated the little work to his Bernese friend.
The treatise, writes Senebier, himself a botanist, shows great
patience and accuracy. He continued to the end of his travels
to take a keen interest in the Alpine flora, but botany was before
long relegated to a secondary place in favour of geology.
In his last days we find him urging the future great botanist,
de Candolle, not to spend energy on a branch of science he
held relatively unimportant ! If in his last publication he
reverted to the pursuit of his youth, it was probably as a
relaxation from the more exacting brainwork of his geological
speculations.

This brief catalogue may give some idea of the activity of de
Saussure's mind, the multiplicity of his studies, the ingenuity of
his constructive talent, and his power of applying it to practical
ends. ' He had,' writes Dr. Mill, ' such a gift of planning observa-
tions and devising instruments, that it comes as a shock every
now and then to realise that a hundred and fifty years ago no one
knew many of the facts that are now the basis of all our ideas of
natural processes.' This reflection, I must remind the reader,
applies equally to de Saussure's geological work ; it is difficult
for the student of the present day to put himself back mentally
to the standpoint of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and
we are apt to forget that the discoveries of ono age — or even its
undiscovered facts — may well be the commonplaces of the next.
If de Saussure, for instance, failed to elucidate glacial phenomena,
we have to bear in mind that it took the concentration of many
scientific intellects to collect the facts and formulate the theories
which are now in every text-book. If the earliest mountain
explorers failed to realise the nature and extent of glacial action,
their successors in many cases — notably in those of Tyndall and
Ramsay — have greatly exaggerated it. Even now we are in
the presence of conflicting schools whose respective dogmas,
however confidently formulated, fail to produce any lasting
impression on their opponents. In Germany and beyond the
Atlantic professors and students of high reputation still advance
theories that to many of those who know mountains best seem

(

DOLOMIKU AS SUCCESSOR TO DE SAUSSURE

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 439

incapable of reconciliation with the facts that nature puts before
our eyes.1

A biographer without special qualifications in natural re-
search may well hesitate before venturing on any final estimate
of de Saussure's position in the annals of science. He will prefer
to place before his readers the verdict of the Genevese Professor's
most eminent followers and successors.2

In his own generation de Saussure's services to the advance of
knowledge were universally recognised. My first quotation may
well come from his contemporary Dolomieu ; it is taken from an
official report presented by him to the Institut National, under
which he served as an Inspector of Mines :

' I feel proud when I am able to quote some of these great and
beautiful observations of de Saussure, of whom I hold it an honour
to declare myself the pupil, since his works have been almost invariably
my guide, since it is from him I learnt how to reason on the great
problems of geology, and the use to make of them in constructing a
system, since he is one of the first and best of the men of science
who treat of the formation of our continents.' 3

A pen-sketch by Saint-Ours made after de Saussure's death still
exists at Geneva, which shows M. d'Eymar, the French Preset of
the Departement du Leman after the temporary annexation of the
city, attaching to Dolomieu's shoulders a scarf lettered, ' L'his-
toriographe des Alpes,' in front of a pyramid inscribed with
the name of de Saussure. D'Eymar, an ardent admirer of

1 The arguments of those — mostly practical mountaineers — who maintain the
protective action of ice may be found in Dr. Bonney's numerous works, in my
paper on ' The Conservative Action of Ice,' Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society, vol. x., 1888, Professor Garwood's ' Hanging Valleys,' etc., Quarterly
Journal Geological Society, vol. Ixviii., 1902, ' Tarns of Canton Ticino,' vol. Ixii.,
1906, and ' Features of Alpine Scenery due to Glacial Protection,' Geographical
Journal, vol. xxxiii., 1910. For the opposite view see Penck and Bruckner's ' Die
Alpen in Eiszeitalter,' 1909, and papers by Professor Davis in Quarterly Journal
Geological Society, vol. Ixv., 1909, in Geological Journal, vol. xxxiv., 1909, and the
Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. xxii., and elsewhere.

2 Professor Zittel's History of Geology and Palaeontology (English edition, 1901)
is recommended by Sir A. Geikie as ' a work of extraordinary labour, fullness, and
accuracy.' It is therefore needful to point out to students that the references in
it to de Saussure (pp. 52-5 and 221), while as a whole appreciative, embody many
inaccuracies. These affect mainly the field of de Saussure's labour, his moun-
taineering feats, and the titles and dates of his works.

3 ' Rapport fait a 1'Institut National par le Citoyen Dolomieu, Ingenieur des
Mines, sur sea Voyages de 1'An v. et de 1'An vi.' (Journal des Mines).

440 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Rousseau, was interested in the Alps, and it was he who erected
at Servoz the monument to Eschen, the young traveller who
perished on the Buet in 1800. Dolomieu's own memory is
preserved in the title of one of the loveliest districts in
the Italian Alps. He endeavoured to pay his master a similar
compliment by naming a mineral Saussurite. After having
been imprisoned in Naples on his return from Egypt and
released through the intervention of the Royal Society,
Dolomieu died only a year after de Saussure of a fever said to
have been caught in Dauphine.

Both Humboldt and Alphonse Favre similarly acknowledged
de Saussure as their master. The former, who called on de
Saussure at Geneva in the autumn of 1795, has recorded that his
chief ambition was to imitate a predecessor whom he regarded as
his model.1 It was the perusal of Humboldt's works which awoke
in the young Charles Darwin the passion for travel and discovery.
Thus is the torch handed on by kindred spirits. Alphonse Favre
(1815-90), in his Recherches Geologiques, attempted successfully to
carry on de Saussure's work in his own field and by his own
method of observation.

In Sir Humphry Davy's works we find this striking testimony
to the method and talents of the author of the Voyages.

' Of a kindred character [to the writings of Dolomieu] are the
descriptions of M. de Saussure. Educated amidst the magnificent
scenery of the Alps, this illustrious person felt in his earliest days the
warmest passion for the study [geology], and his whole life was
more or less devoted to it. Possessing from nature a penetrating
genius, he assisted its efforts by all the refinements and resources
of science. In his researches he spared no labour and yielded nothing
to the common sentiment of self-love. A constant inhabitant of the
mountains, he has exceeded all other writers in his description of
them. His delineations are equally vivid and correct, and as far as
mere language is capable, they awake pictures in the mind. De
Saussure has presented the rare instance of a powerful imagination
associated with the coolest judgment, of the brilliancy of the ideas
and feelings of the poet connected with the minute research and deep
sagacity of the philosopher.' [Lectures on Geology. .]

1 ' Dites au venerable de Saussure que j'ai relu cet hiver mot pour mot tous
sea ouvrages, et que je me suis marqu6 toutes les experiences qu'il desire qu'on
fasse. J'aime de marcher sur les traces d'un grand homme ' (Humboldt to M.
Pictet, January 1798).

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 441

Still more striking and weighty — coming as it does from a
fellow-worker in the same field, one who, in bent of intellect, bore
in some respects a singular resemblance to de Saussure, and who
also imitated him in the literary form he gave to the record of
his travels and researches by combining both in a consecutive
narrative — is the warm recognition of the Genevese philosopher's
merits which prefaces Forbes 's work on the Alps, published in
1843. I give a few of the crucial sentences :

' Where,' asks Forbes, ' where are we to look for travels like
de Saussure 's, and why are comprehensive works adapted for the
general reader and student of nature to be replaced entirely by
studied monographs connected with some single science in some
single district ? ' These are questions echo may still repeat with
advantage. Again—' There is scarcely one of the modern authors
with whom I am acquainted . . . whose writings can be com-
pared with those of the great historian of the Alps.' Forbes
resolved to travel, he tells us, 'not as an amusement, but as a
serious occupation,' with de Saussure before him as a model. l

We turn to a leading geologist of our own day, Sir Archibald
Geikie. The oracle may seem at first to speak with no certain
voice. Sir Archibald indicates that it is difficult from de
Saussure's works to ascertain definitely what were his views on
many fundamental questions. In Sir Archibald's article on
' Geology ' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, we are surprised to find
no mention of de Saussure in the list of those to whom a direct
advance in the progress of the science is attributable. Yet else-
where, in his Founders of Geology, the omission is explained, and
de Saussure's claims are summed up and appreciated as follows :

'The labours of de Saussure mark an epoch in the investigation
of the history of the globe. De Saussure was the first and most
illustrious of that distinguished band of geologists which Switzerland
has furnished to the ranks of science. . . . His descriptions of a
great mountain-chain form admirable models of careful observation
and luminous narrative. Though he did not add much to the advance-
ment of geological theory, he contributed largely to the stock of
ascertained fact, which was so needful as a basis for theoretical specu-

1 One of de Saussure's guides, J. M. Cachat, called ' le Geant,' accompanied
Professor Forbes to the Mer de Glace in 1829, forty-two years after his ascent
of Mont Blanc with the Genevese savant.

442 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

lations. The data which he collected became thus of the utmost
service to those who had to work out the principles of geology. To
Hutton, for example, they supplied many admirable illustrations of
the geological processes on which he based his Theory of the Earth.
It was under the guidance of the Swiss observer that the Scottish
philosopher stood in imagination on the summit of the Alps and
watched from that high tower of observation the ceaseless decay of
the mountains, the never-ending erosion of the valleys, and that
majestic evolution of topography which he so clearly portrayed.
Among the illustrious men who contributed to plant the foundations
of geology an honoured place must always be assigned to de Saussure.
' To him,' continues Sir Archibald Geikie, ' we owe the first adoption
of the terms geology and geologist. This science had formed a part
of mineralogy, and subsequently of physical geography. The earliest
writer who dignified it with the name it now bears was the first great
explorer of the Alps. We are able to fix the exact date. In 1778
J. A. Deluc apologises for not adopting the term because " it was
not a word in use." In 1779 de Saussure uses geology and geologist
as accepted terms.'

To de Saussure's position as a founder, if not the founder,
of modern geology I have perhaps cited sufficient evidence. We
must admit that he lacked the highest form of genius, the flash
that reveals the causes and connections that govern the workings
of nature. Where he relatively failed it was on account of
caution, from a dread of premature guesses, from a reluctance to
cast aside theories or explanations that had got the sanction of
time . His endeavour was not to propound ingenious speculations,
but to place on a sound basis of observation the two new sciences,
Geology and Meteorology, to set an example to his successors both
of the spirit and the method in which these studies should be
carried on. He did this with a combination of perseverance and
patience, and an indifference to personal fame, which have been
rarely equalled.

De Saussure not only stamped with his authority the word Geo-
logy, he constituted the science as a distinct branch of geophysics,
or what was then called Physical Geography. He made it the
study that does for the past history of the globe what geography
does for its present condition. Both by his precept and example
he helped to start and direct his successors on the right track.
He was the first to give the science a method as well as a name ;

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 443

he taught its students not to make random and romantic guesses,
but to collect, and reason from, carefully observed facts. He
demonstrated that it was their business to use the picture of the
earth presented by the geographer, and the particulars as to the
composition of its surface supplied by the mineralogist, as a
starting-point for ascertaining, as far as possible, the manner and
dates of its structural changes. Geologists had, he argued, to
pursue their task by close investigation of the material at hand,
by examining carefully the relative situations of the rocks and
their strata, and finally by testing their chemical composition.

To de Saussure's merits as a writer, apart from his qualifica-
tions 8(8 a man of science, many excellent critics have borne
testimony. First of these in order of time (1810) comes Cuvier l
in the official Eloge I have already quoted. De Candolle, Topffer,
Alphonse Favre, Sainfce-Beuve, Sayous, have all paid their tribute
to the charm to be found in the Voyages by the persevering reader.

Ruskin throughout his life was enthusiastic in his appreciation ;
he chose, he tells us, for his present on his fifteenth birthday a copy
of the Voyages, and in his works he frequently refers to de
Saussure in enthusiastic terms.2 Yet in this country the Voyages
are little read, and, despite the fashion for Alpine literature,
command but a low price.

What are the grounds of this relative neglect ? In his own
day de Saussure was criticised for carelessness and a certain
provincialism in his style, for the absence of the ornamental
phraseology customary in works of that date, and for a homeliness
alleged to be beneath the dignity of so great a subject. The public
missed the sounding phrases of Buff on, the sentimentality of
Rousseau and Bonnet, even, perhaps, the stilted and clumsy
rhapsodies of J. A. Deluc, Senebier, and Bourrit. The modern
reader will base his criticism on different grounds. His first and
most obvious objection will be that the great work has no unity,
that it is made up of various ingredients, which have not been
sufficiently fused. Many of its chapters, he finds, are mixtures of
a geologist's notebook and a traveller's impressions. Others are

1 Mr. C. E. Mathews was inexact in writing of biographies by Cuvier and de
Candolle. Their notices are not more than short articles.

2 In Prceterita he hails him as ' Papa Saussure.' Mr. Mumm has recently
pointed out that Ruskin followed in de Saussure's footsteps by climbing the
Buet. (Alpine Journal, voL xxxii. p. 328.)

444 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

independent treatises on very diverse scientific and miscellaneous
subjects, such as Glaciers, Hypsometry, Electricity, Meteorology,
Subterranean and Submarine Temperatures, even Cretins and
Albinos. The literary critic may further complain that there
is no attempt at arrangement or effect, that the descriptions of
landscapes are, with certain noble exceptions, apt to be colourless
and baldly topographical, while even a geologist may find too
many details of day by day observations, which might have been
further condensed and better arranged.

The Voyages, it must be admitted, is not in its original form a
book for the general reader. Any judicious publisher nowadays
would advise the author to divide the material between three sepa-
rate works — a volume of Alpine Travels, another of Geological
Observations, and a third of miscellaneous Scientific Essays.
French readers owe a debt to M. Sayous for having shown how
easy it was to separate the travel from the geology and the science,
and to present the former to the public in a convenient form.
Except in the omission of the Preface, a valuable autobiographical
document, M. Sayous performed his task with excellent judgment,
though the reader may regret the absence of some of de Saussure's
lighter incidents, such as the story of the ' Baillif ' of Val Maggia.1

De Saussure's reason for publishing his Voyages in the
ponderous form he did is intelligible. He did not write for the
general public, or for the reader in search of amusement. The
Voyages were to him his monument, the record of his life's work,
put forth in order to aid men of similar pursuits to follow in his
footsteps and carry on his investigations. He regarded his
travels as a part and incident of his scientific career. Even the
conquest of Mont Blanc, though to himself it might be a matter of
intense personal interest,2 he treated as a means to a scientific
end, a subject for a chapter rather than a volume. Mont Blanc,
he writes, 'is one of the mountains of Europe the exploration of
which would help to throw light on the theory of the earth.' 3

1 An eight- volume octavo edition was published contemporaneously with the
quarto volumes, between 1780 and 1796. It was reissued complete in 1803.
M. Sayous' abridgment in one volume of the Partie Pittoresque has been frequently
reproduced in France.

2 Note his desire that Mont Blanc should be conspicuously introduced in
his official portrait by Saint-Ours, p. 387.

8 Voyages, vol. i., Introduction to ' Tour of Mont Blanc.'

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 445

What would his friend and successor in the Chair of Philosophy,
Marc Pictet, have thought of his master had he committed such
an indiscretion as to publish a work of Alpine adventure ? ' How
little merit and glory there is,' wrote the worthy Professor, 'in
risking one's life in feats of prowess in which the most ordinary
rope-dancer will always excel the traveller who thinks to give
proof of his steady head, or of his agility, in these dangerous tours
de force I ' 1 Such apparently was the view a citizen at Geneva,
who was himself one of the few Alpine travellers at the time, took
of mountain-climbing for its own sake. De Saussure was for-
tunate in having ' a serious aim ' to justify and even ennoble
his adventure in the eyes of his colleagues and contemporaries.
A week after his return from Mont Blanc the Moderator of the
Venerable Company of Pastors and Professors was empowered to
present their late Secretary with the compliments of the Company
on his success in ' carrying out a project formed for the advance
of science.'

In the concluding sentences of his Preface de Saussure tells us
that style and literary success were very secondary considerations
with him. It is obvious that he makes no endeavour for artistic
effect or arrangement ; his one aim is to give as simply and
directly as possible all the facts bearing on his subject, great or
little, that he possesses. He does not overlook the incidents of
the road and the humours of its chance encounters, or eschew
practical matters, such as clothes, equipment, or even details
such as the proper length of an alpenstock — de Saussure 's was
eight feet long ! — or the best form of crampons. Above all, he is
never on literary stilts ; in the age of sensibility he stands for
sense ; though no one can read his pages, or, still better, his
private letters carefully, without recognising that he was a man
of sentiment. But he was averse to its public display ; he was
constitutionally opposed to exaggeration of any kind. In all he
writes there is an obvious accuracy of observation and language,
a mixture of frankness and restraint, an unselfish and impartial
attitude that win our absolute confidence. He is not only a man

1 See some very sensible practical hints as to the use of guides, costume,
and nailed boots, published by Professor Pictet in 1800 in the Bibliotheque
Britannique, vol. xiv., and reprinted in Leschevin's Voyage a Qen&ve et dans la
Vdltte de Chamouni, 1812. These show that the amiable Professor was an Alpine
traveller, if not a climber.

446 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT BE &AU6SURE

of science, but a great gentleman and a pleasant companion.
An aristocrat who dreaded Rousseau's influence on Genevese
politics, he had assimilated some of Rousseau's more generous
ideas (it is recorded that Bonnet read Emile out loud to his family),
and he had a very warm sympathy for the mountain people as
well as a love for the mountains. This appears throughout his
pages, but particularly in the chapter given to the Chamoniards,
which is full of charming touches. He was obviously a shrewd
judge of character, but he is never unkindly, though apt to be
severe to anyone who trespasses on his forbearance in scientific
matters. His reserve or self-restraint is sometimes suggestive,
notably in his treatment of Bourrit, who must at times have been
extremely tiresome.

The illustrations and maps in the Voyages are, I must confess,
inadequate and disappointing. De Saussure's appreciation of art
was, he says himself, limited, and his journals prove it. His
taste for painting, so far as he had any, would seem to have lain
in the direction of genre pictures. He refers once or twice to
Teniers, and he had some drawings by Hogarth in his possession
at the time of his death. He was certainly unfortunate in his
choice of artists to illustrate his great work. All that can be said
for the plates is that they are better than Griiner's deplorable
travesties. Nor can it fairly be urged that there were no better
artists available. In 1780 the first volume of Laborde's lavishly
illustrated work, already referred to, was issued.1 Between that
date and 1785 the long list of craftsmen catalogued in Ebel's
Guide were most of them at work. Linck, Hackert, Wolf,
Lory, Bacler d'Albe, our countryman William Pars, and others
were producing the innumerable prints, both plain and coloured,
of mountain landscapes which still attract connoisseurs and
are seen at sales. Unfortunately, de Saussure was content
to go to the man who was nearest at hand. Bourrit, on whom
he most relied, was meant for a miniaturist ; he had all the
prettinesses and pettinesses of the craft. He drew mountains,
as it were, under protest ; he was always doing his best to soften
their ' horrors,' he was delighted whenever possible to introduce

1 It is curious that in the long list of subscribers to these volumes there is not
one from Geneva. There are over ninety from England, among them de Saua-
eure's relative and correspondent, R. H. A. Bennet.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 447

a bosquet or to turn a glacier torrent into a tranquil trout
stream. In the little headpieces and in the illustrations to his
own books we meet Bourrit in his natural style. At de Saussure's
instance, and no doubt under his eyes, he made an effort to
adopt a bolder method in order to show rock structure. But his
plates are poor things compared with the better art of his day.
Theodore de Saussure's sketches from the Col du Geant have some
vigour, and for the date are creditable. But his attempt to draw
Monte Rosa from Macugnaga is a sad failure. The most im-
pressive illustration in the Voyages, perhaps, is one of Mont Blanc
from Val Ferret by Bartolozzi, a Florentine artist, not to be
confused with the famous engraver, or his son. De Saussure
himself did not add any artistic talent to his many accomplish-
ments, though he once tried to sketch Monte Rosa from Vercelli,
and made some rough diagrams near .the Devil's Bridge on
the St. Grotthard. He missed the chance of giving the world
the first outline of the stupendous obelisk of the Matterhorn.
The Mont Cervin, as it was then called, seems to have failed to
make the unique impression on the early travellers that it did
on all nineteenth -century visitors to Zermatt.

The illustrations to the Voyages, however, if of little artistic
value, have, as de Saussure himself urges, at least the merit of an
attempt, occasionally successful, at fidelity and of an obvious
desire to avoid exaggeration. But of the maps, though again
de Saussure writes of them with respect, it is impossible not to
endorse the severe comment of Forbes — ' Of these it is hardly pos-
sible to speak too disparagingly.' After making due allowance
for the date and the state of Alpine cartography, they are sadly
wanting, even as eye-sketches. De Saussure must surely have
been influenced by friendship when he gave the map of the
chain of Mont Blanc provided by Jean L. Pictet credit for
accuracy. The area of the sources of the Mer de Glace, it is
true, is approximately indicated, but no attempt is made to
separate the basins of the glaciers at either end of the range.
Anyone who had climbed the Buet ought to have learned more
of their relations. De Saussure, on the whole, contributed
singularly little to Alpine cartography. It is, I think, evident
that he had a geologic rather than an orographic eye.

The modern mountaineer is apt to think he has tendered his

448 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

mite to knowledge when he has put for the first time the peaks and
passes and glacier basins of the district he is exploring in their
proper places on the map. The modern geologist can ill afford
to neglect the details of orography, but at the date of de
Saussure's labours, to a mind full of the deepest problems
of geology and absorbed in abstruse investigations into the
past story of the earth, the exact relations to one another
of a particular group of mountains may have seemed matters
of secondary interest. The fact remains that de Saussure
made little use of his opportunities to improve the maps of
either the Mont Blanc or the Monte Rosa groups. The
identifications in Bourrit's panorama from the top of the Buet,
which with two exceptions de Saussure specifically endorses,
are many of them fantastic. Bourrit's Furka is apparently the
Bietschhorn, and his 'St. Plomb ' (sic) the Monte Leone, un-
happy illustrations of de Saussure's remark that passes being
depressions in a chain, and inconspicuous in distant views, their
name is often applied to — more or less — adjacent summits.

Finally, in all our criticism, literary or artistic, of the Voyages,
we must continually remind ourselves that de Saussure's fixed
purpose was to produce not an attractive volume of Travel, but
a solid contribution to Natural Science, and that he subordinated
all else to this intention. We must further endeavour to realise
to what an extent he had to find his own way and clear a path for
others in his scientific researches. In estimating the importance
of his lifework we must compare it, not with our knowledge to-day,
but with the work of those who went before him. There were
some brave men at Berne and Zurich, but de Saussure was the
Agamemnon of Alpine science.

Besides being a traveller and an author, de Saussure was a
Professor of Metaphysics. In the eighteenth century Philosophy
covered a multitude of subjects. The double duties of its two
Professors in the Academy of Geneva * were set out in a scheme
very alien to our modern ideas. They were expected to lecture
alternately, one year on Physics, that is, Natural Science, in French,
the next on Metaphysics in Latin. De Saussure was therefore

1 The Academy in the eighteenth century had no local habitation. The
1 Auditoire de Philosophic ' was in the Chapelle des Maccabees, adjacent to the
Cathedral.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 449

compelled to devote much of his time and mind, and to neglect
his special pursuits, in order to prepare discourses on a subject
for which, it may without injustice be said, he had no particular
vocation, while his life-study was dealt with by a clerical Latinist.
It is significant that beyond the lecture -room he never took any
steps to put his philosophic tenets before the public. Had not
one of his successors in the University, himself a distinguished
metaphysician, the late Ernest Naville, discovered the note-
books of some members of his own family who were among de
Saussure's pupils, this branch of his work might have passed into
oblivion, and posterity would have had to be content with the
official testimony borne to de Saussure's success by his colleagues.
This was of no doubtful warmth. The following is a minute of
the meeting of the senate of the Academy on the 23rd January
1799, a few days after de Saussure's death :

' Readiness of speech, clearness in arrangement, choice and wealth
of observed facts, judgment and wisdom in the consequences he drew
from them, profundity in his views ; these were the distinguishing
qualities in his lectures, of which his numerous pupils in this Company
will never lose the memory. He did not separate Physics and Philo-
sophy from those great conceptions without which Nature, restricted
to Matter, would present an inexplicable enigma. Natural Theology,
coupled with the doctrine of the independent existence and immor-
tality of the soul, formed an essential portion of his teaching.'

It would appear from the terms of this tribute that de Saussure
had been fully successful in dissipating the fears expressed by
the Venerable Company at the date of his election, that the
preponderance physical studies were everywhere attaining might
be detrimental to the interests of religion and the higher philo-
sophy as taught in the Academy ; while it may well be, as
Professor Borgeaud suggests, that the obligation laid on him by
the double lectureship helped to broaden his views and extend
his intellectual horizon. In 1762, the moment was, no doubt,
an anxious one for all established modes of thought, whether
in politics or religion. In that year Rousseau's Emile and Con-
trat Social were burnt by the public executioner at Geneva. At
Paris the great Encyclopaedia was in course of publication. The
philosophy in vogue was materialism ; the doctrines of Hobbes,
of Voltaire, and of Holbach. In his youth de Saussure's mind

2F

450 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

had been formed under the influence of two men who were both
strongly opposed to this tendency of the age, and who clung to
idealism, coupled, in Bonnet's case, with a broad Christianity,
and in Haller's with a morbid form of Protestantism. There was,
I imagine, little that was original in de Saussure's philosophical
lectures, and their chief importance for us is as further indications
of the bent of his intellect, and of the cautious, if open-minded,
attitude which characterised him in all matters, both of research
and speculation. It may be interesting if, without attempting to
follow in any detail de Saussure's expositions as reproduced by
Naville, I attempt briefly to indicate his general line of thought.
In the fundamental controversy that divided the philosophic
world in the years preceding the French Revolution de Saussure
was not on the side of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists. He
was frankly opposed to the wave of materialism that was spreading
from France over Western Europe. He affirmed strenuously
the existence of spirit, and that the connection with matter, in
which alone we know it, is temporary and unessential ; he
regarded body and soul as concomitants capable of action on
each other. He believed in free will, without which there can be,
he argued, no morality. He postulated the existence of a supreme
energy or Being outside creation, who not only sets it going but
keeps it running, who, in philosophical language, is not only
transcendent but also immanent. To this Being, whom he
designated God, he attributed a benevolence which calls for the
worship and gratitude of mankind. He affirmed the survival of
the human soul on the ground that, unlike the body, it is one and
indivisible, and incapable, therefore, of dissolution, and he held
that a future life is postulated as a sanction for morality in the
present. He urged that the desire for immortality implanted
in mankind may be taken as an argument in its favour,
and that the creative will would appear to have endowed the
soul with a tendency to progress towards its own ultimate
perfection. He was careful to separate philosophy from re-
ligion— at any rate, from its established forms. But he avoided
in any way committing himself to a positive attitude towards
current creeds ; he goes no further than the negative statement
that there is nothing in philosophy to make a special intervention
of God in the world incredible, and that we ought to receive

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 451

with respect any alleged revelation that recommends itself to our
intellects as coming from a benevolent Creator.

I quote a portion of the summary given by Naville of the
scientific method adopted by de Saussure :

' While maintaining very firmly the distinction between philosophy
and traditional religion, de Saussure did not regard this distinction
as an opposition, and he was careful to admit the possibility of a
special revelation of the Divinity.

' Science thus established in absolute freedom, what are the methods
she should use in the construction of her theories ? This question
brings to the front the secular dispute between Empiricism and
Rationalism, between the pretension to construct a system a priori
and the affirmation that it is by the observation of facts that we can
discover the laws that govern them. De Saussure evades both these
dangers. He makes a firm stand against rationalism, and his reputa-
tion, as is well known, rests in great part on his having proved himself
an observer of the first rank without ever committing himself to a
system. He was in the habit of telling his class : " We are not the
schoolmasters of Nature, but the scholars of Experience." Following
in the steps of Galileo, he urged not only observation, but that it should
be conducted with the utmost precision. To count, to weigh, to
measure, such is the task of the Natural Student. His feelings on
this subject drew from him the impatient exclamation : " Some fool
has said that accuracy is the virtue of fools," and he went on — " Yet
it is the fact that no trustworthy results were acquired in Physical
Research until men had learnt to give up flights of imagination for
the rule and the compass of the mathematician, and to study nature
in detail with the aid of the barometer, the thermometer, the hydro-
meter, the pluviometer, etc." 1

' If de Saussure is very far from rationalism, he does not allow
himself to be drawn by a blind reaction into the waters of empiricism.
He recognises that observation is the essential condition of serious
science, but he also recognises that observation, though the basis and
controller of theories, is not by itself capable of their invention, and
he asserts the place of hypothesis. " Analogy and hypothesis, in
accordance with the use that is made of them, are fruitful sources of
truth and error." It was in this sense he expressed himself in the
essays which he was called on to produce in the contest for the Chair

1 De Saussure leaves out the fact, well known to the historians of science,
that he had himself invented or perfected many of the instruments essential to
exact observations. — D. W« F.

452 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of Philosophy, which was awarded him. " Geology," which at a later
date became his favourite study, was well suited to confirm his views
in this respect. . . . The geologist less than any other man of science
can doubt the place and the need for hypothesis in the pursuit of his
study. In the salon of the Society of Arts at Geneva there is a fine
portrait of de Saussure by Saint-Ours. The geologist holds in one of
his hands a hammer resting on the native rock ; the other grasps a frag-
ment of stone, but his look is upward and seeks the idea. The idea
discovered, he must turn to the hammer and the stone to verify it, but
the idea does not mount from the ground, it must descend from the
heights of the intellect. This portrait is a speaking symbol of the true
scientific method — observation, theory, verification.'1

The general impression derived from Naville's essay is that
de Saussure's metaphysics were very largely mixed, as might
be expected, with physics. While a man of a deeply religious
mind, he shows very little sympathy with dogmatism. In this
attitude he was the inheritor of Chouet and Turrettini, whose
influence had done much to soften Genevese Calvinism. His
attempted harmonising of physiology and psychology seems to
have been very largely derived from Bonnet, who was far from a
clear thinker, and by modern lights much of it must be judged
obsolete. De Saussure took pains to keep his philosophy — he did
not pretend that it was original, or endeavour to perpetuate it apart
from his pupils' notebooks — distinct from his religion, and his
religion almost entirely to himself. He was, however, a resolute
opponent of the fashionable materialism of the century, and more
than once gave forcible expression to his deep sense of the value
of a religious faith in meeting the troubles of life.

Even in his course of Metaphysics the practical man and the
scientist in de Saussure at times crop up curiously. Under the
head of Logic he treats of Physiology, and in describing the
functions of the senses, he deals with the means of keeping
them in good order. He recommends out-of-door exercise, tem-
perance in drink, and abstinence from tobacco, the solace of so
many modern philosophers. He even makes an excursion into

1 E. Naville, ' La Philosophic d'Horace Benedict de Saussure,' Seances et
Travaux de TAcadimie des Sciences morales et politiques, vol. cxx. pp. 92, 350 ; and
' Horace Benedict de Saussure et sa Philosophic d'apres des documents inedits '
(Bibliotheque Universelle, Mars-Mai, 1883). The passages quoted above are given
by Professor Borgeaud in his Histoire de rUniversite de Gen&ve, 1900.

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 463

Eugenics. Here we recognise the influence of Tronchin, as else-
where that of Bonnet.

De Saussure was not only a man of science and a Professor
of Philosophy, he also to the end of his life remained a scholar.
On the title-page of his Voyages he quotes two lines from Ovid,
which might equally have served Darwin :

' Nee species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix
Ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras.' 1

On the first page of the last volume he cites Homer, and elsewhere
Lucretius. During his long detention at Chamonix by bad
weather in 1787 he diverted his thoughts by reading the Iliad,
and a copy of Horace figures among the ' requisites ' for his
'Voyage au Mont Blanc.' In his later years he wrote a confi-
dential diary in Greek. In 1792 he gave the lecture already
referred to at the Society of Arts, ' On the Lack of any Expression
of the Sentiment of Gratitude in Greek Literature,' at which Gibbon
was one of the audience.2

In the preceding pages I have endeavoured, to the best
of my ability, to set out and estimate de Saussure 's qualities
and activities in the various stations of life which he was called
on to occupy ; to present him as the centre of a family and a
member of a brilliant society, as a citizen, as a professor and
practical educational reformer, as an observer and experimentalist
in many branches of science, and last, but not least, from the
point of view in which he has been most generally regarded, as
an Alpine traveller and author.

In so doing I have watched, forming itself slowly before my
eyes, the picture of a very definite and distinguished personality.
If I can to any extent succeed in transmitting it to my readers
I shall have attained my object. To me the great geologist and
the conqueror of Mont Blanc stands revealed in his published
works, and still more in the diaries and intimate correspondence
which I have been allowed to handle, as a singularly attractive
figure. As a son, a husband, and a father, in every family relation,
he showed a warmth of affection which happily met with a full

1 Metamorphoses, bk. xv., line 252. The following lines run :
' Nee perit in tanto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo,

Sed variat, faciemque novat, nascique vocatur.'
8 See p. 359.

454 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

return. His letters to his wife remained love-letters even after
their silver-wedding day ; he was adored by his children, two
of whom were inspired by his example . He made friends wherever
he went, in Paris and England as well as at Geneva. He was, it is
obvious, fond of society and played a prominent part in it. Full
of human sympathies, an interested spectator of the game of life,
he was himself an interesting member of whatever circle he found
himself in, whether the salons of Paris, or the country houses of
England, or the cottages of the peasantry of the Alps.

The Upper Town of Geneva at that date was, as we have
seen, much divided into clubs and coteries, and its social habits
and bent of mind were apt to be found formal and stiff by
visitors from the Seine. De Saussure was free from this
provincialism — still less had he of the proverbial dryness of a
professor ; his science was happily mixed with sentiment. He
enjoyed conversation, and seems soon to have overcome his
youthful shyness. I have quoted (p. 103) his avowal of ' a
passion for all ladies at once charming and interested in natural
science,' and the great ladies, attracted and perhaps a little
piqued by the agreeable young philosopher, protested in their
letters that they returned a sentiment which in his case seems
never to have gone beyond friendship. Perhaps the most vivid
sketch of de Saussure in society is one given in a note written
to him about 1790 by Madame Necker :

' It is not without real regret that I give up the hope of seeing
you this evening. You must be conscious of the charm which you
carry with you in our circle ; everyone feels its influence, but no
one perhaps as much as I do. Often while listening to you and letting
myself be carried away by the gentle gaiety which graces all you say,
I forget Paris, or rather I feel I have found a reflection of it which is
better than the original.'

At the same time, like most people who enjoy social inter-
course, he had a considerable capacity for social suffering, and he
did not suffer boredom gladly. He was constitutionally impatient
of irrelevant or unsound criticism, whether in speech or writing.
When he was really annoyed he drew off the gloves and hit out
straight at any unlucky opponent, such as J. A. Deluc, or the
German who asserted glacier movement to be an impossibility.
Companionable as he seems to have been, he made many of his

DE SAUSSURE IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 455

journeys without a fellow-traveller. He accounts for this in
a letter describing his 1767 tour of Mont Blanc, where he says
that his friends hurried him on from Courmayeur before he had
completed his work. On the road also he was doubtless kept
fully occupied with his notes, and gained by the absence of any
distraction. In his dealings with that flighty enthusiast, Bourrit,
he was called on for considerable forbearance, which (if he had
sometimes to administer private rebukes) he never failed to show
in his published writings. Young Bourrit 's diary at Chamonix
in 1787 shows that, short of letting them join in his expedition,
de Saussure was willing to treat the worthy but vainglorious
Precentor and his progeny with much kindliness.

In Genevese politics de Saussure 's position was remarkable.
Born in and closely allied to the old patrician families, he from
his youth up clearly foresaw that a great popular movement was
approaching throughout Europe, though he probably failed to
anticipate how soon the storm would break. An aristocrat by
birth and association, he was at heart a liberal, ready to work
for the education of the democracy of the future. His inclina-
tions did not draw him towards taking a part in the day by
day politics of the town, in the constantly recurring struggles
between the stubbornness of the Councils and the insistent
claims of the burghers and newcomers. Separated though he
was both by birth and by mental habit from Rousseau, whom
his circle, and Charles Bonnet in particular, denounced as a rash
and dangerous agitator, there was a fundamental sympathy in
politics between the two men. Rousseau's dictum, 'An aristo-
cracy is the best form of government (i.e. administration), but the
worst of sovereignty,' comes near to expressing the ultimate
object of de Saussure 's efforts during his last years, when he took
an active part in the attempt to remodel the constitution of
Geneva.

Early in life, as soon as he was in a position to make his
influence felt, he had come forward with a forcible appeal to his
fellow-citizens to prepare for the new order by educating their
future masters. At the time he was recognised by the unen-
franchised classes of the town as their champion, and looked on
with grave suspicion by his associates of the Venerable Company.
The opposition, apparently unexpected, he met with on this

456 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

question roused him for the moment to vigorous controversy,
and left him permanently disheartened at his colleagues' narrow-
ness of outlook. For some years he remained aloof from political
affairs, until the times grew critical, when he gave his best energies
to a most gallant attempt to save the Republic. He failed, and
may, I think, truly be said to have killed himself in the attempt.
For it seems certain that it was not so much the hardships of
the Col du G4ant in 1788 as the disorders which culminated in the
murders on the bastion in 1794, which led to the succession of
paralytic strokes that brought his life to a premature close.1

De Saussure's mind was singularly exempt from the foibles
that beset so many investigators. Well content if he could suc-
ceed in laying solid foundations for others to build on, he was
loath to waste time in disputes over claims to priority in discovery.
His main object was to give his successors an example ot the plan
and method by which the new science of geology might best be
advanced. The record of travel and research embodied in the
four volumes of the Voyages remains as his legacy to posterity
and his best monument. His fellow-citizens have held it a
sufficient one, and it has been left to others to preserve his
memory with the crowd by the erection at Chamonix of the
picturesque group (representing Jacques Balmat pointing out to
de Saussure the way up Mont Blanc) which records the most
striking incident in a career full of the very varied activities to
which in the preceding pages I have endeavoured to do some
tardy justice.

1 See on de Saussure's constitution and illness the medical report of his
physician, Dr. Odier, p. 129, and de Candolle's obituary notice.

A NOTE ON

THE METEOROLOGICAL WORK AND OBSERVATIONS ON
DEEP TEMPERATURES OF H. B. DE SAUSSURE

BY H. R. MILL, D.Sc., LL.D.

IN the second half of the eighteenth century the observational
sciences were only beginning to differentiate themselves from
the general study of Natural History and Natural Philosophy.
Meteorology was recognised as including observations of atmo-
spheric phenomena, but it was neither defined nor formulated.
Observations of the barometer, the thermometer, and the rain
gauge had been kept up intermittently for many years at a
few observatories and by a few travellers in distant parts of the
earth ; but with the exception of Halley's Theory of the Trade
Winds, these had led to no broad generalisations. Rapid progress
was taking place in the construction of instruments. The
barometer had been made sufficiently portable to be used for
determining the height of mountains ; the horrible diversity
of thermometer scales had been so far overcome that three amongst
the dozens which had been put forward had attained definite
prominence and that of Reaumur was fairly established on the
Continent. Hygroscopes, mostly based on the 'weather-house'
principle of changes in the length of a piece of cat -gut by absorbing
moisture, were common ; but these were useless for comparative
purposes owing to the want of any consistent method of graduating
the scale. As to the measurement of other meteorological
conditions each observer devised his own instruments, and the
methods of using the instruments varied according to the fancy
or the intelligence of the observer.

While the barometer was in principle perfect from its invention
by Torricelli, its use was hampered in de Saussure's time by the
clumsiness of the subdivisions of units of measurement. His
observations were made in inches, lines (12 to an inch), sixteenths
of lines, and finally tenths of sixteenths, the task of adding up and
averaging a series of observations being thus a formidable piece of
compound addition and division.

De Saussure was not so much concerned with the advancement

467

458 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

of meteorology as with the application of meteorological methods
to the measurement of heights and to the explanation of the
differences between atmospheric phenomena at different altitudes.
So far as I have been able to ascertain he never proposed a system
of national observations, nor attempted to map any of the elements
of climate, an advance which was reserved for Humboldt in the
next generation. Like Franklin, he was inclined to attribute
more importance to electricity than to heat in controlling meteoro-
logical phenomena, though he did recognise the vital relation of
heat to evaporation and condensation of water vapour as fully as
was possible before the foundations of thermodynamics had been
laid.

The most striking characteristics of de Saussure as a meteoro-
logical observer were his extraordinary skill in manipulating
delicate instruments in almost impossible conditions and his
accuracy in reading and recording. He differed from the majority
of his contemporaries also in not making observations for their
own sake. He always had some definite problem in mind, and
the ingenuity with which he planned and executed his experiments
was matched by the lucidity of his reasoning on the results. He
had the mind of a true experimental philosopher, being singularly
free from prepossessions and apparently quite without prejudices.
He had the advantage of living at a period when no standards of
scientific orthodoxy had been set up, and there were no recognised
authorities whose views, in so far as they were erroneous, an
investigator had to contend against. As yet such authorities
had not arisen, and the field was free from all obstructions.

Chemists had already demonstrated the fact that atmospheric
air consisted of a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen with a small
proportion of carbonic acid, but the proportion of oxygen or vital
air was believed to vary considerably from place to place, hence
it was assumed that the healthiness of a district depended on a
larger proportion of oxygen being present in the air, and the use
of the eudiometer for measuring this proportion was popular with
scientific travellers. The methods of determination were crude
and the results obtained are now known to be fallacious. How-
ever, de Saussure and his son believed that they found indications
of a reduced proportion of oxygen at high mountain stations, and
this is in accordance with modern theory. The facts, however,
lie outside meteorology.

The finest piece of pure meteorological observation which de
Saussure carried out was on the Col du Geant at an altitude of
1 1 ,030 feet above sea-level from the 5th to the 1 8th July 1788. This
may indeed be looked on as the first establishment of a mountain

METEOROLOGY AND DEEP TEMPERATURES 459

meteorological station, and showed that de Saussure had a very
sound knowledge of what should be done at such an observatory.
In those days there were no self-recording instruments, and de
Saussure did his best to secure readings at uniform intervals
throughout the whole period, arranging for simultaneous observa-
tions to be made at Chamonix (3445 feet) and Geneva (1230 feet).
A full transcript of the whole of the observations from de Saussure 's
original copy was published by his grandson in 1891 in the Memoir es
of the Geneva Physical and Natural History Society on the
occasion of its centenary. Only a summary of the results appears
in the Voyages dans les Alpes. Observations of a very accurate
mercurial barometer which required much care were made as far
as possible every two hours from 4 A.M. to midnight, with the
definite object of ascertaining the daily range in order to find the
best hour of the day for the barometric determination of height.
From various causes, more often affecting the low-level observa-
tions than those on the mountain, a detailed comparison could
only be made for the period of twelve hours from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M.,
but these gave results of great interest and value. It is certainly
remarkable that observations extending over only half the day and
continued for a single fortnight, should have revealed the order of
diurnal range which has been confirmed by years of continuous
observation at high and low level observatories a hundred years
after his time.

He showed clearly that the hour of the two daily maxima and
minima of barometric pressure differed with altitude. Hence
he deduced the practical conclusion that observations of the
barometer for measuring heights are best made about noon, when
both high and low levels have nearly their mean daily pressure.
In the morning and evening the range at high and low levels is at
opposite extremes, hence at those times the risk of error in height
determinations is at its maximum.

Temperature observations were made also at two -hourly
intervals from 4 A.M. to midnight and compared with those at
lower stations. These showed a diminution of temperature on
the average of 1° Reaumur for 100 toises, or 1° Fahrenheit for
282 feet, an extremely close approximation to the value now
generally accepted.

Recognising that there was a greater range of temperature
between day and night and between summer and winter near sea-
level than at higher altitudes, he calculated that at heights of
between 7000 and 8000 toises (say 40,000 feet) the temperature of
the air would be uniform at all hours and at all seasons — in other
words, that the air at such a height would neither be warmed nor

460 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

cooled by radiation. He also reasoned from the diminution of
temperature by arithmetical progression as the height increased
that reduction of temperature would go on increasingly until it
reached the uniform condition of interplanetary space. Modern
researches on the upper air show that this is not the case, but that
the rate of diminution of temperature decreases as the height
increases, until at about 40,000 feet the fall of temperature
practically ceases and the stratosphere or portion of the atmosphere
above that level remains throughout at a uniform low temperature,
far higher however than the absolute zero which may be supposed
to prevail in interplanetary space.

De Saussure took occasion to make a careful comparison
between the readings of a thermometer freely exposed to the
sun's rays and that of a similar instrument equally open to the
air but shaded from the sun. He found that the difference
between the readings was greatest in the morning and evening and
least at noon. This he believed to be due to the fact that wind
was usually strongest in the middle of the day, and the excess of
heat was then more rapidly carried off from the exposed bulb.
He rightly grasped the importance of using shade temperatures
as the true temperature of the air, and also of securing a strong
current of air across the thermometer bulb to ensure full contact.
For this purpose he devised the sling thermometer, the instru-
ment being suspended by a string which was whirled rapidly
through the air.

Deluc had advised the use of temperature in the sun for
reducing barometric heights, and loosely explained the variations
in the readings of sun-thermometers as due to ' local causes.'
De Saussure, however, showed in a convincing way that it was
due to an inherent vice in the thermometer itself, the upper part
of the bulb being thicker than the lower and thus opposing a
greater resistance to heating when the rays fell at a high angle
than when they fell at a low angle. This, rather than the stronger
winds at noon, should probably also be held to account for
the difference in the diurnal variations in the sun and shade
thermometers.

De Saussure devoted much time to observations on the electri-
fication and the transparency of the air, on the colour of the sky,
and on the rate of various chemical reactions at different levels.
Into these we cannot enter in detail, as they were all of minor
importance compared with his researches on evaporation and
atmospheric humidity.

De Saussure 's name lives in Meteorology as the father of
Hygrometry. His Essai sur I'Hygrometrie, published in 1783,

METEOROLOGY AND DEEP TEMPERATURES 461

may still be read as a model of scientific experiment and reasoning.
He discussed the whole question of moisture in the atmosphere,
including evaporation and condensation, and although the state
of physical science was not then advanced enough to allow him
to perfect a theory, he made very important practical advances.
He showed that temperature was the governing condition of
humidity, that for every temperature there was a certain amount
of water vapour which could be held in the air ; when that amount
was reached, evaporation stopped, and if the temperature fell,
condensation took place, or if the temperature rose, evaporation
could be resumed. The higher the temperature, the greater is
the amount of vapour which can be taken up. These facts were
proved by experiments of the utmost simplicity and completeness,
skilfully devised so as to eliminate disturbing causes and described
with admirable precision. There are practically only two prin-
ciples on which a hygrometer can be constructed for measuring
the humidity of the atmosphere — (1) the variation in volume or
weight of a hygroscopic substance which absorbs moisture from
the atmosphere, and (2) the fall of temperature produced by
evaporation. De Saussure experimented with both methods,
but unfortunately he decided that the hygroscopic was the better.
Meteorologists of the next generation reverted to the temperature
method, and thus it came about that the dew-point hygrometer
and the wet and dry bulb thermometers came into use for the
determination both of absolute and relative humidity. The great
disadvantage of these is that somewhat elaborate tables have to be
used in order to convert the thermometer readings into percentage
of relative humidity or absolute humidity, as the case may be.
De Saussure adopted as his hygrometer a single human hair fixed
at one end and attached at the other to an index finger which
moved along a graduated arc as the hair lengthened by absorbing
or shortened by losing moisture. The graduations represented
relative humidities directly ; but each instrument required to
be graduated by direct experiment. The single-hair hygrometer
in its original form gave good results in the hands of its inventor,
but it was very delicate, required careful handling, and in the course
of time the indications became less sensitive. Since the intro-
duction of self-recording instruments the use of the hair hygro-
meter has revived, and it is now employed in the hygrograph,
utilising a number of hairs instead of one, and acting on a lever
carrying a pen which records the relative humidity on a moving
drum. Thus, after more than a century of neglect, the principle
which was so dear to de Saussure has again been adopted, and is
likely to continue in use.

462 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

De Saussure used his hygrometer as frequently as he did
the barometer and the thermometer, and by its means he dis-
covered that the atmosphere was subject to great variations
of humidity by night as well as by day. These he was unable
to explain, but they were probably associated with Fohn (a
phenomenon which, so far as I have been able to ascertain from
studying the index to the Voyages dans les Alpes, de Saussure did
not investigate). One interesting point noted was that at night
the lowest humidities on the Col du Geant occurred when the
humidity at Chamonix was relatively high. Dealing with the
question of the rate of evaporation, he showed that on the Col
du Geant a given rise of temperature evaporated three times the
weight of water that it did at low levels, a well-known fact
associated with diminution of pressure now used commercially
in the vacuum pans for concentrating sugar solutions and the
like.

De Saussure was unable to deal fully with the temperature
relations of evaporation, because, as he regretfully acknowledged,
there was no method of determining the absolute zero of tem-
perature. The advancement of science has found such a method,
and meteorologists are now beginning to reckon temperature
from the absolute zero on account of the facility it gives to thermo-
dynamic calculations.

The innumerable observations on storms, mist, and haze
made by de Saussure in the course of his wanderings are full of
interest, and he often detected facts the full explanation of which
was beyond the reach of the science of his day. His observations
on the formation of cloud were particularly interesting, and their
value is not much affected by the assumption he made that the
hypothesis of the time was correct which attributed the main-
tenance of a cloud in the air to the hollow vesicles of which it was
believed to consist. He showed in a very convincing way that
the cloud banners which are often seen streaming from a mountain
are not at rest, but are continually forming where the moisture -
laden air encounters the chill of the peak and evaporating as it
passes beyond its influence.

The many lakes of the Alps received the attention of de
Saussure less from the point of view of a geographer than
from that of a natural philosopher intent upon establishing
a theory of the earth. Thus he makes no suggestion of a
systematic survey of lake -basins, but contents himself in
most cases by ascertaining the depth of the part reputed
locally to be deepest. This found, he devoted much ingenuity

METEOROLOGY AND DEEP TEMPERATURES 463

to ascertaining the temperature of the water at the bottom, also
noting that at the surface. The temperature at the bottom he
measured by means of a slow-action thermometer the construction
of which was simple and efficient and the results obtained by its
use extremely accurate. For use in lakes he had a thermometer
provided with a thick bulb covered with non-conducting material
and entirely enclosed in a clear glass bottle full of water. This
was lowered to the bottom and left for several hours so that the
whole should have acquired the temperature of the lake water.
Then it was rapidly raised to the surface and the thermometer
read through the sides of the bottle without opening it. Except
for the slowness of the process, it is perfect and could not be
improved upon.

De Saussure found that however high the surface temperature
might be in summer, the temperature at the bottom of the deep
lakes was always within a degree or so of 4° R. (5° C.). The cause
of this low temperature puzzled him completely. If he had taken
temperature observations at intermediate depths and at different
seasons of the year, he would almost certainly have discovered the
cause, which is the cooling action at the surface in winter until the
temperature there falls to about 4° C., the temperature of maximum
density of water. Down to that temperature the surface water
sinks, carrying the low temperature to the bottom, but further
cooling makes the cold water lighter, and it remains at the surface
until it freezes. This normal process is of course subject to
variations on account of the mixture of the water by currents due
to wind. De Saussure appears to have been ignorant of the fact
that water had a maximum density temperature, and the only
cause he could assign for the cold deep water was the inflow below
the surface of streams fed by melting snow. This explanation
he could not accept, but gave it up reluctantly, bringing forward
all the arguments against it in great detail, and concluding the
whole matter with : ' En attendant, je crois pouvoir affirmer qu'il
n'y a aucun principe generalement reconnu qui puisse rendre une
raison satisfaisante du froid de nos lacs.'

Perhaps de Saussure was hindered in his reasoning by includ-
ing in the same discussion the phenomena of cold air issuing from
the ground in certain localities even in summer. This he accounted
for by the cooling by evaporation of water in the passages by which
air stored in caverns found its way to the surface. This explana-
tion he confirmed by experiment ; but, curiously enough, he
imagined that the cooling from this cause could not lower the
temperature of air by more than 3° R., one of the few instances of
failure to interpret aright the results of his experiments. In this

464 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

case I am inclined to attribute the cold air to the downward flow
of air chilled by radiation or by contact with snow on mountain
slopes through scree material which prevents free mixture with
the atmosphere ; but I am not familiar with recent work on this
phenomenon, which may have another explanation.

De Saussure also linked his observations on the temperature
of deep lakes with those on the temperature of the soil.
He made experiments for three years with thermometers at
depths of two to six feet, and also with similar thermometers
at the bottom of a pit about thirty feet deep. He found that
the seasonal range of temperature decreased and the period
was retarded as the depth increased, but on the average the
deeper he went the colder it was. He was aware of the fact
that deep-seated springs were usually warm and that in deep
mines the heat became very great ; but he attributed this heat to
chemical action, or, as he put it, ' fermentation,' and supposed it to
be a mere local disturbance of the normal fall of temperature
towards the centre of the Earth. He allowed, however, that more
observations were necessary to settle the question. He under-
stood that at a certain depth in the ground the effect of the seasons
disappeared ; but he did not see that, in order to ascertain the
real temperature of the Earth's crust, the observations must be
continued far beyond this depth. Had he known that the depth
to which the mean annual temperature of the soil continues to
diminish is greater in polar climates than in temperate, and in
temperate climates than in tropical, he might have been less
confident as to the probability of a cool interior. Throughout his
researches he seems to have missed the powerful effect of winter
cold alternating with summer heat.

One obstacle to belief in the general fall of temperature with
depth below the surface was Donati's observation that the tempera-
ture of the deep parts of the Mediterranean was 10° R. at the
bottom. De Saussure had a special slow-action thermometer
made to test this statement. It had a thick glass bulb an inch
in diameter, was filled with spirits of wine, and the bulb was
embedded in a ball of soft wax more than six inches in diameter,
and the whole enclosed in an iron-bound wooden box. This
instrument required many hours before it took the temperature
of its surroundings ; but once it did so a long time elapsed before
the temperature changed by a perceptible fraction of a degree. On
two occasions off the coast of the Riviera this instrument was
anchored out for a night, once in 886, and once in 1800 feet of
water. Each time the temperature was found to be 10' 6° R. De
Saussure could not doubt the accuracy of his observations, which

METEOROLOGY AND DEEP TEMPERATURES 465

have, indeed, been fully confirmed by subsequent work, but he
could not reconcile them with the low temperature of the Swiss
lakes. He did indeed suggest the possibility of a rise of tempera-
ture in the deep sea due to fermentation ; but he did not lay
much stress on this, and looked on the matter as one only to be
settled by future observations. Had he only known that the
high temperature at great depths is confined to tropical and warm
temperate seas shut off by barriers from the ocean (in which the
bottom temperature rarely rises more than a degree above
0° R.), he would doubtless have elaborated a theory of the Earth
with a cold centre to which so many of his imperfect observations
pointed. As it was, however, he took the Mediterranean as
' the sea,' and wisely turned his thoughts to more profitable
channels.

The inventive power and the ingenious devices to avoid error
are as obvious in the work on deep temperature as on hygrometry,
but the latter subject was free from the disturbing causes which
baffled all eighteenth -century observers of the physical conditions
of lakes and seas.

ERRATUM

Graustock, p. 143. De Saussure did not climb this summit but the
Ochsenstock, or Kopf (see p. 342).

2G

Dissertatio Physica de Igne. 4to, pp. 36. Genevae, 1758.

Observations sur 1'Ecorce des Feuilles et des Petales des Plantes.
12mo, pp. xxiii+102. Geneve, 1762.

Exposition abregee de 1'Utilite des Conducteurs Electriques. 4to,
pp.9, Geneve, 1771.

Description des Effets du Tonnerre, observes a Naples dans la Maison
de Mylord Tylney. In Observations sur la Physique, etc., vol. ii.
pp. 442-450. Paris, 1773.

Projet de Reforme pour le College de Geneve. 8vo, pp. 74. Geneve,
1774.

Eclaircissemens sur le Projet de Reforme pour le College de Geneve.
8vo, pp. ix+134. Geneve, 1774.

Voyages dans les Alpes, precedes d'un Essai sur 1'Histoire Naturelle
des Environs de Geneve. 4 vols, 4to, Neuchatel, 1779, 1786, 1796,
1796. Also printed in 8 vols. 8vo, Neuchatel, 1780-1796.

Voyages dans les Alpes. Partie Pittoresque des Ouvrages de H. B. de
Saussure. 12mo, pp. xxvii+396. Geneve et Paris, 1834. (With
an introduction by A. Sayous.)

Essais sur 1'Hygrometrie. 4to, pp. xiv+367. Neuchatel, 1783.
Also printed in an 8vo edition, pp. xii+524. Neuchatel, 1783.

Lettre a Son Excellence M. le Chevalier Hamilton . . . sur la Geo-
graphic de I'ltalie. In Observations sur la Physique, etc., vol. vii.
pp. 19-38. Paris, 1784.

Lettre de M. de Saussure a M. Faujas de Saint-Fond. In Description
des Experiences Aerostatiques de MM. de Montgolfier, par Faujas
de Saint-Fond, vol. ii. pp. 112-27. Paris 1784.

Lettre de M. de Saussure a M. l'Abb6 Monget le jeune sur 1'Usage du
Chalumeau. In Observations sur la Physique, etc., vol. xxvi. pp.
409-13. Paris 1785.

1 This list is probably incomplete, and may be added to by a more thorough
search in periodicals of the date, e.g. the Journal des Mines, the Journal de
Paris, Observations sur la Physique, and the Memoires de VAcademie Royale, de
Turin.

468 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Defense de 1'Hygrometre a Cheveu. [In Observations sur la Physique,
etc. vol. xxxi. pp. 24-45, 98-107. Paris, 1787. Reprinted as a
separate volume]. 12mo, pp. 82. Geneve, 1788.

Relation abr^gee d'un Voyage a la Cime du Mont-Blanc. 8vo, p. 32.
Geneve, 1787.

Description d'un Diaphanometre ou d'un Appareil destin6 & mesurer
I'intensit6 de la Couleur bleue du Gel. In the Memoir es de VAca-
demie EoyaU de Turin, vol. iv. pp. 425-53. Turin, 1788-1789.

Description d'un Cyanometre ou d'un Appareil destin6 a mesurer la
Transparence de 1'Air. In the Memoires de VAcademie Eoyale de
Turin, vol. iv. pp. 409-24. Turin, 1788-1789.

De la Constitution Physique de 1' Italic. In Voyage en Italic, par M. de
la Lande, vol. i. pp. 45-48. Geneve, 1790.

Description de deux Nouvelles Especes de Tremelles douees d'un
mouvement spontane. In Observations sur la Physique, etc., vol.
xxxvi. pp. 401-9. Paris, 1791.

Sur les Collines Volcaniques du Brisgau. In the Journal de Physique,
vol. i. pp. 325-62. Paris, An II. (1793).

Eloge Historique de Charles Bonnet. 12mo, pp. vii+32. Geneve,
1793.

Notice sur la Mine de Fer de Saint-George en Maurienne. In the
Journal des Mines, vol. i. pp. 56-61. Paris, An III. (1794).

Agenda ou Tableau General des Observations et des Recherches dont
les Resultats doivent servir de base a la Theorie de la Terre. In the
Journal des Mines, vol. iv. pp. 2-70. Reprinted in Voyages dans
les Alpes, vol. iv. (vol. viii. of the 8vo edition), and as a separate
volume, 12mo, pp. iv+56. Geneve, 1796.

Rapport et projet de Loi du Comite d'Instruction Publique. Lu a
1'Assemblee Nationale le 9® Aout 1793 par les Citoyens Desaussure
et Bourrit fils. 8vo, pp. 91. Geneve, 1793.

Memoire sur les Variations de Hauteur et de Temperature de 1'Arve.
In the Journal de Physique, vol iv. pp. 50-55. Paris, An VI (1797).

INDEX

AAR GLACIERS, 17, 156, 192, 280.
Aarburg Castle, 156 n.
Academy, French, of Letters, 24, 209.
of Sciences, 358, 382, 403, 404,

413, 431.

of Sciences of Berlin, 74, 413.

Genevese. See Geneva.

Addison, Joseph, 21, 28, 58, 412.
Aeronautics, 413, 437.
Aigle, 413, 415.
Airolo, 159-61.
Aix (Provence), 331.

(Savoy), 130, 376,

Alagna, 8, 267, 271.

Albula Pass, 416.

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d', 123.

Aletsch Glacier, 18 n., 280.

Alice Blanche, 148, 192, 255.

Alps, Graian, 232, 273, 274, 278, 440.

Italian, 232, 273, 274.

Maritime, 348, 440.

Pennine, 32, 274, 280.

Rhaetian, 15, 184, 416.

Altdorf, 162, 163.

Altmann, J. G , 17.

Amiel, H. F., 391, 400.

Amsterdam, 99-102.

Annecy, 54.

Antibes, 330.

Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, 47.

Anzasca, Val, 262-7.

Aosta, 128, 274, 279.

Val d', 150, 232, 242, 249, 271, 273,

274, 278, 325, 327, 430.
Apennines, 4, 135.
Arathon d'Alex, Bishop Jean d', 62
Argentiere, 73.

Aiguille d', 52, 166, 232.

Arnod, P. A., 243.
Arolla, 280, 416.
Auvergne, 96, 290, 321.

volcanoes of, 422.

Avienus. See Vogel.
Ayas, Val d', 277, 280.
Aymon, Count of Geneva, 61.

BACLER D'ALBE, 260, 446.

Baden, 5.

Bagnes, Val de, 280, 333, 416.

Balloons, 208, 209, 340, 341, 437.

Balmat, Alexis, 252.

Jacques (du Mont Blanc), 71, 183,

211-21, 229, 234, 239-41, 253, 259,

260, 285.
Pierre, 164, 200, 203, 215, 221,

230.

Banio, 270.
Banks, Sir Joseph, 105, 106, 108, 117 n.,

353.

Barberini, Banneret, 152.
Bartolozzi, 447.
Basle, 134, 342, 357, 410.
Basodino, 159.
Bassi, Dr. Laura, 130.
Bastille, fall of, 266, 355.
Baume, Antoine, 96.
Baume, Dr., 140.
Bavona, Val, 159.
Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 107.

Topham, 107.

Beaufoy, Colonel Mark, 221 »., 235, 237,

249.

Beaumont, Albanis, 191.
Beauteville, M. de, 310.
Becca di Nona, 274.
Beckford, William, 25, 45.
Bellinzona, 159.
Bennet, R. H. A, 370, 446 n.
Benningborough Hall, 107, 110.
Beranger, J. P., 184, 193.
Berlin, 382, 383, 414.
Bernard, Great Saint, Pass, 61, 90, 128,

151, 279.

Little Saint, Pass, 274.

Berne, 19, 63, 121, 131, 134, 170, 344,

374.

Canton of, 294, 297, 300, 301, 307,

339.

Bernina, 280, 416.
Bernis, Cardinal de, 123, 131.
Bertrand, Prof. Louis, 74, 315, 363, 365.
Bex, 59.
Bignasco, 159.
Blosset, MissH., 105-8.
Boissier, Albertine Amelia. See Saus-

sure, Mme. H. B. de.
Anne Caroline (Minette). See

Tronchin, Mme. J. L.

470 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSUEE

Boissier, Jean Jacques Andre, 77, 85.

Jeanne Fran9oise. See Turrettini,

Mme. J. A.

Boissiere, La, 352, 361.

Bologna, 130.

Bonhorame, Col du, 89, 146, 274.

Bonnet, Charles, 21, 52, 57-9, 66, 84,
182, 257, 258, 281, 308, 323, 336, 341,
344, 368, 402-9, 446, 450, 453, 455.

Mme., 57, 132, 258, 341, 406.

Bonneville, 60, 220.

Bonney, Prof. T. G., 401.

Bonstetten, C. V. de, 79, 118, 406, 419.

Bordier, A. C., 145, 192, 194-6.

Borgeaud, Prof. Charles, 2, 449.

Bormio, Baths of, 5, 7.

Borromean Islands, 129, 159.

Count, 159, 266.

Bosoo, Val di, 158.

Bosoowitz, Pere R. J., 126, 134.

Bosses du Dromodaire, 201, 210, 342.

Bossons, Glacier des, 68, 195, 198, 211,
221, 225, 431.

Bourbon, Duchess of, 123.

1'Archambault, 382.

Bourrit, Charles, 221, 235, 247, 248,
259, 366, 455.

Isaac, 202-5, 207, 261, 366, 369.

Maro Theodore, 26, 27, 71, 175,

181-93, 207, 209, 211-13, 223, 234-9,
243, 245, 250, 257, 258, 259, 285, 316,
323, 334, 366, 367, 446-8, 455.

Boyon, Pierre, 189.

Brand, Mr., 166 n., 212, 326, 327, 334,
429 n.

Brandes, 435.

Breithorn, 282.

Cime Brune du. See Klein Matter-
horn.

Brenner Pass, 29, 134.

Brenva Glacier, 90.

Breuil, 272, 274, 276, 360.

Brevent, 68, 87, 221.

Breze, Marquis de, 351.

Bridel, Doyen, 154.

Bridgewater Canal, 114.

Brienz, 156.

Brigue, 5.

Brisgau, 281, 358, 380.

Bristol, Frederick Augustus, fourth
Earl of, and Lord Bishop of Derry,
383.

British Museum, 118, 133.

Buccioletto, 270.

Buet, 173, 175-96, 215, 245, 321, 440,
447, 448.

Buffon, 92, 93, 162, 184, 209, 404, 417,
422, 424.

Burghley, 109.

Burnet, Gilbert, 15, 172.

Burnet, William, 16.

Burney, Miss, 176.

Buxton, 115.

Byers, James, 131.

Byron, Lord, 24, 28, 43, 98, 176, 399, 412.

Cachat, Jean Michel ('le Geant'), 221,

246, 249 n., 250, 441 n.
Caenwood House, 109.
Calvin, John. 19, 34, 36, 99, 298, 299,

370.

Cambridge, 118.
Candolle, A. P. de, 49, 50, 53, 60, 119,

389, 438, 443.
Cannes, 330, 348.
Canterbury, 104.
Cap Roux, 330, 347.
Carrel, Chanoine, 274.
Cartography, Alpine, 447.
Castle Howard, 110.
Catania, 133.

Catherine i. Empress of Russia, 50, 423.
Caucasus, 36, 72, 104, 226, 233, 251,

266.

Caume, Montagne de, 348.
Cavendish, Lord John, 107, 109, 114.
Cerentino, 158, 281,
Cervin, Mont. See Matterhorn.

Petit Mont. See Klein Matterhorn.

Cevennes, 139.

Cevio, 153, 159.

Chambery, 24, 124, 184.

Chambesy, 335.

Chamonix, 2, 13 ; early history of, 61-66 ;
de Saussure's first visits to, 66-74 ; in
winter 80 ; de Saussure's visit to, in
1767, 87-89, 96, 103, 125, 135, 173,
183 ; English visitors at, 186 ; 191, 193,
195-201, 209, 212, 220-5, 235, 236,
242-6, 251, 259, 260, 281, 290, 321,
325-7, 333, 350, 351, 353, 356, 361,
362, 367, 428, 429, 433, 459, 462.

Chamonix, Aiguilles of, 164, 284, 326.

guides, 210, 247, 252.

Vale of, 61 n., 157, 326.

Chamossaire, 415.

Chanrion, 333.

Chapieu, 90, 146-7, 274, 281.

Chapuis, Mile., 240.

Charleston, U.S.A., 375.

Charlet, 248, 249.

Mme., 144.

Charlotte, Queen, 176, 181.

Charlotteville, U.S.A., 385.

Charriere, Mme. de, 324.

Chartreuse, Grande, 5, 124.

Chateaubourg, 349.

Chateaubriand, 23.

Chatillon, 278.

Chatsworth, 114.

INDEX

471

Chede, Lao de, 191.

Chenalette, 153.

Chermontane, 416, 432.

Chesterfield, Lord, 183.

Choisy le Roy, 96.

Chouet, J. R., 19, 452.

Christine, Duchess of Lorraine, 48.

Chur, 143, 170, 281.

Cime Brune. See Klein Matterhorn.

Cimes Blanches, 272, 276.

Clairon, Mile., 45, 97-9.

Clarens, 21.

Clement xiv., Pope, 131.

Vicaire, J. M., 153.

Clermont-Ferrand, 382, 387.
Clewer, 28 n., 176, 177.
Cogne, 273, 274.
Coke, Lady Mary, 108.
Combin, Grand, 232.
Combloux, 430.
Como, 126, 170.

Lake of, 6, 143.

Conches, 47, 49, 51, 357, 361, 375, 376,

380, 436.

Condorcet, 123, 315, 362.
Conrad II., Emperor, 297.
Constance, 339, 342,

- Lake of, 164, 342.
Contamines, 144, 196.
Con way, General H. S., 114.
Coolidge, Rev. W. A. B., 30 n., 267.
Coppet, 397, 399.
Coppenex, 240.
Cornuaud, Isaac, 333, 367.
Cornwall, 116, 118.
Coste, 96.

Cote, Glacier de la, 234, 249.
Montagne de la, 198, 200, 209-13,

215, 221, 223, 226, 361 n.
Courmayeur, 90, 148-50, 242, 246, 248-

250, 253-5, 259, 281, 416.
Courterai, 192.
Couteran, M., 201.
Couttet, Joseph Marie, 71.

Marie, 71, 226, 245, 246, 259.

Michel Alphonse, 71.

Couvercle, 245.

Cowper, William, 28, 29.

Coxe, Archdeacon, 26, 45, 280, 343, 344,

345 n., 410.
Craft, Miss, 327.
Crammont, 149-50, 164, 284, 325.
Craven, Hon. Maria, 247.

Lady (Margravine of Anspach), 247.

Crodo (Val Formazza), 158.

Crommelin, M., 97, 99.

Curchod, Mile. Susanne. See Necker,

Mme. Jacques.
Cuvier, 8, 48, 58, 74, 405, 408, 423, 424,

443.

DARWIN, Charles, 404, 440, 453.
Sir Francis, 404.

Dauphine, 219, 232, 422, 440.

Davy, Sir Humphry, 393, 395, 440.

Dejean, 356.

Delcroz, Commandant, 174.

Delicea de la Suitse, 16.

Deluo, G. A. and J. A. , 28, 171 ; the ascent
of the Buet, 175-81 ; 188, 192, 316,
322, 340, 352, 406, 421, 423, 442, 443,
454, 460.

J. F.,28, 175, 316.

Denmark, King of, 117.

Den tan, Pasteur, 181.

Julien, Syndic, 372.

Dent Blanche, 273.

du Midi, 153.

de Jaman, 126.

Derbyshire, 370.

Derry, Bishop of. See Bristol.

Descartes, 75, 410.

Desmarets, Nicolas, 96, 422, 431-2.

Desonnaz, 366-7.

Desportes, Felix, 175, 334, 385, 390.

391.
Devouassoud, family, 200.

Fran§ois, 70, 72, 210.

Jean Louis, 72.

Diderot, 352.

Dijon, 321.

Diodati, 48, 379.

Directoire, French, 390, 392.

Disentis, 5, 171, 282.

Dobson, Austin, 109.

Dole, 55, 290.

Dolomieu, 375, 386, 439, 440.

Domo d'Ossola, 159, 263.

Donati, 465.

Dora Baltea, 278.

Dover, 104, 119.

Diibi, Dr. H., 170, 218 n.

Dumas, Alexandre, pere, 187, 216, 218,

219.

Dumont, Etienne, 365.
Duncombe Park, 111.
Duroveray, J. A., 337, 379.

EABLB, Mr. and Mrs., 107, 110.

Eaton Hall, 115.

Eau Noire Valley, 189.

Ebel, J. G., 26, 346, 361, 429, 446.

Edgeworth, Maria, 399.

Edinburgh, 33, 385, 401.

Egalite, Philippe, 358.

Elba, 131.

Elbruz, 36, 231, 251.

Engadine, 5, 64, 252, 264.

Engelberg, 5, 143, 280, 342,

Enghien, Due d', 123.

472 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

England, 97, 101, 103, 120, 128, 136, 176,
217, 306, 316, 356, 365, 370, 371, 395,
436, 446, 454.

Entries, 246.

Enville, Duchesse d', 94, 96, 123, 310.

Epinay, Mrae. d', 41, 59, 97, 123.

Eschen, M., 193, 440.

Espinasse, M. 1', 106-8.

Esterel, 330, 347, 432.

Etna, 134, 287.

Evelyn, John, his Diary, 20, 63 n.

Exchaquet, 0. F., 244, 247, 250-2, 255,
285, 343.

Eymar, Comte d', 439.

FABRI, Mme., 335.

Mile. Renee. See Mme. Nicolas

Theodore de Saussure.
Faizan, Louis, 319.
Falkenstein, Count. See Joseph n.
Farel, Guillaume, 48, 298.
Fatio de Duillier, J. C., 172.

Nicolas, 15, 16, 63, 172, 173.

Pierre, 301.

Fauohe-Borel, 380.
Faucigny, 64, 81, 227.

Alps of, 170.

Glaciers of, 16, 18, 64.

mines, 245, 343.

Faujas de Saint-Fond, 340.

Favre, Prof. Alphonse, 388, 426, 440,

443.

Fazy, M. Henri, 355, 358.
Ferdinand of Austria, Archduke, 340.
Forney, 39, 98, 123, 124, 131, 137, 323,

418.

Ferpecle, 416.
Ferrand, M. Henri, 81.
Fibbia, la, 161.
Fiesch, 167.

Glaciers of, 280.

Fiescherberg, 169.

Fiescher Joch, 242.

Fiescherhorner, 167.

Finsteraarhorn, 15, 155, 166.

Fischer, C. A., 181, 182.

Fitzgerald, Lord Robert, 374.

Florence, 130.

Flushing, 104.

Fol, 366.

Fonds, les, 179, 188.

Fontainebleau, 20.

Forbes, Prof. D. J., 187, 194, 262, 274,

401, 429, 431, 441, 447.
Forclaz (St. Gervais), 61.
Formazza, Val, 157, 158, 280.
Fountains Abbey, 111.
Fraele, Val di, 416.
France, 7, 20, 34, 38, 91-9, 108, 109,

140, 281, 295, 301, 306, 307, 339, 347-

350, 358, 359, 361, 376, 386, 390, 391,

450.

Franche-Comte, 233.
Frederick the Great, 114, 185, 413.
Franklin, Benjamin, 119, 130, 436, 458.
Frejus, 330, 347.
Fribourg, 297, 300.

Canton of, 56.

Frisi, Pere, 126, 127.

Frontenex, 48, 50-2, 103, 138, 141, 333,

376.

GALENSTOCK, 160.

Galiani, Abbe, 96.

Garda, Lake of, 38.

Gardens, English and foreign, compared,
21.

Garrick, David, 103, 106, 107, 119.

Garwood, Prof. E., 439.

Gautier, Prof. Raoul, 435.

Gawthorpe, 112.

Geant, Col du, 71, 143, 262, 435, 447,
456, 458, 462.

Geikie, Sir Archibald, 423, 434, 439, 441,
442.

Geneva, passim ; in the eighteenth cen-
tury, 31-46 ; its Society, 35-9 ; sumptu-
ary rules, 36-7 ; theatricals, 45 ; the
Academy, 44 ; College, 312-18 ; foreign
students, 44 ; political events, 294-310,
332-401.

Geneve, Journal de, 237, 243, 246, 320.

Genevois, Counts of, 297.

Genoa, 328, 329, 363, 384, 440.

Genthod, 21, 52, 82, 138-40, 143, 240,
254, 325, 341.

Geology, 8, 286-8, 292-3, 421-4.

George n., 413.

Gersdorf, Baron de, 170, 212, 219, 244,
344.

Gesner, Conrad, 5, 8-13, 29.

Johann, 410.

Solomon, 342, 343.

Gibbon, Edward, 63, 97, 118, 134, 273,
359, 397, 419, 453.

Gilpin, 109.

Giornico, 159.

Glaciers, 14, 17, 151, 276 ; observations
and theories concerning, 427-33 ; rate
of movement, 428.

Godet, Prof. Philippe, 24.

Goethe, 184, 325, 326.

Goldsmith, Oliver, 108.

Gondo, 263.

Gordon, Duke of, 51.

Gorlitz, 244.

Gosse, Edmund, 29.

Henri Albert, 138, 243, 246.

Gotthard, Saint, Pass, 7, 155, 160-2.
Gottingen, 382, 383, 385, 413.

INDEX

473

Gouille a Vassu, 153.

Graham, Sir James, 326.

Graian Alps, 232, 273, 274.

Granville, Lord, 365.

Graubiinden. See Grisons.

Gray, Thomas, 29, 36, 79, 406.

Grenairon, 178.

Grenier des Communes (Sixt), 178.

Grenoble, 62, 124, 232, 321.

Grenus, Jacques, 140, 367.

Gressoney, 8, 267, 271.

Greville, Charles, 161.

Griaz, Glacier of, 223.

Gribble, Francis, 30 n.

Gries Pass, 143, 154, 157, 159, 170, 290,

328.

Grigna, 6.
Grignan, 347.

Grimm, Baron de, 58, 59, 97, 99, 137.
Grimsel Pass, 154-7, 159, 163, 170, 401,

415.
Grindelwald, 17, 70, 125, 138, 165, 166,

168, 169, 170, 401.

Glaciers of, 14, 16, 63, 280.

Grisons, 14, 15, 125, 155, 166, 171, 280,

282. 416.
Grivola, 273.

Grouchy, Marquis de, 362.
Griiner, G. S., 16, 17, 18, 19, 87, 191,

280, 427, 446.
Guettard, 433.
Guttannen, 156.

HAARLEM, 395.

Hackfall, 111.

Hague, the, 101, 117, 405.

Haller, A. von, 2, 19, 22, 26, 29, 58-60,
64, 66, 74-8, 81, 85-8, 92, 101, 121, 122,
124, 131, 134, 138, 155, 165, 170, 280,
281, 294, 307-9, 311, 318, 323, 324,
402-20 ; his son, 122, 454.

Halley, Edmund, 457.

Hamilton, Duke of, 44, 135.

Sir William, 132, 133, 135, 161,

236, 321, 352.

Handegg, 156.

Harcourt, Due d', 96.

Marquis d', 96.

Haslithal, 70, 263.

Heim, Prof., 430.

Helmsley, 111.

Helvoetsluys, 103.

Hennin, 196, 428.

Henry, Prince, of Prussia, 185.

Kerens, Val d', 197.

Herin (or Erin), J. B., 272.

Hill, Mr., 245, 253.
-Dr. J., 123.

Himalaya, 226, 281.

Hobbes, Thomas, 449.

Hogarth, W., 154, 274, 446.

Holbach, Baron d', 97, 449.

Holland, 99-105.

Homer, 453.

Horace, 3, 216, 224, 453.

Horngacher, 99.

Hottinger, 18.

Houches, les, 68, 188, 223.

Humboldt, Alexander von, 34, 440, 458.

Button, James, 423, 442.

Hyeres, 347.

ILLIEZ, Val d', 153, 245.

Inns, Alpine, 69, 280.

Institut de France, 58, 395, 439

Interlaken, 166.

Ireland, 339, 384.

Ischia, 132.

Iseo, Lake of, 38.

Iseran, Col d', 87.

Isere, Val d', 232.

Italy, 121-41, 327.

Lakes of, 126, 143, 170.

Ivrea, 150, 277, 430.

Ivernois, Sir Francis d', 316, 339, 385.

JALABERT, Francois, 54, 86, 87, 103,

143, 191.
Jaman, Colde, 156.

Dent de, 126.

Jansen, M., 210, 231,

Jardin, le, 91.

Jazzi, Cima di, 270.

Jebb, Sir Richard, 72.

Jefferson, Thomas, 385.

Jena, Literary Gazette of, 276.

Joch Pass, 143, 342, 410, 415.

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 107, 111, 118, 123,

184, 280, 419.

Jorasse, le Grand. See Lombard.
Jorasses, les Grandes, 52, 232, 247.
Jordanay, J. L., 150, 242.
Joseph ii., 184, 322-24.
Josephine, Empress, 334.
Joux, Nant de, 220.
Judith. See de Saussure.
Juel, Jens, 387.
Jullien, J., 381.
Jungfrau, 165, 166, 325.
Jura, 24, 54, 55, 57, 78, 277, 290, 321.
Jussieu, Bernard de, 91, 94, 414.
Justel, Henri, 15.

KELLERMANN, General, 366, 390.
Kent, Duke of, 353.
Kien Thai, 416.
Knaresborough, 112.

474 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

LABOEDE, 42, 280, 428, 446.

La Condamine, C. M. de, 124.

Lake depths and temperatures, 463-5.

Lalande, J. J. de, 135.

Lamanon, M. de, 341, 348.

Land's End, 118.

La Place, Marquis de, 425.

La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, Due de, 16,

66, 96, 123, 243.
Lassels, 38.

Lausanne, 26, 47, 48, 63, 173, 212, 273,
323, 324, 361, 387, 397, 414.

Journal de, 173, 218, 246.

Lauterbrunnen, 166.

Lechaud, Plain de, 179.

Leeds, 112, 114.

Leghorn, 131.

Leibnitz, 75, 408.

Leman, Departement du, 390.

Lake, 1, 22, 28, 31, 56, 66, 122, 152,

172, 177, 227, 298, 344, 376.
LePays, M., 62.
Lescarbot, M., 14.
L'Espinasse, M., 106-8.
Le Roy, M., 185.
Leukerbad. See Loeche.
Levantina, Val, 83, 160.
L'Eveque, Henri, 260.
Lever, Sir Ashton, 114.
Lezay-Marnesia, Marquis de, 123.

Marquise de, 123.

Liddes, 152.

Ligne, Prince de, 206-09.

Linck, J. A., 446.

Lincoln, 110.

Linththal, 280.

Locarno, 126, 159.

Loccie, Col delle, 272.

Loeche, 5, 273, 324.

Loiseau de Maul6on, 95.

Lombard, Jean Baptiste, dit le Grand

Jorasse, 161, 193, 198.
Lombardy, 8, 135, 232, 276, 340.
London, 77, 105-8, 116-19, 136, 410,

414.
Lorraine, 47.

Duke of, 47.

Lotschen Thai, 245.
Louis xiv. , 3.

xv., 21, 137.

xvi., 49, 99, 140, 185, 199, 356-8,

361, 422.

xviii., 185.

Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans, 123.
Lucendro, Lago di, 280.
Lucerne, 11, 163, 342.

Lake of, 325.

Lullin, Ami, 77, 380, 386.

Mme., 104, 116.

Jean Antoine, 77, 78.

Lyons, 321, 331, 340, 373, 437.
Lys Glacier, 271.

Val de, 7, 271, 272.

Lyskamm, 271, 272, 273.

MAC0GNAGA, 265-8, 270, 273, 281, 355,

356, 447.

Maggia, Val, 158, 159, 281, 444.
Mahon, Lord, 129, 130, 316, 318, 339.
Maggiore, Lago, 38, 126, 158, 159, 263,

269.

Maillart-Gosse, Dr. H., 387.
Maladetta, La, 69.
Maloya, 416.
Manchester, 114.
Mann, Sir Horace, 130.
Mansfield, Lord, 109.
Marat, Jean Paul, 185, 372.
Maresfield Park, 43.
Maria Theresa, Empress, 323.
Marignie, L. E. F., 237, 238, 240, 241.
Marmontel, J. F., 99.
Marseilles, 331.

Martel, Pierre, 1, 63, 66, 173, 243.
Marti, Benoit, 11, 12.
Martigny, 90, 148, 152, 193, 216, 254,

259, 263, 325.
Masino, Baths of, 5.
Matey, Dr., 106, 108.
Matlock, 114.
Mathews, C. E., 205.
Matterhorn, 150, 166, 264, 272, 276,

447.

Klein, 282.

Maurienne, 328, 401.

Mechel, Chretien de, 260.

Mediating Powers, 294, 300, 305-7,

335, 339, 340, 362, 391, 392, 414.
Mediterranean, 173, 291, 437, 465.
Meiners, Prof., 343, 344.
Meiringen, 156.
Mercier, Frangois, 76.
Mer de Glace, 44, 70, 88, 103, 135, 168,

196, 242-5, 251, 282, 283, 325, 327,

428, 431, 441, 447.
Merian, 14, 18.
Merle d'Aubigne, 312.
Metaphysics, 448-52.
Meteorology, 242, 434, 435, 457-62.
Mettenberg, 167, 169.
Metz, 47.
Meyer, 164, 244.
Miage, Col de, 150.

Glacier de, 150, 242, 269, 277.

Micheli du Crest, J. B., 155, 301.
Midi, Aiguille du, 75, 164, 227, 228,

230.

Dent du, 153.

Milan, 126-8, 263, 269, 328.

INDEX

475

Mill, Dr. H. R., 327, 352, 435, 438,

457-65.

Milton, John, 3.
Mineralogy, 437.

Minette. See Tronchin, Mme. J. L.
Mirabeau, Comte de, 365.

— Marquis de, 99.
Monch, 166.
M61e, 60, 171, 290.
Mon Boso, 7, 214.
Moncalieri, 351.
Monget, 437.

Montagnes Maudites, Les, 65.
Montagnier, H. F., 152, 246.
Mont Blanc, paasim ; early attempts on,
197-9, 209 ; Paccard and Balmat's
success, 211-19; de Saussure's ascent,
197-238 ; verses on, 238-41.
Montecello, 385.
Montelimar, 347.
Monte Moro, 262, 270.
Montenvers, 63, 68, 70, 151, 175, 196,

222, 247, 327, 334, 343, 385, 400.
Monte Rosa, 7, 171, 262-77.
Montesquieu, 42.

Montesson, Mme. de, 123, 139, 358.
Montets, Les, 61, 67, 68, 325.
Monteuil, 47.
Montgolfier, 340, 437.

Monthey, 430.

Montjoie, Valley of, 56.

Montpellier, 138, 140, 141, 327, 331,
333.

Montreux, 126.

Monts, Les, 234.

Monts Maudits, 35, 69, 82, 172, 228.

Monty, 377.

Moraines, 151 ; de Saussure's theory of,
429-30.

Moore, Dr. John, 42, 44, 129, 135, 399.
— Sir John, 135.

Morat, Lake of, 38.

Morellet, Abbe, 97,

Morley, Lord, 23, 24, 96.

Morozzo, Count, 262, 268.

Morrice, Mr., 108.

Mortine, La, 178, 189.

Moscati, Prof., 128.

Mottets, Les, 147.

Mountain sickness, 230-1, 341-2.

Moutray, Mrs., 399.

Mowbray Point, 111.

Miiller, J. de, 407, 408.

Mile., 170.

M., 163.

Mumm, A. L. s 443.

Munster, Sebastian, 64.

Muraltus, Mr., 281.

Muretto Pass, 280.

Murith, Abbe, 151, 152.

NANT BORRANT, 145.

Naples, 127, 130, 132-4, 136, 161, 440.

Napoleon, 42, 139, 140, 186, 245, 260,

263, 329, 390, 391, 394.
Naviglio, Grande, 269.
Naville, Ernest, 400, 449, 450, 451.
Necker, Henri M., 375.

de Germagny, 359, 380, 396.

Jacques, 354, 356, 357, 362, 371,

396, 397.
Mme. (Susanne Curchod), 97, 98,

235, 345, 358, 371, 376, 454.
de Saussure, Jacques, 345, 375,

388, 393, 396.
Mme., 85, 97, 98, 145, 146,

345, 387, 393.

Louis, 400, 401.

Neuchatel, 24, 48, 372, 375.

Neuhaus, 156.

Neville, Mr., 45.

Newton, Sir Isaac, 15, 42, 185.

Nice, 329.

Niesen, 3, 12, 415.

Nimes, 321, 331.

Noire, La, 243, 252, 253.

Nomenclature, Alpine, 166.

Northumberland, Duke of, 119.

Novalesa, 5.

Novara, 128.

Noyon, 99.

Nyon, 139, 227.

OBERALP PASS, 162.

Oberemps, 27.

Obergestelen, 156.

Oberland, Bernese, 11, 13-15, 70, 143,

156, 165, 170, 186, 192, 245, 280, 281,

412, 413, 416.

Biindner, 5.

Ochsenstock, 342.

Odier, Dr. Louis, 129, 224, 362, 372,

373.

Oeschinen See, 185.
Orbe, source of, 57.
Orleans, Duke of, 59, 358.

Louis-Philippe, Duke of, 123, 358.

Ostend, 101, 104.
Otahiti, 117, 353.
Otemma Glacier, 152.
Ovid, quoted, 453.
Oxford, 103, 118, 317, 370.

PACCARD, Frangois, 200.

Dr. Michel Gabriel, 43, 173, 200,

201, 205, 217, 218, 219, 223, 229, 236,

239-41, 250, 260, 285, 343.

pire, 214, 223.

Palais Royal, 96.
Pallas, 423.

476 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Palmerston, Lord, 103, 106, 107, 115,

119, 124, 125, 217, 361.
Pantenbruck, 280.
Paris, 42, 91-9, 139-40, 356, 358, 361,

376, 385, 386.

Journal de, 341.

Parminter, the Misses, 192.
Pars, William, 103, 446.
Passy, 61, 89.

Patience. See Jordanay, J. L.
Pavia, 127, 324.

Certosadi, 128.

Peak Cavern, 114.

Pedriolo Alp, 268-71.

Pelerins, Glacier des, 277.

Penck, Prof., 439.

Pennant, Mr., 111.

Perigord, Comte de, 140.

Pestarena, 266.

Petit, Pierre, 91.

Petrarch, 8, 57.

Pfaffers, 5.

Physiology, 452.

Pfyffer, General, 163, 164, 244.

Pictet, J. L., 54, 86, 87, 143, 447.

M. A., 54, 138, 143, 216, 327, 328,

336, 346, 382, 385, 392, 445.

de Rochemont, Charles, 398, 399.

Piedmont, 328.
Pierre Ronde, 202.
Pilatus, 9, 10, 11.
Pisa, 131.

Pizzo Bianco, 268-9.
Plan de 1'Aiguille, 283.
Planpraz, 87.
Plateau, Grand, 211, 229.

Petit, 198, 209, 210, 228.

Platt, Joshua, 117.

Pliny, the Younger, 3, 330, 409 ; his

villa, 126.
Plouquet, 276.
Pluche, Abbe, 403.
Pococke, 16, 63, 65, 68.
Pointe Percee, 64, 227.
Ponte Grande, 264.
Pope, Alexander, 21, 58, 109.
Portland, Duchess of, 119.
Porto Fino, 401.
Portree, 401.
Poussin, N., 157.
Praborgne. See Zermatt.
Pradier, 375.

Prangins, Mme. de, 259, 260.
Pratolungo, Dr., 328.
Pre-St. Didier, 274.
Preux, Baron de, 152.
Prevost, Pierre, 367.
Prevost-Lullin, 338.
Pringle, Sir John, 118, 410.
Procida, 132.

Prosa, La, 162.
Provence, 219, 347-9.
Pugnani, 113.
Puy de Dome, 321, 387.
Pyrenees, 4, 69.

RADZIWILL, Prince, 412.

Ramond, 26, 345.

Ramsay, 438.

Ravenna, 134.

Rawlins, F. H., 72.

Razumouski, Count, 344, 345.

Reaumur, R. A., 403, 417, 457, 459.

Rebmann, 3.

Reoamier, Mme., 40, 41.

Reformation, the, 19, 34, 62, 153, 296,

298.

Remiremont, 47.

Renaissance, the, 8, 12, 13, 19, 33.
Rendu, Bishop, 194, 431.
Rene n., Duke of Lorraine, 47.
Reposoir, 111, 227, 234.

- Aiguille Percee du, 227, 234.

Chartreuse du, 64.

Reybaz, E. S., 239, 366.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 103, 108, 184.

Rhine, 7, 32, 37, 156.

Hinter, 155.

Vorder, 162.

Rheinthal, 155.
Rheinwald, 155.
Rheinwaldhorn, 17, 282.
Rhemes, Val de, 150.
Rhone Glacier, 125, 280.

- Valley, 27, 78, 281, 374.
Ribel, 243 n.
Richelieu, Due de, 137.
Richmond Park, 107.
Riffel Alp, 264, 271.
Rigi, 163, 270.
Rilliet-Fatio, 337.
Rilliet, Mme., 337.
Rive, Mme. de la, 260.

Jeanne Marie de la. See Bonnet,

Mme. Charles.

Pierre Louis de la, 49.

Renee de la. See de Saussure,

Mme. Nicolas.

Porte de, 33.

Riviera, 138, 143, 281, 311, 327, 329.

Roche, 59, 78, 407, 414, 419.

Rochecourbiere, Rochers de la, 347.

Rochemelon, 350.

Roche Michel, 351.

Rochemont, de, 378.

Rochers Rouges, 214, 219, 226, 233.

Rochester, 105.

Roche -sur-Foron, La, 82.

Rockingham, Lady, 109-10, 114.

Lord, 107, 109, 113.

INDEX

477

Roget, J. M., 335.

Roland, J. M., 138.

Mme., 138.

Rolle, 377, 379, 382.

Rome, 4, 55, 123, 127, 134, 287, 330,
405.

Rome de 1'Isle, 135.

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 53, 335, 352, 378.

Rosenlaui, 165, 280.

Rosslyn, Lord. See Wedderburn, Alex-
ander.

Rothhorn, 271.

Rotterdam, 99, 103, 172.

Rouelle, G., 91.

Rousseau, J. J., 2, 19, 21, 22 ; his Nou-
velle Heloise, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 38,39,
43, 56, 114; his Lettres dcrites de la
Montagne, 121, 175-7, 192, 304; his
Contrat Social, 305, 307, 309, 313 ; his
Emile, 317, 440 ; his Lettre a d'Alem-
bert, 318; condemnation of Emile and
the Contrat Social, 449.

Royal Society, 14, 116, 118, 119, 123,
133, 171, 172, 176, 236, 293, 321, 352,
370, 395, 403, 410, 413, 440.

Royat, 382.

Rue, Mme. de la, 329.

Ruitor, 232.

Ruskin, John, 57, 70, 71, 192, 263, 264,
443.

SAAS, 262, 263, 280.

Saas-Grat, 273.

Sainte-Beuve, 24, 49, 58, 324, 409, 443.

Saint-Ours, J. P., 320, 387, 439, 444,

452.

St. Marcel, mines at, 278.
St. Moritz, 5, 416.
Saint-Real, M. de, 278, 350.
Sales, Miles., 136.
Saleve, 25, 30, 34, 45, 54, 64, 290.
Sallanches, 35, 62, 65, 68, 89, 143, 220,

264, 326, 327, 430.
Samoens, 86.
Sanetsch Pass, 245.
Sardinia, King of, 36, 184, 339.
Sassina, Val, 6.
Saulxures, 47.
Saussure, Albertine Andrienne. See

Necker, Mme. Jacques.
Alphonse de, 220, 335, 361, 370,

377, 379, 395.

Anne de, 49.

Antoine de, 47, 48.

C6sar de, 48.

Elie de, 48.

Henri de, 35, 72, 218, 241, 395.

H. B. de, passim ; ancestry, 47 ;

homes, 51 ; early life and visits to

Chamonix, 53-90 ; Professor, 75 ; mar-

riage, 78 ; grand tour, 91-120 ; visits
Italy, 120-35 ; Alpine travels, 142-
196, 279-85; ascends Mont Blanc,
223-34 ; observations on Col du G6ant,
242-61 ; tour of Monte Rosa, 264-85 ;
home life, 332-45 ; educational efforts,
310-18 ; founds Societe des Arts, 318 ;
visits Riviera, 328-31 ; political acti-
vity, 382-92 ; house besieged, 326-38 ;
loss of fortune, 371, 383 ; illness and
death, 372-93 ; place in science, 421-
443, 457-64 ; in literature, 443-8 ; in
philosophy, 448-52 ; inventor of scien-
tific instruments, 435 ; his character,
454 ; list of publications, 467 ; his
' Discours Preliminaire,' 286-93.

Mme. H. B. de (nde Albertine Amelie

Boissier), 39, 40, 77-9, 84, 88, 95, 99,
100, 115-17, 120, 129, 140, 142, 220,
222, 224, 225, 280, 282, 327, 328, 342,
347, 351, 361, 366, 368, 370-3, 375,
376, 379, 387, 389, 394, 396.

Jean Baptiste de, 48.

Judith de, 29, 136-9, 140, 141,

327, 331, 342, 346, 394.

Mongin de, 48.

Nicolas de, 48, 49, 59, 138.

Mme. Nicolas de, 40, 49, 52, 58,

59, 77, 94, 331.

Nicolas Theodore de, 43, 90, 138,

225, 251, 253, 258, 260, 263, 269, 273,
335, 350, 351, 370, 376, 377, 379, 388,
393, 395, 447.

Mme. Nicolas Theodore (nee Renee

Fabri), 395.

Theodore, Syndic, 48, 49.

Savannah, 48.

Savile, Sir George, 107, 109, 110, 114.

Savoy, Duke of, 20, 32, 299, 371, 301.

Glaciers of, 1, 63, 177, 186, 193,

422, 427.

Sayous, P. A., 294, 324, 405, 443, 444.

Scenery, Alpine, early appreciation of,
1-30, 35.

Scheideck, Great, 167, 170, 415.

Scheldt, 104.

Scheuchzer, J. D., 172, 173.

J. J., 14, 15, 16, 18, 63, 172, 410.

Schlegel, J. E.,398.

Schollenen Gorge, 163.

Sohopf, Thomas, 167 n.

Schreckhorn, 15, 155, 164, 167, 169.

Schwarzberg, 263.

Scotland, 29, 109, 401.

Secheron, 49, 322, 323, 399.

Seigne, Col de la, 90, 147, 148, 245, 274,
290.

Senebier, J., 1, 42, 49, 50, 53, 60, 64,
65, 77, 82, 91, 101, 117, 119, 128, 130,
132, 185, 340, 385, 388, 438, 443.

478 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE

Septimer Paas, 416.
Sermenza, Val, 270.
Servoz, 61, 68, 89, 193, 200, 235, 244,

343 440

Sesia,' Val, 7, 270, 271.
Sevign6, M me. de, 347.
Shakespeare, 45, 74, 119.
Sheffield, 114.
Shelley, Lady, 42, 43.

Sir John, 42, 43.

Percy Bysshe, 10, 28, 322.

Shuokburgh, Sir George, 275.

Sicily, 290.

Siegfried Map, 27, 270.

Simler, Josias, 13, 14, 18, 284.

Simmenthal, 156.

Simon, Pierre, 68, 71, 144, 189, 197,

283
Simplon Pass, 27, 28, 126, 262, 263, 290,

416.

Sion, 273.
Sismondi, 43, 53.
Sixt, 86, 178, 179, 180, 188, 218.
Skye, Isle of, 401.
Sloane, Sir Hang, 16, 410.
Smith, Sir J. E., 407.
Solander, Dr., 106.
Soulavie, 363, 373.
Spa, 100.

Spallanzani, 85, 127, 134, 436.
Spencer, Lady, 117.
Spescha, Placidus a, 171, 281, 282.
Spiez, 156.
Splugen Pass, 6, 143, 156, 170, 281, 290,

401.

Spon, J., 32, 172.
Stael, Mme. de, 26, 42, 85, 141, 358,

362, 371, 382, 396, 397, 398.
Staffa, 265, 270.
Stamford, 109.
Stanhope, Lady, 124, 129.
Lord, 43, 87, 124, 129, 130,

318.

Stanmore Church, 237.
Steinberg, 415.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, 23.
Stern, Lawrence, 154.
Stockhorn, 3, 12, 415.
Stow, 370.

Studer, Bernard, 17, 194.
Studley, 111.
Suanetia, 63.

Prince of, 36.

Sulmo (Solmona), 3.
Sulzbach, Prince of, 63.
Superga, 351.
Susa, 61.
Susten Pass, 17.
Swinburne, Lady, 370.
Sir John, 370.

TACONNAZ, Glacier de, 67, 189, 225.
Tacul, 52, 242, 244, 249, 254.

Glacier du, 200, 242, 246, 247.

Lac du, 251.

Tagliaferro, 271.

Tairraz, J. P., 212, 263.

Tanneverge, Pointe de, 245.

Tarascon, 349.

Tarentaise, 147, 401.

Temperatures, deep sea, 328, 329, 463-

465 ; lake, 463-5.
Terni, 134.

Teneriffe, Peak of, 208.
Teniers, David, 329, 446.
Tennyson, Lord, 9, 112, 264.
Testoni, Sig., 266.
Theodulehorn, 273, 276.

Pass, 272, 275.

Thirsk, 111.
Thonez, 402, 406.
Thonon, 28, 50.
Thrale, Mrs., 29.
Thun, 12.

Lake of, 156.

Ticino, Canton, 155, 269, 416.
Tilney, Lord, 133.
Tingry, P. F., 336, 385, 393.
Todi, 282.

Topffer, Rodolphe, 277, 443.
Torricelli, 457.
Tosa Falls, 157.
Toulon, 260, 330, 331, 347-9.
Tour, Col du, 243.

Tournanche, Val, 259, 274, 280, 416.
Tournier, Alexis, 221, 246, 249.
Jean Michel, 246.

Travel, Alpine, 280.

Trembley, Jean, 143, 171, 322, 323, 336,

342, 407.

Trient Valley, 192.
Tronohin, Frangois, 91.

Henri, 91, 130.

Jean Louis, 135.

Mme. J. L. (Minette), 84, 91, 95,

99-101, 121, 220, 222, 256, 328, 342,

352, 379, 393, 395.
Jean Robert, 95, 122, 123, 130,

320 453
Dr. Theodore, 41, 58, 59, 74, 77,

85, 95, 122, 123, 130, 320, 453.
Frangois (son of Dr. Tronchin), 91,

117, 120, 356.

Mile., 95,96.

Troublet, Abbe, 99.

Troye, J. B. N., 244.

Tubingen, 277, 410, 428.

Turin, 135, 200, 243, 262, 271, 350, 351.

Turlo Pass, 270.

Turrettini, Jean Alphonse, 19, 82, 99,

131, 324, 452.

INDEX

479

Turrettini, Mme. Jean Alphonse (nde
Boissier), 81, 91, 95, 99, 100, 220,
256, 336, 393, 395.

Turtmann, 27.

Turton, Dr., 85, 103, 105, 108, 117.

Tyndall, John, 134, 291.

UNTERBECK, 27.
Unteremps, 27.
Ural, 423.
Urseren, 161.
Uzielli, Sig. F.,7.

VACCABONE, Sig., 243.

Valence, 200.

Valais, 7, 9, 13, 14, 27, 125, 256, 263.

Val d'Ayas, 277.

Vallaurie, 347.

Vallette, Gaspard, 347.

Vallorbes, 57.

Vallot, Joseph, 173, 201, 251, 428.

Cabane, 231.

Valmont de Bomare, J. C. , 94, 98.

Mme., 94, 96.

Valorsine, 178, 188, 189, 192.

Valsorey, Glacier de, 153.

Val Tellina, 5, 6, 125, 280.

Vanzone, 263, 267.

Var, 330.

Varallo, 5.

Varens, Aiguille de, 89.

Vaucluse, 57, 231.

Vaud, Alps of, 59.

Pays de, 47, 55, 126, 420.

Velan, Mont, 151-3, 245.
Venice, 27, 128, 130, 134, 135.
Vercelli, 128, 328, 355, 447.
Versailles, 84, 356.
Vesuvius, 152, 156, 247.
Via Mala, 170.
Vienna, 323.

Congress of, 399.

Villars, 415.

Villeneuve, 414.

Vinci, Leonardo da, 5-8, 214, 270, 424.

Viscari, Prince de, 133.

Visp, 27, 267.

Vispthal, 166, 263, 271, 273, 276, 280.

Vivare, Mr., 191.

Vivarone, Lake of, 150.

Vogel (Avienus), 183.

Voirons, Les, 54, 183.

Volta, Alexander, 170.

Voltaire, 38, 39, 43, 45, 59, 98, 122, 123,

131, 136, 137, 305, 307, 323, 408, 409,

417, 418, 420, 450.
Volterra, 131.
Vosges, 47, 290.
Voza, Col de, 327.

WALLENSTADT, 38, 143, 170, 201.
Walpole, Horace, 1, 107, 114, 119, 130,

184.

Warwick, Lord, 119.
Washington, George, 385.
Waterford, 339.
Waterloo, 362, 402.
Wedderburn, Alexander (Lord Rosslyn),

112, 113.
Weiss, M., 164.
Weisshorn, 273, 275.
Weissthor, 263, 270.

Schwartzberg, 270.

Wengern Alp, 17, 165, 166, 325.
Wentworth House, 113, 114.
Werner, A. G., 96, 422, 423, 426.
Wetterhorn, 166, 415.
Whymper, Edward, 61, 225, 228, 229,

231.

Wills, Sir Alfred, 179.
Windham, William, of Felbrigg, 1, 16,

45, 63, 68, 243.
Windsor, 28, 176, 177.
Witt, John de, 58.
Wolf, 192, 420, 446.
Woodley, 237.
Woollett, 103.

Wordsworth, William, 28, 29, 30, 412.
Wynn, Sir W. W., 113.

Captain, 113.

Wynnstay, 113.

Wyttenbach, J. S., 18, 161, 165, 170,

235, 244, 344.

YORK, 107-10, 112, 114, 116.
Yorkshire, 21, 52, 106, 107, 110, 112.

ZASENBERG, 169

Zermatt, 61, 166, 197, 206, 262, 272,

273, 275, 280, 281, 401, 416, 447.
Zittel, 439.
Zumstein Spitze, 272.
Zurich, 8, 19, 134, 143, 170, 314, 374,

448.
Canton of, 300, 301, 306, 307, 339,

374.
Lake of, 300, 301, 306, 307, 339,

374.
Zurlauben, Baron de, 42.

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