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 



