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. 



