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.' 



