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 X e au XI V e siecle, 

 and Documents relatifs au Prieure et a la Vallee de Chamonix, par MM. Perrin et 

 Bonnefoy (Chamb6ry, 3 vols., 1879, 1883, and 1887). 



