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. 



