72 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



outlying hamlets, who often either emigrated or sought to 

 add to their scanty livelihood by crystal-hunting. De Saussure, 

 though he employed him more than once, would seem never 

 to have been on very cordial terms with him, or to have engaged 

 him as his chief guide. The tradition in the de Saussure family, 

 as reported by the late M. Henri de Saussure, is to the effect 

 that Balmat did not work well with his fellows, amongst whom 

 he was unpopular. Another of de Saussure's guides was Jean 

 Louis Devouassoud, 'dit le Professeur.' His nickname suggests 

 that the well-known guide and explorer, Franois Devouassoud, 

 twice my companion in the Caucasus, may have inherited from 

 him the fine manner and literary instincts that made him so 

 delightful a companion to his many English employers. But I 

 have not been able to trace the degree of relationship. Fra^ois' 

 monument l stands beside the church door at Chamonix, and may, 

 I trust, long preserve and hand down the memory of a man who 

 embodied the traditional qualities of a great guide, and combined 

 with them those of an intrepid traveller and a never-failing friend. 

 De Saussure during this expedition made careful notes on the 

 local methods of agriculture, and he is at pains to indicate a flaw in 

 the communal system under which the pasturages and forests were 

 administered. The peasant who owns no hayfields in the valley 

 cannot feed cows in winter, and therefore gets no advantage from 

 the common summer pasturage on the Alps. The ' wild hay ' cut 

 on ledges inaccessible to four-footed animals will not suffice by itself 

 to maintain a single cow. The remedy de Saussure suggested was 

 that the wealthier peasants who profit by the pasturages should 

 pay a rent or tax to the commune, to be used as a poor-rate. Up 

 to recent years the absence of any poor-law at Chamonix has been 

 met by the custom among the villagers of taking turns to lodge 

 for a period the aged and infirm, or orphans who have no family 

 to support them. 



1 Franois Devouassoud's monument, besides the names of some of his prin- 

 cipal English friends, bears the following inscription : ' Fra^ois Joseph 

 DeVouassoud MDCCCXXXH-MDCCCCV Viro integro Comiti Amico Sodali jucundo 

 dilecto desiderate Duci sagaci indomito per xl. annos spectato ne tantae Virtutis 

 Memoria et Exemplum perderetur hunc Lapidem nonnulli ex Amicis 

 quos saepe inter Alpium Juga et Caucasi Nives duxerat ponendum cura- 

 verunt.' It owes its Latin form to my late friends, Sir Richard Jebb and 

 Mr. T. H. Rawlins, Vice-Provost of Eton. The latter was one of Francois' 

 employers. 



