78 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



is still in the possession of the family. A stone mansion of admir- 

 able proportions and dignified elevation, it occupies an excellent 

 site fronting, but standing back from, the Rue de la Cit6, the 

 steep street that leads from the Rhone to the Upper Town. 

 The entrance is through a lodge and courtyard. At the back 

 a broad terrace overlooks the ramparts, the Corraterie, and the 

 meadows of Plainpalais, and commands a view extending to the 

 distant Jura and the Perte du Rhone. The corner of this terrace 

 is occupied by a low pavilion used by de Saussure as a con- 

 venient laboratory and storehouse . According to tradition, Lullin 

 never lived to cross his threshold or to climb his stately staircase. 

 The story runs that the banker's coach broke down on his return 

 from a long absence in Paris, and that in consequence he arrived 

 so late that the city gates, always closed half an hour after sunset, 

 were already shut. Forced to sleep at the inn outside the walls, 

 he was suddenly taken ill and died before morning. 



Mile. Boissier's relatives desired that no formal engagement 

 should take place till she was twenty. It was not till 1764 that 

 de Saussure felt himself free to announce his approaching marriage 

 to his friend at Roche. This is the description he gives of his 

 betrothed in a letter to Haller : 



' She has the most beautiful, tender, and generous disposition ; 

 devoted to her duty, she is made to render happy the man who appre- 

 ciates her worth. Add a mind cultivated, sensitive, sympathetic, a 

 gentle gaiety, a face in which all these qualities are expressed, a pleas- 

 ing figure.' 



We are able to put the young lady's portrait of herself 

 beside that given by her lover. Here are two extracts from 

 her private diary : 



' I am fifteen and a half : I am plain, but not painfully so. Some 

 people find an attraction in my air of gentleness and kindness. Am I 

 clever ? No : still I am not actually stupid. My excessive nervous- 

 ness keeps me from talking as much as I might. I am rather disposed 

 to languor than to too much vivacity. I do not care for fashionable 

 society, and, to put it shortly, idleness is my favourite passion, and 

 one I ought to try to conquer. It often interferes with my studies, 

 to which, however, I am devoted. Finally, the best part of me is 

 my heart, which will perhaps prove my misfortune. Its sensibility is 

 so excessive, it agitates itself so often about nothing, that my reason 



