94 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



Here is another character : 



' M. de Bomare, the author of the Dictionary, 1 if not a miracle 

 like M. de Jussieu, is certainly the best man in the world. He is small, 

 fat, pink and white, somewhat a victim to nerves ; a grocer by trade, 

 but his wife keeps the shop. He has a pretty cabinet of natural 

 history, which one reaches through the shop (where Madame Bomare 

 sells dried figs and raisins), is profound in mineralogy, but a little 

 superficial in all the rest.' 



To his mother de Saussure sent a lively social sketch : 

 ' A pretty new opera has been brought out called Les Moissonneurs, 

 in which there is a song that runs : " Argent, argent, maitre du 

 monde, tu regnes sur tous les etats." It is here [in Paris] above all 

 that one realises the truth of the song, and on this account the place 

 is not very agreeable for folk like us who are crushed between the 

 high nobility and the financiers. Rich young men like the Lullins 

 [the Genevese bankers, relations of Madame de Saussure] or birds of 

 passage like ourselves can face the situation, but people of moderate 

 fortune (and I call moderate anything under 60,000 livres de rente), 

 who came to settle here would suffer constant inconveniences, unless 

 they were wise enough to live on exactly the same scale as those of 

 similar fortune ; but we Genevese who at home belong to the best set 

 are apt to think ourselves made to hold our own with the best else- 

 where, and have often occasion to regret it. The son of your neigh- 

 bour, who could never have anticipated this, is beginning to realise 

 it. He spent yesterday, as I do often, part of the afternoon at Mme. 

 la Duchesse d'Enville's, who receives at that hour all that is most dis- 

 tinguished in the kingdom. He confessed to me that he felt so 

 small that he grew almost ashamed of the room he took on his chair. 

 These people combine with the greatest politeness a tone and manners 

 which naturally, at first meeting, create an impression. As for me, I 

 am pretty well seasoned. But enough moralising : still this is a place 

 for moralising, and it is one of the principal gains of this kind of journey. 

 One sees so many strange sights, so many originals of every sort, so 

 many follies of every variety, that one is perforce drawn to reflection. 

 Where do you think these reflections carry me ? To you, my good 

 mother, to the good education you gave me. I find continual occasion 

 to apply the excellent lessons you gave me on the world and men, and 

 then I regret that you are not planted invisibly on one of these gilded 

 sofas to see what occupies me and to talk it over with me.' 



1 A Dictionary of Natural History. Valmont de Bomare was a considerable 

 traveller, who visited most parts of Europe, Lapland, and Iceland in the employ 

 of his Government, and made large collections. 



