130 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



while at Geneva, took vehemently the part of the Representants, 

 refusing to associate with the aristocrats, and after the counter- 

 revolution of 1782 resigning his citizenship by way of protest. 



In later years Lord Mahon gave proof of the influence his 

 republican upbringing had had on his mind. He was popularly 

 known as ' Citizen Stanhope,' or 'the mad Lord Stanhope.' At 

 that date that an English peer should both profess Radicalism 

 and show marked ability as a scientific inventor was doubtless 

 held sufficient ground for the epithet. 



About this time de Saussure made practical use of his frequent 

 talks with Franklin and his own electrical researches by fixing a 

 lightning-conductor, a mast surmounted by an iron spike, said to 

 have been 100 feet above the ground, to his townhouse. This 

 portentous novelty was regarded with much distrust by his 

 neighbours, who threatened a riot, and de Saussure was obliged 

 to write a pamphlet to dissipate their fears. 1 A lightning-con- 

 ductor still exists on the house. 



In the autumn of the next year, 1772, after an unsuccessful 

 visit to the waters of Aix, his general health and his throat gave 

 de Saussure such trouble that he was advised by Dr. Tronchin 2 

 to pass the winter in the south. He writes to Haller : ' As 

 the cold always disagrees with me, I am determined to spend the 

 next winter in Naples.' He tells him he proposes to describe 

 Italy from the point of view of natural science ; of books dealing 

 with art and antiquity, of parleyings over pictures and raptures 

 on rums, there were already, he held, enough. 



Accordingly, in the autumn of 1772 he set out, accompanied 

 by his wife and his daughter, then a child of six. At the start he 

 was so ill that there was some question whether his health would 

 allow him to continue the journey, but once over the Mont Cenis 

 he made rapid improvement, and was able to carry out his in- 

 tentions very thoroughly. 



At Bologna de Saussure met and admired the celebrated 

 lady doctor, Signora Laura Bassi. The party reached Florence 

 at the end of October. There they made the acquaintance of 

 Sir Horace Mann, the correspondent of Walpole. De Saussure 

 1 This pamphlet was translated into Italian and reissued at Venice. 

 8 So says Senebier. Dr. Tronchin had left Geneva for Paris in 1766. But 

 his biographer indicates that he visited Geneva subsequently. (See Th. Tronchin, 

 by H. Tronchin, Geneva, 1900.) 



