ITALY 139 



to this projected visit. A year later Madame de Saussure reports 

 to Judith the state of the family : 



' Your mother is always solitary. . . . Your father is always busy 

 with his farm and an antiquated system of physics ; even politics 

 are a feeble distraction to him. Your brother is very well and em- 

 braces you tenderly. Your niece [Albertine de Saussure] is surrounded 

 by extracts and works of devotion : she is to take her first communion 

 at Easter. I only see my children when they are at their Latin lesson 

 or out walking.' 



Mile, de Saussure kept up a constant correspondence with 

 her family, and such of her letters as have been preserved tell 

 of much social gaiety. More than once she begs her brother 

 to send her one of the famous lake trout from Geneva as a con- 

 tribution to her or her friends' entertainments. These fish were 

 often dispatched as far as Paris, and we read on one occasion 

 of the Envoy of the Genevese Republic there begging that a 

 particularly fine specimen may be provided as a compliment to 

 the First Consul (Bonaparte), whom at the moment it was very 

 desirable to propitiate. Mile, de Saussure would sometimes 

 send her brother in return geological specimens collected by the 

 travelled members of the French nobility who frequented her 

 salon. From time to time she consulted him as to her treatment 

 of her admirers, or recommended some of her agreeable English 

 acquaintances to his care. But though she paid occasional visits 

 to Genthod, she never showed a disposition to return to Geneva for 

 any length of time. For her summer holidays she preferred the 

 Cevennes, or, if she wished to meet her family, Nyon or one of 

 the smaller Swiss towns on the lake. 



In 1785, however, Judith visited her relations at Geneva, and 

 she was there again in 1790. We next hear of her in July 

 1792, undeterred by the Revolution, staying in Paris with her 

 brother's friend Madame de Montesson. On the llth she writes 

 to him : 



' It is quite true that Paris is very gloomy, and may at any 

 moment become dangerous, but you know my character. When 

 those to whom I am attached are in danger, I suffer more when I am 

 separated from them than when I share the danger, and this was 

 why I was so ill and shaken last year on the 13th February. I was at 



