THE BUET 187 



discovers that luxuriance and enthusiasm of fancy which 

 without instructions have constituted him the painter and the 

 musician of nature.' Forbes puts it more crudely: 'He conveys 

 the simplest facts through a medium of unmixed bombast.' 



With his disregard for accuracy, Bourrit combined a boundless 

 vanity. If he loved the Alps well, he loved Bourrit still more. 

 If Mont Blanc was his idol, he looked on himself as its high priest, 

 and was jealous of any intrusion on the shrine. De Saussure 

 wrote, ' M. Bourrit takes even more interest than I do in the 

 conquest of Mont Blanc.' The enthusiastic worshipper would 

 have greatly preferred to have had no rival in his devotion. 

 But for obvious reasons it was needful to treat de Saussure with 

 respect. It was an honour to the Precentor to be associated with 

 the wealthy patrician and man of science, while as a needy artist 

 he found in him a kindly and munificent patron. Bourrit had to 

 be content with doing his best to link himself on to de Saussure 

 in the latter 's attacks on the great mountain. But lesser tres- 

 passers he could not abide. Had his vanity been harmless, it 

 might have been forgotten, or passed over lightly, but unfor- 

 tunately it led him into an exhibition of jealousy which, as 

 will be shown in the next chapter, helped for nearly a century 

 to obscure the story of the conquest of Mont Blanc. We have 

 the testimony of one of de Saussure's grandsons that Bourrit 

 was the originator of the legend of Balmat, which many years 

 later was to be adorned by Alexandre Dunias (the elder) with all 

 the romantic detail of which he was a master. Apart from this 

 deplorable episode, it would be possible for mountain -lovers to 

 look with a lenient eye on Bourrit 's complacency and self-conceit. 

 De Saussure himself has set us an example . x His general attitude 

 towards Bourrit was one of more or less indulgent toleration. 

 In his Voyages he praises warmly the artist and refers kindly to 

 the fellow-climber. The letter in which he thanks Bourrit for 

 a copy of his first book is a model of its kind ; he gives what 

 praise he can ; at the same time he suggests, under cover of a 

 gentle irony, qualifications sufficient to satisfy his own conscience, 



1 Bourrit's relations with de Saussure and his family are best illustrated by de 

 Saussure's journal during his long stay at Chamonix in 1787, and the boy Charles 

 Bourrit's diary during the same period. They remained of a very friendly char- 

 acter despite the Aiguille du Gouter incident to be recounted in the next chapter. 



