216 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



great fatigue from the fact that the surface was covered with a thin 

 crust which alternately bore them and gave way under their steps. 

 The guide told him he could not persevere unless he (Paccard) was 

 prepared to take the lead from time to time and to break the snow, 

 and he did this all the way to the top. There they were exposed to a 

 bitterly cold west wind which affected their breathing. They sought 

 for temporary shelter below the final crest, but found the temperature 

 insupportable. They could only withstand the cold by keeping con- 

 tinually in movement. He had a compass, and he believed that on 

 the top its variation was different. I passed the rest of the evening 

 in writing this.' 



These are the rough notes jotted down, in no very orderly 

 sequence, by one of the most accurate of men after listening to 

 Paccard's description of the incidents of the ascent, given a 

 fortnight after it took place. They now leap to light to con- 

 tradict finally the legend that was fabricated by Bourrit and 

 endorsed and embroidered by Alexandre Dumas, that Paccard 

 was an incompetent climber who was dragged to the top by his 

 brave companion. Surely it is time that the Alpine Clubs provided 

 for the erection beside the monument at Chamonix to de Saussure 

 and Balmat of some memorial to the village doctor. 1 



De Saussure lingered another ten days in the mountains, 

 during which time he made an excursion to Martigny and to the 

 foot of the Dent de Morcles. On his return to Chamonix the 

 weather continued broken, his servant fell ill, and with many 

 regrets he gave up the game for the year, venting his feelings, 

 when Mont Blanc shone down on his departure, by quoting in his 

 diary the lines of Horace (Satires, book ii. 7) : 



' Poscit te mulier, vexat, foribusque repulsum 

 Perfundit gelida, rursus vocat.' 

 The jade invites you, plagues you, from her door 

 Drives with cold douches ; then calls back once more. 2 



In the hotel book at St. Martin he added to his name, ' on 

 return from his fourteenth visit to the glaciers.' 



De Saussure's friends Pictet and Bonnet quickly spread the 



1 For a full statement of the documentary evidence in this protracted con- 

 troversy and a fair summing up, readers must turn to Dr. Diibi's able and 

 exhaustive volume, already referred to, Paccard under Balmat (Berne, 1913). 



2 It will be noted that, to fit the quotation better to his own case, de Saussure 

 leaves out the double accusative carried by the words quinque tcdenta in the 

 preceding line. 



