MONT BLANC 219 



of the two climbers. After the publication of de Gersdorf's evi- 

 dence, it became impossible for any competent critic to treat the 

 Bourrit-Dumas legend as a credible narrative. Indeed Bourrit 

 himself in later years (1803) went more than half-way to withdraw 

 his statement. 1 Fortunately, we are now in a position to confront 

 with it the report of the story told by Paccard at the time given 

 by de Saussure in his private diary. 



It may be noted that it was fresh from listening to this first- 

 hand narrative, and after entertaining at Genthod Baron de 

 Gersdorf, the eye-witness of the ascent, that de Saussure wrote 

 to rebuke Bourrit for the version he was putting forward. 



There was to be another year of impatience for de Saussure 

 and of anxiety for his wife. The winter, as will be related, 

 was shortened by a tour in Dauphine and Provence. When 

 summer came it was resolved to make the famous expedition 

 the occasion of a prolonged picnic in the mountains. In this 

 way the anxieties of a lengthy absence might be avoided, and 

 the adventure accomplished under the eyes of the assembled 

 family, who could watch every step in the climbers' progress. De 

 Saussure must be allowed to describe the start in the words of 

 his diary : 



' On 28th June J. Balmat wrote to me that on the 26th he had 

 made a second attempt, and that despite the quantity of snow he had 

 almost got to the top, and that he would have reached it but for the 

 violence of the wind and an impassable crevasse. He ended by 

 saying he would return to the attack shortly by another and an easier 

 route, and that he would come immediately to bring me the news. 2 

 He complained of having suffered more than the previous year from 

 the brilliancy of the snow and the keenness of the air ; his eyes, he 

 said, were painful, his face swollen, his skin peeling. It was true 



1 See the edition of 1803 of his Guide-book to Chamonix, in which Bourrit 

 writes of the expedition as one in which Dr. Paccard took part, ' if he was not 

 himself the author of it.' There had been, in the interval, a coldness between 

 Bourrit and Balmat owing to the latter's complaint of delay on Bourrit's part 

 in handing over to him the full amount of the subscription raised in Germany 

 for Balmat's benefit. 



2 Dr. Paccard's statement to de Saussure (p. 214), that in his ascent he passed 

 ' between two lofty and perpendicular rocks bare of snow and over the top of 

 the left-hand rock,' proves, as I have already shown, that the first climbers 

 passed between the Rochers Rouges. The easier route hero referred to, used 

 in the second and third ascents (the three guides' and de Saussure's), was to 

 the right (west) and over the top of both rocks. 



