MONT BLANC 221 



Cachat and Alexis Tournier. They slept at my first cabin, started 

 from there at 1.30 A.M., at 5 o'clock were opposite my second cabin, 

 at 10.30 A.M. at the foot of the last and great slope of Mont Blanc, 

 and at 3 P.M. on the summit, where the wind and cold did not allow 

 them to stop long. They were only seven hours in descending, and 

 J. Balmat, to whom I had sent a veil with which he covered his face, 

 did not suffer at all from the snow, while the others were inconvenienced. 

 ' From this account I gathered that my huts were very badly 

 arranged, since I had for the first day only four hours, for the second 

 three hours and a half, and for the third ten hours of climbing. 1 In 

 consequence, after many talks with Jacques and afterwards with 

 Pierre Balmat, I made up my mind to camp the first day on the top 

 of the Montagne de la Cote close to the glacier, which would take me 

 about five hours and a half, from there to the extremity of the last 

 cul-de-sac under the top of Mont Blanc, which would take seven hours 

 and a half, leaving four hours and a half on to the top. It was true 

 this involved sleeping on the snow, but they all think that under the 

 tent one will be well protected from the cold and that the snow will 

 not melt under the rugs and still less under the planks of the bed.' 



Bourrit, who, as has been noted, had followed close in de 

 Saussure's footsteps, this time with his younger son, Charles, a 

 boy of fifteen, arrived at Chamonix at the same moment, ready for 

 any chance of accompanying, or following, his patron. But this 

 year he found there was to be no question of a joint expedition. 

 Bourrit might start six hours after de Saussure, twenty-four 

 hours after him, or when he saw his party on the top he was 

 always changing his plans but there was to be no companion- 

 ship above the snow level. In the valley de Saussure and his 

 household were friendly enough with ' the historiographer of the 

 Alps,' and the ladies were kind to his boy, who picked bouquets 

 for them. Bourrit hired a chalet in the meadows behind the 

 church at the foot of the Brevent, where he showed his pictures 

 and sold them, or hand -coloured prints, to the ' visitors to the 

 glaciers.' Of the three weeks of persistently bad or broken 

 weather that ensued we have very full details, owing to the survival 

 not only of de Saussure's diary, but of that of the younger Bourrit. 

 The fine intervals were all too brief for climbing purposes. Mont 



1 Colonel Beaufoy, however, proved the contrary. He climbed Mont Blanc 

 from the second hut, and returned to it the same evening. De Saussure was 

 handicapped by his scientific baggage. 



