MONT BLANC 237 



he published articles on the North-West Passage and on the pos- 

 sibility of reaching the North Pole. He died in 1827, and is buried 

 in Stanmore Church, where an inscription records his services to 

 astronomy and the science of navigation. 



We shall meet Bourrit again on the Col du G6ant. But 

 his last climb on Mont Blanc calls for an honourable mention 

 here. In the following year, 1788, he renewed his assault as a 

 member of a combined it may almost be called an international 

 expedition . His companions were an Englishman named Woodley 

 and a Dutchman named Camper. The weather was broken 

 and the wind high. The Englishman and his guide alone got to 

 the top. Bourrit, whose slow pace soon left him in the rear, 

 gave in, after a plucky struggle, at the last rocks, the Petits 

 Mulets, only 400 feet below the summit. His failure supplied 

 the ' Historiographer ' with material for a spirited narrative, in 

 which he almost persuades his readers and quite persuaded 

 himself that he had, for all practical purposes, attained the 

 long-sought goal. 



De Saussure lost no time on his return in giving to the public 

 an account of his ascent. A brief preliminary note in the second 

 number of the newly-founded Journal de Geneve was followed 

 within a week by the carefully drawn up Relation Abregee, 

 subsequently incorporated in the Voyages. Geneva, which 

 seems to have paid but little attention to the conquest of the 

 mountain by the two Chamoniards in the previous year, was 

 thrilled by the success of its illustrious Professor. Now when 

 the Geneva of the eighteenth century was thrilled, politically 

 or otherwise, it made a practice of bursting into rhymed prose. 



By such an event as the conquest of Mont Blanc the local 

 Muse, not, it must be admitted, a frequenter of the heights of 

 Parnassus, was naturally roused to make special efforts. Several 

 of the poems written for the occasion survive, notably a long 

 tribute or Hommage to de Saussure composed by a minor play- 

 wright of the period named Marignie. 1 For the benefit of the 

 curious I have appended at the end of this chapter extracts from 

 this and other compositions of a like character. In these the 

 reader will find a harrowing description of the terrors of Madame 



1 ' Hommage & M. de Saussure sur son ascension et ses experiences physiques 

 au sommet du'lMont Blanc.' 



