260 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



must start for the Arveyron. Madame de la Rive put her foot on 

 a loose stone and fell into the water without hurting herself, but the 

 alarm caused Mme. de Prangins an attack of nerves. She had to be 

 put to bed, and the only thing to be done was to send her back to her 

 chateau. Luckily your pretty chateau is on the road to hers, so this 

 letter is sure to be conveyed to you. 



' I expected yesterday evening that rogue (manant) Jacques 

 Balmat ; he ought to have come back and brought your news, but he 

 has stopped at Sallanches to get painted ! . . .' 



It was doubtless on this occasion that the portrait of Jacques 

 Balmat, which was reproduced as a companion to one of Dr.Paccard, 

 was painted. Both were by Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe 

 (1761-1824), a man who had a singularly varied and distinguished 

 career. He lived at Sallanches from 1786 to 1793, when he 

 enlisted in the French army, made the acquaintance of Napoleon 

 at Toulon, became first Chef du Service Topographique de la 

 Republique Cisalpine, and later Chef des Ingenieurs Geographes at 

 Paris, Directeur du Cabinet Topographique de 1'Empereur, Baron 

 de 1' Empire, and General de Brigade. He accompanied Napoleon 

 on all his campaigns except the Egyptian one. 



Before closing the story of the encampment on the Col du 

 G6ant, I must mention the still popular coloured prints illustrative 

 of this great adventure. Their printed titles, it is true, in most 

 instances make them refer to the ascent of Mont Blanc. But this 

 appears to have been an afterthought of an enterprising publisher 

 who held it might be profitable to associate the plates with the 

 more spectacular enterprise. There seems no room for doubt that 

 they were all derived from a common source, drawings illustrative 

 of the passage of the Col du Ge'ant, made by Henri 1'Eveque, a 

 young Genevese artist who accompanied de Saussure to Chamonix 

 in 1788. The drawings were reproduced at Basle by a well-known 

 engraver of the day, Chretien de Mechel, who had frequent 

 relations with de Saussure. A conclusive proof that they refer to 

 the passage of the Col is the presence in them of a second and 

 younger traveller de Saussure 's son Theodore. 



De Saussure would seem to have supervised their publication 

 with a critical eye from the climber's pfoint of view. In a variant 

 of one of the plates (which is extremely rare) he is represented as 

 being let down with a rope in a sitting posture to the brink of a 



