310 LITE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



inconsistent when, on the acceptance of the Edict of Pacification 

 in March 1768, he accused the patricians of selling the constitution 

 in a cheap pursuit of popularity. He appears to have thought that 

 in place of repealing minor class restrictions they had given away 

 too many constitutional safeguards. He recommends his friend 

 to ' Despair with patience ' ; it was a quality he often failed to 

 exhibit in his own case. 



De Saussure seems not to have been content to take the advice 

 thus given him without some further independent effort. From a 

 letter written to him at this time by the Duchesse d'Enville from 

 Paris we gather that the young Professor had prepared and sub- 

 mitted to the French mediator, M. de Beauteville, a sketch of a 

 project of reform. The Duchesse refers rather despondently to 

 the difficulty of finding a solution that will satisfy both the 

 Government and the people, ' whose interests are so different,' but 

 assures him of the goodwill of the Resident. Of the details of de 

 Saussure 's proposals no record seems to exist. It is, I think, 

 clear that they failed to bear fruit. It may fairly be inferred 

 from his subsequent action that they lay in the direction of a 

 gradual development in a democratic sense of the constitution as 

 opposed to any violent changes which might put control of the 

 administration of the State into the hands of the populace. He 

 foresaw the trend of events and the trouble that was to come, and 

 his remedy for it was an attempt if the crowd was to rule to 

 educate it first. Throughout his life popular education was his 

 political watchword. 



