EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 323 



lively, clear blue eyes. He was dressed extremely simply in a short 

 brown coat of Silesian cloth and a white waistcoat and trousers. He 

 looked for a long time at M. Bourrit's pictures of the glaciers. . . . 

 Papa showed him his museum and electrical machine, to which he 

 did not give much attention. On leaving he paid fine compliments to 

 several ladies who had gathered on the great staircase to see him pass.' 



De Saussure had been warned that the Emperor might ask 

 to be taken to the glaciers, and Bourrit had written him a letter 

 imploring that the job of acting as local cicerone might, if not 

 wanted by de Saussure, be passed on to the ' Historiographer of 

 the Alps.' But the Emperor was in a hurry, and there was no 

 question of a trip to Chamonix. 



Next day he set out on the road to Lausanne and Berne. 

 We owe to Bonnet, who lived not far from Ferney, an amusing, 

 and, for his kindly bent, somewhat malicious, account of what 

 happened : 



* The Emperor,' he writes, ' left Secheron between four and five 

 in the afternoon ; he passed through Ferney like an arrow. The old 

 gentleman [Voltaire], with all his household in full dress, was waiting 

 for him [at the cross-roads where the road to Ferney branches off from 

 the Route de Suisse]. He had got up early and worn his best wig 

 since eight o'clock in the morning, made great preparations for a 

 dinner, and pushed his attention to the sovereign so far as to have all 

 the stones cleared off the road to his house that is for more than 

 half a league. Nevertheless, the traveller gave him the mortification 

 of not halting for a single instant, and even when the postilion indi- 

 cated Ferney, the Emperor only shouted twice over, "Fouette, cocher ! " 

 It is clear from all his behaviour that he intended to mortify the old 

 pamphleteer, who, I assure you, felt it deeply.' 



Bonnet's version of the story was not universally accepted. 

 Voltaire, at any rate, had another tale to tell. He asserted that 

 two men leapt on the steps of the Emperor's carriage and asked 

 him if he was not going to see Voltaire, and that Joseph n., irritated 

 at the impertinence, gave the order to drive on ; that his conduct, 

 therefore, was the result not of any deliberate resolve, but of a 

 sudden pique. Another version is that the Emperor's mother, 

 the Empress Maria Theresa, had instructed her son to avoid 

 Voltaire and visit Haller. 



So the Emperor went on his way to call on Haller, then almost 

 on his death-bed at Berne. On his return to Vienna he sent to 



