POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 347 



in order to take barometrical observations at sea-level for the 

 purpose of comparison with those he hoped to obtain on the 

 summit of Mont Blanc he started early in April for a journey in 

 the south of France in company with his wife. On the way 

 de Saussure indulged her desire to make a pilgrimage to the home 

 of Madame de Sevigne's daughter. They accordingly drove from 

 Montelimar, with the aid of two mules to draw their carriage over 

 atrocious roads, to Grignan. Madame de Saussure describes the 

 excursion to her daughter : 



' It is not easy to get to Grignan. We took a guide, not that he 

 was much use, as the leader of the two mules we added to our team 

 knew the road much better than the guide, who had only passed it on 

 horseback. At last we set off, but slowly ; the roads were often 

 broken, the ruts deep. We had frequently to get down in the bad 

 places, and to be content with two fresh eggs we swallowed in our 

 carriage, as no room not full of noisy drinkers was to be found in the 

 village of Vallaurie. We laughed a great deal. At last we came 

 in sight of Grignan. It is a vast building ; all its balustraded terraces, 

 beaten by the winds of which Madame de Sevigne speaks, produce 

 a noble effect. Grignan is set on a rock in the middle of a lofty, arid 

 slope ; a little town of about a thousand inhabitants, fairly well 

 built, lies in an amphitheatre below.' 



The agent of the owner received the visitors, and Madame de 

 Saussure was lodged in Madame de Sevigne's room, which had 

 her portrait over the chimney-piece, but none of the old furniture. 

 The agent could only talk of the present occupiers. Next morning 

 the de Saussures visited and admired the Rochers de La Roche - 

 courbiere, where Madame de Sevigne used to picnic . She describes 

 it as a piece of Switzerland in Provence. 



Having now no motive, as in 1780, to hurry home, de Saussure 

 made a detailed examination of the coast of Provence, visiting 

 Toulon, Hyeres, and Frejus. Undeterred by the memory of past 

 sufferings, he even ventured out to sea, in order to explore the 

 lies d' Hyeres. 



He climbed several of the coast hills. An excursion he 

 describes at some length is the ascent of the seaward crest of the 

 Esterels, on which he bestowed the name it still bears, the Montagne 

 du Cap Roux. He had some difficulty in finding and then in 

 climbing the highest point of the rocky ridge so familiar as an 



