350 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



the experiments be proposed to make on Mont Blanc. The 

 villagers gathered round him with many expressions of curiosity, 

 which he satisfied, until a somewhat better -dressed man appeared 

 and told de Saussure in a threatening tone that he the speaker 

 was not such a fool as he was taken for, and that he knew per- 

 fectly well that de Saussure was making a survey. At the same 

 time he seized the stick de Saussure had laid on the ground. De 

 Saussure snatched it back and used vigorous language, and while 

 the villagers were hesitating which side to take, finished his 

 experiment and got back to the inn. ' This quarrel,' he adds, 

 ' had no further result ; two years later, it might have been fatal.' 

 This was a year of frequent absences from home. In July, as 

 has already been told, the whole party, de Saussure and his family, 

 went to Chamonix to lay siege to Mont Blanc . After his victorious 

 return he and his son Theodore, now twenty, started for Turin, 

 apparently on an invitation from the Court. At St. Jean de 

 Maurienne they encountered the Intendant of the Province, M. 

 de Saint-Real, who had undertaken a study of the Mont Cenis 

 district, had spent six weeks in the past summer in a tent on the 

 mountains and climbed several summits, including the Rochemelon, 

 on which he had slept in the little chapel half full of snow. He 

 could not conceal that he was far from pleased at the prospect of his 

 particular field being attacked and his observations anticipated by 

 so famous a rival, but de Saussure was able to convince him that 

 their work need not clash, and that they might even be of some 

 mutual service. 



' We ended by becoming very good friends. He gave me his own 

 room, which was a Noah's Ark. A huge eagle with open wings, badly 

 stuffed, hung from the ceiling by a slender cord any movement made 

 it turn and gave it a ghostly air, the tables were littered with books, 

 papers, stones, instruments, all dirty and in the most horrible confusion.' 



On the Mont Cenis they lodged at the inn in preference to 

 the hospice. They found guides of a sort. They are summarily 

 sketched as follows : ' Horot, bon enfant, bon muletier, mais pas 

 bien fort. Tours, grand causeur, mais vigoureux et hardi dans 

 la montagne.' Their services were not, however, seriously called 

 upon, for the ' Fraise ' of M. de Lamanon proved a very simple 

 matter. ' There was no snow, no ice, not a single " mauvais 



