POLITICS AND HOME LIFE (1781-92) 355 



imperfect and calculated to be a starting-point for fresh disputes ! l 

 On this ground, we learn from the same authority, a group, belong- 

 ing to the party of the Repr6sentants, voted against it in the 

 Assembly. 2 Now the best a contemporary apologist could find to 

 say for the Edict was, ' Nous avons fait un arrangement aussi pas- 

 sable en soi que 1'urgence des temps et la disposition des esprits 

 nous le permettaient.' 3 It is surely reasonable to assume that 

 de Saussure's vote in the Great Council was influenced by reasons 

 similar to those ascribed by M. Fazy to the group of Represen- 

 tants in the Assembly ; and his action a year later in proposing 

 a revision of the Edict appears to afford convincing proof of the 

 truth of this assumption. 



M. Fazy's violent outburst on a previous page of his work 

 with respect to de Saussure's attitude on this occasion would 

 seem therefore to be not only inconsistent but unjustifiable. I 

 quote it below with regret, but it is impossible for a biographer 

 of de Saussure to leave unnoticed language which obviously calls 

 for explanation. 4 



For the present the political crisis did not interfere with de 

 Saussure's usual summer visit to the mountains. On this 

 occasion he broke new ground, and at last approached Monte 

 Rosa, the great mountain he had nine years previously tried 

 to sketch the outline of from Vercelli. His diary of the tour 

 and some of his letters to his wife bearing directly on it have 

 already been quoted. Others have an interest, however, apart 

 from mountain exploration, which makes me return to them here. 

 It was at Macugnaga that de Saussure heard of the fall of the 

 Bastille, and his comment on it proves his liberal sympathies and 

 how far he was from being the obstinate oligarch he has been 

 sometimes represented. The entry in his diary shows that he 



1 Gen&ve de 1788 a 1792 : La Fin d'un Regime, par M. Henri Fazy, Geneve, 

 1917, p. 71. 



2 ' Dans le nombre des 52 rejetants, il y eut, dit-on, autant de Repr6sen- 

 tants que de Negatifs,' p. 61 of same work. 



3 D'lvernois, Revolutions de Geneve, vol. iii. p. 301. 



* ' n y eutfcependant de 1'opposition. Le croirait-on ? le celebre naturalisto 

 de Saussure fut au nombre de ceux qui se prononcerent centre le pro jet. II 

 arrive frequemment que des savants du plus grand merite temoignent d'une com- 

 plete incompetence, lorsqu'ils sont appeles a se prononcer sur des questions 

 d'ordre politique. En cette occasion de Saussure manqua de la clairvoyance la 

 plus elementaire.' Geneve de 1788 a 1792, p. 58. 



