356 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



fully shared the enthusiasm with which Fox is recorded to have 

 greeted the great news : 



' July 27. My letters bring very good news from home, and of the 

 happy revolution at Paris and Versailles. This brings balm to my soul.' 



In his reply to his wife's letters he comments more fully 



' on all these strange events, which you describe to me better and 

 more clearly than [Franyois] Tronchin does in the long bulletin Dejean 

 sends me. Ah ! how fine and good it all is ; but this wicked Queen 

 and all the authors of this odious plot, will they escape unpunished ? 

 What unheard-of horrors ! And this King, said to be good, to have 

 taken part in the assassinations ! l If they had accomplished their 

 crime they would not have been more advanced, for I am convinced 

 they would have had their throats cut by the people. I hope the 

 Queen will be so mortified, will find herself fallen under such opprobrium, 

 that she will be obliged to go back to her own country. Adieu ; had 

 you received my two letters you would have seen that I have never 

 had the least doubt as to the happy issue of this business. Still, I am 

 glad to know it is over and how it ended. So I shall not be reduced 

 to become a miner at Macugnaga ; in that case I should have brought 

 you here and built you a nice warm house ! The place is charming, 

 there are no such fine glaciers anywhere but at Chamonix, and here 

 there is more plain, the most beautiful meadows, delicious woods, 

 the houses all standing separate and surrounded by grass, to the 

 point that one cannot go out without getting one's feet wet. This is 

 a bit too like England ! ' 



A few days before he had written cheerfully to his wife on the 

 effect that the troubles in Paris were likely to have on the French 

 rentes, in which, as was general in Geneva, his father's fortune was, 

 in great part , invested. He mentions that there were at Macugnaga 

 several ' merchants ' who had connections with France and shared 

 his optimism as to the results of the Revolution. 



' The news,' he writes, ' anxious as it is, does not alarm me greatly 

 for our fortunes, since, after all, if neither the King nor the nation 

 desire to be bankrupt, the victor will pay us. Besides, it is possible 

 that in the end these events will produce a more stable situation and 

 give a wholesome warning to the disturbers of the public peace. 



' What appears to me doubtful is whether M. Necker will return, 



1 The rumours which reached Geneva from Paris as to the action of the 

 Court at this moment would seem to have been very exaggerated. 



