374 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



du Rhone]. Now, I have never spoken of what is thrown in at its 

 emergence that is too obviously stupid and absurd; the question 

 was as to bodies thrown in where it disappears which are not seen to 

 emerge again where it comes out. It is very strange that it should 

 be possible to attribute a blunder of this sort to a creature that walks 

 on two feet. I should have thought that all the details proved that 

 I had never spoken of bits of wood thrown in at the emergence, but of 

 those thrown in at the engulf ment. Allow me to tell you. sir, that 

 the very fact that an opinion appears to one absurd ought to make 

 one more careful, before attributing it to an author, to assure oneself 

 he has really held it. Now the word reappear which I used in itself 

 proves that I was not talking of a body which one launches at the 

 point of emergence, as one might a boat.' 



As a rule, de Saussure's letters follow scrupulously the 

 elaborately polite forms of the period. But when the occasion 

 seemed to him one in which to dispense with them as in this case, 

 and several previously cited he could be more than blunt. 



The close of the year 1793 had been marked by frequent dis- 

 orders fomented by the French Resident. On 5th February 1794 

 a radical constitution, formulated by the Constituent Assembly, 

 was accepted by a popular vote. 



On receipt of this news the British Minister at Berne, Lord 

 Robert Fitzgerald, promptly appealed to the Governments of 

 Berne and Zurich to refuse to recognise the new democratic 

 regime of Geneva, which he denounced as ' founded on the same 

 system as that which had already in France produced so many 

 crimes and calamities,' and as ' the fruit of intrigues and acts of 

 violence instigated by the agents of enemies of His Majesty,' 

 adding that * it had allowed the partisans of anarchy to insult the 

 Allied Powers by permitting public rejoicings over defeats suffered 

 by the armies which were fighting for the preservation and the 

 civilisation of all the States of Europe.' 1 



Little effect seems to have been produced by this forcible 

 remonstrance. At Geneva there was a relative calm for a few 

 months ; the annual ' Promotions,' or School Speech-day, was 

 celebrated as usual. But the city was still divided against itself, 

 and the midsummer heat was to prove deadly to the new-born 

 constitution. 



1 Archives Cantonalea de Berne, Aden Geheimen Raths : Genfer Unruhen, 

 vol. xix. No. 23. 



