THE LAST YEARS 383 



lively and deep gratitude. Your mother and I agree with you, and 

 we prefer beyond comparison the post at Gottingen to Berlin or 

 St. Petersburg. My only fear is lest the work should be too fatiguing 

 for my state of health. I must find out for how many lectures a week 

 I should be called on, and how long they would be ; if one would have 

 to talk loud and in what language. I believe and hope Latin, because 

 though I read German easily enough I don't talk it easily, and I know 

 enough of the difficulties of the language to be sure that I should 

 never master them. 



' I have passed, my dear child, the age of ambition ; you are 

 assured if not of being rich, of having enough to live on. So I shall 

 take quite contentedly the part of ending my days with your mother 

 in the strict economy to which we are reduced. But the idea of a 

 bankruptcy is one to which I cannot accustom myself, and unless the 

 French funds recover their value, or I succeed in finding some means 

 of adding to my income, it is almost impossible for me to escape this 

 misfortune. But if I could find a post which would allow me to put 

 aside some five or six hundred louis a year, I should be almost certain 

 to avoid it. This is the object of my ambition. As to personal 

 security I trust we shall enjoy it at Geneva, and I should be tranquil 

 and without anxiety if I had no other cares. The horrible intoxica- 

 tion which caused the crimes which disgraced the last revolution has 

 entirely passed and given place to repentance and remorse. A revolu- 

 tionary club has proposed that a monument should be erected to the 

 innocent victims of this insurrection It is an idea which I have 

 planted in some warm and honest hearts, and I see with great pleasure 

 that it is spreading and makes progress, but its origin must not be 

 suspected. I cited the sorrow and tears of Alexander on the death of 

 Clitus. Such a monument might give occasion for the finest efforts of 

 oratory and is the only way to wash out the shame of these crimes 

 and prevent their repetition.' 



In another letter of about the same date de Saussure goes in 

 fuller detail into the Gottingen project, and points out that he 

 would prefer a post which gave him greater leisure for independent 

 research. 



Meantime the news of his difficult circumstances had been 

 widely spread. A Paris newspaper in February 1795 had put in a 

 paragraph : * Poor Professor Saussure is reduced to such poverty 

 that he is soliciting a post in Germany. 5 This crude announce- 

 ment was copied in Italian journals and drew forth the following 

 letter from Lord Bristol, the eccentric and picturesque Bishop of 



