386 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



for a passport is written in very cordial and complimentary terms. 

 In April 1796 he forwarded to Paris de Saussure's acceptance of 

 the position of teacher of Chemistry and Physics in the Ecole 

 Centrale. De Saussure, while pointing out that he had to finish 

 the proofs of his fourth volume, which was already in the press, 

 asked for adequate notice of the date at which he would have to be 

 in Paris, and also for his travelling expenses. He wrote : 



' I am in despair at having to make this request, but my father, 

 having the most complete trust in France, placed there all his and 

 my mother's fortunes, so that I have found myself fallen from a hand- 

 some income, such as the expenses incident to my travels and researches 

 called for, to a state of penury which makes it impossible for me to 

 provide the cost of the journey.' 



A correspondence ensued, in which the Department concerned 

 exhibited a dilatoriness and pettiness combined with a self- 

 complacent pomposity frequently met with in the dealings of 

 similar bodies, whatever the form of government. A year later 

 we find it regretting that it cannot afford the money for de 

 Saussure's travelling expenses. A letter from Dolomieu, the 

 geologist, whose name lives in one of the most romantic dis- 

 tricts of the Alps, lets us into the bare facts of the situation. 

 It is dated 1st November 1796 : 



' I had cherished the hope, Monsieur, of having you this winter 

 hi Paris up to the moment when I saw M. Ginguene, but I had to 

 abandon it entirely when the Director of Public Instruction told me 

 that he had never, despite his most earnest entreaties, been able to 

 obtain from the Government the small sum needed for your travelling 

 expenses, and that he could not even offer you lodging as the house 

 he had meant for you was no longer at his disposal. He is even glad 

 that you did not yield to the first proposals made to you and come 

 at once to Paris ; the salary promised you would not have been paid 

 and your embarrassments hi a new household might have been ex- 

 treme. The Government does not pay even the most urgent claims, 

 and those relating to Public Education are far from being held of any 

 urgency.' 



Simultaneously with this negotiation the educational autho- 

 rities of the Department of the Puy de Dome were pressing 

 in their invitation to de Saussure to accept a Chair of Natural 



