Madame de Staël called the next day on Madame de Chateaubriand at Geneva, and we left for Chamouny. My opinion on the scenery of the mountains caused it to be said that I was seeking to make myself singular. It will be seen, when I come to speak of the Saint-Gothard, that I have kept to my opinion. In the _Voyage au Mont-Blanc_ appears a passage which I will recall as linking together the past events of my life and the events of that same life then still future, and to-day also past: "There is one circumstance alone in which it is true that the mountains produce an oblivion of earthly troubles: that is when one withdraws far from the world to consecrate himself to religion. An anchorite devoting himself to the service of mankind, a saint wishing to meditate in silence on the greatness of God, may find peace and joy on desert rocks; but it is not then the tranquillity of the spot that passes into the soul of those solitaries: it is, on the contrary, their soul that diffuses its serenity through the region of storms.... "There are mountains which I would still visit with extreme pleasure: those, for instance, of Greece and Judæa. I should like to go over the spots with which my new studies lead me daily to occupy myself: I would gladly seek, upon the Tabor and Taygetus, other colours and other harmonies, after painting the unfamed mountains and unknown valleys of the New World." The last phrase foretold the voyage which, in fact, I performed in the next year, 1806. [Sidenote: The Comte de Forbin.] On our return to Geneva, without being able to see Madame de Staël again at Coppet, we found the inns crammed. But for the cares of M. de Forbin[676], who arrived unexpectedly and procured us a bad dinner in a dark waiting-room, we should have left the birth-place of Rousseau without eating. M. de Forbin was at that time in a state of beatitude; he displayed in his looks the inner felicity with which he was inundated; his feet did not touch the ground. Wafted on his talent and his blissfulness, he came down from the mountain as though from the sky, with his close-fitting painter's jacket, his pallet on his thumb, his brushes in a quiver. A good fellow, nevertheless, although excessively happy, preparing to imitate me one day, when I should have made my voyage to Syria, wishing even to go as far as Calcutta, to make his loves return to him by an uncommon road, when they failed him on the beaten track. His eyes showed a protecting pity: I was poor, humble, uncertain of myself, and I did not hold the hearts of princesses in my mighty hands. In Rome, I have had the honour of returning M. de Forbin his lake-side dinner; I had the merit of having become an ambassador. In these days one sees the poor devil whom one has left that morning in the street turned into a king by evening.