Coutet and Allen are very anxious to do all they can now that Crawley is away; and I don't think I shall manage very badly," etc.
A little later he took in addition a cottage in which the Empress of Russia had once stayed: it commanded a finer view than the larger house, which has since been turned into a hotel (Hotel et Pension des Glycines).

This place was for some time the hermitage in which he wrote his political economy.

Of his lonely rambles he wrote later on: "If I have a definite point to reach, and common work to do at it--I take people--anybody--with me; but all my best _mental_ work is necessarily done alone; whenever I wanted to think, in Savoy, I used to leave Coutet at home.

Constantly I have been alone on the Glacier des Bois--and far among the loneliest aiguille recesses.

I found the path up the Brezon above Bonneville in a lonely walk one Sunday; I saw the grandest view of the Alps of Savoy I ever gained, on the 2nd of January, 1862, alone among the snow wreaths on the summit of the Saleve.