THE STORY OF MONT BLANC
The history of Mont Blanc has been made the subject of an excellent
monograph, and the reader who wishes to supplement the brief sketch
which is all that we can attempt should buy _The Annals of Mont Blanc_,
by Mr. C. E. Mathews. We have already seen that De Saussure offered a
reward in 1760 to any peasant who could find a way to the summit of
Mont Blanc. In the quarter-of-a-century that followed, several attempts
were made. Amongst others, Bourrit tried on two occasions to prove the
accessibility of Mont Blanc. Bourrit himself never reached a greater
height than 10,000 feet; but some of his companions attained the very
respectable altitude of 14,300 feet. De Saussure attacked the mountain
without success in 1785, leaving the stage ready for the entrance of
the most theatrical of mountaineers.
Jacques Balmat, the hero of Mont Blanc, impresses himself upon the
imagination as no other climber of the day. He owes his fame mainly,
of course, to his great triumph, but also, not a little, to the fact
that he was interviewed by Alexandre Dumas the Elder, who immortalised
him in _Impressions de Voyage_. For the moment, we shall not bother
to criticise its accuracy. We know that Balmat reached the summit
of Mont Blanc; and that outstanding fact is about the only positive
contribution to the story which has not been riddled with destructive
criticism. The story should be read in the original, though Dumas’
vigorous French loses little in Mr. Gribble’s spirited translation from
which I shall borrow.
[Illustration:
A Summit of Mont Blanc
B ” ” Dôme du Gouter
C ” ” Aiguille du Gouter
D ” ” Aiguille de Bianossay
E ” ” Mont Maudit
E′ ” ” Mont Blanc du Tacul
F ” ” Aiguille du Midi
G Grand Mulets
H Grand Plateau
L Les Bosses du Dromadaire
M Glacier des Bossons
N Glacier de Taconnaz
]
Dumas visited Chamounix in 1883. Balmat was then a veteran, and, of
course, the great person of the valley. Dumas lost no time in making
his acquaintance. We see them sitting together over a bottle of wine,
and we can picture for ourselves the subtle art with which the great
interviewer drew out the old guide. But Balmat shall tell his own
story--
“H’m. Let me see. It was in 1786. I was five-and-twenty; that makes
me seventy-two to-day. What a fellow I was! With the devil’s own
calves and hell’s own stomach. I could have gone three days without
bite or sup. I had to do so once when I got lost on the Buet. I
just munched a little snow, and that was all. And from time to
time I looked across at Mont Blanc saying, ‘Say what you like, my
beauty, and do what you like. Some day I shall climb you.’”
Balmat then tells us how he persuaded his wife that he was on his way
to collect crystals. He climbed steadily throughout the day, and night
found him on a great snowfield somewhere near the Grand Plateau. The
situation was sufficiently serious. To be benighted on Mont Blanc is
a fate which would terrify a modern climber, even if he were one of a
large party. Balmat was alone, and the mental strain of a night alone
on a glacier can only be understood by those who have felt the uncanny
terror that often attacks the solitary wanderer even in the daytime.
Fortunately, Balmat does not seem to have been bothered with nerves.
His fears expressed themselves in tangible shape.
“Presently the moon rose pale and encircled by clouds, which hid
it altogether at about eleven o’clock. At the same time a rascally
mist came on from the Aiguille du Gouter, which had no sooner
reached me than it began to spit snow in my face. Then I wrapped my
head in my handkerchief, and said: ‘Fire away. You’re not hurting
me.’ At every instant I heard the falling avalanches making a
noise like thunder. The glaciers split, and at every split I felt
the mountain move. I was neither hungry nor thirsty; and I had an
extraordinary headache which took me at the crown of the skull, and
worked its way down to the eyelids. All this time, the mist never
lifted. My breath had frozen on my handkerchief; the snow had made
my clothes wet; I felt as if I were naked. Then I redoubled the
rapidity of my movements, and began to sing, in order to drive away
the foolish thoughts that came into my head. My voice was lost in
the snow; no echo answered me. I held my tongue, and was afraid. At
two o’clock the sky paled towards the east. With the first beams of
day, I felt my courage coming back to me. The sun rose, battling
with the clouds which covered the mountain top; my hope was that
it would scatter them; but at about four o’clock the clouds got
denser, and I recognised that it would be impossible for me just
then to go any further.”
He spent a second night on the mountain, which was, on the whole,
more comfortable than the first, as he passed it on the rocks of the
Montagne de la Côte. Before he returned home, Balmat planned a way
to the summit. And now comes the most amazing part of the story. He
had no sooner returned home than he met three men starting off for
the mountain. A modern mountaineer, who had spent two nights, alone,
high up on Mont Blanc, would consider himself lucky to reach Chamounix
alive; once there, he would go straight to bed for some twenty-four
hours. But Balmat was built of iron. He calmly proposed to accompany
his friends; and, having changed his stockings, he started out again
for the great mountain, on which he had spent the previous two nights.
The party consisted of François Paccard, Joseph Carrier, and Jean
Michel Tournier. They slept on the mountain; and next morning they
were joined by two other guides, Pierre Balmat and Marie Couttet. They
did not get very far, and soon turned back--all save Balmat. Balmat,
who seems to have positively enjoyed his nights on the glacier, stayed
behind.
“I laid my knapsack on the snow, drew my handkerchief over my face
like a curtain, and made the best preparations that I could for
passing a night like the previous one. However, as I was about two
thousand feet higher, the cold was more intense; a fine powdery
snow froze me; I felt a heaviness and an irresistible desire to
sleep; thoughts, sad as death, came into my mind, and I knew well
that these sad thoughts and this desire to sleep were a bad sign,
and that if I had the misfortune to close my eyes I should never
open them again. From the place where I was, I saw, ten thousand
feet below me, the lights of Chamounix, where my comrades were warm
and tranquil by their firesides or in their beds. I said to myself:
‘Perhaps there is not a man among them who gives a thought to me.
Or, if there is one of them who thinks of Balmat, no doubt he pokes
his fire into a blaze, or draws his blanket over his ears, saying,
‘That ass of a Jacques is wearing out his shoe leather. Courage,
Balmat!’”
Balmat may have been a braggart, but it is sometimes forgotten by his
critics that he had something to brag about. Even if he had never
climbed Mont Blanc, this achievement would have gone down to history
as perhaps the boldest of all Alpine adventures. To sleep one night,
alone, above the snow line is a misfortune that has befallen many
climbers. Some have died, and others have returned, thankful. One may
safely say that no man has started out for the same peak, and willingly
spent a third night under even worse conditions than the first. Three
nights out of four in all. We are charitably assuming that this
part of Balmat’s story is true. There is at least no evidence to the
contrary.
Naturally enough, Balmat did not prosecute the attempt at once. He
returned to Chamounix, and sought out the local doctor, Michel Paccard.
Paccard agreed to accompany him. They left Chamounix at five in the
evening, and slept on the top of the Montagne de la Côte. They started
next morning at two o’clock. According to Balmat’s account, the doctor
played a sorry part in the day’s climb. It was only by some violent
encouragement that he was induced to proceed at all.
“After I had exhausted all my eloquence, and saw that I was only
losing my time, I told him to keep moving about as best he could.
He heard without understanding, and kept answering ‘Yes, yes,’ in
order to get rid of me. I perceived that he must be suffering from
cold. So I left him the bottle, and set off alone, telling him
that I would come back and look for him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered.
I advised him not to sit still, and started off. I had not gone
thirty steps before I turned round and saw that, instead of running
about and stamping his feet, he had sat down, with his back to the
wind--a precaution of a sort. From that minute onwards, the track
presented no great difficulty; but, as I rose higher and higher,
the air became more and more unfit to breathe. Every few steps,
I had to stop like a man in a consumption. It seemed to me that
I had no lungs left, and that my chest was hollow. Then I folded
my handkerchief like a scarf, tied it over my mouth and breathed
through it; and that gave me a little relief. However, the cold
gripped me more and more; it took me an hour to go a quarter of a
league. I looked down as I walked; but, finding myself in a spot
which I did not recognise, I raised my eyes, and saw that I had at
last reached the summit of Mont Blanc.
“Then I looked around me, fearing to find that I was mistaken,
and to catch sight of some aiguille or some fresh point above me;
if there had been, I should not have had the strength to climb
it. For it seems to me that the joints of my legs were only held
in their proper place by my breeches. But no--it was not so. I
had reached the end of my journey. I had come to a place where no
one--where not the eagle or the chamois--had ever been before me.
I had got there, alone, without any other help than that of my own
strength and my own will. Everything that surrounded me seemed to
be my property. I was the King of Mont Blanc--the statue of this
tremendous pedestal.
“Then I turned towards Chamounix, waving my hat at the end of my
stick, and saw, by the help of my glass, that my signals were being
answered.”
Balmat returned, found the doctor in a dazed condition, and piloted him
to the summit, which they reached shortly after six o’clock.
“It was seven o’clock in the evening; we had only two-and-a-half
hours of daylight left; we had to go. I took Paccard by the arm,
and once more waved my hat as a last signal to our friends in the
valley; and the descent began. There was no track to guide us; the
wind was so cold that even the snow on the surface had not thawed;
all that we could see on the ice was the little holes made by the
iron points of our stick. Paccard was no better than a child,
devoid of energy and will-power, whom I had to guide in the easy
places and carry in the hard ones. Night was already beginning
to fall when we crossed the crevasse; it finally overtook us at
the foot of the Grand Plateau. At every instant, Paccard stopped,
declaring that he could go no further; at every halt, I obliged him
to resume his march, not by persuasion, for he understood nothing
but force. At eleven, we at last escaped from the regions of ice,
and set foot upon _terra firma_; the last afterglow of the sunset
had disappeared an hour before. Then I allowed Paccard to stop, and
prepared to wrap him up again in the blanket, when I perceived that
he was making no use whatever of his hands. I drew his attention
to the fact. He answered that that was likely enough, as he no
longer had any sensation in them. I drew off his gloves, and found
that his hands were white and, as it were, dead; for my own part,
I felt a numbness in the hand on which I wore his little glove in
place of my own thick one. I told him we had three frost-bitten
hands between us; but he seemed not to mind in the least, and only
wanted to lie down and go to sleep. As for myself, however, he told
me to rub the affected part with snow, and the remedy was not far
to seek. I commenced operations upon him and concluded them upon
myself. Soon the blood resumed its course, and with the blood,
the heat returned, but accompanied by acute pain, as though every
vein were being pricked with needles. I wrapped my baby up in his
blanket, and put him to bed under the shelter of a rock. We ate a
little, drank a glass of something, squeezed ourselves as close to
each other as we could, and went to sleep.
“At six the next morning Paccard awoke me. ‘It’s strange, Balmat,’
he said, ‘I hear the birds singing, and don’t see the daylight.
I suppose I can’t open my eyes.’ Observe that his eyes were as
wide open as the Grand Duke’s. I told him he must be mistaken, and
could see quite well. Then he asked me to give him a little snow,
melted it in the hollow of his hand, and rubbed his eyelids with
it. When this was done, he could see no better than before; only
his eyes hurt him a great deal more. ‘Come now, it seems that I am
blind, Balmat. How am I to get down?’ he continued. ‘Take hold of
the strap of my knapsack and walk behind me; that’s what you must
do.’ And in this style we came down, and reached the village of La
Côte. There, as I feared that my wife would be uneasy about me, I
left the doctor, who found his way home by fumbling with his stick,
and returned to my own house. Then, for the first time, I saw what
I looked like. I was unrecognisable. My eyes were red; my face was
black; my lips were blue. Whenever I laughed or yawned, the blood
spurted from my lips and cheeks; and I could only see in a dark
room.”
“‘And did Dr. Paccard continue blind?’ ‘Blind, indeed! He died
eleven months ago, at the age of seventy-nine, and could still read
without spectacles. Only his eyes were diabolically red.’ ‘As
the consequence of his ascent?’ ‘Not a bit of it.’ ‘Why, then?’
‘The old boy was a bit of a tippler.’ And so saying Jacques Balmat
emptied his third bottle.”
The last touch is worthy of Dumas; and the whole story is told in the
Ercles vein. As literature it is none the worse for that. It was a
magnificent achievement; and we can pardon the vanity of the old guide
looking back on the greatest moment of his life. But as history the
interview is of little value. The combination of Dumas and Balmat was a
trifle too strong for what Clough calls “the mere it was.” The dramatic
unities tempt one to leave Balmat, emptying his third bottle, and to
allow the merry epic to stand unchallenged. But the importance of this
first ascent forces one to sacrifice romance for the sober facts.
The truth about that first ascent had to wait more than a hundred
years. The final solution is due, in the main, to three men, Dr. Dübi
(the famous Swiss mountaineer), Mr. Freshfield, and Mr. Montagnier.
Dr. Dübi’s book, _Paccard wider Balmat, oder Die Entwicklung einer
Legende_, gives the last word on this famous case. For a convenient
summary of Dr. Dübi’s arguments, the reader should consult Mr.
Freshfield’s excellent review of his book that appeared in the
_Alpine Journal_ for May 1913. The essential facts are as follows.
Dr. Dübi has been enabled to produce a diary of an eye-witness of the
great ascent. A distinguished German traveller, Baron von Gersdorf,
watched Balmat and Paccard through a telescope, made careful notes,
illustrated by diagrams of the route, and, at the request of Paccard’s
father, a notary of Chamounix, signed, with his friend Von Meyer, a
certificate of what he had seen. This certificate is still preserved at
Chamounix, and Von Gersdorf’s diary and correspondence have recently
been discovered at Görlitz. Here is the vital sentence in his diary,
as translated by Mr. Freshfield: “They started again [from the Petits
Rochers Rouges], at 5.45 p.m., halted for a moment about every hundred
yards, _changed occasionally the leadership_ [the italics are mine], at
6.12 p.m. gained two rocks protruding from the snow, and at 6.23 p.m.
were on the actual summit.” The words italicised prove that Balmat did
not lead throughout. The remainder of the sentence shows that Balmat
was not the first to arrive on the summit, and that the whole fabric of
the Dumas legend is entirely false.
But Dumas was not alone responsible for the Balmat myth. This famous
fiction was, in the main, due to a well-known Alpine character, whom
we have dealt with at length in our third chapter. The reader may
remember that Bourrit’s enthusiasm for mountaineering was only equalled
by his lack of success. We have seen that Bourrit had set his heart on
the conquest of Mont Blanc, and that Bourrit failed in this ambition,
both before, and after Balmat’s ascent. In many ways, Bourrit was a
great man. He was fired with an undaunted enthusiasm for the Alps at
a time when such enthusiasm was the hall-mark of a select circle. He
justly earned his title, the Historian of the Alps; and in his earlier
years he was by no means ungenerous to more fortunate climbers. But
this great failing, an inordinate vanity, grew with years. He could
just manage to forgive Balmat, for Balmat was a guide; but Paccard, the
amateur, had committed the unforgivable offence.
It was no use pretending that Paccard had not climbed Mont Blanc, for
Paccard had been seen on the summit. Bourrit took the only available
course. He was determined to injure Paccard’s prospects of finding
subscribers for a work which the doctor proposed to publish, dealing
with his famous climb. With this in view, Bourrit wrote the notorious
letter of September 20, 1786, which first appeared as a pamphlet, and
was later published in several papers. We need not reproduce the
letter. The main points which Bourrit endeavoured to make were that
the doctor failed at the critical stage of the ascent, that Balmat
left him, reached the top, and returned to insist on Paccard dragging
himself somehow to the summit; that Paccard wished to exploit Balmat’s
achievements, and was posing as the conqueror of Mont Blanc; that,
with this in view, he was appealing for subscribers for a book, in
which, presumably, Balmat would be ignored, while poor Balmat, a simple
peasant, who knew nothing of Press advertisement, would lose the glory
that was his just meed. It was a touching picture; and we, who know the
real Balmat as a genial _blageur_, may smile gently when we hear him
described as _le pauvre Balmat à qui l’on doit cette découverte reste
presque ignoré, et ignore qu’il y ait des journalistes, des journaux,
et que l’on puisse par le moyen de ces trompettes littéraires obtenir
du Public une sorte d’admiration_. De Saussure, who from the first gave
Paccard due credit for his share in the climb, seems to have warned
Bourrit that he was making a fool of himself. Bourrit appears to have
been impressed, for he added a postscript in which he toned down some
of his remarks, and conceded grudgingly that Paccard’s share in the
ascent was, perhaps, larger than he had at first imagined. But this
relapse into decent behaviour did not survive an anonymous reply to
his original pamphlet which appeared in the _Journal de Lausanne_, on
February 24, 1787. This reply gave Paccard’s story, and stung Bourrit
into a reply which was nothing better than a malicious falsehood.
“Balmat’s story,” he wrote, “seems very natural ... and is further
confirmed by an eye-witness, M. le Baron de Gersdorf, who watched the
climbers through his glasses; and this stranger was so shocked by the
indifference (to use no stronger word) shown by M. Paccard to his
companion that he reprinted my letter in his own country, in order to
start a subscription in favour of poor Balmat.”
Fortunately, we now know what Gersdorf saw through his glasses,
and we also know that Gersdorf wrote immediately to Paccard,
“disclaiming altogether the motive assigned for his action in
raising a subscription.” Paccard was fortunately able to publish two
very effective replies to this spiteful attack. In the _Journal de
Lausanne_ for May 18 he reproduced two affidavits by Balmat, both
properly attested. These ascribe to Paccard the honour of planning the
expedition, and his full share of the work, and also state that Balmat
had been paid for acting as guide. The first of these documents has
disappeared. The second, which is entirely in Balmat’s handwriting,
is still in existence. Balmat, later in life, made some ridiculous
attempt to suggest that he had signed a blank piece of paper; but
the fact that even Bourrit seems to have considered this statement a
trifle too absurd to quote is in itself enough to render such a protest
negligible. Besides, Balmat was shrewd enough not to swear before
witnesses to a document which he had never seen. It is almost pleasant
to record that a dispute between the doctor and Balmat, in the high
street of Chamounix, resulted in Balmat receiving a well-merited blow
on his nose from the doctor’s umbrella, which laid him in the dust. It
is in some ways a pity that Dumas did not meet Paccard. The incident
of the umbrella might then have been worked up to the proper epic
proportions.
This much we may now regard as proved. Paccard took at least an equal
share in the great expedition. Balmat was engaged as a guide, and was
paid as such. The credit for the climb must be divided between these
two men; and the discredit of causing strained relations between them
must be assigned to Bourrit. Meanwhile, it is worth adding that the
traditions of the De Saussure family are all in favour of Balmat. De
Saussure’s grandson stated that Balmat’s sole object in climbing Mont
Blanc was the hope of pecuniary gain. He even added that the main
reason for his final attempt with Paccard was that Paccard, being an
amateur, would not claim half the reward promised by De Saussure. As
to Paccard, “everything we know of him,” writes Mr. Freshfield, “is to
his credit.” His scientific attainments were undoubtedly insignificant
compared to a Bonnet or a De Saussure. Yet he was a member of the
Academy of Turin, he contributed articles to a scientific periodical
published in Paris, he corresponded with De Saussure about his
barometrical observations. He is described by a visitor to Chamounix,
in 1788, in the following terms: “We also visited Dr. Paccard, who
gave us a very plain and modest account of his ascent of Mont Blanc,
for which bold undertaking he does not seem to assume to himself any
particular merit, but asserts that any one with like physical powers
could have performed the task equally well.” De Saussure’s grandson,
who has been quoted against Balmat, is equally emphatic in his approval
of Paccard. Finally, both Dr. Dübi and Mr. Freshfield agree that, as
regards the discovery of the route: “Paccard came first into the field,
and was the more enterprising of the two.”
Bourrit, by the way, had not even the decency to be consistent.
He spoiled, as we have seen, poor Paccard’s chances of obtaining
subscribers for his book, and, later in life, he quarrelled with
Balmat. Von Gersdorf had started a collection for Balmat, and part
of the money had to pass through Bourrit’s hands. A great deal of it
remained there. Bourrit seems to have been temporarily inconvenienced.
We need not believe that he had any intention of retaining the money
permanently, but Balmat was certainly justified in complaining to Von
Gersdorf. Bourrit received a sharp letter from Von Gersdorf, and never
forgave Balmat. In one of his later books, he reversed his earlier
judgment and pronounced in favour of Paccard.
Bourrit discredited himself by the Mont Blanc episode with the more
discerning of his contemporaries. De Saussure seems to have written
him down, judging by the traditions that have survived in his family.
Wyttenbach, a famous Bernese savant, is even more emphatic. “All who
know him realise Bourrit to be a conceited toad, a flighty fool, a
bombastic swaggerer.” Mr. Freshfield, however, quotes a kinder and
more discriminating criticism by the celebrated Bonnet, ending with
the words: _Il faut, néanmoins, lui tenir compte de son ardeur et de
son courage._ “With these words,” says Mr. Freshfield, “let us leave
‘notre Bourrit’; for by his passion for the mountains he remains one of
us.”
Poor Bourrit! It is with real regret that one chronicles the old
precentor’s lapses. Unfortunately, every age has its Bourrit, but it
is only fair to remember that Bourrit often showed a very generous
appreciation of other climbers. He could not quite forgive Paccard. Let
us remember his passion for the snows. Let us forget the rest.
It is pleasant to record that De Saussure’s old ambition was gratified,
and that he succeeded in reaching the summit of Mont Blanc in July
1787. Nor is this his only great expedition. He camped out for a
fortnight on the Col de Géant, a remarkable performance. He visited
Zermatt, then in a very uncivilised condition, and made the first
ascent of the Petit Mont Cervin. He died in 1799.
As for Balmat, he became a guide, and in this capacity earned a very
fair income. Having accumulated some capital, he cast about for a
profitable investment. Two perfect strangers, whom he met on the high
road, solved his difficulty in a manner highly satisfactory as far as
they were concerned. They assured him that they were bankers, and that
they would pay him five per cent. on his capital. The first of these
statements may have been true, the second was false. He did not see
the bankers or his capital again. Shortly after this initiation into
high finance, he left Chamounix to search for a mythical gold-mine
among the glaciers of the valley of Sixt. He disappeared and was never
seen again. He left a family of four sons, two of whom were killed in
the Napoleonic wars. His great-nephew became the favourite guide of Mr.
Justice Wills, with whom he climbed the Wetterhorn.