The Alps

by Arnold Lunn

Bartholomew, Edin

Another early ascent must be recorded, though the climb was a very modest achievement. Mont Ventoux, in Provence, is only some 6430 feet above the sea, and to-day there is an hôtel on the summit. None the less, it deserves a niche in Alpine history, for its ascent is coupled with the great name of the poet Petrarch. Mr. Gribble calls Petrarch the first of the sentimental mountaineers. Certainly, he was one of the first mountaineers whose recorded sentiments are very much ahead of his age. The ascent took place on April 26, 1335, and Petrarch described it in a letter written to his confessor. He confesses that he cherished for years the ambition to ascend Mont Ventoux, and seized the first chance of a companion to carry through this undertaking. He makes the customary statement as to the extreme difficulty of the ascent, and introduces a shepherd who warns him from the undertaking. There are some very human touches in the story of the climb. While his brother was seeking short cuts, Petrarch tried to advance on more level ground, an excuse for his laziness which cost him dear, for the others had made considerable progress while he was still wandering in the gullies of the mountain. He began to find, like many modern mountaineers, that “human ingenuity was not a match for the nature of things, and that it was impossible to gain heights by moving downwards.” He successfully completed the ascent, and the climb filled him with enthusiasm. The reader should study the fine translation of his letter by Mr. Reeve, quoted in The Early Mountaineers. Petrarch caught the romance of heights. The spirit that breathes through every line of his letter is worthy of the poet.

Petrarch is not the only great name that links the Renaissance to the birth of mountaineering. That versatile genius, Leonardo da Vinci, carried his scientific explorations into the mountains. We have already mentioned his great picture of storm and thunder among the hills, one of the few mementos that have survived from his Alpine journeys. His journey took place towards the end of the fifteenth century. Little is known of it, though the following passage from his works has provoked much comment. The translation is due to Mrs. Bell: “And this may be seen, as I saw it, by any one going up Monboso, a peak of the Alps which divide France from Italy. The base of this mountain gives birth to the four rivers which flow in four different directions through the whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as this, which lifts itself above almost all the clouds; and snow seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer when the clouds are highest. And this hail lies (unmelted) there, so that, if it were not for the absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen more than twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up there by the layers of hail; and in the middle of July I found it very considerable, and I saw the sky above me quite dark; and the sun as it fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below, because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the mountain and the sun.”

We need not summarise the arguments that identify Monboso either with Monte Rosa or Monte Viso. The weight of evidence inclines to the former alternative, though, of course, nobody supposes that Da Vinci actually reached the summit of Monte Rosa. There is good ground, however, for believing that he explored the lower slopes; and it is just possible that he may have got as far as the rocks above the Col d’Ollen, where, according to Mr. Freshfield, the inscription “A.T.M., 1615” has been found cut into the crags at a height of 10,000 feet. In this connection it is interesting to note that the name “Monboso” has been found in place of Monte Rosa in maps, as late as 1740.[1]

We now come to the first undisputed ascent of a mountain, still considered a difficult rock climb. The year that saw the discovery of America is a great date in the history of mountaineering. In 1492, Charles VII of France passed through Dauphiny, and was much impressed by the appearance of Mont Aiguille, a rocky peak near Grenoble that was then called Mont Inaccessible. This mountain is only some seven thousand feet in height; but it is a genuine rock climb, and is still considered difficult, so much so that the French Alpine Club have paid it the doubtful compliment of iron cables in the more sensational passages. Charles VII was struck by the appearance of the mountain, and ordered his Chamberlain de Beaupré to make the ascent. Beaupré, by the aid of “subtle means and engines,” scaled the peak, had Mass said on the top, and caused three crosses to be erected on the summit. It was a remarkable ascent, and was not repeated till 1834.

We are not concerned with exploration beyond the Alps, and we have therefore omitted Peter III’s attempt on Pic Canigou in the Pyrenees, and the attempt on the Pic du Midi in 1588; but we cannot on the ground of irrelevance pass over a remarkable ascent in 1521. Cortez is our authority. Under his order, a band of Spaniards ascended Popocatapetl, a Mexican volcano which reaches the respectable height of 17,850 feet. These daring climbers brought back quantities of sulphur which the army needed for its gunpowder.

The Stockhorn is a modest peak some seven thousand feet in height. Simler tells us that its ascent was a commonplace achievement. Marti, as we have seen in the previous chapter, found numberless inscriptions cut into the summit stones by visitors, enthusiastic in their appreciation of mountain scenery, and its ascent by Müller, a Berne professor, in 1536, is only remarkable for the joyous poem in hexameters which records his delight in all the accompaniments of a mountain expedition. Müller has the true feelings for the simpler pleasures of picnicing on the heights. Everything delights him, from the humble fare washed down with a draught from a mountain stream, to the primitive joy of hurling big rocks down a mountain side. The last confession endears him to all who have practised this simple, if dangerous, amusement.

The early history of Pilatus, another low-lying mountain, is much more eventful than the annals of the Stockhorn. It is closely bound up with the Pilate legend, which was firmly believed till a Lucerne pastor gave it the final quietus in 1585. Pontius Pilate, according to this story, was condemned by the Emperor Tiberius, who decreed that he should be put to death in the most shameful possible manner. Hearing this, Pilate very sensibly committed suicide. Tiberius concealed his chagrin, and philosophically remarked that a man whose own hand had not spared him had most certainly died the most shameful of deaths. Pilate’s body was attached to a stone and flung into the Tiber, where it caused a succession of terrible storms. The Romans decided to remove it, and the body was conveyed to Vienne as a mark of contempt for the people of that place. It was flung into the Rhone, and did its best to maintain its reputation. We need not follow this troublesome corpse through its subsequent wanderings. It was finally hurled into a little marshy lake, near the summit of Pilatus. Here Pilate’s behaviour was tolerable enough, though he resented indiscriminate stone-throwing into the lake by evoking terrible storms, and once a year he escaped from the waters, and sat clothed in a scarlet robe on a rock near by. Anybody luckless enough to see him on these occasions died within the twelve-month.

So much for the story, which was firmly believed by the good citizens of Lucerne. Access to the lake was forbidden, unless the visitor was accompanied by a respectable burgher, pledged to veto any practices that Pilate might construe as a slight. In 1307, six clergymen were imprisoned for having attempted an ascent without observing the local regulations. It is even said that climbers were occasionally put to death for breaking these stringent by-laws. None the less, ascents occasionally took place. Duke Ulrich of Württemberg climbed the mountain in 1518, and a professor of Vienna, by name Joachim von Watt, ascended the mountain in order to investigate the legend, which he seems to have believed after a show of doubt. Finally, in 1585, Pastor John Müller of Lucerne, accompanied by a few courageous sceptics, visited the lake. In their presence, he threw stones into the haunted lake, and shouted “Pilate wirf aus dein Kath.” As his taunts produced no effect, judgment was given by default, and the legend, which had sent earlier sceptics into gaol, was laughed out of existence.

Thirty years before this defiant demonstration, the mountain had been ascended by the most remarkable of the early mountaineers. Conrad Gesner was a professor at the ancient University of Zürich. Though not the first to make climbing a regular practice, he was the pioneer of mountain literature. He never encountered serious difficulties. His mountaineering was confined to those lower heights which provide the modern with a training walk. But he had the authentic outlook of the mountaineer. His love for mountains was more genuine than that of many a modern wielder of the ice-axe and rope. A letter has been preserved, in which he records his resolution “to climb mountains, or at all events to climb one mountain every year.”