This is fine writing with a vengeance, just as Ruskin’s greatest passages are fine writing. Before we take our leave of Bourrit, let us see the precentor of the cathedral exhorting a company of guides with sacerdotal dignity. One is irresistibly reminded of Japan, where mountaineering and sacrificial rites go hand in hand—
“The Historian of the Alps, in rendering them this justice in the presence of a great throng of people, seized the opportunity of exhorting the new guides to observe the virtues proper to their state in life. ‘Put yourselves,’ he said to them, ‘in the place of the strangers, who come from the most distant lands to admire the marvels of Nature under these wild and savage aspects; and justify the confidence which they repose in you. You have learnt the great part which these magnificent objects of our contemplation play in the organisation of the world; and, in pointing out their various phenomena to their astonished eyes, you will rejoice to see people raise their thoughts to the omnipotence of the Great Being who created them.’ The speaker was profoundly moved by the ideas with which the subject inspired him, and it was impossible for his listeners not to share in his emotion.”
Let us remember that Bourrit put his doctrine into practice. He has told us that he found men of diverse creeds reconciled beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc. Bourrit himself was a mountaineer first, and an ecclesiastic second. Perhaps he was no worse as a Protestant precentor because the mountains had taught him their eternal lessons of tolerance and serene indifference to the petty issues which loom so large beneath the shadow of the cathedral. Catholic or Protestant it was all the same to our good precentor, provided the man loved the hills. Prior Murith was his friend; and every Catholic mountaineer should be grateful to his memory, for he persuaded one of their archbishops to dispense climbers from the obligation of fasting in Lent.
CHAPTER IV
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.
| 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—