It was not so. Chamounix stood on its rights. A stranger had ignored their regulations, had imported two foreign guides, and furthermore he had added injury to that insult—he had not taken a single Chamounix guide. Chamounix would be revenged! It would bully the foreign guides: it would tell them they had lied—they had not made the ascent! Where were their proofs? Where was the flag upon the summit?
Poor Almer and Biener were accordingly chivied from pillar to post, from one inn to another, and at length complained to me. Peter Perm, the Zermatt guide, said on the night that we returned that this was to happen, but the story seemed too absurd to be true. I now bade my men go out again, and followed them myself to see the sport. Chamounix was greatly excited. The bureau of the guide chef was thronged with clamouring men. Their ringleader—one Zacharie Cachat, a well-known guide, of no particular merit, but not a bad fellow—was haranguing the multitude. He met with more than his match. My friend Kennedy, who was on the spot, heard of the disturbance and rushed into the fray, confronted the burly guide and thrust back his absurdities into his teeth.
There were the materials for a very pretty riot, but they manage these things better in France than we do, and the gensdarmes—three strong—came down and dispersed the crowd. The guides quailed before the cocked hats, and retired to cabarets to take little glasses of absinthe and other liquors more or less injurious to the human frame. Under the influence of these stimulants they conceived an idea which combined revenge with profit. “You have ascended the Aiguille Verte, you say. We say we don’t believe it. We say, Do it again! Take three of us with you, and we will bet you two thousand francs to one thousand that you won’t make the ascent!”
This proposition was formally notified to me, but I declined it with thanks, and recommended Kennedy to go in and win. I accepted, however, a hundred-franc share in the bet, and calculated upon getting two hundred per cent, on my investment. Alas! how vain are human expectations! Zacharie Cachat was put into confinement, and although Kennedy actually ascended the aiguille a week later with two Chamounix guides and Peter Perm, the bet came to nothing.[[61]]
[61] It should be said that we received the most polite apologies for this affair from the chief of the gensdarmes, and an invitation to lodge a complaint against the ringleaders. We accepted his apologies, and declined his invitation. Needless to add, Michel Croz took no part in the demonstration.
The weather arranged itself just as this storm in a teapot blew over, and we left at once for the Montanvert, in order to show the Chamouniards the easiest way over the chain of Mont Blanc, in return for the civilities which we had received from them during the past three days.
WESTERN SIDE OF THE COL DE TALÈFRE