BLANC, MONT, the culminating point (15,782 ft.) of the mountain range of the same name, which forms part of the Pennine Alps, and is divided unequally between France, Italy and Switzerland. The actual highest summit is wholly French and is the loftiest peak in the Alps, and in Europe also, if certain peaks in the Caucasus be excluded. At Geneva the mountain was in former days named the Montagne Maudite, but the present name seems to have been always used locally. On the north is the valley of Chamonix, and on the east the head of the valley of Aosta. Among the great glaciers which stream from the peak the most noteworthy are those of Bossons and Taconnaz (northern slope) and of Brenva and Miage (southern slope). The first ascent was made in 1786 by two Chamonix men, Jacques Balmat and Dr Michel Paccard, and the second in 1787 by Balmat with two local men. Later in 1787 H.B. de Saussure made the third ascent, memorable in many respects, and was followed a week later by Colonel Beaufoy, the first Englishman to gain the top. These ascents were all made from Chamonix, which is still the usual starting point, though routes have been forced up the peak from nearly every side, those on the Italian side being much steeper than that from Chamonix. The ascent from Chamonix is now frequently made in summer (rarely in winter also), but, owing to the great height of the mountain, the view is unsatisfactory, though very extensive (Lyons is visible). There is an inn at the Grands Mulets (9909 ft.). In 1890 M. Vallot built an observatory and shelter hut (14,312 ft.) on the Bosses du Dromadaire (north-west ridge of the mountain), and in 1893 T.J.C. Janssen constructed an observatory just below the very summit.
See C. Durier, Le Mont Blanc (4th ed., Paris, 1897); C.E. Mathews, The Annals of Mont Blanc (London, 1898); P. Güssfeldt, Der Montblanc, (Berlin, 1894, also a French translation, Geneva, 1899); L. Kurz, Climbers’ Guide to the Chain of Mont Blanc, section vi. (London, 1892); L. Kurz and X. Imfeld, Carte de la chaine du Mont Blanc (1896, new edition 1905).
(W. A. B. C.)
BLANCHARD, SAMUEL LAMAN (1804-1845), British author and journalist, the son of a painter and glazier, was born at Great Yarmouth on the 15th of May 1804. He was educated at St Olave’s school, Southwark, and then became clerk to a proctor in Doctors’ Commons. At an early age he developed literary tastes, contributing dramatic sketches to a paper called Drama. For a short time he was a member of a travelling dramatic company, but subsequently became a proof-reader in London, and wrote for the Monthly Magazine. In 1827 he was made secretary of the Zoological Society, a post which he held for three years. In 1828 he published Lyric Offerings, dedicated to Charles Lamb. He had a very varied journalistic experience, editing in succession the Monthly Magazine, the True Sun, the Constitutional, the Court Journal, the Courier, and George Cruikshank’s Omnibus; and from 1841 till his death he was connected with the Examiner. In 1846 Bulwer-Lytton collected a number of his prose-essays under the title Sketches of Life, to which a memoir of the author was prefixed. His verse was collected in 1876 by Blanchard Jerrold. Over-work broke down his strength, and, unnerved by the death of his wife, he died by his own hand on the 15th of February 1845.
His eldest son, Sidney Laman Blanchard, who was the author of Yesterday and To-day in India, died in 1883.
BLANCHE, JACQUES ÉMILE (1861- ), French painter, was born in Paris. He enjoyed an excellent cosmopolitan education, and was brought up at Passy in a house once belonging to the princesse de Lamballe, which still retained the atmosphere of 18th-century elegance and refinement and influenced his taste and work. Although he received some instruction in painting from Gervex, he may be regarded as self-taught. He acquired a great reputation as a portrait painter; his art is derived from French and English sources, refined, sometimes super-elegant, but full of character. Among his chief works are his portraits of his father, of Pierre Louÿs, the Thaulow family, Aubrey Beardsley and Yvette Guilbert.
BLANCHE OF CASTILE (1188-1252), wife of Louis VIII. of France, third daughter of Alphonso VIII., king of Castile, and of Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II., was born at Valencia. In consequence of a treaty between Philip Augustus and John of England, she was betrothed to the former’s son, Louis, and was brought to France, in the spring of 1200, by John’s mother Eleanor. On the 22nd of May 1200 the treaty was finally signed, John ceding with his niece the fiefs of Issoudun and Graçay, together with those that André de Chavigny, lord of Châteauroux, held in Berry, of the English crown. The marriage was celebrated the next day, at Portmort on the right bank of the Seine, in John’s domains, as those of Philip lay under an interdict.