Edited by:
Massimo Martini
A Savoyard doctor and naturalist, who, together with Jacques Balmat, was one of the protagonists of the first ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786.
Personal details
Name: Michel-Gabriel Paccard
Born: 1757 - Chamonix, Duchy of Savoy (Kingdom of Sardinia)
Died: 21 May 1827 - Chamonix
Nationality: Savoyard
Occupation: doctor, naturalist, justice of the peace and notary
Affiliation: Turin Academy of Sciences, corresponding member from 1785
Biography
Michel-Gabriel Paccard was born in Chamonix in 1757, when the valley belonged to the Duchy of Savoy, in the Kingdom of Sardinia. His father was the valley’s notary; of his two brothers, one entered the clergy and the other the judiciary. Michel-Gabriel studied medicine in Turin and Paris and, having obtained his medical degree, returned to practise in Chamonix. Alongside his medical practice, he collected plants and minerals, made geological observations and barometric measurements of altitudes, published his initial findings in a Parisian scientific journal and, in 1785, was elected a corresponding member of the Turin Academy of Sciences.
Theinterest in Mont Blanc stemmed from the research programme of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who, since 1760, had promised a reward to anyone who found a route to the summit and with whom Paccard exchanged measurements and observations. Between 1783 and 1784, he attempted three different routes: the glacier above the Montagne de la Côte, the Tacul basin and the slope of the Aiguille du Goûter. For three years he also studied the mountain’s northern face through a telescope from Le Brévent, until he identified a possible route from the Grand Plateau towards the summit, to the left of the Rochers Rouges. When Jacques Balmat, a crystal hunter who had spent a night alone on the glacier in June 1786, offered him his services, Paccard hired him as a porter.
The two set off on 7 August 1786, bivouacked on the Montagne de la Côte and, the following day, without ropes or crampons, using long iron-tipped poles, crossed the Bossons Glacier and reached the Grand Plateau in the afternoon. At 6.23 pm on 8 August, they reached the summit. From Chamonix, the Saxon baron Adolph Traugott von Gersdorf followed the ascent through a telescope, noted the times of their passage and, at the request of Paccard’s father, signed a certificate confirming their arrival at the summit. Paccard remained on the summit for about half an hour, just long enough to read the barometer, thermometer and compass: his measurements, analysed later in Turin, gave an altitude several hundred metres higher than the actual one.
Sources have been divided for over a century regarding the division of roles during the ascent. verified data – the two reached the summit together on 8 August 1786. On 18 October of the same year, Balmat signed a statement in the presence of two witnesses, published in 1787 in the Journal de Lausanne, in which he acknowledged that Paccard had chosen the route and led the final stretch. contemporary sources – an article published in Paris in September 1786 presented Paccard as the leader of the expedition; shortly afterwards, Marc-Théodore Bourrit of Geneva, who himself aspired to the first ascent, circulated an account attributing the discovery of the route to Balmat and describing Paccard as dependent on his companion. Paccard responded in the Journal de Lausanne. tradition – in 1832, five years after Paccard’s death, Balmat told Alexandre Dumas a version of events in which he himself had found the route and been the first to reach the summit. Published in 1833, the account cemented Balmat’s image as the sole protagonist for much of the nineteenth century. historiographical interpretations – between the late nineteenth century and 1957, the research of Edward Whymper, Charles Edward Mathews, Heinrich Dübi, Henry F. Montagnier, Ernest Hamilton Stevens and, finally, Thomas Graham Brown and Gavin de Beer reconstructed the ascent based on Paccard’s diary, Balmat’s accounts and the notes of von Gersdorf and de Saussure, attributing the discovery of the route to Paccard. The historian Philippe Joutard has explained Paccard’s long exclusion by reference to the guide-client model exemplified by the Balmat–de Saussure partnership. Current historiography attributes the first ascent jointly to the two.
The account of the expedition, announced in 1786 with a subscription prospectus, was never published; the diary remained in the family and was only published at the end of the 20th century. In 1796, Paccard married Marie-Angélique Balmat, described in sources as Jacques’s sister. During the Revolutionary period he served as a justice of the peace; in 1794 he was mayor of Chamonix; and in 1818 he was appointed notary by Victor Emmanuel I, taking up the post previously held by his father. He continued to provide guidance and equipment to travellers heading for Mont Blanc; his son Ambroise was among the guides who accompanied Lord Minto to the Breithorn in 1830. He died in Chamonix on 21 May 1827; some biographies give the date as 21 March. His name has featured in public spaces in Chamonix since 1932.
Mountaineering exploits
Mont Blanc, attempt via the Montagne de la Côte – 1783 – with Marc-Théodore Bourrit and the guides Jean-Baptiste Lombard (known as Grand Jorasse), Marie and Jean-Claude Couttet; Paccard and the guides continued across the glacier beyond the ridge, Bourrit stops
Tacul basin, reconnaissance – 1784 – with Pierre Balmat, in search of an approach from the north-eastern face
Mont Blanc, attempt from theAiguille du Goûter – 1784 – with the guide Henri Pornet, as far as the base of the Aiguille du Goûter, the first documented attempt from this side
Mont Blanc (4,808 m) - 1786 – first ever ascent, with Jacques Balmat, from the Montagne de la Côte via the Grand Plateau and the Rochers Rouges
Places and commemorations
medallion of Michel-Gabriel Paccard – entrance to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Town Hall – unveiled on 28 August 1932 on the initiative of theAmerican Alpine Club, in collaboration with the Alpine Club and the French, Italian and Swiss mountaineering clubs
Rue du Docteur Paccard – Chamonix-Mont-Blanc – one of the main streets in the town centre, named by the town council in 1932
Statue of Michel-Gabriel Paccard - Chamonix-Mont-Blanc – a bronze sculpture by the sculptor Jean-Loup Bouvier, unveiled in 1986 to mark the bicentenary of the first ascent
Works
article on the causes of the varying arrangements of rock strata, in Observations sur la physique, sur l'histoire naturelle et sur les arts, vol. XVIII, Paris, 1781
Premier voyage à la cime de la plus haute montagne de l'ancient continent, Mont Blanc, printed subscription prospectus, 1786 – a work announced but never published
letters to the Journal de Lausanne, Lausanne, 1787 – including statements signed by Jacques Balmat
article on the route of the first ascent, in Journal de Savoie, 1825
Mont Blanc 1786. *Journal du docteur Michel-Gabriel Paccard*, edited by Catherine Guérin and Philippe Campione, Epigones, 1992 – posthumous edition of the diary
Bibliography
As a writer
Henry F. Montagnier, Dr Paccard’s Lost Narrative: A Note, Alpine Journal vol. 26, 1912
Ernest Hamilton Stevens, Dr Paccard’s “Lost Narrative”: An Attempted Reconstruction, Alpine Journal vol. 41, 1929
As a key reference
Heinrich Dübi, Paccard wider Balmat, oder die Entwicklung einer Legende, Francke, 1913
Thomas Graham Brown and Gavin de Beer, The First Ascent of Mont Blanc, Oxford University Press, 1957
Philippe Joutard, L’invention du Mont Blanc, Gallimard/Julliard, 1986
Jean-Louis Lejonc, Paccard, the forgotten man of Mont Blanc, Ginkgo éditeur, 2021