The overlooked risk at the heart of the expedition
In the summer of 1838, 44 year old aristocrat Henriette d'Angeville decided to climb Mont Blanc, a short distance from her chateau in Geneva. She designed herself an outfit –pantaloons, a bonnet with a green veil, a black velvet facemask, fur cuffs and a feather boa. She assembled six guides, six porters, 2 legs of mutton, 24 cooked chickens, 2 loins of veal, a barrel of wine, 3 kg of chocolate, a large fan (should she need to be fanned), a small fan (should she wish to fan herself) and a mirror.
While men in the village below watched through telescopes and took bets as to when she would give up, she reached the summit, opened a bottle of champagne, released a dove and claimed to be the first lady mountaineer to reach the mountain top. She certainly sounds like a lot of fun.
In his memoire Impressions de Voyage Suisse published in 1834 and four years before Henriette made her claim, Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo recounts his visit to the region. Dumas had arranged an expedition to the Mer de Glace with Jacques Payot, a guide from one of the oldest, most respected families in the Vallee Blanche and as they headed out, Payot broke away to speak to an unassuming woman in the street, before running to catch up with Dumas:
"I was with Maria" he said.
"Who is Maria?"
"The only woman to have ever climbed Mont Blanc."
Payot told Dumas how in 1809, a group of guides and other locals who had accompanied or seen wealthy strangers head up Mont Blanc ever since it had first been climbed twenty-three years earlier, decided to go up on their own. The group was convened by the original climber, Jacques Balmat and to their surprise, two women turned up to join them. One had a seven-month old baby and was sent home. But the other – a 17 year old servant named Maria Paradis stood her ground. Balmat, who knew the danger ahead warned her:
"We can't have any crybabies along, you know that?"
"I'll laugh the whole way up" was the reply.
Balmat told her not to go that far but to be brave and honest about how she was feeling so he could set the pace. Maria joined as 7th member of only the 8th ascent of Mont Blanc.
Payot told Dumas how they spent the night halfway up and how Marie slept well. He then described how they had scaled a 1400 ft / 425 m. vertical wall of ice using picks.
"What about Maria?" Dumas asked.
Payot told him she had brought up the rear, climbing like the rest of them (except in a woollen dress and town shoes) and they had thought nothing of it. As they neared the summit, she caught up with Balmat and suggested if he could pretend he was tired and slow down, she'd appreciate it, which he did. (I have worked that trick myself). She ate some snow, rested briefly, but after another ten minutes of hiking, became nauseous.
Balmat took her arm and called to another guide to help but before they got moving again, another member of the party sat down and said he wouldn't go any further and would head back down. He began to fall asleep, one of the most dangerous things one can do at freezing altitudes and Balmat shook the man awake to force him to continue. Payot took Balmat's place at Maria's arm and they continued to the summit. Maria was faint, but admired the horizon. Soon Balmat and the others caught up and after another ten minutes or so, began their descent.
By Payot’s account, arriving back in Chamonix all the town's women gathered to hear Maria's story. She told them she’d seen so many things it would take too long to tell. If they were curious, she suggested they go and see for themselves. No-one took her up on it, he said.
By contrast, almost 30 years later when Henriette d'Angeville returned, she was given an elaborate party to celebrate her assertion that she was the first woman to climb Mont Blanc. She dismissed Maria’s prior claim because Maria had been helped to the summit and in any case had only climbed Mont Blanc for the vulgar financial opportunities she thought she would gain from it. After Marie had returned she had become an innkeeper who provided meals for visitors to Mont Blanc.
Henriette argued Maria could not be considered to have truly "climbed" the mountain. She boasted "Mont Blanc, when I went, had not yet been visited by any woman capable of telling the tale,"
To a certain extent, she was right. Maria was most likely illiterate, unable to publish her memoir as Henriette would do.
But Henriette also used the ambiguous French expression for "telling the tale" (rendre compte) in which she implied Maria was too ignorant to be capable of realising what she'd done.
It is recorded Marie Paradis visited Henriette’s grand party to offer her congratulations and called her “the first lady mountaineer”. Her good wishes were received merely as another proof, asserted Henriette, to justify her claim that it was she who deserved the title first woman to climb Mont Blanc.
So what does this tale tell us of the risk at the heart of an expedition?
In my opinion, it's this: an expedition exposes one's character. It lays bare one's values and traits as well as one's knowledge and competence. The revelation is made in the preparation, execution and in the story one tells of the experience.
Character matters in leadership. Be prepared
