Michel-Gabriel Paccard Michel-Gabriel Paccard Michel Gabriel Paccard (1757–1827) was a Savoyard doctor and alpinist, citizen of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Born in Chamonix, he studied medicine in Turin. Due to his passion for botany and minerals, he met Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who initiated the race to be the first to ascend Mont Blanc. Gaston Rébuffat wrote "Like Saussure a devotee of the natural sciences, he has a dream: to carry a barometer to the summit and take a reading there. An excellent mountaineer, he has already made several attempts." Paccard had a first, unsuccessful, attempt in 1783 with Marc Theodore Bourrit. In
Jacques-Michel Hurel de Lamare Jacques-Michel Hurel de Lamare Jacques-Michel Hurel de Lamare (1 May 1772 – 27 March 1823) was a noted French cellist. Lamare was born in Paris, to a poor family. He studied music at a very young age, entering the Institute of the Pages of the Royal Music at age 7, and turning to study of the cello, with Jean-Louis Duport, at age 15. He returned home upon the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. In 1794, Lamare became cellist at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris, where he developed a reputation as a soloist. He soon thereafter became a professor