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
Louis Michel Thibault Louis Michel Thibault Louis Michel Thibault (28 September 1750 – 15 November 1815), was a French-born South African architect and engineer who designed numerous buildings in the Cape Colony. He was South Africa's first trained architect and brought with him a distinctive mannered neo-classicism. Born 28 September 1750 in Picquigny, Picardy in France, Thibault was trained at the Royal Academy of Architecture in Paris. At the time, the Academy under Ange-Jacques Gabriel, provided the best architectural training available. Gabriel was an architect in the classical tradition, and had an important formative influence on Thibault's style. After qualifying at the Academy,