Jacques Balmat it turns out, possesses an extraordinary mountaineering sense, an unerring instinct for the crevasses and seracs of the glaciers ..." After the successful ascent, Balmat collected the reward offered 25 years before by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure to the first man who could climb Mont Blanc. On 3 August 1787 he assisted de Saussure himself to reach the summit with a party of about 17 people. During the Napoleonic Wars, Savoy fell under French control, and Citizen Jacques Balmat became a member of the council of the commune. He led an unsuccessful attempt to introduce Merino sheep into the Chamonix valley.
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