Marie Paradis Blanc. The second woman to climb Mont Blanc did so thirty years after her; when Henriette d'Angeville celebrated her successful ascent in Chamonix, she was congratulated by Paradis who had received her special, personal invitation. Marie Paradis Marie Paradis (1778 – 1839) was the first woman to climb Mont Blanc. Paradis was a poor maidservant who lived in Chamonix at that time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. On 14 July 1808, in the company of renowned mountain guide Jacques Balmat, she became the first woman to climb Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain. The party camped on the Grands Mulets,
Jacques Benoist-Méchin Jacques Benoist-Méchin Jacques Michel Gabriel Paul Benoist-Méchin (1 July 1901 – 24 February 1983) was a French far right politician and writer. He was born and died in Paris. Well known as a journalist and historian, he would later become prominent for his collaborationism under the Vichy regime. After being condemned in 1947 and released from prison in 1954, he became a specialist of the Arab world in the second part of his life. Benoist-Méchin was educated at leading schools in Switzerland and the United Kingdom as well as the Lycée Louis-le-Grand before attending the Sorbonne. He subsequently served in