Jacques Balmat for gold in the Sixt valley in 1834. Jacques Balmat Jacques Balmat, called "le Mont Blanc" (1762–1834) was a mountaineer, a Savoyard mountain guide, born in the Chamonix valley in Savoy, at this time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. A chamois hunter and collector of crystals, Balmat completed the first ascent of Mont Blanc with physician Michel-Gabriel Paccard on 8 August 1786. For this feat, King Victor Amadeus III gave him the honorary title "le Mont Blanc". Balmat and Paccard's ascent of Mont Blanc was a major accomplishment in the early history of mountaineering. C. Douglas Milner wrote "The
Alexis Paccard Alexis Paccard Alexis Paccard (12 June 1813 – 18 August 1867) was a French architect. Paccard entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1830 in the workshops of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas and Jean-Nicolas Huyot. He won the Second Grand Prix in 1835 for a medical school, and won the Prix de Rome in 1841 for a "Palace of an ambassador in a foreign country." His work includes a study of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, which also earned him a medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1855. On his return he became official inspector and architect