Miss Straton, Monsieur Charlet and the Aiguille de Persévérance
Convention-breaking mountaineer Miss Isabelle Straton, and Savoyard mountain guide Jean-Estéril: the scandal doesn’t stop. [1600 words 6 mins
In last week’s post, the first winter ascent of Mont Blanc was achieved by wealthy and independent Englishwoman Miss Isabella Straton, along with her local guide, the former shepherd Jean-Estéril Charlet.
As a woman climbing mountains in the 1870s, Isabella Straton was unusual but not unique.1 But when it came to behaving in ways that Victorian ladies didn’t, she took it all a bit step further when, ten months after the climb on Mont Blanc –
First, however, a spot of sociology. (If you suspect that sociology consists of saying nothing much in extremly fancy language, then you’ll skip straight to the paragraph about the Petit Dru. Howver, I do undertake not to use the words ‘community’, ‘transgressive’, ‘holistic’, ‘agency’ and ‘intersectionality’.)
Sociology of the snows
At first sight, this female entryism2 into Alpinism does seem jolly odd. What could be more manly than clambering up vertical rock faces and extremely steep ice while conquering the summits with the aid of an extremely sharp little axe? Given the obstacles in the way of women taking a leading part in anything in the 1870s as obstacles go, Mont Blanc is a pretty big one.
Socially speaking, early-Victorian Alpinism was indeed an odd affair. Invented by the English upper-middle class and, like everything else the English upper-middles did, a boy-oriented, upper-class activity. Even so, it did take place several hundred miles east, and several thousand metres above, the normal social conventions. And, when you’re already on the other side of Europe, that does make it easier to break the boundaries.
Which did offer an opening for an independent and adventurous young woman like Miss Straton: a place where not all, but certainly some, of the Victorian gents were happy to drop their patriarchal attitudes and just be mountain-climbers3. And mountain climbing did also involve collaboration with a very different social group: those working-class Swiss, Italian and French chamois-hunters and hill farmers.
Okay, so that relationship was a financial one, master (or ‘Herr’) and employee. But once tied together on the climbing rope, up in themountain mists, these important distinctions began to blur. Half a dozen harsh candlelight breakfasts and sub-zero glaciers, a crevasse rescue or two, several sunrise moments on the airy pinnacles – and the relationship could become something much more equal. We are, after all, safely half a continent away from the stifling social conventions of early-Victorian England.
Leslie Stephen’s relationship with his guide Melchior Anderegg was warm and deferential – Stephen, that is, showing deference to his guide. In a hovel high on the side of the Täschhorn, Albert and Mary Mummery and their guide Alexander Burgener practised the quickstep together…
All right, so you’re ahead of me here. For an unmarried early-Victorian woman who’s got her own money and wants fun, this is an opportunity. Off to the Alps, on her own or with another fun-seeking woman, and hire a guide. Who, strange and socially different as he is, speaking a strange Savoyard patois as he does, ain’t an upper-middle-English early Victorian.
Doing the Dru
Meanwhile, her guide Jean-Estéril Charlet was also a bit special. His mountain skills went far beyond mere competence. Early on he formed ambitions on the Petit Dru, the spectacular rock needle seen above Chamonix.
During several solo attempts within a few metres of the gap between the Drus he developed the ‘rappel’, the technique of descending on a doubled rope and then retrieving it by pulling down on one end. Charlet despised the ladders used to conquer the bigger but easier Grand Dru: “That is not an instrument of alpinism!”
The Petit Dru couldn’t actually be soloed with the techniques of his time. In the end Charlet, though a guide himself, employed two others to climb in support for his first ascent in 1879. They used 100m of hemp rope, involving13 of his trademark descents ‘en rappel’ on the way down again. It’s a classic moment in the history of Alpine climbing, today graded at D– with rock up to 5c.
Perseverance rewarded
Turn your back on Mont Blanc towards the other side of the valley, and you’re looking at the smaller, but still inspiringly rocky, Aiguilles Rouges. Barely half the height of Mont Blanc, but technically far more demanding: serious rock and several unclimbed summits. Just the thing for a top guide and his adventurous client.
The write-up by Jean-Estéril is from the journal of the French Alpine Club: his companion discreetly named as “Miss S—”. The anonymity bestowed by the English establishment on their guides here reversed – for good reason, there’s already plenty of scandal about Miss Straton among the respectable folk back home.
Two attempts established the one likely route. They set off again in the 1875 season “with the inflexible resolution of getting to the top this time”.
We arrived, not without a certain amount of effort, at a somewhat rebarbative shoulder of which we had previously had occasion to make the dangerous acquaintance.4
Charlet has an oddly English-upper-middle way of writing: I suspect he’s been reading Leslie Stephen’s ‘Playground of Europe’ with its Victorian humblebragging. Isabelle, with good French from her upper-class education, may have had a hand in the write-up.
On the steep wall above the shoulder a hold unfortunately came away in his hand. He thought himself “out in the open air” along with his handhold, but managed to jump down a step and regain his footing.
Isabelle had considerable help from the rope over this section. But then the route continued as an airy ridge, and soon they were building their summit cairn.
The descent was equally tricky, using Charlet’s technique of the doubled rope for the steeper sections. “I promised myself, solemnly, to never again set out on this tough and dangerous ascent; but the promises of mountaineers, as we know, are on a par with promises of drunks.” And a few months later he was up it again with a pair of friends from Geneva. Today it’s graded D– 5c, with rock up to IV.
Here’s some footage of today’s standard South Ridge route:
They named their Aiguille for their own perseverance – not just in repeated attempts on the mountain, but in managing not to acknowledge the real nature of their relationship…
Because, ten months after their climb on Mont Blanc…
Miss Isabella, wealthy English heiress, and Jean the shepherd, carpenter and mountain guide, were planning their wedding.
There was just one thing to get straightened out first. Because even more precious than Jean-Estéril’s climbing comrade Isabella was his career as mountain guide. And the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix – well, it’s very strict about the proper conduct of its members.
Fortunately, it hadn’t occurred to anybody to write in a rule against getting engaged to (rather than engaged by) one’s client. And so it was that Jean-Estéril Charlet and Isabella Straton married on November 28, 1876. It was a big event in Argentière, involving sixteen horse-drawn carriages.
The convention-busting pair took the paired surname of Charlet-Straton. Though 38 at the time of their marriage, Isabella quickly fell pregnant. Two sons, the bilingually named Robert and explicitly English James, at the ages of 11 and 13 ascended Mont Blanc (in summer!) with their Dad on his 23rd ascent of it. Isabella, by then in her early 50s, stayed at home managing their hotel. At which the gentlemen alpinists, just so long as their wives weren’t along to be scandalised, could enjoy English levels of comfort and cleanliness along with the unique mountain knowledge of the proprietor and her husband.
Isabelle never returned to England, preferring to remain in the small Alpine village while founding an illustrious dynasty of guides, mountain-climbers and hoteliers. Where Jean-Estéril had created the technique of the ‘rappel’ on the doubled rope, their great-nephew, Armand Charlet, created the 12-pointer crampons and the associated technique that replaced step-cutting on steep ice and snow with a faster and therefore safer style of movement – which he demonstrated on the parent peak of both the Petit Dru and Isabella’s Aiguille du Moine, making 100 ascents of the couloirs of the Aiguille Verte.
Meanwhile, down in Chamonix, the 74-bedroom Hotel Pointe Isabelle, named for her first-ascent mountain, was run until recently by their descendants.
With thanks to Ian Huyton of White Marmot, Argentière, for pointing me to several useful accounts of Isabelle and Jean-Estéril. Ian’s own (shorter) account of their lives is here.
Meta Brevoort, Lucy Walker, Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, Lily Bristow, Mary Mummery – and in the wider world, Isabella Bird crossing the Rockies and the astonishing Lady Florence Dixie in Patagonia
Excluding just five sociology buzzwords still leaves plenty to choose from….
Albert Mummery, top climber of the 1870s, is one obvious example, along with the American William Coolidge
Nous parvenons, non sans quelques efforts, à un épaulement assez rébarbatif dont nous avions eu précédemment l’occasion de faire la dangereuse connaissance
Entertaining, a mountain high!
I think climbing this mountain must be an addiction. So many times up and down! Like it's not enough to simply conquer the beast.