De la renaissance au XIX siècle
Le XVII siècle…
… Affranchi les cimes de la superstition qui les entachent. La culture et l’art font perdre à la montagne son caractère de désordre et de maléfice, aidés en cela par la pensée orientale.
Mais déjà, vers le milieu du siècle précédent (en 1552), François de Candale avait fait l’ascension du pic du Midi d’Ossau.
En 1627, Charles-Emmanuel Ier, duc de Savoie, institue un corps militaire pour guider et secourir les voyageurs qui empruntent le col du Grand-Saint-Bernard. On voit ainsi naître l’ancêtre des sociétés de guides qui verront le jour, dès le début du XIXe siècle, dans plusieurs stations touristiques.
Entre la fin du XVIII et le début du XIX siècle
Gens de lettres, aristocrates et naturalistes se mettent en route à travers les Alpes à la découverte de régions inexplorées.
Rappelons toutefois, que les premiers à gravir les cimes ne furent ni les poètes ni les écrivains mais les hommes de science pour lesquels la montagne se présentait comme un vaste laboratoire naturel.
Il est incontestable, cependant, que l’ambition d’atteindre des cimes où personne n’était encore parvenu, remplace progressivement l’intérêt scientifique. Peu à peu, les pionniers laissent de côté les instruments de mesure et se consacrent presque exclusivement à la conquête des sommets.
Rappelons: l’ascension du Buet en 1770, celle du Mont Vélan en 1779 et celle du plus haut sommet des Alpes en 1786 par Jacques Balmat dit « Mont-blanc ». C’est ainsi que commence alors une période pendant laquelle la conquête est une fin en soi.
C’est ainsi que naît l’alpinisme, tandis qu’en Angleterre se mettent en place les structures de la révolution industrielle et qu’en France se structurent les idées qui aboutiront à la Révolution tout court. C’est d’Angleterre que viendront les premiers alpinistes. Issus d’une bourgeoisie active et entreprenante, ils viennent dans les Alpes puiser dans les risques de l’escalade une vigueur nouvelle, fidèles, en ce sens, à l’éthique puritaine de l’action.
Pendant la période qui va de la conquête du Mont-Blanc à celle du Cervin par Edward Whymper en 1865, les cimes les plus importantes de l’arc alpin sont foulées.
Les alpinistes anglais s’imposent de façon évidente. Ils ont pour nom, Whymper, Coolidge, et plus tard Mummery pour ne citer que les plus connus. Ils sont accompagnés, entre autres, par Christian Almer et Melchior Anderegg, les premiers Suisses à avoir obtenu une licence de guide en 1865.
Le British Alpine Club est fondé en 1857 suivit par l’O.A.V en 1862, le C.A.S. et le C.A.I. en 1863 et enfin le C.A.F. en 1874.
Edité à partir de 1859, « Peaks, Passes and Glaciers » fut le premier guide, et « The Playground of Europe » (1871) de Leslie Stephen, le premier livre de montagne.
Vers la fin du XIX siècle
Allemands et Autrichiens font une entrée remarquée sur la scène de l’alpinisme naissant. La plupart de ces grimpeurs viennent des classes moyennes et populaires. Ils trouvent dans ce sport un moyen d’échapper aux contraintes du travail en usine. Au désir de conquête se substitue la quête de l’aventure et du risque. C’est la première grande révolution idéologique survenue dans l’alpinisme.
Cette recherche de l’aventure et du risque est la conséquence de la culture romantique qui se répand en Europe dès la fin du XVIIIe siècle. L’exaltation du risque inutile comme moyen de s’affirmer, fera naître et se développer l’escalade libre qui atteindra, durant le premier quart du XXe siècle, les plus hauts sommets du style et de l’audace. On considère cette période comme l’âge d’or de l’escalade acrobatique.
Paul Preuss (1886 – 1913) apparaît comme le chef de file de cet alpinisme héroïque qui a fait « succomber », sous son charme et parfois aussi par sa témérité, des hommes tels que von Barth, Lammer, Purtscheller et Zsigmondy.
Cependant, les alpinistes de cette époque n’adhérent pas tous à cette philosophie postromantique du surhomme. Hans Dülfer (1892 – 1915) et Fiechtl, ainsi que les italiens Piaz, Dimai et Rey, sont, parmi d’autres, les plus fervents défenseurs d’un alpinisme plus humain. Ils introduisent dans l’escalade la conception de l’assurage, et démontrent par là que la sécurité n’enlève rien à l’exploit technique.
C’est également l’époque pendant laquelle s’illustre G.W.Young, et la deuxième génération des guides suisses dont Joseph Knubel, Alexandre Burgener et Franz Lochmatter.
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