Draft:Pyreneism

Count Henry Russell (foreground) and Léonce Lourde-Rocheblave [fr], seated near the entrance of the Russell Caves at the Vignemale, accompanied by their guides.

Pyreneism (French: pyrénéisme) is a 19th century sporting, artistic, and literary movement centered around exploring the Pyrenees in order to create works inspired by the experience, whether for contemplative, artistic, or scientific purposes. The term was coined in 1898 by the scholar Henri Beraldi in his book Cent ans aux Pyrénées [fr] (transl. A Hundred Years in the Pyrenees), where he described a specific way of engaging with the Pyrenean mountains. According to his definition, "the ideal Pyreneist knows how to climb, write, and feel," setting them apart from the typical mountaineer through a more intellectual approach that goes beyond mere physical performance.

The Pyreneist movement is generally considered to have begun with the publication of Louis Ramond de Carbonnières's Observations faites dans les Pyrénées (transl. Observations Made in the Pyrenees) in 1789. It reached its golden age in the second half of the 19th century with the generation known as the Pléiade, which included notable figures like Count Henry Russell and geographer Franz Schrader. It was led by a small group of individuals from the social elite (aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie) or the intellectual class, who made significant efforts to bring attention to their unique practice.

Pyreneism is part of the broader development of the Romantic movement in Europe and the rise of spa tourism in France. It played a major role in the study and promotion of the Pyrenean mountain range, which its practitioners explored in a methodical way. By the turn of the 20th century, as mountaineering shifted toward greater physical commitment and technical difficulty, the distinction between Pyreneism and Alpinism began to fade.

The legacy of Pyreneism began to take shape in the early 20th century, particularly through the efforts of Louis Le Bondidier [fr], who founded the Musée pyrénéen de Lourdes [fr]. This legacy continues through a tradition of regularly publishing specialized release books and journals dedicated to the phenomenon. Many peaks in the Pyrenees have been named in honor of Pyreneists, some of whom are buried in the Pyrenean cemetery in Gavarnie.

Definition

L'idéal du pyrénéiste est de savoir à la fois ascensionner, écrire, et sentir. S'il écrit sans monter, il ne peut rien. S'il monte sans écrire, il ne laisse rien. Si, montant, il relate sec, il ne laisse rien qu'un document, qui peut être il est vrai de haut intérêt. Si — chose rare — il monte, écrit et sent, si en un mot il est le peintre d'une nature spéciale, le peintre de la montagne, il laisse un vrai livre, admirable.

The ideal of the Pyrenean mountaineer is to know how to climb, write, and feel. If he writes without climbing, he has nothing to offer. If he climbs without writing, he leaves nothing behind. If, while climbing, he recounts dryly, he leaves behind only a document, which may indeed be of great interest. If—something rare—he climbs, writes, and feels, if, in a word, he is the painter of a unique world, the painter of the mountain, then he leaves behind a true, admirable book.

— Henri Béraldi, Cent ans aux Pyrénées [fr], 1898^[1]

A romantic vision and elitist practice of the mountains

Henri Béraldi coined the term "pyreneism".

The term "pyreneism" was coined in 1898 by the memoirist and writer Henri Béraldi in the first volume of his work Cent ans aux Pyrénées (transl. A Hundred Years in the Pyrenees), which traces the history of hikes, ascents, and the touristic discovery of the Pyrenees throughout the 19th century.^[2][3] From the very first pages, the author declares that the Pyreneist ideal is "to know how to climb, write, and feel" all at once.^[4]

Historian Étienne Bordes argues that this triptych "sets Pyreneism apart through its grounding in a Romantic sensibility, in the contemplative ethos of discovering the world from above," and brings together a group of men and women who "described, sketched, cataloged, popularized, developed, and at times exploited the Pyrenean massif."^[3] According to geographer Xavier Arnauld de Sartre, Pyreneism "seeks to express a form of elective identification with a place and a social group of exceptional longevity ... while also constituting an intense and original sporting, artistic, and publishing activity."^[5] Pyreneism stands apart from spa tourism and resort-based tourism due to the difficulty and risks inherent in its practice.^[6]

While Pyreneism shares the same goal as Alpinism, it also includes, according to its advocates, "a passion for discovery, a love of art and science."^[7] One of the peculiarities of Pyreneism is that most of its members are not native to the Pyrenees, to the point that Louis Le Bondidier wryly remarked in 1907: "to become a true Pyreneist, it is almost essential not to have been born a Pyrenean. ... The native-born Pyrenean is immune to the Pyreneist bug."^[8]

Étienne Bordes explains that the defense and promotion of a specific practice of the Pyrenean mountains "is the subject of a symbolic struggle by its practitioners," who thereby demonstrate their loyalty and attachment to the values and spirit of early alpinism, as described by sociologist Delphine Moraldo. At the turn of the 20th century, while alpinism "was becoming corrupted by an excessive use of muscle, rock-climbing techniques, and brute strength," Pyreneists "sought to preserve a way of engaging with and perceiving the mountain" with an artistic and scientific aim that combines discovery and self-improvement.^[3]

This historical definition is the one adopted by Saule-Sorbé in the Dictionnaire des Pyrénées and by the IEC Dictionary of the Catalan Language.^[9]

A concise definition

The term "pyreneism" is relatively uncommon outside the circle of mountaineers and Pyrenees, and some authors such as Renaud de Bellefon and Paul Bessière believe that the history of this movement is not so different from that of alpinism.^[5][10] In the Dictionnaire des Pyrénées, Renaud de Bellefon describes pyreneism as a "meaningless catch-all" and he sees it as "an invention with no other true content".^[11] Pyreneism, as defined by Beraldi, concerns "only a narrow fringe of mountain uses and users", while it brings together individuals from several generations whose conceptions may be different, even antagonistic.^[12]

Étienne Bordes considers the initial definition of Pyreneism to be reductive,^[12] insofar as it assumes that the scholarly and sensitive approach to mountain running is not found in other places.^[2] He presents it as "the product of a form of aristocratic ethnocentrism of which Henri Beraldi serves as the scribe".^[12]

This second definition is the one used by Trésor de la langue française informatisé^[13] and Office québécois de la langue française^[14] in French, as well as the Diccionario de la lengua española as published by the Royal Spanish Academy.^[15] As of 2024^[update] however, the term is absent from both the Dictionnaires Le Robert and the Grand Larousse encyclopédique.^[16][17] As for the term "alpinisme", it appeared in French in the 1870s^[18] and is used generically for any mountain range, despite a few more specific local terms such as Himalayanism and Andinism.^[19]

Claims of first summiting

Félix Régnault [fr] and guide Henri Passet at the Tuquerouye Escalade, October 1892.

The question of the first ascent has at times been the subject of significant debate, particularly with regard to determining to whom the honor of being first should be attributed.^[20]

The very nature of the Pyrenees—an average-altitude mountain range largely devoid of glaciated areas—makes most of its summits easily accessible, and the chain has constituted "a major space of transport and mobility" for many centuries. Used since the Neolithic period by herds and their shepherds, and later by customs officers, smugglers, peddlers, and soldiers, the Pyrenees and their passes have recorded "constant flows of travelers".^[21] From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, routes were developed to facilitate the transport of goods or materials, such as at the Venasque Pass or the Pez Pass, but most mountain paths were only roughly marked with cairns, and detailed knowledge of them was limited to a small number of initiates.^[21]

This utilitarian use of the mountains sometimes led such travelers to ascend the summits, with the result that later claims of first ascents by Pyrenean mountaineers can be called into question. For example, when Charles Packe reached the summit of Balaïtous in 1864, he discovered a man-made signal turret: it was the work of the geodetic officers Pierre Peytier and Paul-Michel Hossard who had climbed the mountain in 1825 during a triangulation mission of the border region.^[20]

According to Étienne Bordes, this achievement fell into obscurity for several decades because of its utilitarian purpose and the absence of any literary communication: thus, "physical effort only fully counts when accompanied by literary intellectualization." As a result, the first ascent is sometimes attributed to the individual who claims it and asserts it through the publication of books or articles, so that the tourist-writer and Pyrenean mountaineer is recognized as its originator rather than the guides who led the way or the shepherds who left no trace other than a few stones at the summit.^[20]

History

The history of Pyrenean mountaineering spans a little over a hundred years. It begins at the end of the eighteenth century, when the Pyrenees started to benefit from the development of modern spa tourism and the construction of new road networks that enabled the region to attract more affluent visitors, and it ends at the beginning of the twentieth century, when new mountain practices emerged, such as skiing or the pursuit of ascents defined by technical difficulty.^[22] Between these two eras, nineteenth-century Pyrenean mountaineering was shaped by a small, distinctly elite group of individuals drawn largely from aristocratic and bourgeois circles, who distinguished themselves through the efforts they made to promote and legitimize their activity. Lower than the Alps, with summits that were relatively easy to access and in some cases already frequented, the Pyrenees were perceived as a subordinate mountain range, a "secondary space within the European landscape" of alpinism. As a result, these practitioners sought to justify their sustained engagement with the range by emphasizing forms of appeal other than the mere conquest of high peaks.^[22]

Henry Russell in front of the entrance to one of the Russell Caves.

Although the memoirist Henri Beraldi was the first, at the turn of the twentieth century, to compile an inventory of these figures of nineteenth-century Pyrenean mountaineering, it was the Pyrenean mountaineers themselves who, through their abundant literary output, constructed the history of their own group. In 2024, Étienne Bordes undertook the first "collective biography of Pyreneists," intended to "outline the contours of this elite of ascent in order to distinguish Pyrenean mountaineers from other mountain users."^[23]

In Cent ans aux Pyrénées, Beraldi distinguishes three periods in the history of pyreneism: an early phase represented by Louis Ramond de Carbonnières, a middle age associated with Vincent de Chausenque [fr], and a modern era embodied by Henry Russell.^[24] A century later, the historian Étienne Bordes retains this tripartite framework while shifting its chronological boundaries. He instead brings together the first two ages identified by Beraldi, describing these early explorers of the massif—active between the late eighteenth century and the mid-nineteenth century—as pioneers. He then distinguishes the representatives of the golden age of pyreneism in the second half of the nineteenth century, those whom Beraldi grouped under the term Pléiade, describing those mountaineers toward the end of the nineteenth century, who turned to a form of mountaineering focused on difficulty and less marked by literary expression than by physical or technical achievement.^[25]

The first Pyreneists (1780s–1840s)

Les Pyrénées n'existent que depuis cent ans. Elles sont « modernes ». Les Pyrénées ont été inventées par Ramond.

The Pyrenees have existed for only a hundred years. They are "modern". The Pyrenees were invented by Ramond.

— Henri Béraldi, Cent ans aux Pyrénées [fr], 1898^[26]

According to Étienne Bordes, "the first generation of Pyrenean mountaineers inaugurates and experiments with the new representations and practices of the mountain that flourished among European elites at the end of the eighteenth century. Its members combine discovery, ascent, and writing by importing into the Pyrenees the emerging norms of European alpinism."^[27] However, for this first generation, there was as yet no distinct Pyrenean consciousness or genuine specificity attached to the exploration of this massif. The Pyrenean experience was merely one stage within a broader itinerary, even for Louis Ramond de Carbonnières, often regarded as "the inventor of the Pyrenees", as he published his Observations sur les Alpes in 1777, a decade before his first stay in the Pyrenees.^[28]

In general, these early Pyrenean mountaineers were not concerned with systematically exploring the Pyrenean range: only Louis Ramond de Carbonnières and Vincent de Chausenque undertook multiple ascents and committed themselves to the sustained discovery of the Pyrenees. For other members of this group, the Pyrenean experience rarely extended beyond a scientifically motivated stay or "a single major initiatory climb",^[28] carried out with experienced guides.^[29] Yet their literary output, as well as their social profile, was sufficient to distinguish them from the "casual visits of a tourist-spa public, who were content with more modest and well-marked ascents."^[28]

Étienne Bordes identifies around thirty individuals who can be grouped within this first generation of Pyrenean mountaineers, the majority of whom were aristocrats—whether members of the minor nobility of the Ancien régime and the First Empire or of the high French and European aristocracy. Examples include Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, who made the first ascent of Pic Long in 1846, and Napoléon Joseph Ney, Prince of the Moskowa, who completed the second ascent of the Vignemale in 1838.^[30] Other members of this informal group also held prominent positions in society due to their political roles or professions, including high-ranking civil servants, military officers, or those in careers requiring advanced education. The vast majority of these early Pyreneists came from an urban, largely literate background. With the exception of Anne Lister, Britons were absent from this group, largely because the Pyrenean summits did not meet the Alpine Club's 13,000-foot (3,965-meter) threshold for membership. Likewise, local elites were largely absent, with only four members born in a department neighboring the range. In this context, the rivalry between Armand d'Angosse [fr] and Henri d'Augerot to be the first Béarnais to reach the summit of Pic du Midi d'Ossau is noteworthy; the prestige of such a conquest was intertwined with economic and political competition between their families.^[30]

View of Barèges in 1821 by Marianne Colston.

Thus, "by virtue of his birthplace far from the range, his social background, education, profession, and political and scientific roles," Louis Ramond de Carbonnières represents, according to many authors, "the ideal type of this generation."^[30] He discovered the Pyrenees during a summer stay in Barèges in 1787. This first visit inspired the writing of Observations faites dans les Pyrénées, published in the spring of 1789.^[31] He would be elected deputy of Paris in 1791 and then take refuge in the Pyrenees the following year to escape the Reign of Terror. From that point on, he undertook a program of systematic exploration of the range, while also teaching at the École centrale in Tarbes from 1796 to 1800. His studies spanned numerous fields, including geology, natural history, botany, and ethnology. Notably, he reached the summit of Mont Perdu in 1802. Appointed prefect of Puy-de-Dôme in 1806, he settled in Auvergne and continued his research in the Massif Central.^[31] By combining literature and the sciences, the Enlightenment philosophy, and the Romantic spirit, Louis Ramond de Carbonnières adopted in the Pyrenees the same approach as the naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure did in the Mont Blanc massif.^[32]

Several first-generation Pyrenean mountaineers corresponded with Ramond and shared some of his base camps (such as Barèges, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, or Cauterets) including naturalists Jean Florimond Boudon de Saint-Amans and Léon Jean Marie Dufour, as well as the geologist Henri Reboul [fr], who identified Aneto as the highest point of the range. Other scientists, such as François Pasumot [fr], Jean de Charpentier, and Pierre Cordier, explored the Pyrenees after working in the Alps, seeking to understand the massif’s geological structure.^[32]

In 1825, Pierre-Toussaint de la Boulinière, Secretary-General of the Prefecture of Hautes-Pyrénées, published Itinéraire descriptif et pittoresque des Hautes-Pyrénées françaises (transl. Descriptive and picturesque itinerary of the French Hautes-Pyrénées) following a survey of his department, which can be considered the first guidebook for the heart of the massif. A few years earlier, in 1807, the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle conducted an east-to-west traverse to catalogue Pyrenean flora. This journey, along with that of the naturalist Friedrich Parrot ten years later, represents one of the earliest documented examples of itinerant hiking across the range.^[32]

According to Étienne Bordes, the career of Vincent de Chausenque "illustrates the first example of a long-term commitment to the Pyrenees and one of the earliest instances of a fully conscious desire for exploration and summit conquest."^[33] Like Ramond, whom he would meet a few years later, Chausenque first encountered the Pyrenees during a spa stay in 1804. Four years later, he left the army in order to devote himself entirely to mountain exploration. He settled permanently in the Pyrenees in 1822 and completed numerous first ascents, including Pic de Ger in 1829 and Pic de Néouvielle in 1847.^[32] In 1834, he published Les Pyrénées ou voyages pédestres dans toutes les régions de ces montagnes, a work that would serve as a guide for many subsequent Pyreneists.^[32]

References

1. Béraldi 1898, p. vi.
2. Chose, Frédéric (January 2023). "Un pyrénéisme numérique peut-il exister ?" [Can a Digital Pyreneism Exist?]. Hermès (in French). 91: 189-193.
3. Bordes 2024, pp. 7–10.
4. Béraldi, Henri (2011). Cent ans aux Pyrénées (tomes 1 à 4) [A Hundred Years in the Pyrenees (volumes 1 to 4)] (in French). Pau: MonHélios. p. 9. ISBN 978-2-914709-95-8.
5. Arnauld de Sartre, Xavier (2011). "Le pyrénéisme est-il un possibilisme ? Quand un regard construit et hérité médiatise le rapport au milieu" [Is Pyreneism Possibilism? When a Constructed and Inherited Perspective Mediates the Relationship to the Environment]. Sud-Ouest européen (in French). 32: 117–128.
6. Suchet, André (2009). "De Louis Ramond de Carbonnières à la Pléiade des Pyrénées ou l'invention du pyrénéisme selon Henri Béraldi" [From Louis Ramond de Carbonnières to the Pléiade of the Pyrenees or the invention of Pyreneism according to Henri Béraldi]. Babel (in French). 20: 118–128.
7. Le Hardinier, B. (1961). Jeune, Marrimpouey (ed.). Cinquante ans de Pyrénéisme : en feuilletant le bulletin pyrénéen 1896-1950 [Fifty Years of Pyreneism: Flipping Through the Bulletin Pyrénéen, 1896–1950] (in French). Pau. p. 9.
8. Le Bondidier, Louis (1907). "Variations sur des thèmes pyrénéistes" [Variations on Pyrenean themes]. Revue Philomatique (in French). 2. Bordeaux.
9. "Diccionari de la llengua catalana". dlc.iec.cat.
10. Bessière, Paul (1967). L'alpinisme. Presses universitaires de France. p. 50.
11. De Bellefon, Renaud (2000). "À la recherche du pyrénéisme". Dictionnaire des Pyrénées. Toulouse: Éditions Privat. p. 683.
12. Bordes 2024, p. 7-10.
13. "Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé" (in French). Retrieved 11 October 2024.
14. "La Vitrine linguistique de l'Office québécois de la langue française" (in French). 19 September 2024. Retrieved 11 October 2024.
15. "Dictionnaire de la langue espagnole" (in Spanish).
16. Petit Robert de la langue française 2025 (in French). Dictionnaires Le Robert. 2024. ISBN 978-2321019978.
17. Le Grand Larousse illustré 2024 (in French). Éditions Larousse. 2024. ISBN 978-2036022218.
18. Rey, Alain (1992). Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert. ISBN 9782850361876.
19. Jouty, Sylvain; Odier, Hubert (2009). Dictionnaire de la montagne (in French). Éditions Omnibus. ISBN 2258079802.
20. Bordes 2024, p. 47-53.
21. Bordes 2024, p. 26-28.
22. Bordes 2024, p. 11-16.
23. Bordes 2024, p. 10-11.
24. Beraldi 1998, p. v. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBeraldi1998 (help)
25. Bordes 2024, p. 16.
26. Béraldi 1898, p. 1.
27. Bordes 2024, p. 35-36 [la première génération des pyrénéistes inaugure et expérimente les nouvelles représentations et pratiques de la montagne qui fleurissent dans le monde des élites européennes de la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Ses membres allient la découverte, l'ascension et l'écriture en important dans les Pyrénées les normes émergentes de l'alpinisme européen]
28. Bordes 2024, p. 35-36.
29. Bordes 2024, p. 53-54.
30. Bordes 2024, p. 37-40.
31. Bordes 2024, p. 40-44.
32. Bordes 2024, p. 44-46.
33. Bordes 2024, p. 44-46 [illustre le premier cas d'un investissement sur le temps long des Pyrénées et un des premiers cas de désir pleinement assumé d'exploration et de conquête sommitale]

Works cited

• Béraldi, Henri (1898). Cent ans aux Pyrénées [One hundred years in the Pyrenees] (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Impr. de L. Danel.
• Bordes, Étienne (2024). Petite histoire des pyrénéistes [A short history of the pyreneists] (in French). Morlaàs: Cairn. ISBN 979-10-7006-381-1.