UKC

I'm researching De Saussure's 1788 expedition to the Col du Geant (Mont Blanc) and am in need of finding out the names of all the guides who accompanied him. At the moment I can only determine that Jaques Balmat was there, but "Killing Dragons" only mentions four other (unnamed) guides and I can't find an English translation of "Voyages" online!

In reply to Only a hill: It's a slow afternoon here...

Looking in Voyages dans les Alpes. Tome 4 in the chapter on the traverse there are only four people mentioned:

De Saussure
His son
Alexis Balmat (a porter)
P J Favret (best friend of Alexis Balmat)

Other people are implied as being there to but the latter are only mentioned explicitly because Alexis fell into a crevasse and Favret got lowered down to him to rescue him.

In reply to EwanR:
Thanks, very helpful.

In reply to Only a hill: Have you read Graham Brown's book on the history of climbing Mont Blanc? Forensically comprehensive.

In case anybody else was curious, the answer is:

Jean-Michel Cachat (also known as Cachat the giant)
Marie Couttet
Pierre Balmat
Jacques Balmat

The names are given the the memoires of Jean-Michel Cachat.