Paul Edouard Walloon

Paul Edouard Walloon (born with Montauban in 1821, deceased in 1895 in its birthplace). This lawyer of formation, owner in this city, was close to the activities in connection with nature. Indeed, after its studies, it occupied its spare time during a score of years, with fishing, the agriculture and the visit of the the Pyrenees. (1)

First known writings

, But also man of letters man of law, it wrote, since 1860, a report on experiments of pisciculture. President of the Committee of fishing and agriculture of Basin of the Garonne, it published in 1868 an important work on: Questions of river and maritime fishings and agriculture . (1) During this same year (1868), a meeting with the future geographer Franz Schrader (1844-1924) was going to direct all its career and to make the senior of the pyreneists of it. It should be recalled that after Ramond de Carbonnnières, the inventor of the pyreneism, Arbanère, Chausenque and some others (the rises of the officers geodesists of 1825 to 1827 had been forgotten…), the explorers, botanists and geologists traversed, (in first about half of the 19th century) the valleys, but still little the tops. However in same time, Russell, Gourdon, Saint-Saud, Schrader, Careful, was going to form, in the long term, the core of a pleiad organized pyreneist and, because of the relations existing between France and Spain, of the topographers semi-official. (1)

The second part of the 19th century

It will be devoted to systematic exploration and the very precise definition of the geography of the confused axis of the Spanish central Pyrenees and the distant sierras. Paul Edouard Wallon had the merit to take part in the two exploratory periods. (1)

The toponymic trace in the Pyrenees

One finds the name of Walloon in the area of Macadau (the Pyrenees central). A peak bears its name, as well as the largest refuge of the Pyrenees (CIF of Tarbes), known under the name of Refuge Marcadau-Walloon. Lastly, the collar in the south of the Balaïtous is called Wallon. (1)

The route pyreneist of Walloon

A long time, Paul Edouard Wallon had been compared to the " Pyrénéistes Toulousains" who, with the " Bordelais" , and later, " Palois" , were going to promise extraordinary to a saga adventurers of the summits to us, accompanied by large guides. However, the geographer-researcher J.C. Tournou-Bergonzat become the historiographer of Walloon, will first of all reveal that the Wallon cartographer came quite from the small department of Tarn-et-Garonne, in which had remained many important precursors of the incipient pyreneism. It will also show that the call of the Pyrenees which animated and filled with enthusiasm Wallon cannot be summarized, like wants it the anecdote the book, upon reading famous of Jules Michelet the Mountain , appeared in 1868. Indeed, even if this last had read Ramond de Carbonnières and considering Gavarnie, the handwritten chart of the central Pyrenees of Walloon was former to this date, and he knew already the special Guide of the pedestrian in the Pyrenees published per H. Russell in 1866. (1) It is necessary thus to refer so that written, in 1874, Adolphe Joanne, in the foreword of Itinéraires of France - the Pyrenees : “Mr. Wallon, of Montauban, had kindness to write, purposely for me, the principal climbings which has made him undertake for twenty years its passion always reappearing for the most inaccessible peaks of the High Pyrenees and the Haute-Garonne… ”.

Research of Association the Pyrenees High mountain on Paul Edouard Walloon

The research result on the existence of this school literary, artistic, geographical and theological of the city of Ingres, confirm even more the strong desire of this Southerner (Walloon) to explore this will terra incognita , whose Aragonese language will be used to him as filter of youth. Indeed, an important list of explorers and members of considerable erudite companies of geography, could influence our cartographer locally: Pasteur Émilien Frossard, wire of Benjamen (thesis in 1824) and director of the seminar of Montauban in 1847, was present at the hotel of Gavarnie in 1865 to provide the foundations, with Packe, Russell, and Maxwell-Lyte of the first association of French mountain under the name of Société Ramond. Émilien Frossard was the first president, and this geologist writer also contributed to the creation of the observatory of the Peak of the South. (2)

The second known period of the career of Walloon

If one cannot evoke the cartography, without being unaware of the modernity of the geographers, since the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, even the Chinese well before Jesus-Christ to the chart known as staff in France (to the 1/80 000 hatched), the orographical study of the Pyrenees, whim and mode of the history, is almost as contemporary as that of the poles. Walloon will be an explorer of the Pyrenees, but it missed an exceptional meeting to him to feel D' Artagnan of experiment in the middle of valorous Mousquetaires! It took place in 1868 (1). Franz Schrader should be quoted: With Héas, at the old guide Vault, we saw in front of his door approximately a fifty year old man. It was a lawyer of Montauban, Mr. Wallon. First reports/ratios of a doubtful cordiality: it had taken our dinner, we took his room to him. I even believe that treated we it of “old man”, and than it had treated us the “insane ones”; the things, would not have been easily arranged if it did not have the brilliant idea to deploy in front of its guide a " handwritten chart of the two slopes of the chain of Pyrénées" (to the 1/400 000). At this sight, I pus to hold there; I asked for the permission to him of approach: peace was quickly made. The excellent man asked us for our names, and hearing that of my companions: " how, you would be the wire of my old friend Lourde? That you do not say it! " Friendships, handshakes and embraces on all the line…

It is almost of Dumas! This meeting in gasconnade gave place, a few years later, so that a historiographer called, the “Yalta” of the Pyrenees. Why! Because the chart of the Spanish slope remained to be made! The border was indicated: Rio Macaw. To Franz Schrader returned the East of the Massif of Mount-Lost Mount-Cursed, and to Paul Edouard Wallon, the exploration exaltée of the unknown areas towards the Ocean, with for coordinator and referee from these two " powers pyrénéistes" , from Paris, the commander Prudent. Thus, thereafter, a great friendship impressed of honesty never derogated from this famous pleiad pyreneist whose Russell was cement. (1).

Paul Edouard Walloon, self-educated and complete pyreneist

Not only Wallon used the orologist (revolutionary topographier apparatus) invented by his colleague Franz Schrader, but he was a complete pyreneist. This doctor in right did not hesitate over late studying useful mathematics and trigonometry for calculations of geodesy in the books of Saint-Cyr military school of his son Jules Wallon. The age did not seem to have of catch on this moustache the Gallic one! Mountaineer, with before the ice axes, it was armed with a shoed stick, with removable axe to cut the steps in the ice, and of a revolver with six blows with truncated balls to preserve bear, wolf and of the brigand. So since 1872, the Ramond Bulletin published a first article of Walloon, the same year, this last made with his/her son, the Gaspard guides and Lacoste, the Balaïtous by the East, in one day since Arrens. He then knew the extase top, that which harmonizes the heart and the reality of a seizing landscape, but also, raised the panorama, peak by peak. Its " Wall-muré" , terrible the 3000 m of the time, it drew up the chart and describes all the possible roads of it. Its first were numerous in company of its faithful guides, of which the famous one, Clement-Latour: in the month of August 1883, it excursionnait the mountains of Pétragène (needles of Ansabère) and carried out the first known rise of the peak of the Three Kings (2 434M). During the summer 1884 (it is 63 years old), Wallon settled with the Russel villa with the Vignemale to study the details of the solid mass (it then already adopted the ice axe). In 1876, it climbs the peak of Hell by the Northern glacier (3 081m), in 1877 Pena Téléra (2 744m), in 1878 Punta Buquesa (2 770m) and in 1879, Frondiella (3 081 m).

Walloon was moreover a skilful draftsman (Panoramas of the central Pyrenees, 1869) and painted, with sensitivity, of the landscapes to the gouache. He also carried out in 1889 a superb relief of the Hautes-Pyrénées (with the five thousandths), which a long time remained visible with the Town hall of Cauterets. Lastly, on August 4th, 1890, we found it, at almost 70 years, the breach of Tuquerouye (2 667 m) for the inauguration of the Door-Rochelave refuge, whose architecture still faces the storms of the Mont Lost. In Paris, in 1874, Wallon took part in the foundation of the alpine Club French, and offered its texts (become of the works) and its fragments of charts to the Directory of the CIF. He was besides member of the CIF of South-west (Bordeaux) and prestigious the Société of Geography (Paris). Without any doubt, it belonged to a intellectual elite of Montauban. It was very dependant with the regionalistic writer Emile Pouvillon (1840-1906) which it received with other friends in his Private mansion with Villebourbon (Montauban) or in its field of Lamothe-Capdeville in Tarn-et-Garonne: François Coppée, Pierre Parcelled out, Jose María de Heredia, Alphonse Daudet… Besides, we find the hard copy of Emile Pouvillon at the top of the Pic of Annoys (3 005 m) in August 1875 with Paul Edouard Wallon who described it as good walker. Mr Wallon was also the author of many writings concerning the reformed Church (he was indeed secretary of the Council presbytéral of the Consistory of Montauban (1).

Children of Walloon

Paul Edouard Wallon will have two wire with his wife Suzanne Denilh-Rauly: Jules Wallon who will finish his military career with the rank of general. When in Walloon Ernest, teaching in civil law with the faculty of Toulouse, it founds the Company of the Friends of the Stade Toulousain in 1914. Since, the stage bears its name besides. Paul Edouard Wallon will die in 1895 in his birthplace; he would rest in the old cemetery of Montauban (2).

The explorer and his failure

Any explorer has his failure. Ramond de Carbonnières passed beside the first Mount-Cursed. , It, missed Walloon that of the Collarada. H. Béraldi (3): Wallon had been wrong to release Collarada. Excited by the dires of Lequeutre which had seen it superb southern part, Russell removed it from a blow, gathering the top, the last of the orographical keys of Aragon in 1876!

The centenary of the disappearance of Walloon

At the time of the centenary of the disappearance of the cartographer EP Walloon (1895-1995), an exposure was organized to the Refuge Marcadau-Walloon with for partners the French alpine Club and the PHM 82 (4). It was the highest temporary exhibition of South-west during the summer 1995 (transport by helicopter).

References concerning this article

Monograph: Walloon the Edouard Cartographer, of Artagnan of the Pyrenees - Pyrenean Review of the CIF of the Great South-west N°67, August 1994. (1)

Books of Association the Pyrenees High mountain - Montauban 82. Organization indexed UMR 8586 - CNRS Paris (2)

Hundred Years In the Pyrenees - Henri Béraldi (3)

the Dispatch of the South (articles July-August 1995) (4).

Works to be consulted

Splendors and glories of the Pyrenees - Pierre de Gorsse-

1980 ED.

Dictionary of the Pyrenees under the direction of Andre Levy

ED. Privat Toulouse 2000.

Franz Schrader (1844-1924) the man of the rare landscapes

ED. Pine with Crochets - Pau 1997.

the catalog of 108e exposure of the Company of the painters of Mountain - Paris 2001

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