Roots and Sources: A Critical Analysis of the Story of the Birth of Company of Guides of Chamonix[Des racines et des sources : une relecture critique de l’histoire de la naissance de la Compagnie des guides de Chamonix]

From both a historical and historiographical perspective, this article studies a founding moment in the institutionalisation of the mountain guide market and occupation: the birth of the Chamonix guides Company in the early 19th century. An analysis of a corpus of 71 bibliographical references shows that it is commonly accepted that the Compagnie was created by a deliberation of the town council, dated 24 July 1821. This deliberation is said to have regulated the market and the profession of mountain guide for the first time in the world, putting an end to free trade and granting a legal monopoly to just 34 selected local guides. The material existence of this municipal resolution is proven. But were the regulations it contained actually implemented? This is what most authors postulate. For, as we shall show, their accounts are poorly documented. The few existing archival works are marred by interpretation errors and sometimes inconsistencies. In light of this, we are carrying out a historical investigation, drawing on hitherto neglected documents, to find traces of the actual implementation of the municipal council's decision of 1821. Our investigation brings to light a number of clues that call into question the implementation of the municipal regulations proposed in 1821. In other words, the canonical account of the birth of the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix appears unfounded. This result invites us to examine the causes of the inaccuracies in this dominant account. The analysis shows that it is based on memorial and often hagiographic historical works, produced by non-academic authors who are very close to their subject of study. This lack of critical viewpoint and reflexivity explains the difficulties these authors have in distancing themselves from the social representations associated with the history of the Compagnie des guides de Chamonix. In order to further our understanding of this singular historiographical situation (the birth of the Compagnie des guides de Chamonix), but also to clarify the historical work more broadly (in the first place, its objects and its issues), we propose to examine them through the prism of Roland Barthes' concept of myth.