Acting

Pierre Lesueur

Pierre Lesueur, born in Clichy (France) on January 23, 1928, is one of the representatives of the famous group of Parisian climbers who marked the history of French mountaineering in the 1950s, with in particular the first of the face south of Aconcagua. During the week, while Robert Paragot repairs typewriters at Social Security, Pierre Lesueur cuts metal parts at the factory. On weekends, they meet up with the whole gang in Fontainebleau to climb the rocks or, better yet, hitchhike to Chamonix, with the heavy pitons made by Lesueur in their backpacks. “I was a fitter because my father was a fitter, I couldn't be anything else. I worked at night. I was watching stuff and didn't have much to do, so I was doing pitons because we didn't have a lot of money to buy them. This anecdote, told by Pierre Lesueur, is perhaps the one that best sums up the era and the state of mind that reigned, in the early 1950s, within this formidable team of Parisian climbers led by Robert Paragot. , Lucien Bérardini, Edmond Denis, Adrien Dagory and the Lesueur brothers. In 1950, Paragot and Lesueur climbed the north face of the Petit Dru by the route opened in 1935 by Pierre Allain, the master, trained like them at the school of bleausarde and already nicknamed "the Old", as if to signify the handover. With yet another good anecdote: “At Dru, I had old shoes and the sole opened in the Lambert crack. It had to be fixed with a wire. They are still fabulous stories! It was a good time ! »