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CONFERENCE NUMBER: 4524 (to be used on the website of the Academy of Sciences and Letters of Montpellier to find the corresponding text) AUTHOR: Jean-Paul Legros was a cartographer in the field of soils and a member of the Scientific Council of the Vanoise National Park. ABSTRACT: It was not until the 19th century that the existence of glaciations in the recent past of the Earth was demonstrated and until the 20th century that their number was established, their causes understood and their parameters (intensities and durations) estimated. To do this, mountains were surveyed, polar ice pierced and the seabeds searched. This saga is presented with its heroes and discoverers. The last part of the presentation shows in images the main glacial forms, so evident in the Alpine and Nordic landscapes and yet ignored for so long. What is said places the climate change currently observed in a broader context.