Fulgence Marion

“ On the 6th of July, 1819, there was a great fete at Tivoli, and a multitude had assembled around the balloon of Madame Blanchard. Cannon gave the signal of departure, and soon the fireworks began to show themselves. The balloon rose splendidly, to the sound of music and the shoutings of the people. A rain of gold and thousands of stars fell from the car as it ascended. A moment of calm succeeded, and then to the eyes of the spectators, still fixed on the balloon, an unexpected light appeared. ”

“ Our longing gaze followed it behind the dark clouds in the horizon, whose edges it tipped with a glorious purple. Its last rays shone on us, and then came a bluish-grey twilight. Suddenly we are enveloped in a dense fog. We look around, above us. Everything has disappeared in the mist. The balloon itself is no longer visible. We can see nothing except the ropes which suspend us, and these are only visible for a few feet above our heads, when they lose themselves in the fog. We are alone with our wickerwork house in an unfathomable vault. ”

“ There are—as those who visited the Crystal Palace two years ago have reason to know—not a few men who still believe in the practicability of journeying by air. But, with hardly an exception, those few have abandoned all idea of utilising the balloon for this purpose. The graceful “machine” which astonished the world at its birth remains to this day as beautiful, and as useless for the purposes of travel, as in the first hour of its history. ”

“ Why should we be obliged here to state that the great discovery that stirred the spirits of men from the one end of Europe to the other, and gave rise to hopes of such vast discoveries, should have failed in realising the expectations which seemed so clearly justified by the first experiments? It is now eighty-six years since the first aerial journey astonished the world, and yet, in 1870, we are but little more advanced in the science than we were in 1783. Our age is the most renowned for its discoveries of any that the world has seen. Man is borne over the surface of the earth by steam ”

“ There is no limit to the sciences and the arts, which cultivation does not overstep. We have everything to hope and to expect from time, from chance, and from the genius of man. The difference which there is between the canoe of the savage and the man-of-war of 124 guns is perhaps as great as that of balloons as they now are and as they will be in the course of a century. If you ask of an aeronaut why he cannot command the motions of his balloon, he will ask of you in his turn why the inventor of the canoe did not immediately afterwards construct a man-of-war. ”

“ As for the idea of making use of a sail to direct the balloon, as one directs a vessel, that also was a delusion; for the whole machine, globes and sails, being freely thrown into the air, would infallibly follow the direction of the wind, whatever that might be. When a ship lies in the sea, and its sails are inflated with the wind, we must remember that there are two forces in operation—the active force of the wind and the passive force of the resistance of the water; and in working these forces the one against the other, the sailor can turn within a point of any direction he pleases. ”

“ This first ascent in Paris was an important event. Every one, from the smallest to the greatest, was deeply interested in it, while to the man of science it was one of the most exciting of incidents. For the purpose of observing the altitude to which the balloon rose, and the course it took, Le Gentil was on the observatory, Prevost was on one of the towers of Notre Dame, Jeaurat was on La Place Louis XV., and d’Agelet was on the Champ de Mars. It was only Lalande that frowned as he witnessed the success of the experiment. He had predicted the year before that air-navigation was impossible. ”

“ The planets that revolve round the sun, the far-flying comets, the most distant stars—these formed the field which from that time was to lie open to the investigations of man.
This enthusiasm one can well enough understand. There is in the simple fact of an aerial ascent something so bold and so astonishing, that the human spirit cannot fail to be profoundly stirred by it. ”

“ All the more is it to be regretted that so little practical good has resulted from their labours and their sacrifices; and that so many of those who have perished in balloon voyages have done so whilst serving to better end than the amusement of a holiday crowd. There is, however, another aspect which makes at least the earlier history of the balloon well worth preserving. This is the influence which the invention had upon the generation which witnessed it. As these pages show, the people of Europe seem to have been absolutely intoxicated by the success of the Montgolfiers’ discovery. ”

“ More than that, it appears that balloons are unmanageable, and it is to air-vessels, constructed more nearly upon the model of birds, that we must go to find out the secret of aerial navigation. At present, as in former times, we are at the mercy of balloons—globes lighter than the air, and therefore the sport and the prey of tempests and currents. And aeronauts, instead of showing themselves now as the benefactors of mankind, exhibit themselves mainly to gratify a frivolous curiosity, or to crown with eclat a public fete. ”

“ Sometimes the aeronaut makes his descent by means of the parachute, a separate and distinct contrivance. If, from any cause, it appears impracticable to effect a descent from the balloon itself, the parachute may be of the greatest service to the voyager at the present day it is chiefly used to astonish the public, by showing them the spectacle of a man who, from a great elevation in the air, precipitates himself into space, not to escape dangers which threaten him in his balloon, but simply to exhibit his courage and skill. ”

“ The new highway appeared to have been thrown open to the world, and the dullest imagination saw the air thronged with colossal chariots, bearing travellers in perfect safety, and with more than the speed of the eagle, from city to city, from country to country, reckless of all the obstacles—the seas, and rivers, and mountains—which Nature might have placed in the path of the wayfarer. ”

“ Whilst pensions and honours and popular applause were being showered upon the inventors of the balloon, Watt was labouring unnoticed at his improvements of the steam-engine—a very prosaic affair compared with the gilded globe which Montgolfier had caused to rise from earth amidst the acclamations of a hundred thousand spectators, but one which had before it a somewhat different history to that of the more startling invention. ”

“ To find oneself transported in the darkness of night, in the midst of vast solitudes of air, unknown, unperceived, in secret and in silence, exploring territories, traversing kingdoms, watching towns which come into view, and pass out of it before one can examine them in detail—these circumstances are enough in themselves to render sublime a science which, independent of these adjuncts, would be so interesting. ”

“ While our balloon rapidly approached the earth, we waved our hats and flags, and shouted to the inhabitants, but our voices only increased their terror. The villagers rushed away with cries of terror, leaving their herds, whose bellowings increased the general alarm. When the balloon touched the ground, every man had shut himself up in his own house. ”

“ As we were thrown upon our backs at the moment when the balloon took such a sudden start out of the water and bore us with such swiftness to those high regions, the cold seized us suddenly, and we found ourselves covered all at once with a coating of ice. ”

“ But something seems to approach us. What are those pale rays of light which we can faintly see a long, long way before us—rays pale and soft, quite unlike those flaming fires we have left behind us? Surely these do not denote the presence of human activity! As we continue to advance, these pale flakes of light—resembling nothing so much in appearance as molten lead—which at first were scanty and isolated, gradually expand, and leave only narrow strips of darkness to divide them into fantastic shapes. ”

“ The pious man believed that he had provided against everything. Neither tempest nor rain should mar his flight, and there was no chance of his being upset; whilst the machine, he had decided, was to go at the rate of thirty leagues an hour.
The great day came, and the abbe, entering his air-boat amidst the applause of the spectators, began to work the wings with which it was provided with great rapidity. “But,” says one who witnessed the feat, “the more he worked, the more his machine cleaved to the earth, as if it were part and parcel of it.” ”

“ Imagination, intoxicated with past successes, could descry no limit to human power; the gates of the infinite seemed to be swinging back before man’s advancing step, and the last was believed to be the greatest of his achievements.
In order to comprehend the frenzy of the enthusiasm which the first aeronautic triumphs called forth, it is necessary to recall the appearance of Montgolfier at Versailles, on the 19th of September, 1783, before Louis XVI, or of the earliest aeronauts at the Tuileries. ”

“ The work which we now introduce to our readers does not exaggerate the case when it declares that no discovery of modern times has aroused so large an amount of enthusiasm, has excited so many hopes, has appeared to the human race to open up so many vistas of enterprise and research, as that for which we are mainly indebted to the Brothers Montgolfier. The discovery or the invention of the balloon, however, was one of those efforts of genius and enterprise which have no infancy. ”

“ But to this rule there are two exceptions—the discoveries of America and of aerostatics, the advents of Columbus and of Montgolfier.” It is not here our duty to inquire how it happened that the discoveries made by these two personages are classed together. Air-travelling may be as unproductive of actual good to society as filling the belly with the “east wind” is to the body, while every one knows something of the extent to which the discovery of Columbus has influenced the character, the civilisation, the destinies, in short, of the human race. ”

“ Experience has proved that, in the case of a descending parachute, if the rapidity of the descent is doubled the resistance of the air is quadrupled; if the rapidity is triple the resistance is increased ninefold; or, to speak in language of science, the resistance of the air is increased by the square of the swiftness of the body in motion. This resistance increases in proportion as the parachute spreads, and thus the uniformity of its fall is established a minute after it has been disengaged from the balloon. ”

“ Its ascent was witnessed by nearly half a million of persons. The balloon, after passing over the eastern part of France, Belgium, and Holland, suffered a disastrous descent in Hanover the day after it started on its perilous journey. It was a fool-hardy enterprise to construct such a gigantic and unmanageable balloon, presenting such an immense surface to the atmosphere, and being so susceptible to adverse aerial currents as to become the helpless prey of the elements; and it was still more fool-hardy to place the lives of its passengers at the mercy of such terrible and ungovernable forces. ”

“ A nobleman present threw a purse of 200 louis into the car, and was preparing to follow it and join in the adventure. Roziers forbade him to enter, gently but firmly.
“The experiment is too unsafe,” he said, “for me to expose to danger the life of another.”
“Finally,” says a narrative of the time, “the Aero-Montgolfiere rose in an imposing manner. The sound of cannon signalised the departure, the voyagers saluted the crowd, who responded with loud shouts. The balloon advanced until it began to traverse the sea, and every one with eyes fixed upon the fragile machine, regarded it with fear. ”

“ Their immense balloon, constructed at great expense at the observatory, was expected to rise beyond the clouds, and a multitude, each of whom had paid dearly for his ticket, had assembled at the Luxembourg. The morning had been occupied in removing the balloon from the observatory to the place of ascent, and at midday the inflation of it began. The rays of a burning July sun—and one knows what that is in the Luxembourg in Paris—streamed down on the heads of the thousands of spectators. ”

“ The gas was renewed by Roziers, and the balloon again rising, extricated itself from among the branches, and soared majestically into the air, followed by the acclamations of the public. This second ascent was very instructive, for it had been often asserted that if ever a balloon fell upon a forest it would be destroyed, and would place those who travelled in it in the greatest peril. This experiment proved that the balloon does not FALL it DESCENDS; that it does not overturn; that it does not destroy itself on trees; that it neither causes death, nor even damage, to its passengers ”

“ Nadar, Ponton, D’Amecourt, and De la Landelle teach us better than this, although the wings of their different models are entirely unworthy of men who desire to demonstrate a truth to short-lived mortals. We have only arrived as yet at the infancy of the process, but we have made a good beginning, for, having once proved that a machine capable of raising itself in the air, wholly unaided from without, can be made, we have overcome with this apparently small result the whole difficulty. The principle of propulsion by means of a screw is by no means a novelty. ”

“ We are at present specially engaged with the narrative of the first attempts in aerostation—the first experiments in the new discovery. We have followed with interest the exciting details of the first adventurous ascents, in which the genius of man first essayed the unexplored paths of the heavens. Yet a continued record of aerial voyages would not be of the same interest. The results of subsequent expeditions, and the impressions of subsequent aeronauts are the same as those already described, or differ from them only in minor points. No important advance is recorded in the art. ”

“ Above and around us are nothing but thick fogs and enormous black clouds, whose ragged edges and backs are relieved by a pale silver coating. They undulate ceaselessly to and fro, and either usurp quietly the place of others, or disappear only to be superseded by more formidable ones. But the last ray of reflected light has died out, and we plunge into this chaos of dreadful forms. Monsters seem to wish to approach us, and to envelop us in their dark embraces. ”