But for the moment the attack on the forces which had kept the air virgin territory to man was not allowed to lag. In Paris public subscriptions were opened to defray the cost of a new and greater balloon. By this time it was known that hydrogen gas, or "inflammable air" as it was then called, was lighter than air. But its manufacture was then expensive and public aid was needed for the new experiment which would call at the outset for a thousand pounds of iron filings and 498 pounds of sulphuric acid wherewith to manufacture the gas.
The first experiment had been made in the provinces. This one was set for Paris, and in an era when the French capital was intellectually more alert, more eager for novelty, more interested in the advancement of physical science and in new inventions than ever in its long history of hospitality to the new idea. They began to fill the bag August 23, 1783 in the Place des Victoires, but the populace so thronged that square that two days later it was moved half filled to Paris's most historic point, the Champ de Mars. The transfer was made at midnight through the narrow dark streets of mediæval Paris. Eyewitnesses have left descriptions of the scene. Torch-bearers lighted on its way the cortège the central feature of which was the great bag, half filled with gas, flabby, shapeless, monstrous, mysterious, borne along by men clutching at its formless bulk. The state had recognized the importance of the new device and cuirassiers in glittering breastplates on horseback, and halbardiers in buff leather on foot guarded it in its transit through the sleeping city. But Paris was not all asleep. An escort of the sensation-loving rabble kept pace with the guards. The cries of the quarters rose above the tramp of the armed men. Observers have recorded that the passing cab drivers were so affected by wonder that they clambered down from their boxes and with doffed hats knelt in the highway while the procession passed.
The ascension, which occurred two days later, was another moving spectacle. In the centre of the great square which has seen so many historic pageants, rose the swaying, quivering balloon, now filled to its full capacity of twenty-two thousand feet. Whether from the art instinct indigenous to the French, or some superstitious idea like that which impels the Chinese to paint eyes on their junks, the balloon was lavishly decorated in water colours, with views of rising suns, whirling planets, and other solar bodies amongst which it was expected to mingle.
Ranks of soldiers kept the populace at a distance, while within the sacred precincts strolled the King and the ladies and cavaliers of his court treading all unconsciously on the brink of that red terror soon to engulf the monarchy. The gas in the reeling bag was no more inflammable than the air of Paris in those days just before the Revolution. With a salvo of cannon the guy-ropes were released and the balloon vanished in the clouds.
Benjamin Franklin, at the moment representing in France the American colonies then struggling for liberty, witnessed this ascension! "Of what use is a new-born child?" he remarked sententiously as the balloon vanished. 'Twas a saying worthy of a cautious philosopher. Had Franklin been in Paris in 1914 he would have found the child, grown to lusty manhood, a strong factor in the city's defence. It is worth noting by the way that so alert was the American mind at that period that when the news of the Montgolfiers' achievement reached Philadelphia it found David Rittenhouse and other members of the Philosophical Society already experimenting with balloons.
[Illustration: A Rescue at Sea.
From the painting by Lieutenant Farré.
Photo by Peter A. Juley.]
A curious sequel attended the descent of the Montgolfier craft which took place in a field fifteen miles from Paris. Long before the days of newspapers, the peasants had never heard of balloons, and this mysterious object, dropping from high heaven into their peaceful carrot patch affrighted them. Some fled. Others approached timidly, armed with the normal bucolic weapons--scythes and pitchforks. Attacked with these the fainting monster, which many took for a dragon, responded with loud hisses and emitted a gas of unfamiliar but most pestiferous odour. It suggested brimstone, which to the devout in turn implied the presence of Satan. With guns, flails, and all obtainable weapons they fell upon the emissary of the Evil One, beat him to the ground, crushed out of him the vile-smelling breath of his nostrils, and finally hitched horses to him and dragged him about the fields until torn to tatters and shreds.
