As the newspapers have often spoken of my "bracelet" I may say that the thin gold chain of which it consists is simply the means I have taken to wear this medal, which I prize.
AN ACCIDENT
The air-ship, as a whole, was damaged very little, considering the force of the wind and the nature of the accident. When it was ready to be taken out again I nevertheless thought it prudent to make several trials with it over the grassy lawn of the Longchamps racecourse. One of these trials I will mention, because it gave me—something rare—a fairly accurate idea of the air-ship's speed in perfect calm. On this occasion Mr Maurice Farman followed me round the racecourse in his automobile at its second speed. His estimate was between 26 and 30 kilometres (16 and 18½" miles) per hour with my guide rope dragging. Of course, when the guide rope drags it acts exactly like a brake. How much it holds one back depends upon the length that actually drags along the ground. Our calculation at the time was about 5 kilometres (3 miles) per hour, which would have brought my proper speed up to between 30 and 35 kilometres (18½" and 21½" miles) per hour. All this encouraged me to make another trial for the Deutsch prize.
And now I come to a terrible day—8th August 1901. At 6.30 A.M., in presence of the Scientific Commission of the Aéro Club, I started again for the Eiffel Tower.
I turned the Tower at the end of nine minutes and took my way back to St Cloud; but my balloon was losing hydrogen through one of its two automatic gas valves, whose spring had been accidentally weakened.
I had perceived the beginning of this loss of gas even before reaching the Eiffel Tower, and ordinarily, in such an event, I should have come at once to earth to examine the lesion. But here I was competing for a prize of great honour, and my speed had been good. Therefore I risked going on.
The balloon now shrunk visibly. By the time I had got back to the fortifications of Paris, near La Muette, it caused the suspension wires to sag so much that those nearest to the screw propeller caught in it as it revolved.
I saw the propeller cutting and tearing at the wires. I stopped the motor instantly. Then, as a consequence, the air-ship was at once driven back toward the Tower by the wind, which was strong.
At the same time I was falling. The balloon had lost much gas. I might have thrown out ballast and greatly diminished the fall, but then the wind would have time to blow me back on the Eiffel Tower. I, therefore, preferred to let the air-ship go down as it was going. It may have seemed a terrific fall to those who watched it from the ground, but to me the worst detail was the air-ship's lack of equilibrium. The half-empty balloon, fluttering its empty end as an elephant waves his trunk, caused the air-ship's stem to point upward at an alarming angle. What I most feared, therefore, was that the unequal strain on the suspension wires would break them one by one and so precipitate me to the ground.