"But Messrs. Montgolfier, taking it in hand, proceed to make the vapors, which gradually swell it out till it assumes a beautiful form.
"Strong arms are now required to retain it; at a given signal it is loosed, rises with rapidity, and in ten minutes attains a height of 6000 feet; it proceeds 7668 feet in a horizontal direction, and gently falls to the ground.
"Just as the Omnipotent, who turns
The system of a world's concerns,
From mere minutiæ can educe
Events of the most important use;
But who can tell how vast the plan,
Which this day's incident began?"
The effect of this letter in England was to cause a display of jealousy at which we might now blush, if we do not remember that the sagacious and convincing views of Adam Smith on political economy had only just been published and had not yet had time to circulate; for, though we were obliged to admit a discovery had been made in France, yet the periodicals argued that all the experiments that had led to it were made in England. Many were the caricatures which appeared.
In a discourse at the Academy of Lyons, Jacques Montgolfier says that a French copy of Priestley's Experiments relating to the Different Kinds of Air came in his way, and was to him like light in darkness; as from that moment he conceived the possibility of navigating the air, but, after some experiments in gas, he again tried smoke and hot air.
In Paris this intelligence caused a meeting of savants, who, by the advice of M. Faujas de Saint-Fond, started a public subscription for defraying the expense of making inflammable gas (hydrogen), the materials of which were expensive: one thousand pounds of iron filings and four hundred ninety-eight pounds of sulphuric acid were consumed to fill a globular bag of varnished silk, which, for the first time, was designated a ballon, or balloon, as we call it, meaning a great ball.
The filling commenced on August 23d, in the Place des Victoires. Bulletins were published daily of its progress, but, as the crowd was found to be immense, it was moved on the night of the 26th to the Champ-de-Mars, a distance of two miles. It was done secretly and in the dark, to avoid a mob.
A description by an eye-witness is as follows: "No more wonderful scene could be imagined than the balloon being thus conveyed, preceded by lighted torches, surrounded by a cortēge, and escorted by a detachment of foot and horse-guards; the nocturnal march, the form and capacity of the body carried with so much precaution; the silence that reigned, the unseasonable hour, all tended to give a singularity and mystery truly imposing to all those who were unacquainted with the cause. The cab-drivers on the road were so astonished that they were impelled to stop their carriages, and to kneel humbly, hat in hand, while the procession was passing."
In the morning the Champ-de-Mars was lined with troops, every house to its very top, and every avenue, was crowded with anxious spectators. The discharge of a cannon at 5 p.m. was the signal for ascent, and the globe rose, to the great surprise of the spectators, to a height of three thousand one hundred twenty-three feet in two minutes, where it entered the clouds. The heavy rain which descended as it rose did not impede, and tended to increase, surprise. The idea that a body leaving the earth was travelling in space was so sublime, and appeared to differ so greatly from ordinary laws, that all the spectators were overwhelmed with enthusiasm. The satisfaction was so great that ladies in the greatest fashions allowed themselves to be drenched with rain, to avoid losing sight of the globe for an instant.
The balloon, after remaining in the atmosphere three-quarters of an hour, fell in a field near Gonesse, a village fifteen miles from the Champ-de-Mars. The descent was imputed to a tear in the silk.