The effect on the inhabitants of this village well illustrates that the human character with an unawakened intellect is the same in all countries and ages:
"For on first sight it is supposed by many to have come from another world; many fly; others, more sensible, think it a monstrous bird. After it has alighted, there is yet motion in it from the gas it still contains. A small crowd gains courage from numbers, and for an hour approaches by gradual steps, hoping meanwhile the monster will take flight. At length one bolder than the rest takes his gun, stalks carefully to within shot, fires, witnesses the monster shrink, gives a shout of triumph, and the crowd rushes in with flails and pitchforks. One tears what he thinks to be the skin, and causes a poisonous stench; again all retire. Shame, no doubt, now urges them on, and they tie the cause of alarm to a horse's tail, who gallops across the country, tearing it to shreds."
A similar tale has lately been told me as having occurred in Persia, where a fire-balloon was let off by some French visitors to the Shah's palace at Teheran, when it alighted. No less than three shots were fired at it when on the ground, before anyone would venture nearer.
It is no wonder, then, that the paternal government of France deemed it necessary to publish the following "avertissement" to the public:
"INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE ON THE ASCENT OF BALLOONS, OR GLOBES, IN THE AIR
"Paris, August 27, 1783.
"The one in question has been raised in Paris this said day, August 27, 1783, at 5 p.m., in the Champ-de-Mars.
"A discovery has been made, which the Government deems it right to make known, so that alarm be not occasioned to the people.
"On calculating the different weights of inflammable and common air, it has been found that a balloon filled with inflammable air will rise toward heaven till it is in equilibrium with the surrounding air; which may not happen till it has attained a great height.
"The first experiment was made at Annonay, in Vivarais, by Messrs. Montgolfier, the inventors. A globe formed of canvas and paper, 105 feet in circumference, filled with inflammable air, reached an incalculated height.