to an
immense ant-hill. Look at the crowd piled up on the quays. The Zeil
diminishes. We are above the church of Dom. The Mein is now only a white
line dividing the city, and this bridge, the Mein-Brucke, looks like a
white thread thrown between the two banks of the river."
The atmosphere grew cooler.
"There is nothing I will not do for you, my host," said my companion.
"If you are cold, I will take off my clothes and lend them to you."
"Thanks!"
"Necessity makes laws. Give me your hand, I am your countryman. You
shall be instructed by my company, and my conversation shall compensate
you for the annoyance I have caused you."
I seated myself, without replying, at the opposite extremity of the car.
The young man had drawn from his great coat a voluminous portfolio; it
was a work on aerostation.
"I possess," said he, "a most curious collection of engraving, and
caricatures appertaining to our aerial mania. This precious discovery
has been at once admired and ridiculed. Fortunately we have passed the
period when the Mongolfiers sought to make factitious clouds with the
vapour of water; and of the gas affecting electric properties, which
they produced by the combustion of clamp straw with chopped wool."
"Would you detract from the merit of these inventions?" replied I. "Was
it not well done to have proved by experiment the possibility of rising
in the air?"
"Who denies the glory of the first aerial navigators? Immense courage
was necessary to ascend by means of those fragile envelopes which
contained only warm air. Besides, has not aerostatic science made great
progress since the ascensions of Blanchard? Look, Monsieur."
He took from his collection an engraving.
"Here is the first aerial voyage undertaken by Pilatre des Rosiers and
the Marquis d'Arlandes, four months after the discovery of balloons.
Louis XVI. refused his consent to this voyage; two condemned criminals
were to have first attempted aerial travelling. Pilatre des Rosiers was
indignant at this injustice and, by means of artifice, succeeded in
setting out. This car, which renders the management of the balloon easy,
had not then been invented; a circular gallery surrounded the lower part
of the aerostat. The two aeronauts stationed themselves at the
extremities of this gallery. The damp straw with which it was filled
encumbered their movements. A chafing-dish was suspended beneath the
orifice of the balloon; when the voyagers wished to ascen
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