o rain, their clothes were all dripping wet from the mist which
they passed through. The descent was more perilous than at first
reported. The car dragged on its side for nearly a mile, and the
passengers took refuge in the ropes, to which they clung. Several were
considerably bruised--though, as before stated, no one sustained any
very serious injury. Everybody behaved well. Nadar, visibly uneasy
about his fair charge, the young Princess de la Tour d'Auvergne, was
told by her to attend to his duty as captain. `Every one at his post,'
said she; `I will keep to mine.' Notwithstanding all the shaking which
the car underwent, the 37 bottles of wine provided for the journey were
all found unbroken, and they were most joyously broached when the party
got on _terra firma_. The rifles, the crockery, as well as a cake and
13 ices, presented to Nadar by Siraudin, of the Rue de la Paix, were all
uninjured. When the descent was effected, the lights and the
speaking-trumpets soon attracted a number of peasants, who brought carts
and helped the party to the village of Barcy, where most of them passed
the night; but Monsieur Nadar and the Prince de Wittgenstein, with two
or three others, came to Paris by the first train from Meaux.

"It is said that the descent was resolved upon in consequence of the
advice of the brothers Godard, and contrary to the wish of Monsieur
Nadar, who, as captain, had made every one of his companions sign an
agreement to act upon his orders, even though the vote should be
unanimously against him. He, however, yielded his opinion, in deference
to that of these experienced aeronauts. A truly extraordinary statement
is, that they fancied the wind was blowing them to the sea, and certain
destruction, whereas they were going due east, with no sea at all before
them nearer than the Caspian.

"There was great disappointment in the receipts at the Champ de Mars,
which are said to have realised only 27,000 francs, whereas 150,000 had
been calculated upon. The papers say that the public broke down the
barriers and got in for nothing, instead of paying their franc. It is
quite certain that at the moment of the ascent there could not have been
less than 50,000 people on the Champ de Mars, and on the terraces and
heights around there must have been four times that number."

Monsieur Nadar, on his return to Paris, wrote as follows:--

"Here, as briefly as possible, is the account which you asked me to
sen