its way, and sometimes to beat its blunt
forehead wildly on the ground as if it had been a monster in despair!

It reached Charleroi, however, on the 22nd of June, after a journey of
three days, and took part in the battle of Fleurus on the 26th. A high
wind rendered it necessary, on the day of battle, to fasten its
guy-ropes to thirty horses--fifteen to each rope--and, thus secured, it
remained in the air eight hours, passing from place to place, and making
observations. Its services were so highly appreciated by the generals
on that occasion that a second balloon was made and sent to the field of
action. The first one, which was named _l'Entreprenant_, met with
accidents which rendered it necessary that it should be sent to Maubeuge
for repair; but it afterwards rejoined the army and took part in the
battle of Aldenhoven, at the capture of Bonn, and at the operations
before Ehrenbreitstein, in all of which it escaped without a wound,
although frequently exposed to a furious fire of musketry and shells
from the exasperated Austrians.

Nevertheless, its natural enemy, the wind, did not allow it to escape
scatheless, as Coutelle shows in one of his letters. He writes thus:

"I received orders to make a reconnaissance of Mayence. I accordingly
posted myself between our lines and the town, at about half cannon-shot
distance. The wind was very high, so, to counteract its effects as far
as lay in my power, I ascended alone, with two hundred pounds additional
buoyancy. I was at a height of five hundred metres when three
successive gusts dashed me to the ground with such violence that several
portions of the car were smashed to bits. Each time the balloon darted
up again with so much force that sixty-four men--thirty-two at each
guy-rope--were dragged to some distance. Had the guys been made fast to
grapnels, as had been suggested to me, they must infallibly have given
way."

Notwithstanding this rough treatment, the aerial warrior managed, during
a lull in the wind, to count the number of the enemy's guns.

But the successes of these war-balloons were sadly intermingled with
reverses of fortune and harassing difficulties. The aeronauts had,
indeed, won the respect and admiration of the army, but this did not
compensate for the terribly fatiguing work of holding on, with scarcely
a moment's intermission, to the ropes of the intractable monsters during
long and frequent marches. The second balloon at length succe