ailure, for
the French alone looked up to the clouds to see what became of the
balloon."

In the summer of 1867 an attempt was made to revive the long extinct
Aeronautic Company of France, established by De Guyton. The undertaking
was worked with considerable energy. Some forty or fifty active recruits
were pressed into the service, a suitable captive balloon was obtained,
thousands of spectators came to watch the evolutions; and many were
found to pay the handsome fee of 100 francs for a short excursion in the
air. For all this, the effort was entirely abortive, and the ballooning
corps, as such, dropped out of existence.

A little while after this de Fonvielle, on a visit to England, had a
most pathetic interview with the veteran Charles Green, who was living
in comfortable retirement at Upper Holloway. The grand old man pointed
to a well-filled portfolio in the corner of his room, in which, he
said, were accounts of all his travels, that would require a lifetime to
peruse and put in order. Green then took his visitor to the end of the
narrow court, and, opening the door of an outhouse, showed him the old
Nassau balloon. "Here is my car," he said, touching it with a kind of
solemn respect, "which, like its old pilot, now reposes quietly after
a long and active career. Here is the guide rope which I imagined in
former years, and which has been found very useful to aeronauts.... Now
my life has past and my time has gone by.... Though my hair is white and
my body too weak to help you, I can still give you my advice, and you
have my hearty wishes for your future."

It was but shortly after this, on March 26, 1870, that Charles Green
passed away in the 85th year of his age.

De Fonvielle's colleague, M. Gaston Tissandier, was on one occasion
accidentally brought to visit the resting place of the earliest among
aeronauts, whose tragic death occurred while Charles Green himself
was yet a boy. In a stormy and hazardous descent Tissandier, under
the guidance of M. Duruof, landed with difficulty on the sea coast of
France, when one of the first to render help was a lightkeeper of the
Griz-nez lighthouse, who gave the information that on the other side of
the hills, a few hundred yards from the spot where they had landed, was
the tomb of Pilatre de Rozier, whose tragical death has been recorded in
an early chapter. A visit to the actual locality the next day revealed
the fact that a humble stone still marked the spot.

Cer