What
bold things men would attempt! Today two daring Frenchmen,
Pilatre de Rozier of the Royal Academy and his friend the Marquis
d'Arlandes, would ascend in a balloon freed from the earth--the
first men in history to adventure thus upon the wind. The crowds
gathered to witness the event opened a lane for Franklin to pass
through.
At six minutes to two the aeronauts entered the car of their
balloon; and, at a height of two hundred and seventy feet, doffed
their hats and saluted the applauding spectators. Then the wind
carried them away toward Paris. Over Passy, about half a mile
from the starting point, the balloon began to descend, and the
River Seine seemed rising to engulf them; but when they fed the
fire under their sack of hot air with chopped straw they rose to
the elevation of five hundred feet. Safe across the river they
dampened the fire with a sponge and made a gentle descent beyond
the old ramparts of Paris.
At five o'clock that afternoon, at the King's Chateau in the Bois
de Boulogne, the members of the Royal Academy signed a memorial
of the event. One of the spectators accosted Franklin.
"What does Dr. Franklin conceive to be the use of this new
invention?"
"What is the use of a new-born child?" was the retort.
A new-born child, a new-born republic, a new invention: alike dim
beginnings of development which none could foretell.
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