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It was in the same year that the Montgolfier brothers of Annonay, near Lyons in France, conceived the idea of using hot air for lifting things into the air. They got this idea from watching the smoke curling up the chimney from the heat of the fire beneath. In 1783 they constructed the first successful balloon of which we have any description.
This balloon went up with a force which they estimated as equivalent to 500 pounds. After this the Montgolfiers appeared to have become ambitious of accomplishing greater things, and giving to their discoveries publicity; for we are told that, "they invited the members of the provincial meeting of the states of the Vivarais, then assembled at Annonay, to witness the first public aerial ascent.
The wind at the moment of the ascent was from the north. The machine came down so lightly that no part of it was broken." The indescribable enthusiasm caused by the ascent of the first balloon at Annonay, spread in all directions, and excited the wondering curiosity of the savants of the capital.
The northern limit of the Provençal language formed a line starting from the Pointe de Grave at the mouth of the Gironde, passing through Lesparre, Bordeaux, Libourne, Périgueux, rising northward to Nontron, la Rochefoucauld, Confolens, Bellac, then turning eastward to Guéret and Montluçon; it then went south-east to Clermont-Ferrand, Boën, Saint Georges, Saint Sauveur near Annonay.
Da Vinci and Veranzio appear to have been the first exponents, the first in the theory and the latter in the practice of parachuting. Montgolfier experimented at Annonay before he constructed his first hot air-balloon, and in 1783 a certain Lenormand dropped from a tree in a parachute.
In 1783, the sons of Pierre Montgolfier, a rich papermaker at Annonay department of Ardeche, were already in the prime of life, and it is related of them that their principal occupation was experimenting in the physical sciences.
His first balloon was a small parallelopiped in very thin taffeta, containing less than seventy-eight cubic inches of air. He made it rise to the roof of his apartment in November, 1782 at Avignon, where he then happened to be. Having returned some little time after to Annonay, Joseph and his brother performed the same experiment, together in the open air with perfect success.
The little dark woman turned towards her abruptly. "Tell us yours, Edith!" she exclaimed. "Don't say you're a Princess." Mrs. Van Reinberg shook her head, unconsciously her manner was already a little changed. She was, after all, a swan amongst these geese! "We are to have the Duchy of Annonay," she answered. "I suppose I shall be Madame la Duchesse." Monsieur le Duc touched me on the shoulder.
An official report had been prepared, and sent to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and the result was that the Academy named a commission of inquiry. But fame, more rapid than scientific commissions, and more enthusiastic than academies, had, at a single flight, passed from Annonay to Paris, and kindled the anxious ardour of the lovers of science in that city.
This document, duly signed and approved of, describes the ascents at Annonay and at Paris, explains the nature and the causes of the phenomena, and warns the people not to be alarmed when they see something like a "black moon" in the sky, nor to give way to fear, as the seeming monster is nothing more than a bag of silk filled with gas. This first ascent in Paris was an important event.
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