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Updated: June 17, 2025
Le Bris rose in the air, the machine maintaining perfect balance and rising to a height of nearly 300 ft., the total length of the glide being upwards of an eighth of a mile.
A glide of nearly an eighth of a mile was made with the rope hanging slack, and, at the end of this distance, a rise in the ground modified the force of the wind, whereupon the machine settled down without damage. They constituted a notable achievement, and undoubtedly Le Bris deserves a better place than has been accorded him in the ranks of the early experimenters.
I comprehend the whole mystery of flight." A trifle too sanguine was sailor Le Bris, but he had just the qualities of imagination and confidence essential to one who sets forth to conquer the air. Had he possessed the accurate mind, the patience, and the pertinacity of the Wrights he might have beaten them by half a century.
Many historians think that to Lilienthal and Pilcher is justly due the title "the first flying men." But Le Bris, a French sailor, utterly without scientific or technical equipment, as far back as 1854 had accomplished a wonderful feat in that line. While on a cruise he had watched an albatross that followed his ship day after day apparently without rest and equally without fatigue.
To rise he required something like the flying start which the airplanes of to-day get on their bicycle wheels before leaving the ground. As Le Bris had no motor this method of propulsion was denied him, so he loaded the apparatus in a cart, and fastened it to the rail by a rope knotted in a slip knot which a jerk from him would release.
Le Bris himself, quoted by De la Landelle as speaking of his first visioning of human flight, describes how he killed an albatross, and then 'I took the wing of the albatross and exposed it to the breeze; and lo! in spite of me it drew forward into the wind; notwithstanding my resistance it tended to rise. Thus I had discovered the secret of the bird! I comprehended the whole mystery of flight.
In 1853 came Beleguic and his aeroplane with the traction screws, Vaussin-Chardannes with his guidable kite, and George Cauley with his flying machines driven by gas. From 1854 to 1863 appeared Joseph Pline with several patents for aerial systems. Breant, Carlingford, Le Bris, Du Temple, Bright, whose ascensional screws were left-handed; Smythies, Panafieu, Crosnier, &c.
In the next act Raoul contrives to gain admittance to Nevers' house, and there has an interview with Valentine. They are interrupted by the entrance of Saint Bris and his followers, whereupon Valentine conceals Raoul behind the arras. From his place of concealment he hears Saint Bris unfold the plan of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which is to be carried out that night.
As it was he accomplished a remarkable feat, though it ended in somewhat laughable failure. He built an artificial bird, on the general plan of his albatross. The wings were not to flap, but their angles to the wind were controlled by a system of levers controlled by Le Bris, who stood up in the basket in the centre.
Humanity naturally impelled Le Bris to descend at once, which he did skilfully without injuring his involuntary passenger, and only slightly breaking one of the wings. Had Le Bris won this success twenty years later his fame and fortune would have been secure. But in 1854 the time was not ripe for aeronautics. Le Bris was poor. The public responded but grudgingly to his appeals for aid.
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