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The Prince said his challenge was to M. Rochefort; to M. Grousset he had nothing to say. A quarrel and a free fight followed. Each man drew his revolver, and Victor Noir, mortally wounded, broke out of the room, staggered into the street, and fell dead. Fonvielle escaped uninjured. He and the Prince were the only witnesses of what took place, and their stories directly contradicted each other.
But, to the onlooker, the most striking feature of the proceeding was the fact that while the Europeans present regarded the spectacle with curiosity and pleasure, the native Mussulmans did not appear to take the slightest interest in it; "And this," remarked de Fonvielle, "was not the first time that ignorant and fanatic people have been noted as manifesting complete indifference to balloon ascents.
But enthusiasm was by no means the universal attitude with which the world regarded aerial enterprise. A remarkable and instructive instance is given to the contrary by M. W. de Fonvielle himself.
In this case, also, the engineer succeeded in making his escape; while the despatches were rescued by a forester and forwarded in safety. At about this date W. de Fonvielle, acting as aeronaut, and taking passengers, made a successful escape, of which he has given a graphic account. He had been baulked by more than one serious contretemps.
About the same period when M. Flammarion was conducting his early ascents, MM. de Fonvielle and Tissandier embarked on experimental voyages, which deserve some particular notice.
The European literature of ballooning, with its accurate and brilliant descriptions by Glaisher, Tissandier, De Fonvielle and Dupuis-Delcour, has nothing more graphic and absorbing than some of the accounts dashed off in the white heat of enthusiasm by these and other American journalists.
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