Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
From the painting by Lieutenant Farré. A curious sequel attended the descent of the Montgolfier craft which took place in a field fifteen miles from Paris. Long before the days of newspapers, the peasants had never heard of balloons, and this mysterious object, dropping from high heaven into their peaceful carrot patch affrighted them. Some fled.
Montgolfier temporised, the king forbade it, or rather only gave his permission on the condition that two condemned criminals should be placed in the balloon! "What!" cried Roziers, in indignation at the king's proposal, "allow two vile criminals to have the first glory of rising into the sky! No, no; that will never do!"
He, who hungered and thirsted for glory, what glory could he hope for among all these monkeys of Frenchmen, jabbering and gesticulating about their States-General, their Montgolfier, their St.
Nor can the story of the ovoador, or flying man, a legend very confused, and of which there are many versions, have given to Montgolfier any valuable hints. It appears that a certain Laurent de Guzman, a monk of Rio Janeiro, performed at Lisbon before the king, John V., raising himself in a balloon to a considerable height.
The young Montgolfier had arrived in Paris prior to the experiment of the 27th of August, and was present as a simple spectator on that occasion. immediately afterwards he set to work upon a balloon, which was to be made use of when the Academy should investigate the phenomenon at Versailles in presence of the king, Louis XVI.
We have already referred to him in the chapter which treats of experiments made prior to the discovery of Montgolfier, and we now have to speak of his famous ascent from the Champ de Mars, on the 2nd of March 1784, and of the ascents which followed.
Suffice it to say that we walked from hall to hall until there was no more soul left within us. Then, late in the afternoon we drove away, about three miles, to the villa of M. Belloc, directeur de l'Ecole Imperials de Dessein. Madame Belloc has produced, assisted by her friend, Mademoiselle Montgolfier, the best French translation of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The glowing expanse of the earth's disc seemed like a vast funnel, yawning to receive the comet and its atmosphere, balloon and all, into its open mouth. "Forty-seven!" cried Procope. There was half a minute yet. A thrill ran through every vein. A vibration quivered through the atmosphere. The montgolfier, elongated to its utmost stretch, was manifestly being sucked into a vortex.
Franklin wrote a description of the Montgolfier balloon to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London: "Its bottom was open and in the middle of the opening was fixed a kind of basket grate, in which faggots and sheaves of straw were burnt. The air, rarefied in passing through this flame, rose in the balloon, swelled out its sides, and filled it.
Hitherto, from the very inception of the art from the earliest Montgolfier with its blazing furnace, the balloon had gone up from the gay capital under every variety of circumstance for pleasure, for exhibition, for scientific research. It was now put in requisition to mitigate the emergency occasioned by the long and close investment of the city by the Prussian forces.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking