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Updated: July 17, 2025
It is customary and reasonable to discard as fanciful the various devices and theories put forward by the experimenters in the Middle Ages and fix the beginning of practical aeronautical devices with the invention of hot-air balloons by the Montgolfiers, of Paris, in 1783. The Montgolfier brothers, Joseph and Jacques, were paper-makers of Paris.
Passing Serrieres, with pastures and meadows close to the water's edge, and groups of cattle grazing under the trees, we reach Annonay, crested by a quaint ruin, the birth-place of the great balloonists, the brothers Montgolfier. The first balloon ascent was made from this little town in 1783. Boissy d'Anglas, the heroic president of the Assembly in its stormiest days, was also born here.
The balloon was invented by a Frenchman named Montgolfier. Great expectations were at first entertained of this art of sailing through the air, but as yet it has not proved of much practical use. Many disasters have at different times befallen balloon voyagers.
It transpired later that the sheep had trampled on the cock, causing more solid injury than any that might be inflicted by rarefied air in an eight-minute ascent and descent of a balloon. For achieving this flight Joseph Montgolfier received from the King of France a pension of of L40, while Stephen was given the order of St Michael, and a patent of nobility was granted to their father.
The brothers Montgolfier were possessed with the desire to make "imitation clouds," like those they saw moving over the Alps. "In order to imitate nature," they at first enclosed water-vapor in a light, stout case, which fell on cooling. Then they tried hydrogen; then the production of a gas with electrical properties; and so on.
"By the way, Montgolfier has sent up a new balloon which has carried four passengers," went on the volatile d'Estaing. "Who is this Montgolfier with his balloons?" the Princess asked languidly. "Is he what the new coiffure is named after?" D'Estaing looked around a little significantly.
After special investigation, we find that Joseph Montgolfier was very superior to his brother, and that it is to him principally, if not exclusively, that we owe the invention of aerostation.
Being at a height of about six thousand feet, some accident happened to his balloon of inflammable air; it burst, they fell from that height, and were crushed to atoms. There was a montgolfier combined with the balloon of inflammable air. It is suspected the heat of the montgolfier rarefied too much the inflammable air of the other, and occasioned it to burst.
"The car," writes a reporter of the day in language more inflated than the balloon itself, "ascending amidst profound silence and admiration, allowed, in its soft and measured ascent, the bystanders to follow with their eyes and hearts two interesting men, who, like demigods, soared to the abode of the immortals, to receive the reward of intellectual progress, and carry the imperishable name of Montgolfier.
In order that it may descend, it is necessary to let out a portion of the hydrogen gas, and admit an equal quantity of atmospheric air; and the balloon does not come to the ground till all, or nearly all, the gas has been expelled and common air taken in. Balloons inflated with hydrogen gas are almost the only ones in use at the present day. Scarcely ever is a Montgolfier sent up.
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