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Updated: July 17, 2025
The brothers Montgolfier then made a very large and strong balloon, with which they wished to bring their discovery before the public. The appointed day was the 5th of June, 1783 and the nobility of the vicinity were invited to be present at the experiment.
Among these is the belier hydraulique, newly invented by MONTGOLFIER, by means of which a stream of water, having a few feet of declivity, can be raised to the top of a house by a single valve or sucker, so disposed as to open, to admit the water, and shut, when it is to be raised by compression.
On the day of the ascent, the opera of "Iphigenia in Aulis" was given, and the theatre was thronged by a vast assemblage, attracted thither in the hope of seeing the illustrious experimentalists. The curtain had risen when M. and Madame de Flesselles entered their box, accompanied by Montgolfier and Roziers. At sight of them the enthusiasm of the house rose to fever pitch.
On Sunday, Montgolfier chose a fine day for the following ascents: "First Ascent: On the 19th of October, 1783, at half-past four, in presence of two thousand spectators, 'the machine' was filled with gas in five minutes, and Roziers, being placed in the gallery with a counterbalancing weight of 110 lbs. in the other side of the gallery, was carried up to the height of 200 feet.
No doubt science will still yield all sorts of big surprising effects, but nothing, I think, to equal the dramatic novelty, the demonstration of man having got to something altogether new and strange, of Montgolfier, or the Wright Brothers, of Columbus, or the Polar conquest. There remains, of course, the tapping of atomic energy, but I give two hundred years yet before that....
A young man well versed in physics, Professor Charles, assisted by two practical men, the brothers Robert, threw himself ardently into the investigation of the modes of inflating balloons with this gas, which was then called INFLAMMABLE AIR. Guessing that it was much lighter than that which Montgolfier had been obliged to make use of in his third-rate provincial town, Charles leagued himself with his two assistants to constrict a balloon of taffeta, twelve feet in diameter, covered with india-rubber, and to inflate it with hydrogen.
The exquisite taste and delicacy of this incident touched the bystanders as with an electric shock, and the place at once rang out with the most genuine and hearty applause The little balloon thrown up by Montgolfier sped away to the north-east, its beautiful emerald colour showing to fine effect in the sun. From this point let us follow the narrative of Professor Charles himself.
There are aeronauts, however, who prefer a journey in a Montgolfier to one in a gas-balloon. The air voyager in this description of balloon had formerly many difficulties to contend with.
"The fellow that made the first voyage must have been very daring." "The first ascent was made by Montgolfier in 1782, and he was followed by Rosiers and d'Arlandes." "With your permission, father," said Ernest, "I will claim priority in aerial travelling for Icarus, Doedalus, and Phaeton." "Certainly; you are justified in doing so.
By this it is to be understood that, unlike Copernicus and Columbus, Montgolfier could not read in history of any similar discovery, containing the germ of his own feat. At least, we have no proof that the ancient nations practiced the art of aerial navigation to any extent whatever. The attempts which we are about to cite do not strictly belong to the history of aerostatics.
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