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By way of precaution, de Rozier made a few preliminary ascents with the balloon held captive, and then the two intrepid Frenchmen took their stand on opposite sides of the gallery, each furnished with bundles of fuel to feed the furnace, each also carrying a large wet sponge with which to extinguish the flames whenever the machine might catch fire.
The parachute was introduced some years after a terrible accident which occurred to the celebrated aeronaut Rozier, who, desirous of emulating Blanchard and Jeffries by crossing the channel from France to England in a balloon, made an attempt, which cost him his life.
Rozier, although not first across, determined to be second, and for that purpose he constructed a balloon which was to owe its buoyancy to a combination of the hydrogen and hot air principles.
Audubon continued to live at Hendersonville, his pecuniary means much reduced. He says that he made a pedestrian tour back to St. Genevieve to collect money due him from Rozier, walking the one hundred and sixty-five miles, much of the time nearly ankle-deep in mud and water, in a little over three days. Concerning the accuracy of this statement one also has his doubts.
As in the case of aeroplane flight, as soon as the balloon was proved practicable the flight across the English Channel was talked of, and Rozier, who had the honour of the first flight, announced his intention of being first to cross.
Here was one of those anonymous, entomological existences such as are to be met with in many large tenements where, at the end of four years, you unexpectedly learn that up on the fourth floor there is an old man lodging who knew Voltaire, Pilatre de Rozier, Beaujon, Marcel, Mole, Sophie Arnould, Franklin, and Robespierre.
This he accordingly set out to do by entering as a clerk the commercial house of Benjamin Bakewell in New York, while his friend Rozier entered a French house in Philadelphia. But Audubon was not cut out for business; his first venture was in indigo, and cost him several hundred pounds.
Enimie places at the disposal of tourists a service of boats between that town and Le Rozier. 'The service is divided into four stages, the entire journey without halt occupying six hours. 'The corresponding members of the company at the four stations are as follows: 'At St. Enimie, St. Jean, hotel proprietor and town councillor. 'At St. Chely, Bernard, town councillor.
I had been told that the right way the one followed by all sensible people of seeing the gorge from Sainte-Enimie to Le Rozier was to come down the stream in a boat; but circumstances, or my own perversity, had led me once more to do the thing that was considered wrong.
Over against Le Rozier, towering high above Peyreleau, its twin village, rises a sharp pyramidal spur of the Causse Noir, its shelving sides running vertically down. That mountain wall, impracticable as it seems, we have to scale. The road cut so marvellously round it is excellent, wild lavender scenting the way.
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