Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.10 #60 (May 1855).
The church-yard of the village of Wimille, about four miles north of Boulogne-sur-Mer, skirts the imperial road to Calais. Just at the middle of the boundary-wall a stone tablet rises, inscribed with small capitals, and surmounted at the top with something which is very like a petrified cauliflower. It is meant to represent a balloon on fire. The inscription (in French) runs to the following effect: "In this cemetery are interred Francois Pilâtre de Rosier and Pierre Ange Romain, who, desiring to pass over to England in an air-balloon, in which they had combined the agency of fire and of inflammable air, by an accident, whose veritable cause will always remain unknown, the fire having caught the upper part of the balloon, they fell from the height of more than five thousand feet between Wimereux and the sea." The inscription is repeated in a Latin duplicate, for the benefit of traveling strangers who do not understand French. The said travelers are also apostrophized: "Passers-by, mourn their lot, and pray God for the repose of their souls!" Annual masses for their souls' repose, at the date corresponding to their rapid descent, were founded in the parish church of Wimille; whether or not the ninety-three revolution swept away the masses, I can not say. The Curé would give an answer to those who wish to know. Their lot was mournful; but even stronger than our pity is the feeling which urges us to find out how the deuce it happened. I resolved to try what could be done to that effect, and at last made out a theory which may, or may not, be the true one.
The church-yard memorial was not the only one that was raised to mark the horrible catastrophe. In the camp of Wimereux, just behind the Café du Petit Caporal, which is next door to the Estaminet du Ballon, a small obelisk of marble from the neighboring quarries of Ferques, built without any, or with the least possible mortar, and not more than eight or nine feet high, rises on the spot where the aeronauts were dashed to the ground. When I first knew it, it stood in solitude in the midst of a grassy, down-like waste, half undermined by moles, and almost pushed off its pedestal by the cattle, who used it as a rubbing-post. The parties that seemed to favor it with the longest notice were the mushrooms who peeped above-ground from time to time, some singly, some in little family groups of three or four, but all apparently considering, under their broad-brimmed hats, whether it would not be an act of charity to the memory of the deceased, to surround their half-ruined monument with a railing. That also bears its record, in French, supplying a few additional particulars: "Here fell from the height of more than five thousand feet, at thirty-five minutes past seven in the morning, the unfortunate aeronauts Pilâtre de Rosier and Romain the elder, who started from Boulogne at five minutes after seven, in the morning of the fifteenth of June, seventeen hundred and eighty-five. The first was found dead upon the spot; the second gave a few signs of life during one or two minutes."
The best means, I thought, of solving the problem of their fall, was to find up any persons who had witnessed it. I was more fortunate than might have been expected, with an event occurring sixty years ago. In a hamlet to the north of Wimereux, I found an old woman more than a hundred years old, who had seen the balloon ascend from Boulogne. She was dozing and dreaming over a fire of dry furze, staring at the sparks with her filmy eyes. I wonder whether she could see with those eyes, even after she turned them on me as I entered her hovel.
"What do you want with me?" she said, in a voice that belonged to the other world. "You don't know me, and I don't know you. I'm of no use to any body, now."
"But I know you," my companion said. And then he began to talk about their acquaintance, and then about the obelisk, and then about Pilâtre de Rosier.
"I saw him and his friend go up," she said, suddenly waking, as if inspired. "I was close to them. He was a handsome man, and looked so smiling. As the balloon rose, he saluted and bowed to all the people, and waved his flags continually in this way, so, until he had mounted quite high in the sky." And then she suited the action to the word, waving her arms in imitation of poor De Rosier. My arms then were not like this," she continued, pulling the skin which hung loosely about them. "I had handsome arms once. Yes; he waved his arms so." And then she fell again into her dreamy state, the precursor of the long sleep of death, from which nothing could rouse her. All the further information we could extract was, that he waved his arms, comme ça, and that hers were once handsome arms.
It struck me that the excellent Museum at Boulogne might contain some relics of this tragical tumble. I found them there, and better than them. Monsieur Duburquoy, senior, an intelligent old man, the father of the present well-informed curator of the museum, was at Wimereux when the aeronauts fell, and helped to lift them from the ground. He was thirteen years of age at the time. He told me that De Rosier, quite dead, had one of his legs broken, and that the bone pierced through the tight-fitting trowsers; and that Romain heaved three or four deep sighs, and then expired. He picked up a piece of bread, partially eaten, that fell with them. A bottle of wine, that had been uncorked, and had had a glass or two drunk from it, accompanied them in their fall, and most extraordinarily was not broken.
The museum has the portrait of De Rosier in powdered wig and frilled shirt, besides a colored medalion in wax. He is styled "the first aeronaut of the universe;" to which title there would be nothing to object, if we were but perfectly cognizant of the atmospherical conditions of every other sun, planet, and satellite in the universe. There are besides, his barometer, thermometer, speaking-trumpet, and the wand to which his little waving flag was attached. There is the painted cloth which surrounded the gallery of the Montgolfière, or flying fire-place, which helped him to ascend; there is a little piece of the taffetas, or oiled-silk, covered with gold-beater's skin, which contained his float of hydrogen gas; and that is all the material evidence to be found.
Our readers may remember that Pilâtre de Rosier was ambitious to be the first to cross the English channel in a balloon. He had already the honor of being the first man who ascended in the earth's atmosphere, in a captive balloon as a first experiment, and afterward in one at liberty to rise and wander whither it would, in which bold excursion he was accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlandes. The first living creatures that made a balloon ascent, were a sheep, a cock, and a duck, conjointly travelers through the region of clouds. Since then, equestrian ascents have been made by terrified horses, mounted by fool-hardy men. In all these latter cases, it may be believed that an ass made one of the party.
In crossing the channel, De Rosier was forestalled by his countryman (Blanchard) and our compatriot (Jefferies), who started from Dover, and landed in the forest of Guines, on the seventh of January, seventeen hundred and eighty-five. Nevertheless, he had drawn upon government funds; and he still adhered to his purpose of passing in a balloon from France to England, as his more fortunate rival had done from England to France. The latter feat has been several times repeated, the former has never yet been accomplished. De Rosier had given the Controller-General of Finances to understand that, if he would pay the expense of the expedition, he (Pilâtre) would execute it. His request was granted; he received forty-two thousand francs (about $8000) as a first installment, which was afterward said to be increased till it amounted to the enormous sum of a hundred and fifty thousand francs. Romain, who then enjoyed a great repute for manufacturing balloons, made an agreement with Pilâtre, by which he bound himself to construct one of thirty feet diameter, or thereabouts, for the sum of three hundred louis-d'ors. Pilâtre, whose business was to find the work-room, obtained from the governor of the Tuileries the Salle des Gardes and another apartment. The work, begun at the end of August, seventeen hundred and eighty-four, was completed six weeks afterward. Six hundred ells of white taffeta were employed in fabricating this ill-starred machine.
Romain had strictly kept to himself the secret of rendering taffeta impermeable to gas. He was careful beyond measure to conceal his mode of preparation. He worked in solitude, like an alchemist, and was only known to have one single companion of his studies, who aided him gratuitously in the construction of his balloon. The whole secret consisted in covering the taffeta with a coat of linseed oil made capable of drying by sugar of lead, and in pressing in till it only felt greasy in the hand. Every strip was then covered with gold-beater's skin, that was made to adhere by ordinary size, in which was incorporated a mixture of honey and linseed oil. These ingredients gave suppleness to the size, and prevented the united superficies from cracking. A second and third layer of gold-beater's skin were added; and the balloon, when finished, thirty-three and a half French feet in diameter, and ornamented with tinsel in different parts, weighed three hundred and twenty pounds, including the cylindrical apparatus that helped to fill it. So impermeable was it, that it remained distended with atmospheric air for two months, without showing a single wrinkle. If De Rosier had then ascended from Paris, it would have carried him almost whithersoever he would. At the end of two months, the balloon, carefully packed, was transported to Boulogne, which Pilâtre had chosen as his starting-point. Of course, the packing and transport for so long a distance by land carriage, rendered it still more difficult to preserve uninjured so perishable an article as a balloon, with the little previous experience of managing it that had been acquired. A montgolfière also traveled with it, twenty feet high, whose cupola was formed of chamois leather. It was tested before its departure for the coast, and its success corresponded to the care that had been bestowed upon it.
The montgolfière, or fire-balloon, was, either accidentally or purposely, directly or indirectly, the immediate cause of Pilâtre's fearful end. He had announced some new combination of the means of ascent, which he shrouded as far as he could in mystery. It seems to have been his idea, that the gas-balloon would be sufficient to carry him, while the fire-balloon would give him great command of equilibrium, by increasing or diminishing the fire in it, so as almost to render him independent of ballast. His confidence in the long-sustaining power of his machine was one means of procuring him pecuniary aid from the government. Whatever might be the aërostatic advantages gained, the danger was increased enormously. Either a gas-balloon or a fire-balloon, alone, was infinitely safer than the two united. To crown the whole rash scheme, the hydrogen gas must necessarily float above the montgolfière. As his friend, Professor Charles, remonstrated with him, "You are putting a chafing-dish under a barrel of gunpowder."
Pilâtre arrived at Boulogne on the twentieth of December, seventeen hundred and eighty-four, followed by the anxious wishes of the subscribers to his scientific Lyceum, and also of numerous ladies of the court, who had requested him to bring back innumerable small articles from England to serve as New Year's Day presents. Two days after his arrival he was informed of the preparations which Blanchard was making in England for a voyage which should compete with his own. He became alarmed. He went to Dover; saw Blanchard; and, for a moment, entertained the hope (on account of the dilapidated condition of the balloon, from which the gas oozed in many places) that the rival ascent could not take place. His anxious fears soon resumed their power; he returned to Boulogne; left there Romain and his brother, who had accompanied him, and went to Paris in a feverish state of mental torture.
Meanwhile, Blanchard and Jefferies ascended from Dover, and reached the Forest of Guines safe and sound. Pilâtre's pride received a mortal wound at failing to be the first to cross the sea. He entreated to be excused attempting the voyage. Some say that the Controller of Finances consented, merely claiming the surplus of what had not been disbursed about the balloon. But the wretched Pilâtre, sure of success, had already spent it in enriching the experimental department of his Lyceum. Others state that when he explained his doubts and apprehensions to M. de Calonne, the minister, he met with a cold and even rough reception.
"We have not spent a hundred and fifty thousand frances," he said, "merely to help you to make an inland trip. You must turn the balloon to some useful account, and cross the channel with it."
However, in the impossibility of fulfilling the first conditions, and under the necessity of at least attempting the second, he returned to Boulogne, prepared for, and evidently expecting, the worst.
It may appear strange that a minister of the crown should be so anxious about the accomplishment of a mere scientific whim—as the balloon passage from France to England would seem to be—and should advance so large a sum of money to further it. But there was more than a scientific result in the background, and De Rosier was probably well aware of it. It was the common report of that day, that the grand object of Pilâtre's attempt was to effect the escape of Louis the Sixteenth and his family to Great Britain, by an aërial route, since terrestrial ways, it was instinctively felt, were already closed against their departure. It was already foreseen by acute observers of the signs of the times, that the royal family of France was already doomed. The King's want of energy, Egalités profligacy, Necker's vanity, the obstinate pride of the aristocracy, and the wrongs and sufferings of the people, all tended to one inevitable catastrophe. The King, even then, had not a will of his own; his house was not his castle, nor his actions free. He was drifting down the stream with that increased rapidity which denotes unmistakably that a cataract is near. No person of ordinary penetration would be surprised to find him not long afterward a prisoner in the Tuileries, walking in the gardens with six grenadiers of the milice bourgeoise about him, with the garden gates shut in consequence of his presence, to be opened to the public as soon as he entered the palace. He might order a little railed-off garden for his son, the Dauphin, to amuse himself in; but the poor boy could not be permitted to work with his little hoe and rake without a guard of two grenadiers. Louis's most attached friends, as well as his most implacable enemies, foresaw all this, and what followed it. A balloon was one of the schemes to rescue him; and Pilâtre de Rosier was the man pitched upon to manage it.
It was a desperate chance, the most sanguine will admit. Even had they been launched propitiously with a favorable wind, a sudden change of that fickle element might have swept them hopelessly toward the arctic horrors of the North Sea, or to the interminable waters of the Atlantic Ocean. We shudder to imagine such a dreadful fate as possibly awaiting a delicately-nurtured king with his wife and children; we reflect, however, that such a speedy termination to their sufferings, arriving at latest in the course of a few days, would have been mercy in comparison to what they were afterward really made to endure.
Pilâtre, then, seriously prepared for his departure. He sent off numerous pilot balloons, which were constantly driven back to the continent by adverse west and northwest winds. All this caused considerable delay, during which the balloon, exposed to the wear and tear of the elements, was considerably damaged; it was even nibbled by rats. Henceforward, the machine on which such care and expense had been bestowed, became leaky and worthless, in consequence of ill-treatment and want of shelter.
A better prospect opened at last; and as the wind was favorable, blowing from the southeast, the departure was fixed for the fifteenth of June. As the weather was exceedingly hot, preparations were commenced at daybreak, and all was ready by seven o'clock. A salute of artillery announced the launch into air. The ascent was majestic. The balloon rose perpendicularly to its greatest elevation; it then sailed in a northerly direction, over the top of the cliff of La Crèche, when a current from the upper regions of the atmosphere, which had been foreseen by sailors best acquainted with Channel navigation, wafted it gently toward the continent. Twenty-three minutes had elapsed since the ropes were loosed which held the machine captive; the acclamations of the spectators had not ceased; every eye was strained to gaze after the aërial voyagers, when, just as the wind drove them back to France, cries of alarm from the united crowd announced the fearful calamity which it witnessed. A bright light burst from the upper balloon; a volume of smoke succeeded it; and then commenced the rapid fall which filled all present with consternation. The scene was frightful; the crowd shuddered with apprehension of what was immediately to follow, and swung backward and forward like tempest-tossed waves. After the first shock of terror, a great number of people rushed to Wimereux, in the vain hope of rendering some assistance. They arrived only to find the adventurers past all human aid.
I can not help entertaining a suspicion that Pilâtre de Rosier perished by suicide; that he willfully set fire to the balloon when he found there was an end of all his hopes. It is true that the almost fulminating arrangement of his apparatus might have caused the explosion to result from accident or indiscretion; and therefore no more than a suspicion ought to be suggested. But persons who watched the progress of the balloon with telescopes, assert that the valve of the hydrogen balloon was not secured. Pilâtre, too, was a doubly ruined man; ruined in money, and ruined in prestige. Blanchard had robbed him of his crowning ambition; and now an envious puff of wind forbade his ever being allowed to attempt the transportation of the royal family. Pilâtre's coolness, presence of mind, and faculty of avoiding impending danger, were notorious; so also were his vanity, pride, violence, and recklessness of life. A man who, in prosperity, could fill his mouth with hydrogen gas, and set fire to it there, and who could expose himself repeatedly to be struck dead in hazardous electrical experiments, was not likely to hesitate when he had to choose between disgrace and despair. His friend Charles had threatened to blow his brains out, if the timid king persisted in forbidding him to make an ascent that threatened danger, and which, wisely on his part, was his first and last ascent, or rather two consecutive first and last ascents on one day. We know, too, the immense interest which the court (the queen particularly) felt in Pilâtre's success. These, and numerous other minor scraps of evidence, all lead to the inference that De Rosier's death was even more tragical than has been currently believed. If there be the slightest truth in the notion, Romain is even more greatly to be pitied. He had refused the Marquis of Maisonfort's offer of two hundred louis-d'ors to resign his place.
The spot where they fell is a very, very little way from the sea. The conflagration must have taken place almost immediately after the direction of their course was altered. I have several times asked, of people competent to judge, whether, if they had fallen into the sea, instead of upon the land, they could by any possibility have escaped with life. The answer has been that perhaps they might. Conceive the idea of talking face to face with a man who had fallen from the height of more than five thousand feet!