Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies

Let the reader recall the marks of enthusiasm which the discovery of the islands on the east coast of America excited in Andalusia, in Catalonia, in Aragon and Castile--let him read the narrative of the honours paid by town and village, not only to the hero of the enterprise, but even to his commonest sailors, and then let him search the records of the epoch for the degree of sensation produced by the discovery of aeronautics in France, which stands in the same relationship to this event as that in which Spain stands to the other. The processions of Seville and Barcelona are the exact prototypes of the fetes of Lyons and Paris. In France, in 1783, as in Spain two centuries previously, the popular imagination was so greatly excited by the deeds performed, that it began to believe in possibilities of the most unlikely description. In Spain, the conquestadores and their followers believed that in a few days after they had landed on American soil, they would have gathered as much gold and precious stones, as were then possessed by the richest European Sovereigns. In France, each one following his own notions, made out for himself special benefits to flow from the discovery of balloons. Every discovery then appeared to be only the precursor of other and greater discoveries, and nothing after that time seemed to be impossible to him who attempted the conquest of the atmosphere. This idea clothed itself in every form. The young embraced it with enthusiasm, the old made it the subject of endless regrets. When one of the first aeronautic ascents was made, the old Marechal Villeroi, an octogenarian and an invalid, was conducted to one of the windows of the Tuileries, almost by force, for he did not believe in balloons. The balloon, meanwhile, detached itself from its moorings; the physician Charles, seated in the car, gaily saluted the public, and was then majestically launched into space in his air-boat; and at once the old Marechal, beholding this, passed suddenly from unbelief to perfect faith in aerostatics and in the capacity of the human mind, fell on his knees, and, with his eyes bathed in tears, moaned out pitifully the words, “Yes, it is fixed! It is certain! They will find out the secret of avoiding death; but it will be after I am gone!”