From the height of a hot-air balloon, the earliest French photographers gave us aerial documentation of the
1889 and
1900 World’s Fairs. A few decades earlier, from July 1870 to May 1871, Parisians used hot-air balloons to break the siege of their city during the
Franco-Prussian War. And almost a century before that, in 1783, the first recorded episode of human flight took place in Paris, in a hot-air balloon developed by the French Montgolfier brothers.
It all started one cold evening in 1782. Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, the impractical dreamer of a family of 16 children, sat mesmerized by a fire burning in a fireplace. He wondered what “force” could be causing sparks and smoke to rise up from the flames. With the help of his brother, Jacques-Etienne, he fashioned a small, oval bag out of silk, turned it upside down, and lit a fire under the opening. The bag rose into the air, hitting the ceiling above the two brothers. They hypothesized that fire created gas, which they dubbed “Montgolfier gas”.
What actually happened was that the heated air inside the small “balloon” became lighter than the surrounding air, causing it to become buoyant and rise upward.
The brothers set to work, building bigger and bigger balloons and experimenting with different materials until on June 4, 1783, they held their first public demonstration of un-manned flight. Near their home in Annonay, in the Rhône-Alpes region of southern France, they sent a balloon of 790 cubic meters (27,894 ft3) to an estimated altitude of 1,600-2,000 meters (5,200-6,600 ft). The balloon weighed 225 kilograms (500 lbs) and was constructed of four large pieces of cloth held together by 1,800 buttons and reinforced by interior netting. The voyage lasted 10 minutes and covered 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).
Their next launch was to take place on August 27 in Paris over the
Champs de Mars. This time the balloon, made of sky-blue taffeta decorated with gold suns and zodiac signs, was half again as big. Unfortunately a downpour stopped the show. But a subsequent test, on September 11, compelled King Louis XVI to suggest that the brothers select two criminals to test the effects of atmospheric travel on living creatures.
Joseph and Etienne thought it best to send animals aloft first! On September 19, they sent a duck, a rooster, and a sheep called
Montauciel (Climb-to-the-sky) into the skies of Versailles before a huge crowd, including the King and Queen Marie-Antoinette. The flight lasted roughly eight minutes and covered 3.3 kilometers (2 miles), obtaining an altitude of 462 meters (1500 ft). The animals survived the trip unharmed; indeed,
Montauciel was found nibbling unperturbed on the straw used to fuel the fire that lifted the balloon.
The next step was to release humans into the clouds. For this, Joseph and Etienne doubled the size of the balloon again. It was 23 meters tall (75 ft) and able to hold 1,698 cubic meters
(60,000 ft3) of air. On November 21, 1783, a physician, Pilâtre de Rozier, and an army officer, the Marquis d’Arlandes, set off from the
Bois de Boulogne. They stayed aloft for 25 minutes at a height of 100 meters (328 ft), traveling 9 kms (5.59 mls) over the rooftops of Paris until they touched down amongst the windmills of the
Butte-au-Cailles (now in the 13th arrondissement).
The balloon we see from our apartment windows is a feature of the
Parc André Citroën, a 14 hectare (35 acre) public space located on the banks of the river
Seine in the southern 15th arrondissement. The park occupies the site of the former Citroën car factory, which operated from 1915 until the 1970s. A 1980s urban renewal project leveled the former factory to create housing as well as a public recreation area now famed for its modern landscape design.
The balloon ride over the
Parc André Citroën offers views of the
Champs de Mars, the Eiffel Tower,
the Seine,
Sacré Cœur Basilica, and
Cathedral of Notre Dame. For years now the Lucky-one-and-only (Loo) has been begging me for a ride. But after
our hair-raising voyage up La Tour Eiffel, I’ve resisted. Though Loo, being lucky, is the one-and-only person I would ever consider taking a balloon trip with, for the moment -
pour l’instant - I prefer to watch it rise and fall from my apartment windows.
Sources:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hot-air-balloon.htm
http://www.solarnavigator.net/history/montgolfier_brother.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_air_balloon
Images:
Self-portrait of Félix Nadar, French Photographer, 1820-1910, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Photographic reproductions of engravings of Montgolfier balloons, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Looks like there’s been another birthday in Paris this week. The Ballon Air de Paris, visible from my apartment windows, has been flying over the Parc André Citroën since 1999. In these 10 years, it has hoisted 500,000 visitors 150 meters (492 ft) into the sky for incomparable views of Paris!
