Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/98

 them a good means of gaining popularity, made any public event an excuse for pyrotechnic displays. Notable occasions were the Military Fetes, 1852, the Fete of the Emperor, 1853, the visit of Queen Victoria to the Paris Exhibition of 1855, in honour of which a most elaborate display was given at Versailles, the Baptismal Fetes in 1856, the triumphal entry and the Emperor's birthday, 1859, and the visit of the King Consort of Spain in 1864.

The Entente Cordiale movement in 1868 was responsible for displays in the Fleets on both sides of the Channel, those in France taking place in Cherbourg, those in England at Spithead.

A previous event which had been celebrated pyrotechnically on a large scale in both countries was the Peace Rejoicing at the conclusion of the Crimean War.

This occasion was marked in London by four displays of fireworks on a scale hitherto unprecedented. The sites chosen were Hyde Park, Green Park, Primrose Hill, and Victoria Park. They were arranged thus with the very sensible idea of splitting the crowds of sightseers into sections and thus preventing dangerous crowding to one spot. The fireworks were prepared for these displays in Woolwich Arsenal, under the direction of Mr. Southby, the pyrotechnist of the Surrey Gardens, who went there for this event.

The programmes of these displays were precisely similar, with the exception of that at Primrose Hill, which consisted mainly of aerial fireworks.

Tyrrell, in his "History of the War with Russia," gives the following account of the display in Green Park: "At the appointed signal there was a continuous discharge of maroons, accompanied by brilliant illuminations with white, red, green, and yellow fires Then for two hours followed every conceivable design of elegant and dazzling pyrotechnic