Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/201

Rh the earth, was witness of this sad event. He has given the following explanation of it:—

"Some minutes after their departure the voyagers were assailed by contrary winds, which drove them back again upon the land. It is probable that then, in order to descend and seek a more favourable current of air, which would take them out again to sea, Roziers opened the valve of the gas balloon; but the cord attached to this valve was very long, it worked with difficulty, and the friction which it occasioned tore the valve. The stuff of the balloon, which had suffered much from many preliminary attempts, and from other causes, was torn to the extent of several yards, and the valve fell down inside the balloon, which at once emptied itself."

According to this narrative, there was no conflagration of the gas in the middle of the atmosphere, nor is it stated precisely whether the grating of the Montgolfière was lighted.

Maisonfort ran to the spot when the travellers fell, found them covered with the cloth of the balloon, and occupying the same positions which they had taken up on departing.

By a sad chance, that seems like irony, they were thrown down only a few paces from the monument which marks the spot where Blanchard descended. At the present day Frenchmen going to England viâ Calais do not fail to visit at the forest of Guines the monument consecrated to the expedition of Blanchard. A few paces from this monument the cicerone will point out with his finger the spot where his rivals expired.

"Such was the end of the first of aeronauts, and the most courageous of men," says a contemporaneous historian. "He died a martyr to honour and to zeal. His kindness,