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Before I announce the winner of A Perilous Journey by Gail Eastwood, I’d like to share some fun stuff I’ve learned about the history of ballooning while working on my next story, which features a Waterloo veteran turned aeronaut.

Fun Fact #1
The first creatures to fly in a balloon were a cockerel, a duck and a sheep. They ascended in a Montgolfiere (hot air balloon, named after the brothers who invented it) in 1783, with an audience that included Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. I have heard that the sheep was taken to live on Marie Antoinette’s farm, but I haven’t been able to verify that story.

Hot air balloons were kept aloft by burning straw, old shoes and rancid meat, which must have had a delightful smell. Because there were no fuels at the time that could burn for long flights, hydrogen balloons became more popular for a time.

Fun Fact #2
The first unmanned hydrogen balloon, created by the scientist Jacques Charles, took off in 1783, after the first hot air balloon flights. On landing it was said to have been destroyed by peasants with pitchforks who were frightened by the strange creature that hissed and spewed noxious gas. Pure hydrogen is odorless, but the process of creating it involved pouring “vitriolic” (sulfuric) acid over iron shavings. When I consulted a chemist, she told me that the process would  have been imperfect. She concurred with my guess that the result may have smelled like rotten eggs.

Fun Fact #3
The first aeronauts to cross the English channel were a Frenchman, Blanchard, and an American, Dr. Jeffries. They departed from England on the 7th of January, 1795. They found themselves losing altitude over the water, possibly because the balloon was overloaded or because the cold had cooled the hydrogen, or a combination of the two. To avoid landing in the Channel, they had to ditch all non-essential items. This included most of their clothing.

Fun Fact #4
Blanchard’s and Jeffries’ problems were not over with crossing the Channel. They began to descend again over dense woods south of Calais. As landing in trees is not advisable, they once again had to lighten the load. Since they had ditched just about everything, they decided to pee their way out of danger!

I hope this was interesting. Which (if any) of these facts do you think I’m using in my own balloonist story?

And now for the winner of Gail Eastwood’s giveaway…

Congratulations to Ruth!

Please email me at elena @ elenagreene.com (no spaces) to let me know whether you prefer Nook or Kindle, and which email address you’d like Gail to use in setting up your order.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Hi–These are some additional images to go with the blog post to follow (Blanchard and Jeffries’ balloon flight across the English Channel). Blogger tends to start to refuse uploads of pictures once my post gains a certain size, it seems, so I couldn’t include these.

It’s interesting to note that two of the three pictures show the craft with some of the articles that were thrown overboard. They did not make it to Calais with the “wings” attached.

The take-off from Dover. Picture two shows them divesting themselves of excess weight.

Arrival in France….

Laurie

It is Saturday, and as usual, it is one of the two days I have to catch up on everything I couldn’t do during the week–and to make it even worse, the sun has come out and is shining on the nice, fluffy new snow. I am thinking about our Regency House Party next week and what I am going to present (it’s a secret!). As for today…

JANUARY 7, 1558. France regains Calais–the last English possession on the French mainland.

JANUARY 7, 1610. Galileo discovers the four satellites of the planet Jupiter.

JANUARY 7, 1785. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and his patron Dr. John Jeffries crossed the
English Channel by hydrogen balloon. Hmm. This sounds interesting.

JANUARY 7, 1789. George Washington becomes president in the first US national election.

Let’s go back to the balloon. I’ve always wanted to ride in a balloon; besides that, this little
adventure happened just before the period we call the Regency.

Jean Pierre Francois Blanchard was a small Frenchman, born in Normandy of poor parents, who made his name in early ballooning history. Dr. John Jeffries was his patron from Boston, Massachusetts who accompanied him on their historic crossing of the English Channel from Dover to Calais, France. (Hm–an interesting connection. France regained Calais on Jan 7, 1558. Synchronicity!).

Blanchard built his first balloon (hydrogen) in 1784 and took it on its first flight on March 2nd from the Champ de Mars in Paris. In 1785 he moved to London in search of patrons and conducted further experiments there. I do take exception to Blanchard carrying out his first experiment with parachutes by dropping from his balloon a CAT attached to a silk parachute in 1785! Anyone who knows me knows my affinity for cats, even though I have just returned to my chair after my cat dipped his paw into my coffee cup. He has now claimed my chair, so I am sitting on the edge of it, typing.

In any event, Dr. Jeffries was an enthusiast, and he had a practice in London, so he became a partner with Blanchard on the historic Channel flight. There is now a cat on my keyboard…

Blanchard was an interesting character. He made up for his small frame with intelligence, a flambuoyant personality, and wiliness. He didn’t want to share the Channel passage with his patron and tried to show that the balloon would not lift both Jeffries and himself by attaching a belt of lead weights under his coat, but he was found out! Hence both he and Jeffries took off from the edge of the cliffs of Dover at 1 PM.

However, the balloon was truly overweighted, as they could not get enough height. They began throwing the ballast overboard–extravagant gondola decorations, Blanchard’s steering gear consisting of wings he had constructed, followed by the anchors, then the men’s coats, then their trousers. As they were skimming the waves the balloon began to climb, and they crossed the French coast and landed safely twelve miles inland–in their underwear.

There is more to Blanchard’s story, but I am stopping here on his achievement of January 7. Still, there is one more bit worth mentioning–Blanchard made another ascention in Philadelphia at dawn on January 9, 1793, and George Washington was a witness to his ascent.

More synchronicity!
Laurie

Laurie Bishop
LORD RYBURN’S APPRENTICE
SIGNET, January, 2006.

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