celebrate the above event. M. Blanchard was presented with the
freedom of the city in a gold box, and application was made to
the Ministry to have the balloon purchased and deposited as a
memorial in the church. On the testimony of the grandson of
Dr. Jeffries the car of this balloon is now in the museum of
the same city.

A very noteworthy example of how a balloon may be made to take
a fresh lease of life is supplied by a voyage of M. Testu about
this date, which must find brief mention in these pages. In
one aspect it is laughable, in another it is sublime. From
every point of view it is romantic.

It was four o'clock on a threatening day in June when the
solitary aeronaut took flight from Paris in a small hydrogen
balloon only partially filled, but rigged with somencontrivance
of wings which were designed to render it self-propelling.
Discovering, however, that this device was inoperative, M.
Testu, after about an hour and a half, allowed the balloon to
descend to earth in a corn field, when, without quitting hold of
the car, he commenced collecting stones for ballast. But as yet
he knew not the ways of churlish proprietors of land, and in
consequence was presently surprised by a troublesome crowd, who
proceeded, as they supposed, to take him prisoner till he should
pay heavy compensation, dragging him off to the nearest village
by the trail rope of his balloon.

M. Testu now had leisure to consider his situation, and
presently hit on a stratagem the like of which has often since
been adopted by aeronauts in like predicament. Representing to