The great day came, and the abbe, entering his air-boat amidst
the applause of the spectators, began to work the wings with
which it was provided with great rapidity. "But," says one who
witnessed the feat, "the more he worked, the more his machine
cleaved to the earth, as if it were part and parcel of it."

Retif de la Bretonne, in his work upon this subject, gives the
accompanying picture of a flying man, furnished with very
artistically designed wings, fitting exactly to the shoulders,
and carrying a basket of provisions, suspended from his waist;
and the frontispiece of the "Philosophic sans Pretention" is a
view of a flying-machine. In the midst of a frame of light wood
sits the operator, steadying himself with one hand, and with the
other fuming a cremaillere, which appears to give a very quick
rotatory movement to two glass globes revolving upon a vertical
axis. The friction of the globes is supposed to develop
electricity to which his power of ascending is ascribed.

To wings, however, aerial adventurers mostly adhered. The
Marquis de Racqueville flew from a window of his hotel, on the
banks of the Seine, and fell into a boat full of washerwomen on
the river. All these unfortunate attempts were lampooned,
burlesqued on the stage, and pursued with the mockery of the
public.

Up to this time, therefore, the efforts of man to conquer the air
had miscarried. They were conducted on a wrong principle, the
machinery employed being heavier than the air itself But, even
before the time of Montgolfier, the principles of aerostation
began to be recognised, though nothing was actually done in the