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In August 1869, French chemist Gaston Tissandier was on vacation in Calais with his family. He saw a poster advertising a hot-air balloon launch and convinced the crew to let him join the flight. This was difficult because he was terrified of the balloon bursting, and his family begged him not to go. At the time, a storm was hitting the coast.
At dawn, Tissandier arrived with life vests he had purchased. A small test balloon crashed into a bell tower and was blown out to sea. Still, the crew of the balloon named Neptune climbed into their wicker basket. As a military band played, the balloon shot up 4,000 feet into the air.
From that height, the crowd on the shore looked like tiny ants. Tissandier saw a strange mirage: an image of the Calais-to-Dover ferry projected onto a cloud. He grew nervous when he realized they were drifting over the open ocean, not toward England. At 5,200 feet, the pilot observed that clouds below were moving southwest, back toward Calais. After dropping sand ballast to lighten the balloon, they floated over the Calais jetty. Tissandier saw his younger brother Albert waving from below.
The balloon traveled west along the French coast until nightfall. The crew threw out an anchor when they spotted a lighthouse. They crashed into a sand dune, scaring away a flock of sheep. The lighthouse keeper told them they had landed just a few hundred yards from a special grave: the tomb of Pilâtre de Rozier. Rozier was the first person to fly in a hot-air balloon in 1783. Sadly, he also became the first aviation fatality in 1785 when he crashed in those same dunes.
The book Travels in the Air collects stories like this one. Edited by British scientist James Glaisher, it mixes his careful scientific reports with more exciting tales from French balloonists, including Tissandier, Camille Flammarion, and Wilfrid de Fonvielle. All the stories share a strong sense of adventure, chance, and danger.
These early balloon flights gave people a completely new view of the world. Balloonists reported seeing spiders and butterflies flying a mile above the ground. They sometimes met confused local officials who demanded to see their passports. They also learned useful tricks; for example, throwing chicken bones overboard could make the balloon rise just as effectively as dropping heavy sandbags. Upon landing, local people often greeted them with a cheerful cry: "Come down! Come down! Dinner is waiting for you!"
James Glaisher was preparing the first edition of Travels in the Air in London in 1870. That summer, France declared war on Prussia. The Prussian army quickly surrounded Paris in a siege, trapping the city. Glaisher's first book ended with a call for more scientific use of tethered balloons, known as "captive" balloons.
A revised American edition of the book was published in 1871. In it, Glaisher noted that his wish had been granted in a tragic way. During the four-month siege of Paris, balloons became the city's only link to the outside world. The French used 67 manned balloon flights to carry military messages and letters out of the surrounded city. They also sent homing pigeons out by balloon. Later, those pigeons flew back to Paris carrying tiny photographic film messages.
Before the siege, many people thought balloons were just fun novelties with no real use. The successful airmail operation during the war changed that view completely. It showed that balloon technology, which was nearly a century old, could be very practical. It could even serve as a patriotic tool in a time of war.