The excitement of these bold men, on
alighting on the ground, was so great that,
after having embraced each other, Jefferies
shouted out, as if he were addressing a crowd
that was jealous of the success of the
expedition, "Oh, look, look! you have now
standing before you the two most celebrated
men in all France and England!" "The
most celebrated men in the whole world!"
added Blanchard, who was just as
enthusiastically vain as his companion. Jefferies
afterwards laughed heartily about this
harangue, which was uttered in a place where
the trees were his only auditors. He justified
it however, by recalling to mind that the
English newspapers, which had tried to
disgust him by overwhelming him with
ridicule, had styled him the new Don Quixote
de la Manche; and that a certain Mollien
had written a pamphlet, in which he treated
the aeronauts as a couple of madmen, and
proclaimed the impossibility of crossing the
Channel by means of a balloon.

Blanchard and Jefferies were soon visited
by the officials of the place, and by a gentleman
who took them to his chateau at
Hardinghem. Then came deputations to
congratulate them on the success of their perilous
voyage, in the name of the population of
Calais. At eleven o'clock they were
conducted to Calais in a carriage and six, which
the authorities had sent to fetch them. When
they entered the town at half past one on the
morning of the eighth, they found the
inhabitants lining the streets through which
they passed, and crying "Vive le roi! Vivent
les voyageurs aeriens!"—"Long live the king!
Long live the aerial travellers!" Next day
Lunardi and Castelmain rejoined them; but
the two observers who had posted themselves
at Oye were less fortunate. Believing that
the balloon had landed at Ardruick, or at
Ardres, they went on in that direction. The
same evening they learned the actual place
of descent: but the darkness of the night,
and the libations which they had made along
the road, prevented them from remounting
their horses; and it was not till the next
morning at day-break that they started from
the basse-ville of Ardres. They intended to
proceed to Guînes; but the information which
they received on the road from the driver of
the St. Omer diligence caused them to make
for Calais, where they arrived at nine o'clock,
and found their friends installed at the house
of M. Mouron, one of the municipal body.

In the morning the French flag was fixed
over the door of their lodgings, the flag of
the town was raised on the towers, and every
vessel in the port, whether native or foreign,
dressed itself in gala trim. Cannon were
fired, and all the bells in the town were rung.
The municipal body, and the two regiments
composing the garrison, called on the strangers
at ten o'clock, to congratulate them, and
present them with the "town wine" in an
enamelled cup. A dinner had been prepared
at the Hôtel de Ville; Blanchard and his
fellow-traveller went there in procession.
Before sitting down to table Blanchard
received a gold box, on the lid of which was
engraved a correct representation of the
balloon, and containing the documents necessary
to constitute him a citizen of Calais. It
had been intended to offer the same tribute
to Jefferies, but in consequence of his being
a foreigner, longer formalities were necessary;
and great regret was expressed at their
inability to do him the same honour as his
companion. On a shield conspicuously placed
in the dining-room were verses prophetic
of the future union of France and England,
which subsequent events sadly contradicted.
During the dinner a Calais painter caught
the features of Blanchard; at the ball in the
evening the portrait was displayed,
accompanied by a complimentary stanza. The
news of the extraordinary voyage excited
the greatest curiosity in the capital. The
queen was playing cards when she first heard
of the event; she laid down a stake on
Blanchard's account, and won a considerable
sum of money, which was duly paid to him a
few days after his arrival at Paris. On the
sixteenth he dined with the Baron de Breteuil,
then minister, who announced to him that
the king had granted him a pension of twelve
hundred francs, and a gratification of twelve
thousand. Both the aeronauts met with the
most flattering reception from all the
distinguished persons of the capital, though the
Frenchman, it must be owned, met with more
than his fair proportionate share of favour.
The flags which they had waved whilst crossing
the Channel, were placed in the salle of
the Académie des Sciences. The Duc de
Chartres, afterwards Louis Philippe,
presented Blanchard with a snuff-box enriched
with diamonds. Among other strange events
of that monarch's life, he had himself made a
balloon ascent the previous year with the
brothers Robert, being then only eleven years
of age.

Considerable bets had been laid in England
for and against the success of the enterprise.
Lord Chatham, who won £1000 in that way,
offered Jefferies and Blanchard to devote it
to other aerostatic experiments. Jefferies'
declining health compelled him to refuse the
offer; but Blanchard, in his love for his
favourite science, gladly accepted it. Returning
to Calais, he took his departure for England
on the twenty-first of February, and made an
ascent from London, with Mademoiselle
Simonis of Paris, the first Frenchwoman who
went up in a balloon, though not the first of
her sex who had done so; for an Englishwoman
of the name of Tible had preceded her.

Blanchard presented the town of Calais
with the balloon with which he crossed the
strait. The car is still in the Museum there.
The magistrates granted him a purse of three
thousand francs, and a life annuity of six
hundred, which was regularly paid him till