catastrophe. In the camp of Wimereux, just
behind the Café du Petit Caporal, which is
next door to the Estaminet du Ballon, a small
obelisk of marble from the neighbouring
quarries of Ferques, built without any, or
with the least possible mortar, and not more
than eight or nine feet high, rises on the spot
where the aëronauts were dashed to the ground.
When I first knew it, it stood in solitude in
the midst of a grassy, down-like waste, half
undermined by moles, and almost pushed off
its pedestal by the cattle who used it as a
rubbing-post. The parties that seemed to
favour it with the longest notice, were the
mushrooms who peeped above-ground from
time to time, some singly, some in little
family groups of three or four, but all
apparently considering, under their broad-brimmed
hats, whether it would not be an act of charity
to the memory of the deceased, to surround
their half-ruined monument with a railing.
That also bears its record, in French, supplying
a few additional particulars: "Here fell
from the height of more than five thousand
feet, at thirty-five minutes past seven in
the morning,the unfortunate aëronauts Pilâtre
de Rosier and Romain the elder, who
started from Boulogne at five minutes after
seven, in the morning of the fifteenth of
June, seventeen hundred and eighty-five.
The first was found dead upon the spot; the
second gave a few signs of life during one or
two minutes."

The best means, I thought, of solving the
problem of their fall, was to find up any
persons who had witnessed it. I was more
fortunate than might have been expected,
with an event occurring sixty years ago. In
a hamlet to the north of Wimereux, I found
an old woman more than a hundred years old,
who had seen the balloon ascend from Boulogne.
She was dosing and dreaming over a fire of
dry furze, staring at the sparks with her
filmy eyes. I wonder whether she could see
with those eyes, even after she turned them
on me as I entered her hovel.

"What do you want with me?" she said,
in a voice that belonged to the other world.
"You don't know me, and I don't know
you. I'm of no use to anybody, now."

"But I know you," my companion said.
And then he began to talk about their
acquaintance, and then about the obelisk, and
then about Pilâtre de Rosier.

"I saw him and his friend go up," she said,
suddenly waking, as if inspired. "I was close to
them. He was a handsome man, and looked so
smiling. As the balloon rose, he saluted
and bowed to all the people, and waved his
flags continually in this way, so, until he had
mounted quite high in the sky." And then
she suited the action to the word, waving her
arms in imitation of poor De Rosier, "My
arms then were not like this;" she continued,
pulling the skin which hung loosely about
them. "I had handsome arms once. Yes;
he waved his arms so." And then she fell
into her dreamy state, the precursor of
the long sleep of death, from which nothing
could rouse her. All the further information
we could extract was, that he waved his arms,
comme ça, and that hers were once handsome
arms.

It struck me that the excellent Museum at
Boulogne might contain some relics of this
tragical tumble. I found them there, and
better than them. Monsieur Duburquoy,
senior, an intelligent old man, the father of
the present well-informed curator of the
museum, was at Wimereux when the
aëronauts fell, and helped to lift them from
the ground. He was thirteen years of age
at the time. He told me that De Rosier,
quite dead, had one of his legs broken, and
that the bone pierced through the tight
fitting trouser; and that Romain heaved three
or four deep sighs, and then expired. He
picked up a piece of bread, partially eaten,
that fell with them. A bottle of wine, that
had been uncorked, and had had a glass or
two drunk from it, accompanied them in
their fall, and most extraordinarily was not
broken.

The museum has the portrait of De
Rosier in powdered wig and frilled shirt,
besides a coloured medallion in wax. He is
styled "the first aëronaut of the universe;"
to which title there would be nothing to
object, if we were but perfectly cognisant of the
atmospherical conditions of every other sun,
planet, and satellite in the universe. There
are besides, his barometer, thermometer,
speaking-trumpet, and the wand to which his
little waving flag was attached. There is the
painted cloth which surrounded the gallery
of the Montgolfière, or flying fire-place, which
helped him to ascend; there is a little piece
of the taffetas or oiled-silk, covered with gold-
beater's skin, which contained his float of
hydrogen gas; and that is all the material
evidence to be found.

Our readers may remember that Pilâtre
de Rosier was ambitious to be the first to
cross the English channel in a balloon.* He
had already the honour of being the first man
who ascended in the earth's atmosphere, in a
captive balloon as a first experiment, and
afterwards in one at liberty to rise and wander
whither it would, in which bold excursion he
was accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlandes.
The first living creatures that made a
balloon ascent, were a sheep, a cock, and a
duck, conjointly travellers through the region
of clouds. Since then, equestrian ascents have
been made by terrified horses, mounted by
fool-hardy men. In all these latter cases, it
may be believed, that an ass made one of the
party.
*See "Over the Water," vol. vii. p. 483.

In crossing the channel, De Rosier was
forestalled by his countryman (Blanchard)
and our compatriot (Jefferies), who started
from Dover and landed in the forest of