Guînes on the seventh of January, seventeen
hundred and eighty-five. Nevertheless, he
had drawn upon government funds; and he
still adhered to his purpose of passing in
a balloon from France to England, as his
more fortunate rival had done from England
to France. The latter feat has been several
times repeated, the former has never yet
been accomplished. De Rosier had given the
Comptroller-General of Finances to understand
that, if he would pay the expense of the
expedition, he (Pilâtre) would execute it. His
request was granted; he received forty-two
thousand francs (sixteen hundred and eighty
pounds sterling) as a first instalment, which
was afterwards said to be increased till it
amounted to the enormous sum of a hundred
and fifty thousand francs. Romain, who then
enjoyed a great repute for manufacturing
balloons, made an agreement with Pilâtre, by
which he bound himself to construct one of
thirty feet diameter, or thereabouts, for the
sum of three hundred louis-d'ors. Pilâtre,
whose business was to find the work-room,
obtained from the governor of the Tuileries,
the Salle des Gardes, and another apartment.
The work, begun at the end of August seventeen
hundred and eighty-four, was
completed six weeks afterwards. Six hundred
ells of white taffeta were employed in
fabricating this ill-starred machine.

Romain had strictly kept to himself the
secret of rendering taffeta impermeable to
gas. He was careful beyond measure to
conceal his mode of preparation. He worked in
solitude, like an alchemist, and was only
known to have one single companion of his
studies, who aided him gratuitously in the
construction of his balloon. The whole secret
consisted in covering the taffeta with a coat
of linseed oil made capable of drying by sugar
of lead, and in pressing in till it only felt
greasy in the hand. Every strip was then
covered with gold-beater's skin, that was
made to adhere by ordinary size, in which
was incorporated a mixture of honey and
linseed oil. These ingredients gave suppleness
to the size, and prevented the united
superficies from cracking. A second and
third layer of gold-beater's skin were added;
and the balloon, when finished, thirty-three
and a half French feet in diameter, and
ornamented with tinsel in different parts, weighed
three hundred and twenty pounds, including
the cylindrical apparatus that helped to fill
it. So impermeable was it that it remained
distended with atmospheric air for two
months, without showing a single wrinkle.
If De Rosier had then ascended from Paris,
it would have carried him almost whithersoever
he would. At the end of two months,
the balloon, carefully packed, was transported
to Boulogne, which Pilâtre had chosen as his
starting-point. Of course, the packing and
transport for so long a distance by land-
carriage, rendered it still more difficult to
preserve uninjured so perishable an article as a
balloon, with the little previous experience of
managing it that had been acquired. A
montgolfière also travelled with it, twenty
feet high, whose cupola was formed of chamois
leather. It was tested before its departure
for the coast, and its success corresponded to
the care that had been bestowed upon it.

The montgolfière, or fire-balloon, was,
either accidentally or purposely, directly or
indirectly, the immediate cause of Pilâtre's
fearful end. He had announced some new
combination of the means of ascent, which he
shrouded as far as he could in mystery. It
seems to have been his idea, that the gas-
balloon would be sufficient to carry him, while
the fire-balloon would give him great
command of equilibrium, by increasing or
diminishing the fire in it, so as almost to render
him independent of ballast. His confidence
in the long-sustaining power of his machine
was one means of procuring him pecuniary aid
from the government. Whatever might be
the aërostatic advantages gained, the danger
was increased enormously. Either a gas-
balloon or a fire-balloon, alone, was infinitely
safer than the two united. To crown the
whole rash scheme, the hydrogen gas must
necessarily float above the montgolfière. As
his friend, Professor Charles, remonstrated
with him, "you are putting a chafing-dish
under a barrel of gunpowder."

Pilâtre arrived at Boulogne on the twentieth
of December, seventeen hundred and eighty-
four, followed by the anxious wishes of the
subscribers to his scientific Lyceum, and also
of numerous ladies of the court, who had
requested him to bring back innumerable
small articles from England to serve as New
Year's Day presents. Two days after his
arrival he was informed of the preparations
which Blanchard was making in England for
a voyage which should compete with his own.
He became alarmed. He went to Dover;
saw Blanchard; and, for a moment,
entertained the hope (on account of the dilapidated
condition of the balloon, from which the gas
oozed in many places) that the rival ascent
could not take place. His anxious fears soon
resumed their power; he returned to
Boulogne; left there Romain and his brother,
who had accompanied him, and went to Paris
in a feverish state of mental torture.

Meanwhile, Blanchard and Jefferies
ascended from Dover, and reached the Forest of
Guînes safe and sound. Pilâtre's pride
received a mortal wound at failing to be the
first to cross the sea. He entreated to be
excused attempting the voyage. Some say
that the Controller of Finances consented,
merely claiming the surplus of what had not
been disbursed about the balloon. But the
wretched Pilâtre, sure of success, had already
spent it in enriching the experimental
department of his Lyceum. Others state that
when he explained his doubts and apprehensions
to M. de Calonne, the minister, he met
with a cold and even rough reception.