The following is
Arlandes' narrative of the expedition, given in the form of a
letter, addressed by the marquis to Faujas de Saint Fond:--"You
wish, my dear Faujas, and I consent most willingly to your
desires, that, owing to the number of questions continually
addressed to me, and for other reasons, I should gratify public
curiosity and fix public opinion upon the subject of our aerial
voyage.
"I wish to describe as well as I can the first journey which men
have attempted through an element which, prior to the discovery
of MM. Montgolfier, seemed so little fitted to support them.
"We went up on the 21st of October, 1783, at near two o'clock, M.
Roziers on the west side of the balloon, I on the east. The wind
was nearly north-west. The machine, say the public, rose with
majesty; but really the position of the balloon altered so that
M. Roziers was in the advance of our position, I in the rear.
"I was surprised at the silence and the absence of movement which
our departure caused among the spectators, and believed them to
be astonished and perhaps awed at the strange spectacle; they
might well have reassured themselves I was still gazing, when M.
Roziers cried to me--
"'You are doing nothing, and the balloon is scarcely rising a
fathom.
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