"
According to this narrative, there was no conflagration of the
gas in the middle of the atmosphere, nor is it stated precisely
whether the grating of the Montgolfiere was lighted.
Maisonfort ran to the spot when the travellers fell, found them
covered with the cloth of the balloon, and occupying the same
positions which they had taken up on departing.
By a sad chance, that seems like irony, they were thrown down
only a few paces from the monument which marks the spot where
Blanchard descended. At the present day Frenchmen going to
England via Calais do not fail to visit at the forest of Guines
the monument consecrated to the expedition of Blanchard. A few
paces from this monument the cicerone will point out with his
finger the spot where his rivals expired.
"Such was the end of the first of aeronauts, and the most
courageous of men," says a contemporaneous historian. "He died
a martyr to honour and to zeal. His kindness, amiability, and
modesty endeared him to all who knew him. She who was dearest to
him--a young English lady, who boarded at a convent at Boulogne,
and whom he had first met only a few days prior to his last
ascent--could not support the news of his death. Horrible
convulsions seized her and she expired, it is said, eight days
after the dreadful catastrophe.
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