# My Airships/Chapter 2

PARIS—PROFESSIONAL BALLOONISTS—AUTOMOBILES
IN 1891 it was decided that our family should make a trip to Paris, and I rejoiced doubly at the prospect. All good Americans are said to go to Paris when they die. But to me, with the bias of my reading, France—the land of my father's ancestors and of his own education as an engineer at the École Centrale—represented everything that is powerful and progressive.
In France the first hydrogen balloon had been let loose and the first air-ship had been made to navigate the air with its steam-engine, screw propeller, and rudder. Naturally I figured to myself that the problem had made marked progress since Henry Giffard in 1852, with a courage equal to his science, gave his masterly demonstration of the problem of directing balloons.
HENRIQUES SANTOS-DUMONT
FATHER OF A. SANTOS-DUMONT AND FOUNDER OF THE COFFEE
PLANTATIONS IN BRAZIL
On one of my first free afternoons, therefore, I slipped away from the family on a tour of exploration. To my immense astonishment I learned that there were no steerable balloons—that there were only spherical balloons, like that of Charles in 1783! In fact, no one had continued the trials of an elongated balloon driven by a thermic motor begun by Henry Giffard. The trials of such balloons with an electric motor, undertaken by the Tissandier brothers in 1883, had been repeated by two constructors in the following year, but had been finally given up in 1885. For years no "cigar-shaped" balloon had been seen in the air.
This threw me back on spherical ballooning. Consulting the Paris city directory I had noted the address of a professional aeronaut. To him I explained my desires.
"You want to make an ascent?" he asked gravely. "Hum! hum! Are you sure you have the courage? A balloon ascent is no small thing, and you seem too young."
I assured him both of my purpose and my courage. Little by little he yielded to my arguments. Finally he consented to take me "for a short ascent." It must be on a calm, ​sunny afternoon, and not last more than two hours.
"My honorarium will be 1200 francs," he added, "and you must sign me a contract to hold yourself responsible for all damages we may do to your own life and limbs and to mine, to the property of third parties, and to the balloon and its accessories. Furthermore, you agree to pay out railway fares and transportation for the balloon and its basket back to Paris from the point at which we come to the ground."
I asked time for reflection. To a youth eighteen years of age 1200 francs was a large sum. How could I justify the spending of it to my parents? Then I reflected:
"If I risk 1200 francs for an afternoon's pleasure I shall find it either good or bad. If it is bad the money will be lost. If it is good I shall want to repeat it and I shall not have the means."
This decided me. Regretfully I gave up ballooning and took refuge in automobiling.
Automobiles were still rare in Paris in 1891, and I had to go to the works at Valentigny to buy my first machine, a Peugeot three-and-a-half horse-power roadster. ​
It was a curiosity. In those days there were no automobile licenses, no "chauffeurs'" examinations. We drove our new inventions through the streets of the capital at our own risks and perils. Such was the curiosity they aroused that I was not allowed to stop in public places like the Place de l'Opéra for fear of attracting multitudes and obstructing traffic.
Immediately I became an enthusiastic automobilist. I took pleasure in understanding the parts and their proper interworking; I learned to care for my machine and to repair it; and when, at the end of some seven months, our whole family returned to Brazil I took the Peugeot roadster with me.
Returning to Paris in 1892, with the balloon idea still obsessing me, I looked up a number of other professional aeronauts. Like the first, all wanted extravagant sums to take me up with them on the most trivial kind of ascent. All took the same attitude. They made a danger and a difficulty of ballooning, enlarging on its risks to life and property. Even in presence of the great prices they proposed to charge me they did not encourage me to close with them. Obviously they were determined to keep ballooning to ​themselves as a professional mystery. Therefore I bought a new automobile.
I should add that this condition of things has changed wonderfully since the foundation of the Paris Aéro Club.
Automobile tricycles were just then coming to the fore. I chose one, and rejoiced in its freedom from breakdowns. In my new enthusiasm for the type, I was the first to introduce motor-tricycle races in Paris. Renting the bicycle track of the Parc des Princes for an afternoon I organised the race and offered the prizes. "Common-sense" people declared that the event would end disastrously; they proved to their own satisfaction that the tricycles, going round the short curves of a bicycle track, would overturn and wreck themselves. If they did not do this the inclination would certainly cause the carburator to stop or not to work so well, and the stoppage of the carburator round the sharp curve would upset the tricycles. The directors of the Vélodrome, while accepting my money, refused to let me have the track for a Sunday afternoon, fearing a fiasco! They were disappointed when the race proved to be a great success.
Returning again to Brazil I regretted bitterly ​that I had not persevered in my attempt to make a balloon ascent. At that distance, far from ballooning possibilities, even the high prices demanded by the aeronauts seemed to me of secondary importance. Finally, one day in 1897, in a Rio book-shop, when making my purchases of reading matter for a new voyage to Paris, I came on a volume of MM. Lachambre and Machuron, "Andrée—Au Pôle Nord en Ballon."
The reading of this book during the long sea voyage proved a revelation to me, and I finished by studying it like a text-book. Its description of materials and prices opened my eyes. At last I saw clearly. Andrée's immense balloon—a reproduction of whose photograph on the book cover showed how those who gave it the final varnishing climbed up its sides and over its summit like a mountain—cost only 40,000 francs to fully construct and equip!
I determined that on arriving in Paris I would cease consulting professional aeronauts and would make the acquaintance of constructors.
I was particularly anxious to meet M. Lachambre, the builder of the Andrée balloon, and M. Machuron, who was his associate and the writer of the book. In these men I will say frankly that I found all ​I had hoped for. When I asked M. Lachambre how much it would cost me to take a short trip in one of his balloons his reply so astonished me that I asked him to repeat it.
"For a long trip of three or four hours," he said, "it will cost you 250 francs, all expenses and return of balloon by rail included."
"And the damages?" I asked.
"We shall not do any damage!" he replied, laughing.
I closed with him on the spot, and M. Machuron agreed to take me up the next day.