# The Fun of It/Chapter 15

THE FIRST WOMEN AERONAUTS
FEW people realize that more than a hundred years before the twentieth century pioneers, there were other women aeronauts. They did their flying in balloons.
In 1783, the first human being went aloft in a hot air paper bag invented by the Montgolfier brothers after long experimentation. A year later the first ascent by a woman was made at Lyons. From that time on, various feminine passengers braved the air until finally in 1799 the first woman soloed. She was Jeanne Genieve Garnerin who was the wife of Andre Jacques Gamerin, one of the greatest balloonists of the era. He and she subsequently added to their reputations by numer­ous other flights.
So proficient were the Garnerins that they held the title of Official aeronauts to Napoleon. When a fluke of fortune deprived them of this position, they originated soirees where ascensions were the feature of the occasion and for many years kept this form of entertainment popular.
The fluke of fortune of which I speak occurred at the Coronation of Napoleon in Paris, December 5, 1804. The Garnerins had been given charge of the aerial display of this great celebration. Besides other acts they planned to release numerous bal­loons of different sizes and kinds and shapes and ​colors. But their chef-d’oeuvre was a monster round envelope to which was attached a large gilded crown with colored lanterns hung on it in honor of the Empire.
When this special piece took the air a malevolent wind caught and carried it straight to Rome where with uncanny aim it found the tomb of Nero. The crown, originally planned as a mark of homage for the living Emperor was torn off and left hanging in jaunty abandon on the monument of one long dead. The balloon itself, after this prank, drifted over Lake Bracciano and was recovered intact.
This incident gave the Italian newspapers a far­-fetched opportunity to be insulted. Consequently they vented their spleen against the French by pub­lishing a few choice similes about Nero and Napo­leon. Under the circumstances. Citizen Garnerin and his wife had to be released from official con­nection with the Emperor’s air activities.
But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The person who stepped into the position vacated by the Garnerins was an altogether suitable succes­sor. A beautiful and brilliant woman, Madame Blanchard was the next incumbent. She was in­ducted into office with great ceremony in 1810 as Napoleon’s chief of air service. She was the widow of the balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard who had been killed in an accident three years before. After his death, she carried on until she herself became as well known in France and neighboring countries as he had been.
​Truly she must have been an unusual person for she combined rugged character and physique with the charming and delicate exterior demanded of femininity in that period. In the descriptions of her numerous flights, one is impressed with her showmanship, her good sense, and her originality. She had pluck, too, for she often stayed aloft all night in her fragile craft and made descents when morning gave her light.
Of course, the duties of a chief of air service were entirely different from those we impute to that of­fice today. Then, whatever balloon the chief hap­pened to have constituted the air force. There was no thought of aerial transportation as such. An ascent was a daring commercial spectacle or a social event. Madame Blanchard appeared at affairs where she was bidden by royal command and also carried on some exploits of her own when not needed at the palace fêtes.
With Napoleon’s banishment, Madame Blan­chard took up royal aeronauting for Louis XVIII. Her office under both rulers lasted until her tragic death in 1819.
On this occasion, Madame Blanchard planned one of the most spectacular ascents of her career. Except in the very earliest experiments hydrogen had been used to inflate the envelopes of all sized balloons. Despite knowledge that this gas was ex­tremely inflammable, it had been the custom more and more frequently to make night ascents with a display of fireworks lighted on the ground just be­​fore the take off. Madame Blanchard had an extra large framework hung on the outside of her basket to hold her assortment. Inside her basket she had a special lighted taper and bomb which she was to set off when she reached a predetermined altitude.
Apparently there was a leak in the gas-bag over her head, for as she picked up the taper a flame shot from it and up the side of the ballon. A mo­ment afterward her craft began to descend, blazing, to earth. Chronicles of the day agree she landed on a house, but differ as to whether she died from burns or because of a fall from the roof to the street.
La Blanchard is often spoken of as a martyr in the advancement of lighter than air achievements. Her death ended a specific military office in France until balloons found use for observation purposes in the siege of Paris in 1871.
The next important name the nineteenth century gives us among women balloonists is not a new one. The family of Garnerin again comes to the fore in the person of Elisa, a niece of the original André Jacques. She stands out from the other aeronauts of the day because she undertook to make para­chute descents. She went aloft sitting in a little basket attached to a parachute which in turn hung from one balloon. When the moment came to cut off, she released a rope and settled earthward, where she willed.
Possessed of a good deal of energy, she toured Europe extensively, giving her special exhibitions. ​She was in demand at marriages, soirées, pageants and king’s coronations. She received besides lucrative offers to perform before crowds of city or country folk who collected to watch whatever she did. Her work seems more analogous to the barnstorming era in heavier than air craft than that of her contemporaries. And it is pleasant indeed to record that Elisa Garnerin, after making innumerable jumps and ascents, lived to a ripe old age and died peacefully in her bed.
England produced the next well known woman balloonist. Her name was Margaret Graham, and she was as different from Madame Blanchard or Mlle. Garnerin as anyone possibly could be. In the first place, she combined domesticity and a career in a more than modern manner. She was the mother of seven children and she managed to make exhibitions over all England and keep her home in London going at the same time.
Like Elisa Garnerin, she had advanced barnstorming ideas. She took passengers in her balloon and made them pay dearly for the experience. Her husband seems to have managed her business affairs and was almost always on hand when she performed. Now and then he even went aloft with her.
Mrs. Graham had a keen advertising sense. As she was definitely earning her living by her performances, she took to writing accounts of her exploits for the newspapers of the day. As can be imagined, these sometimes differed from what eye-
Madame Blanchard, Famous Pioneer
A Pioneer Aircraft Factory
​witnesses claimed—especially when reports of acci­dents were made. For Mrs. Graham had her share of mishaps.
Once she landed in the sea off Plymouth when a strong wind bore her away from shore. Another time she had the misfortune to displace with her dangling grappling hook a piece of stone coping which fell to the street and killed a pedestrian. Again, in a much too speedy descent, doubtless caused by lack of knowledge of the laws of expand­ing gases, she bumped herself into unconsciousness for six days. After a slow recovery, her determina­tion and energy asserted themselves and she went on with her ballooning again.
Mrs. Graham preferred to begin her exhibitions in courtyards or tea gardens or other similarly en­closed places where the crowd could be kept at bay. Then, too, there she could often collect a modest fee from the curious ones who wished to get a near view of the craft before it went up. In an open space this was difficult to do as all showmen know.
In Mrs. Graham’s time, as before, there was a great deal of interesting preparation before each flight. The hydrogen for the balloons which used that gas for buoyancy had to be made on the spot. Barrels of acid and old iron were set to bubbling for the populace to gape at and the precious gas generated, was visibly piped to the limp balloon.
As it filled and took shape, everyone became more and more excited.
Mrs. Graham was one of the first to use illumi­​nating gas for her lifting agent. She bought it from the local gas works and often found the pres­sure so low that it took hours to fill the envelope sufficiently. Sometimes, despite precautions, her flights were considerably delayed from this cause.
“Personal appearances” were to Mrs. Graham highly desirable. Not only were her ascents played up, but she attempted to return out of the mys­terious ether to the same spot to show herself again during a given entertainment. I do not mean she came back in her balloon. Oh, no. She brought that down as best she could, wherever she could, and left it to be guarded while she departed for the rest of the show. Her second appearance before the crowd who had seen her depart a while earlier was the signal for a tremendous ovation with usu­ally a few words from her in order.
Her program was well planned. Even though she wished to get down and back to her “public” as quickly as possible, she was careful that no spec­tators saw her preparations to land. At night she waited until darkness hid her from their view and in the daytime until she had passed beyond their vision, either by high flying or low. Then she came down as expeditiously as possible and anchored just above the tree tops.
Her husband, in the meantime, had set forth in a postchaise and had followed, as nearly as he could, her course. He usually found her by sighting her bobbing balloon twenty or thirty feet above the roadway. He helped her down and escorted her ​back for the expected grand climax of reappear­ance.
A longer span of activity than is allowed to most was Mrs. Graham’s privilege. She continued to make ascents for forty years and lived to see the heyday and decline of her kind of ballooning.
I have said little concerning the clothes of “The Only Female Aeronaut” of Victoria’s reign, as Mrs. Graham called herself. It is easy to see that ballooning offered to her and her sisters limitless scope for the use of all kinds of furbelows. Not only was the person of the aeronaut decorated but the craft as well. The beplumed and beribboned equipages were designed to harmonize with and en­hance the appearances of the performers. And vice versa. The silks and satins of the day carried right over into the very business of ballooning. It seems almost as if the spectacular side of aerial entertainment has never reached so high a pinnacle as it did during this fabulous period of balloon pageantry.