Human passengers

The next step obviously had to be a test flight with a human passenger.

A young man had seen the landing of the animals and he had been very helpful in recovering the balloon and the basket. His name was Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier. He was born in Metz and had studied medicine, chemistry and natural science. He presented himself spontaneously to participate as passenger in a balloon flight. Because of his education the Montgolfier brothers decided to accept his offer. They started to build a big balloon that could carry 2 people. The oval balloon was painted in bright colors, with a volume of 1700 cubic meters, a diameter of 16 meters and a height of 23 meters. Around the opening (5 meters wide) of the balloon a reed balcony had been fixed to the envelope. The aeronaut could stand on this balcony and take care of the fire burning in a separate basket. The balloon got ready on October 15th 1783; the builders carried out the first tests in Reveillon’s garden. The tethered balloon with De Rozier was permitted to rise respectively to 25 meters and  100 meters. On October 17th a noble passenger, marquis d’Arlandes, joined De Rozier. He was a major in the Royal French Army and his presence at the scene was no coincidence. The king had not yet approved of a free balloon flight with human passengers. He didn’t want to put human lives at risk to meet the sensationalism of the public. But marquis d’Arlandes interceded with the king; he argued that science could not be helped with such a prohibition. This made the king change his mind: the experiment was to be carried out by 2 criminals under sentence of death. And if they survived this flight they would be set free. The ambitious young De Rozier was very disappointed. It went to his heart that two convicts should get the honor of being the first people to fly. Together with the marquis he managed to influence queen Marie-Antoinette and to get the king’s permission to participate in this first flight themselves.

In the early morning of November 21st 1783 there was a lot of activity in the royal gardens at the Bois de Boulogne. The sky was grey and it was windy. In the scarce morning light zealous people were preparing a grand historical event. For the very first time in history a human being was going to plane above the earth.

On the ground a massive fire was burning. Dead slow the rising hot air bulged the colossus that was fastened above the fire. It took two hours to fill the balloon.
A little before 2 o’clock in the afternoon it slowly detached itself from the earth, while Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and marquis d’Arlandes were waving to the hundreds of thousands of Parisians watching below them.

The balloon rose up to 900 meters, crossed the Seine, and it landed exactly 25 minutes later at a distance of 8 kilometers. Without any doubt King Louis XVI was lost in wonder because both men were unharmed.