Tea at Trianon: The True Story That Inspired 'The Aeronauts'

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

The True Story That Inspired 'The Aeronauts'

From Ranker:

The specifics of balloons and ballooning during the 18th and 19th centuries were different from today. A balloon was essentially a bag of light gas - often hydrogen - lifting a basket off the ground. To ascend, a tether line was cut and some sort of ballast, like sand, was thrown from the basket. To come back to Earth, the gas was let out of the balloon with a valve.

In July 1862, Glaisher and Coxwell set out on their first flight in a balloon of this sort. They launched from Wolverhampton, with Glaisher hoping to conduct a series of tests on sound, solar radiation, and oxygen levels. They used a balloon made by Coxwell at his own expense, "not made of silk, but of American cloth, a material possessed of great strength." Loaded with 60,000 feet of gas, they took off in what Glaisher called "bad weather."

During the flight in July, Glaisher and Coxwell reached at least 22,357 feet, perhaps even 26,000. All the while, Glaisher kept track of how his body was reacting to so little oxygen, nothing that he felt heart palpitations around 19,000 feet and something "analogous to sea-sickness" at roughly 21,500. On a second ascent on August 18, they reached 24,000 feet. (Read more.)