By Balloon from Paris
Alistair Horne describes how, during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, a fleet of balloons and a host of carrier pigeons kept the capital in touch with the outside world.
Well before 11 a.m., a huge crowd had assembled round the launching pad in the Place St. Pierre, Montmartre. There had been a big disappointment the previous day when the count-down had had to cease after two small trial balloons had disappeared into thick fog at a few hundred feet of altitude. But now all augured well. There was a command of “Messieurs les voyageurs, en ballon,” and five pale and nervous passengers clambered into the open wicker baskets that were to carry them over the Prussian lines.
It was October 7th, 1870, and Paris had been under siege and completely isolated from the rest of France for nearly three weeks. Aboard the George Sand, the sixth balloon to leave Paris, were two American businessmen, Reynolds and May, travelling with a contract to supply arms to the southern Provinces. But it was the passenger on the other balloon, the Armand Barbès, that had attracted the crowds that day; the Delegate Minister, Leon Gambetta, Churchillian in his refusal to recognize defeat (in this respect, virtually unique among his fellow Ministers), on his way to organize the Resistance in the Provinces.
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