WE HAD agreed, my companion and I, that I should call for him at his house, after dinner, not later than eleven o’clock.

This athletic young Frenchman belongs to a small set of Parisian sportsmen, who have taken up “ballooning” as a pastime.

After having exhausted all the sensations that are to be found in ordinary sports, even those of “automobiling” at a breakneck speed, the members of the “AÉro Club” now seek in the air, where they indulge in all kinds of daring feats, the nerve-racking excitement that they have ceased to find on earth.

I might add that these facts were but vaguely known to me before I had been introduced, by a mutual friend, to this nouveau siÈcle young sportsman, and had accepted his invitation to accompany him in his next aerial voyage.

When we reached the vacant lot at the huge gas works of St. Denis, where our balloon was being inflated, I could not help feeling a bit alarmed at the sight of that little bubble—only a few hundred cubic metres—and the very small basket which were soon to take us up in the air.

All the Éclat, the ceremonial, and the emotional “good-bys” that usually accompany the “let her go!” of a balloon, were totally lacking when the “Rolla” left the earth. The start was effected in a quiet and business like manner, and the act seemed so natural to the people who were helping us off, that their demeanor on this occasion had a beneficial and soothing effect on my excited nerves.

A few minutes after midnight, when the last little sacks of sand ballast had been hung out over the edge of our wicker-basket, when a final glance had been given to the ropes, the net, the valve, etc.,—with a careless au revoir from the foreman of the gas-works, and a parting joke from the cocher who had driven us there,—the dark forms, whose hands were holding us down, silently stepped back, and with a gentle and graceful swing the “Rolla” started off on its sixth ascension.

Had we taken with us another small sack of ballast, our balloon could not have left the earth. In other words, its ascensional force was almost balanced by the weight it was expected to carry. After rising a few hundred feet, and finding a cooler current, which slightly condensed the gas, the “Rolla” ceased to ascend. We were met by a gentle breeze from the north west, and began to cross Paris, a couple of hundred yards above the city.

It would take the pen of a Carlyle to describe our mysterious flight over Paris at midnight. The impression was so startling that for an hour we never spoke above a whisper.

Owing to the increasing coolness of the atmosphere, our balloon had a slight, though constant, tendency to descend. But we easily kept our altitude by occasionally throwing overboard a spoonful or two of ballast. After ascertaining that we would not come in contact with the towers of Notre Dame or the sharp edges of the Eiffel Tower, we decided to keep the same distance, and let the breeze do the rest.

At our feet Paris is breathing, like a monster with a million eyes.

On the right, at the very top of Montmartre, and looming up in the glow that surrounds it, stands the white Basilica of the Sacred Heart, with its colossal marble statue of the Redeemer watching over the city.

The great boulevards roll out in every direction like ribbons of fire; we can hear, as we sail over them, the muffled rumbling of a thousand carriages, and we watch them as they dodge each other in their complicated course.

A cry, a call, from time to time, reaches our ears; but the others are lost in the mighty silence above us.

“There is the OpÉra,” whispers the owner, as he points to a square silhouette, bathed in a lake of electric light.

I seem to have no fear, merely the sensation of relief that follows an irrevocable decision; with the feeling that we are tasting a forbidden fruit, breaking some divine and primeval law. All our faculties are concentrated in our eyes, and they feast on this wonderful sight.

“Those dark pits that dot the surface of Paris are gardens,” explains the owner, “innumerable private parks; and most Parisians live and die without ever suspecting their existence.”

We cross the Place de la Bastille, soaring above the bronze column, with its graceful statue of Liberty, whose useless wings of metal seem childish and a bit ridiculous as we pass on.

A long and purple fissure that cuts the city in twain marks the Seine, long before we reach it. The “Rolla” feels the cool current that rises above the waters. A few handfuls of sand thrown overboard, and we resume our former position.

Our eyes are now accustomed to these weird and unusual effects, and few details of the picture escape us. In the distance another bright spot, Bullier, the students’ ball, in the heart of the Latin quarter. That obscure mass beyond must be the Luxembourg and its gardens.

Here we leave the dome of the PanthÉon on our right. Below us the lights are gradually thinning out; we are passing over the crowded faubourgs, where thousands of poor and tired human beings are resting in sleep.

An ocean of darkness and silence opens up before us; we sail into it. The breeze freshens, and the glowing blaze of Paris soon fades away in the distance.

From now on the minutes drag, in the awful silence of this mysterious night, and every moment is heavy with anxiety. Those hours are endless, really hard to live, until at last the gray dawn steps out of the horizon.

Nature begins to awaken, and, with the first gleam of daylight, slowly the world comes back to life.

The first cry of a quail or the cackle of a pheasant is a delight to our ears. A dog barks and another howls. Lazy and sleepy peasants, leading huge oxen, drag themselves out of their farms, on their way to a hard day’s work in the fields. The cocks crow lustily, and, in the distance, from the little town of Nemours, comes the melodious call of a bugle, arousing “Pitou,” the French “Tommy Atkins,” from his sleep.

The sun drives away the soft gray mist that lingers over the meadows; a few shadows here and there still mark the wooded valleys; but they soon melt away, and a glorious summer morning, in the beautiful land of Burgundy, bursts upon us from every side.

“Oh! qui n’a pas senti son coeur battre plus vite,
A l’heure oÙ sous le ciel l’homme est seul avec Dieu!”

Alf. de Musset: Le Saule, IV.