'

"Charles adds that they were covered with the caresses of the prince,
who embraced both of them. He briefly narrated to the Duke of Chartres
some incidents of the voyage.

"'But this is not all, monseigneur. I am going away again,' added
Charles.

"'What! Going away!' exclaimed the duke.

"'Monseigneur, you will see. When do you wish me to come back again?' I
said.

"'In half an hour.'

"'Very well: be it so. In half an hour I shall be with you again.'

"M. Robert descended from the car, and I was alone in the balloon.

"I said to the duke, 'Monseigneur, I go.' I said to the peasants who
held down the balloon, 'My friends, go away, all of you, from the car
at the moment I give the signal.' I then rose like a bird, and in
ten minutes I was more than 3,000 feet above the ground. I no longer
perceived terrestrial objects; I only saw the great masses of nature.

"In going away, Charles had taken his precautions against the possible
explosion of the balloon, and made himself ready to make certain
observations. In order to observe the barometer and the thermometer,
placed at different extremities of the car, without endangering the
equilibrium, he sat down in the middle, a watch and paper in his left
hand, a pen and the cord of the safety-valve in his right.

"I waited for what should happen," continues he. "The balloon, which
was quite flabby and soft when I ascended, was now taut, and fully
distended. Soon the hydrogen gas began to escape in considerable
quantities by the neck of the balloon, and then, from time to time, I
pulled open the valve to give it two issues at once; and I continued
thus to mount upwards, all the time losing the inflammable air, which,
rushing past me from the neck of the balloon, felt like a warm cloud.

"I passed in ten minutes from the temperature of spring to that of
winter; the cold was keen and dry, but not insupportable. I examined all
my sensations calmly; _I_ COULD HEAR MYSELF LIVE, so to speak, and I am
certain that at first I experienced nothing disagreeable in this sudden
passage from one temperature to another.

"When the barometer ceased to move I noted very exactly eighteen inches
ten lines. This observation is perfectly accurate The mercury did not
suffer any sensible movement.

"At the end of some minutes the cold caught my fingers; I could hardly
hold the pen, but I no longer had need to do so. I was stationary, or
rather moved only in a horizontal direction.