sman-like Brazilian
had been badly treated in our land. On his return to Paris he at
once began experimenting with heavier-than-air machines. Of his work
with them we shall give some account later.

Despite his great personal popularity the airship built by
Santos-Dumont never appealed to the French military authorities.
Probably this was largely due to the fact that he never built one of
a sufficient size to meet military tests. The amateur in him was
unconquerable. While von Zeppelin's first ship was big enough to
take the air in actual war the Frenchman went on building craft for
one or two men--good models for others to seize and build upon, but
nothing which a war office could actually adopt. But he served his
country well by stimulating the creation of great companies who
built largely upon the foundations he had laid.

First and greatest of these was the company formed by the Lebaudy
Brothers, wealthy sugar manufacturers. Their model was semi-rigid,
that is, provided with an inflexible keel or floor to the gas bag,
which was cigar shaped. The most successful of the earlier ships was
190 feet long, with a car suspended by cables ten feet below the
balloon and carrying the twin motors, together with passengers and
supplies. Although it made many voyages without accident, it finally
encountered what seems to be the chief peril of dirigible balloons,
being torn from its moorings at Chalons and dashed against trees to
the complete demolition of its envelope. Repaired in eleven weeks
she was taken over by the French Department of War, and was in
active service at the beginning of the war. Her two successors on
the company's building ways were less fortunate. _La Patrie_, after
many successful trips, and manoeuvres with the troops, was
insecurely moored at Verdun, the famous fortress where she was to
have been permanently stationed. Came up a heavy gale. Her anchors
began to drag. The bugles sounded and the soldiers by hundreds
rushed from the fort to aid. Hurled along by the wind she dragged
the soldiers after her. Fearing disaster to the men the commandant
reluctantly ordered them to let go. The ship leaped into the black
upper air and disappeared. All across France, across that very
country where in 1916 the trenches cut their ugly zigzags from the
Channel to the Vosges, she drifted unseen. By morning she was flying
over England and Wales. Ireland caught a glimpse of her and days
thereafter sailors coming into por