Montgolfier’s Balloon

21November

1783: humankind ascending:

Louis Sixteenth watches enthralled as

Jean-Francois de Rozier stokes the flames

and Francois Larent releases the tethers, gasping

as the Montgolfier brothers’ majestic balloon surges

upward 1000 meters, its heated air more buoyant

than the surrounding air that kept it earthbound. Jean-

Michel, the older brother, studied the phenomenon two

years earlier when he placed a linen sheet above an open

flame. “Etienne!” he cried, “Come behold the future of

the world!” At launch, sensing the pull of destiny, de

Rozier places a lamb, a rooster, and a duck inside the

the basket: an Aesopian apotheosis to usher in a

bold new age. And for one breathless moment,

he himself is tempted to leap inside, thereby

becoming the first human to climb, in

fiery, momentous triumph,

the

Great

Chain

of Being and enter

Heaven with neither

escort nor invitation.