From that day I was quite content to view the ascent of one and another
balloon, without feeling any desire to get out of Paris by its aerial
transport service. I must have witnessed the departure of practically all
the balloons which left Paris until I myself quitted the city in November.
The arrangements made with Nadar were perfected, and something very
similar was contrived with the Godard brothers, the upshot being that we
were always forewarned whenever it was proposed to send off a balloon.
Sometimes we received by messenger, in the evening, an intimation that a
balloon would start at daybreak on the morrow. Sometimes we were roused in
the small hours of the morning, when everything intended for despatch had
to be hastily got together and carried at once to the starting-place,
such, for instance, as the Northern or the Orleans railway terminus, both
being at a considerable distance from our flat in the Rue de Miromesnil.
Those were by no means agreeable walks, especially when the cold weather
had set in, as it did early that autumn; and every now and again at the
end of the journey one found that it had been made in vain, for, the wind
having shifted at the last moment, the departure of the balloon had been
postponed.
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