completely successful. Turks, Chinese, Persians, and Bedouins will always be welcome, as on this occasion, at Paris, appearing as they do only at rare intervals, and for a short time.
The fête took place on the 2nd of July. Robertson presented himself at the house of Esseid-Ali, to obtain his autograph. The Turkish ambassador willingly granted the request, and wrote his name in letters, each of which was two inches in height, on a sheet of paper. He then offered the aeronaut coffee and comfits, and promised to be present to witness the balloon ascent. His name was painted in large characters on a balloon fifteen feet in diameter, and on the form of which was the figure of a crescent. The experiment delighted the ambassador, and was well received by the public.
Jacques Garnerin, when he came to make his débût as an aeronaut, made an attempt with the parachute, the following August, at the garden of the Hotel de Biron. The ambassador was asked to honour the fête, but he declined, saying that he had "made up his mind that man was not intended for flying—Mahomet had not so willed it."
Of one of Robertson's more interesting ascents he himself has left us the following sketch:—
"I rose in the balloon at nine a.m., accompanied by my fellow-student and countryman, M. Lhoest. We had 140 lbs. of ballast. The barometer marked twenty-eight inches; the thermometer sixteen degrees Reaumur. In spite of some slight wind from the north-west, the balloon mounted so perpendicularly that in all the streets each of the spectators believed we were mounting straight up above his head. In order to quicken our ascent I discharged a parachute made of silk, and weighted in a way to prevent oscillations. The
