Citoyenne Henri - The Balloon Flight

The Balloon Flight

On 8 July 1798 a large number of spectators gathered in the Parc Monceau to witness the ascent. By all accounts Citoyenne Henri was young and beautiful, and she and Garnerin took several turns around the park to the applause of the crowd before she was assisted into the basket of the balloon by the astronomer, Jérôme Lalande. The balloon trip passed without incident and the journey ended at Goussainville about 30 kilometres (19 mi) to the north of Paris.

There is no record of the relationship between Garnerin and Citoyenne Henri, where he recruited her for the trip or what her motives were in accepting. Garnerin gave her a present after the trip.

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