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Madam Sophie Blanchard - "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration"

PictureDeath of Madam Blanchard, Library of Congress


Sophie Blanchard, a French aeronaut and the wife of ballooning pioneer Jean Pierre Blanchard, was the first woman professional balloonist. After her husband Jean Pierre Blanchard died, she continued ballooning and made more than 60 ascents. She became known throughout Europe for her ballooning skill and Napoleon Bonaparte promoted her to the role of “Aeronaut of the Official Festivals.” King Louis XVIII named her “Official Aeronaut of the Restoration.”

Sophie Blanchard couldn’t claim the title of the first woman balloonist. On May 20, 1784,  the Marchioness and Countess of Montalembert, the Countess of Podenas and a Miss de Lagarde had taken a trip on a tethered balloon in Paris. Elizabeth Thible, an opera singer, had also made an ascent in Lyon on June 4, 1784.  Sophie also wasn’t the first women to ascend in an untethered balloon. Citoyenne Henri had ascended with Andre Jacques Garnerin in 1798. Sophie was the first women to pilot her own balloon and the first to make ballooning her career.

Sophie Marries a Balloonist and Discovers the “Incomparable sensation” of Ballooning

Marie Madeleine-Sophie Armant was born on March 25, 1778, at Trois Canons, near La Rochelle, France.  The date of her marriage to Jean Pierre Blanchard, the first professional balloonist in the world, is uncertain. Some sources say 1794 or 1797 and others state 1804, the year of her first balloon ascent. Although Jean Pierre Blanchard had abandoned his first wife Victoire Lebrun and their four children to travel Europe pursuing his ballooning career Sophie married him.

Sophie made her first balloon flight with Blanchard in Marseilles on December 27, 1804, and although earthly things like carriage rides terrified her, she was fearless in the air. She described the feeling as “an incomparable sensation.” Blanchard’s poor business sense had brought the couple to bankruptcy and they believed the novelty of a female balloonist would untangle their finances. Sophie continued to make balloon flights with her husband.

In 1809, Jean Pierre Blanchard died after he fell from his balloon in the Hague after he suffered a heart attack. Sophie continued to ascend, specializing in night flights and often staying up all night. Sophie and her husband had still been in debt when he died, so she economized in her choice of balloon. She used a hydrogen filled gas balloon which allowed her to ascend in a basket a little larger than a chair and freed her from having to tend a fire to keep the balloon in the air. Since she was small and light, she could cut back on the amount of gas she needed to inflate her balloon.

Madame Sophie Blanchard, Official Aeronaut of the Restoration

Napoleon championed Sophie and in 1804, he appointed her to replace Andre Jacques Garnerin who had disgraced himself by not controlling the balloon that he had sent up to mark Napoleon’s coronation in Paris. The balloon eventually drifted to Rome and crashed and Napoleon had to endure many jokes at his expense. Napoleon made Sophie the “Aeronaut of the Official Festivals,” making her responsible for organizing ballooning displays at festivals and other events. He probably appointed her his Chief Air Minister of Ballooning, and she is reported to have drawn up plans for an aerial invasion of England.

On May 4, 1814, when Louis XVIII entered Paris after being restored to the French throne, Sophie ascended from the Pont Neuf  in her balloon as part of the celebration.  The King enjoyed her performance so much that her appointed her “Official Aeronaut of the Restoration.”

Sophie’s fame spread throughout Europe and she attracted large crowds to watch her ascents. In Frankfurt, she drew larger crowds than the debut performance of  Carl Maria von Weber’s opera  Silvana on September 16, 1810. She crossed the Alps by balloon, and on a trip to Turin on April 26, 1812, she dropped so low that she suffered a nose bleed and icicles formed on her hands and face.

Sophie Ascends over the Tivoli Gardens

On July 6, 1819, Sophie made an ascent to start a fireworks display over the Tivoli Gardens in Paris. She had performed regularly at the Tivoli Gardens, making ascent twice weekly when she was in Paris. She had been warned repeatedly of the danger of using fireworks in her exhibitions, but this display was to be a particularly impressive one with more fireworks than usual. Some of the spectators implored her not to make the ascent, but others were eager to see the show and urged her to continue. One report said that she decided to go and stepped into her chair saying, “Allons, ce sera pour la derniere fois-“ let’s go, this will be for the last time.”

Accounts of the event give different times for her ascent but about 10:30 p.m. on July 6, 1819, Sophie began her ascent in her balloon lit by baskets containing Bengal fire, a slow burning colored firework. She carried a white flag and wore a white dress and a white hat topped with ostrich plumes. A strong wind blew and the balloon struggled to rise. Sophie shed ballast and managed to get some lift, but the balloon brushed through the trees as it climbed. Once she had cleared the treetops, Sophie began the display by waving her flag.

A few minutes after Sophie began her display and while the balloon still climbed, it burst into flames. Some reports says that the balloon temporarily disappeared behind a cloud and when it reappeared it was burning. However it happened, the gas in the balloon was burning. Sophie began to rapidly descend, but the wind caught the balloon and continued to move it off from the Tivoli Gardens as it went down. Some spectators thought these developments were part of the show and applauded and shouted their approval.

Sophie is Calm During Her Balloon’s Death Descent

The balloon had not climbed very high and while the escaping gas burned, the gas within the balloon maintained sufficient lift for a time to prevent the balloon from plunging directly to the ground. Sophie managed to slow her descent by shedding ballast and most reports said that she appeared to be calm during the descent. Others said that she wrung her hands in despair as her balloon approached the ground. Rumors later said that she had gripped the chair of her balloon so tightly that “several arteries had snapt through the effort.”

Directly above the rooftops of the Rue de Provence, the balloon ran out of gas and it struck the roof of a house. Perhaps Sophie would have survived if the balloon had stopped there, but the ropes holding the chair to the body of the balloon may have burnt through or the impact threw Sophie forward. Sophie was trapped in the netting of the balloon and she pitched over the side of the roof into the street below. Eyewitness John Poole described her final moments: “There was a terrible pause, then Mme Blanchard caught up in the netting of her balloon, fell with a crash upon the slanting roof of a house in the Rue de Provence, and then into the street, where she was taken up a shattered corpse.”

Crowds of people rushed to help Sophie and desperately tried to save her, but she had either died instantly from a broken neck or just a few moments after the accident. Investigators believed that the fireworks attached to her balloon had been knocked out of position by a tree as she ascended, possibly because the balloon was heavily loaded and didn’t rise quickly enough. When Sophie had lit the fuses the fireworks headed towards the balloon instead of away from it, and one of them had burned a hole in the fabric, igniting the gas. Reportedly one man spotted the problem and shouted to Sophie not to light the fuses, but the cheering of the crowd drowned out his warning. Later reports suggested that Sophie had left the gas valve open, allowing spark to ignite the gas and set fire to the balloon. Other reports suggested that her balloon was poorly constructed and allowed gas to escape throughout the ascent.

When the proprietors of the Tivoli Gardens heard that Sophie Blanchard had died, they announced that the admission fees would be donated for the support of her children. After about 2,400 francs were raised, they discovered that she had no surviving children, so instead they used the money to build a memorial for her. A replica of her balloon in flames was erected above her grave in Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Her tombstone was engraved with the epitaph, “victim de son art et de son intrepidite” –victim of her art and intrepidity.”

Although she wasn’t rich, at the time of her death Sophie had cleared her husband’s debuts and was financially secure. Altogether, she had made 67 balloon ascents.

References

Gillispie, Chares. The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation. Princeton Universtiy Press, 1983

Kalakuka, Christine. Hot Air Ballloons. Friedman/Fairfax Publishing, 1998

Spindlar, Alisa. Hot Air Balloons. New Line books, 2005

 


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All of the material on this website is copyrighted.  You are free to link to any of the articles and to download any of the PDF books to read and use as long as you credit me as the author.       kathywarnes@gmail.com
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  • Home
  • Women's Rooms
    • Womens Rooms-Anne
    • Womens Rooms-Abigail
    • The Dead Baby in a Blue Blanket: The
    • Rena Rides the Raindrops
  • Women at Work-Blog
  • E Books and Print Books for Sale
  • Women of Historical Complexion
  • Rachel and Elizabeth Knaggs
  • Elizabeth Stiles, President Lincoln's Spy
  • Loyalist Lucy Flucker Meets Patriot Henry Knox at a Boston Parade
  • Queen Maria Amelia, the Last Queen of Portugal, Stood Her Ground
  • The Lady and the Patriot: Theodosia Burr Alston's Fateful Voyage
  • Margaret Agnew Blennerhassett - More Character Than Riches
  • Florence Nightingale- Nurse, Feminist, Statistician, Author
  • Mary Todd Lincoln Considered April Her "Season of Sadness"
  • Mrs. Santa Claus - A Strong and Supportive Woman for All Seasons
  • Elizabeth Turner McCormick, Woman Voyager
  • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Fought for Human Rights
  • Mary Fields, Stage Coach Mail Driver, Sharp Shooter, Faithful Friend
  • Lucy Parsons, "More Dangerous Than A Thousand Rioters"
  • Lydia Maria Francis Child Travels 'Over the River and Through the Wood'
  • Anti-Suffragists Believed Women Didn't Need the Right to Vote
  • Finland's Alexandra Gripenberg Sought Universal Women's Rights
  • From Frances Slocum to Little Bear Woman and Back Again
  • Madame Elisabeth Thible is the First Woman to Ride in a Free Floating Balloon
  • Veronica Kerler Frank Pined for Germany, But Made Milwaukee Her Home
  • Mary Humphreys Stamps, Undefeated Rebel with An Educational Cause
  • Sister Monica Is One of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Early Pioneers
  • A Love Story for St. Valentine's Day - Marie Antoinette and Count Axel von Fersen
  • Three Wisconsin Women of the Waves
  • Margaret Fox Kane and her Victorian Love Story
  • Francoise Marie Jacquelin, Lioness of La Tour, Lioness of Acadia, Woman in Her Own Right
  • Mary Breckinridge, Circuit Riding Nurse and Founder of the Frontier Nursing Service
  • Women Bicyclists Break Their Glass Cages and Ride into Liberation
  • Maria Mitchell, America's First Woman Astronomer Demonstrated Female Scientific Aptitude
  • Queen Alexandra of Great Britain-Queen Victoria's Daughter-in-Law, Bertie's Patient Wife, and Her Own Person!
  • Chicagoan Kate Kellogg Meets a Ghost on a Train
  • Isobel Lillian Steele Went to a Party and Ended Up in a Nazi Jail
  • Madam Sophie Blanchard - "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration"
  • Women of Their Time and Place
    • Nadine Turchin Fights Alongside Her Husband in the Civil War
    • War Stories Along Lake Erie: Ordinary Women Experience the War of 1812
    • Katie Walker Tends Robbins Reef Light Near the Statue of Liberty
    • Maria Gulovich Joined the Czech Resistance
    • Pirate Fanny Campbell Freed Her Fiance and Fought the British
    • SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years
    • Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt and the First Mississippi River Steamboat
    • Sophie Kwiatkowski Served as a New Guinea Nurse in World War II
    • Clara Zetkin Spoke Against Hitler in the German Reichstag
    • Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Female Fuhrer, Breathed Her Nazi Beliefs
    • Nancy Leo , the Only Woman Buried in Luxembourg American Cemetery
    • Dickey Chapelle, Journalist and War Correspondent
    • Lucena Brockway Adapts to Life in the Keweenaw Copper Mining Country of Lake Superior
    • Does Mary Surrat's Ghost Haunt the Senate Chambers Seeking Justice?
    • The Ghostly Cyclist in Brooklyn's Prospect Park
  • Women of Contemporary 20th and 21st Century Complexion
    • Clara Ward Chimay, Gilded Age Princess
    • Ruth Becker's Faith Helps Her Survive the Titanic and Beyond
    • Mildred Beltmann , Wartime Wife
    • The Courage of their Cultural Convictions - Women Missionaries in China
    • Light and Radiance - Laurence Owen and Her Sabena Fellow Travelers
    • Edna St. Vincent Millay, Passionate Poet, Candle-Lit Feminist
    • Fascinating Footnote: The Goose Down Divorce
    • Olive Higgins Prouty Juggles to Balance Home and Career
    • Mother and Daughter Journalists Agnes Meyer and Katharine Graham Shaped Journalism
    • Rose Friedman and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
    • Katharine Meyer Graham Leaves Her Mark on the Washington Post
    • Ida M. Tarbell, "Bachelor Soul," Transitional Woman, or Both?
    • Nurse Edith Cavell, the Courage to Die for Her Country
    • Sigrid Schultz Outsmarted Hermann Goering
    • Martha Dickie Sharp Saves Jewish Refugees from the Nazi Death Machine
    • Virginia Graham Pioneered in Early Television and Survived Cancer
    • Rose Conway, President Harry Truman's Secret Weapon
    • Nancy Green, Talented Entrepreneur, Transitional Symbol
    • "Surrender on Demand:" The Friendship of Mary Jayne Gold and Miriam Ebel
    • Julia K. Tibbitts - Closet Environmentalist
    • Lee Lawrence Ansberry Reconquers the World and Reshapes Her Life
  • Christmas Cheer