French Aeronaut War Cyclist — The Brandon Mail, Oct 18th 1894
French Aeronaut War Cyclist — The Brandon Mail, Oct 18th 1894
The Balloon Cycle
There floated over the hamlet of Ville neuvye-la-Garenne, the other afternoon, in mid-air, a balloon. Suddenly it appeared to burst and fell rapidly toward the earth. Fearing that a disaster had occurred the terrified folk ran to the spot at which they expected the aerostat would reach the ground, when to their amazement they saw a parachute detach itself from the car and descend gently. Immediately the earth was touched one of the passengers jumped upon a small bicycle which he had brought with him from the aerial regions, and he disappeared in the direction of Levallois, in the neighborhood of Paris, as rapidly as the machine could carry him. The explanation of this singular occurrence is simple. The balloon was the Caliban, and the ascent was made from Levallios by Captain Capazza and M. Hervien, the latter being the cyclist. Their object was to test the possibility of a balloon being used for carrying war dispatches, and they assumed that an enemy succeeded in destroying it. Yet they proved that by means of the parachute they would be able to make good their escape and to outdistance their pursuers with the aid of a portable bicycle.—London Telegraph
https://archive.org/details/BRM_1894101801/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater&q=Balloon
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This story sounds like fiction... A parachute of that time carrying at least one passenger (what is the talk about a vehicle, "car"?) and a bike? I really doubt that this was more than a concept and an idea.
The parachute was covering the top of the balloon. It remained in position once the balloon deflated, and allowed to fall gently. There were several demonstrations, I think; people were crazy about ballons back then and experimented a lot of things.
Here is one one of the accounts in French, published in Le Républicain's edition from Aug 12, 1894 :
"Car" (as in "carriage") refers here to the basket. It's the same fundamental meaning as in "motor car" - a thing that carries people. You can see this use plenty in older books.