Read Online Before Amelia by Eileen F. Lebow - Free Book Online

woman; the next year, nine women, including Marie, finished a course of three kilometers. Two years later many ski competitions were open to women, due in part to Marie’s efforts. Hailed in the French press as “queen of sports,” her exploits kept her in the public eye and helped promote women’s sports.
    As early as 1901, Marie had turned her gaze skyward. Ballooning was a popular sport among the well to do, and where men had gone, women followed. In Nancy, Marie took up this new sport enthusiastically, traveling first with experienced ballooners to learn the ropes of spher ical ballooning before she applied for a license. That same year she received license No. 145 to pilot a free balloon, and from then on appeared at balloon gatherings regularly.
    Her most remarkable exploit was a balloon trip from Nancy across the North Sea to England. Early on the morning of October 26, 1909, the balloon
L’Ètoile Filante (“Shooting Star”)
was slowly filled with hydrogen while the necessary equipment to be carried was checked: statoscope, telescope, barometer, lantern, cushions, lunch, heavy cloaks, dragline, and ballast—bags of sand.
    Traveling with her was Colonel Emile Garnier as passenger and assistant. When all was ready, the let go was given at 11:07 A.M. and the balloon rose rapidly in the morning air until it settled at about a thousand meters in a current heading north. Garnier held the map and called off the landmarks as the round bag sailed gracefully along, passing over the Krupp factories in Essen, where the wind shifted and carried the balloon northwest over Holland toward Amsterdam. “We were in the clouds most of the time, but we thought after we reached Amsterdam that the most dangerous part of the trip was over,” recounted Marie as the North Sea loomed in the distance.
    At 8:15 P.M. , the
Shooting Star
floated over the sea, as the balloon began to lose altitude. By 9 P.M. , the basket and instruments were beginning to ice up, then a snow squall covered the balloon with ice and snow, sending it rapidly downward, where high waves drenched the basket and its contents. Tossing a sack of sand overboard had no effect. More sand went over before the balloon rose to a safer altitude. Through the clouds Marie and Garnier could see the billowing waves that had lashed the basket, glad to be above them, then far ahead a light. At 1:30 A.M. , Marie gave a cry of joy—England was just ahead. The cliffs loomed up, but an updraft carried the two travelers over the top.
    Once over land, with the Southwold lighthouse to the right, Marie tried to valve the balloon to release air and bring it down. At first the rope, drenched by the elements, wouldn’t budge. Finally, a great tug freed the valve, and the balloon dropped downward and settled in a tree with a sharp jar, tumbling Marie from the basket. She went for help, while her passenger stayed trapped with the bag. By four o’clock, all was in order. The local police had the balloon anchored and attended, and the two travelers were put up in a local hotel with dry clothes.
    From there they went to London, where they were given a grand welcome by international journalists, who praised their accomplishments, particularly since it took place in the midst of a violent storm. Marie chalked up another first: first woman to pilot a balloon across the North Sea. The travelers had made the two hundred–kilometer trip in five hours, while the regular pack boats from Holland to England took eleven hours. Overall, the
Shooting Star
had traveled nearly a thousand kilometers in fourteen hours. There was great satisfaction in the accomplishment, which, in later years, Marie considered the most dramatic adventure of her life in the air.
    She made two more prominent trips in a spherical balloon in 1910: the Grand Prix of the Aero Club of Paris, organized by the Stella Society, and a race organized by the Aero Club of the East at Nancy. In the