希瑟·洛克伍德，通讯经理
约翰·亚当斯 (JA) and 约翰·昆西·亚当斯 (JQA) were fascinated by the hottest flight invention of the 1780s: hot air balloons. 他们的魅力对手 现代巴黎人的享受 奥运会和残奥会的主火炬. Paris citizens are currently collecting signatures to keep the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron as a permanent display representing the French national motto, ”自由, 平等, 博爱.” Since this Olympic flame uses no fossil fuels, 只有水和光, 它可能会长期展出.
JA and JQA were in Paris in 1783 when Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne 热空气气球 developed their “aerostatique” hot air balloons. These flight experiments caught the fancy of Parisians and the Adamses. On 1783年8月27日JQA在他的日记中写道:
“after dinner I went to see the experiment, of the flying globe. 一位蒙戈尔菲先生最近发现了这一点, 如果一个球充满了可燃空气, 比普通空气轻得多, the ball of itself will go up to an immense height of itself. 这是它的第一次公开实验. 在巴黎. a Subscription was opened some time agone and filled at once for making a globe; it was of taffeta glued together with gum, and lined with parchment: filled with inflammable air: it was of a spherical form; and was 14 foot size in Diameter. 它被放在 战神冠军. at 5. 点2. 从军事学院发射的大炮, 是不是已经给了它出发的信号, 它立刻升起来了, 一段时间垂直, 然后倾斜. the weather, was unluckily very Cloudy, so that in less than 2. minutes it was out of sight: it went up very regularly and with a great swiftness. 等它消失在视线之外. 2. more cannon were fired from the Ecole Militaire to announce it. this discovery is a very important one, and if it succeeds it may become very useful to mankind.”
Although this wasn’t the first experiment of flight with the balloon, 发生在1783年6月4日, 这是它的第一次公开展览. 我写信给阿比盖尔·亚当斯 1783年9月7日, “The Moment I hear of it [AA’s arrival in Europe], I will fly with Post Horses to receive you at least, 如果是气球, Should be carried to such Perfection in the mean time as to give Mankind the safe navigation of the Air, I will fly in one of them at the Rate of thirty Knots an hour.”
这种魅力持续并传播开来! On 1784年11月10日， JQA给他的朋友彼得·杰伊·门罗写道:
罗伯茨先生做了第三次实验, 9月19日, and with more success than 任何 aerostatic 旅行lers have had before. They went up from the Thuileries, amidst a concourse of I suppose 10,000 persons. 中午, and at forty minutes past six in the Evening they descended at Beuory in Artois fifty leagues from Paris. 这是快速旅行, and I heartily wish they would bring balloons to such a perfection, 因为我可能会到N. York, Philadelphia, or Boston in five days time. M.M. Roberts have publish’d a whole Volume of Observations upon their Voyage, 或者叫"旅程"或者别的什么名字, but I judge from the abstracts I have seen of it that they have taken a few 旅行ler’s Licenses, and have given some little play to their Imaginations. . . . They have established somewhere in Paris, a machine which they call 一游aërostatique where for a small price, 任何 curious person may mount as high as he pleases, and so “俯视这个悬垂的世界.’ ”
On 1785年1月21日, JQA dined at 托马斯·杰斐逊’s house in Paris and he wrote in his 日记 the story of the flight Dr. 约翰·杰弗里斯那个月早些时候拍的照片:“Mr. Blanchard cross’d from Dover to Calais in an air balloon, the 7th. 本月的. 由杰弗瑞医生陪同. they were obliged to throw over their cloathes to lighten their balloon. Mr: Blanchard met with a very flattering reception at Calais, and 在巴黎…. All that has as yet been done relative to this discovery, is the work of the French. 热空气气球. 罗齐尔石柱， & Blanchard, will go down, hand in hand to Posterity.”
The French enthusiasm for ballooning waned after a major accident in June 1785 when aeronauts Pilâtre de Rozier and Dr. Pierre Ange Romain crashed their balloon on the French shore while attempting to cross the English Channel. 他们aero-热空气气球, 充气双气球, exploded over a thousand feet in the air and the two fell to their gruesome deaths. 在 1785年6月23日阿比盖尔·亚当斯nd wrote to her cousin Lucy Cranch, “You talk of comeing to see us in a Balloon. Why my Dear as Americans sometimes are capable of as imprudent and unadvised things as 任何 other People perhaps, I think it but Prudent to advise you against it. There has lately a most terible accident taken place by a Balloons taking fire in the Air in which were two Men. Both of them were killed by their fall, and there limbs exceedingly Broken. 事实上，这一记录是可怕的. 我承认我对他们没有任何偏爱 任何 道路.”
就像埃菲尔铁塔, created to be a temporary exhibition piece for the 1889 World Expo in Paris, I do hope the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron becomes a permanent display.