Dinsmore Ely - Dinsmore Ely

I still cannot believe the extent of my good fortune. While in Dr. Gros’s office I talked with a man who came over on the Chicago which arrived four days before the Rochambeau . He said Al Winslow and his friend had come over on that boat, and that they were staying at the Hôtel Cécilia. As I could not stay at 21 Rue Raynouard, I immediately went over and signed up for a room at fourteen francs a day – a room and meals, for two dollars and eighty cents. I did not see Al, but I found he was there. That evening the “Tech” Unit took dinner with Mr. Lansingh, who came over to establish Technology Headquarters in France. After dinner we went down to some Folies , and took in some speedy Paris life.

I stayed last night with the bunch and saw them off this morning. They congratulated me on my nerve, and said they wished they could do the same. There was much picture taking, and good-byes. I hated to part from the bunch, for they were a fine set of fellows, but there are good friends everywhere. After attending to several things, which they were forced to leave undone, I took my things to the hotel. The Cécilia is a clean little family hotel occupied by Americans. It is in a nice neighborhood, within half a block of the Etoile. The Arc de Triomphe of Napoleon is in the Etoile and forms the hub of a wheel from which radiate many beautiful boulevards and avenues. I will send a circular of the hotel. It seems that it will take a week or ten days to hear from my application. What could be better? Had I remained in the A. A. C. I should have left the city immediately. As it is, I am forced to remain ten days and get an introductory insight into the wonders of Paris – and it has its wonders. To further my luck, I find that the LaFayette Fund pays twelve francs (two dollars and forty cents) on our keep while we are waiting acceptance. That makes food and lodging cost me forty cents a day. As soon as we are accepted, we receive a commission of two hundred francs a month (forty dollars) and all expenses.

Maybe all things come around to those who wait, but that does not prove that those who seek shall not find.

I slept late and then took a walk in the Bois de Boulogne. It is beautiful – a park which resembles a forest in the density of its foliage – a wondrous, natural feeling retained in spite of the finish of it all. I made a sketch of the Arc de Triomphe, and a woman came along and charged me two cents to use a park bench.

In the evening I met a French gentleman who walked about six blocks helping me look for a store to buy a map of the city. Most obliging! His name was Crothers. He told me of an English club that I would probably enjoy, and said if I needed help to call on him at his office. I invited him around to my hotel without smiling. The movies were all right. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was playing.

This morning I did some shopping. A shirt, a pair of garters and another sketchbook. Then I walked all over town… I walked some twenty miles or more in a vain endeavor to understand the plan of Paris and to see Notre Dame. I found the cathedral about four-thirty, and went in. I cannot describe it, but it was surely wonderful. The exterior was a trifle disappointing, but the interior – mammoth piers, soaring arches, gorgeous stained-glass windows – all gloomy and magnificent – all solemn and religious. The hollow echo of footsteps, the distant passing of flickering candles and the low chant of monks – no wonder the Catholic faith is with us yet. With such monuments and such mystery, there will always be those to sign the cross and bend the knee in reverence.

It was my plan, to go to Versailles today, but Mr. Lansingh called up and asked me to send a package to one of the boys. By the time I had attended to that the morning was half gone, so I returned to the hotel for lunch. In the afternoon exercise was wanted, so I went out to the Bois de Boulogne and after walking round the pond, hired a boat. In coming up to the dock, I had noticed a young lady, very American looking, gazing at me with a twinkle in her eye. When I looked again she smiled, as one glad to see a friend. I said, “What’s the matter? Do you speak English? Come on for a ride.” She said, “Oh, the children will talk about it.” She was very refined and pretty and very English, and it seems she was a governess for these French children. She would not come until I had taken a turn around the pond. Then she did come and was very entertaining. She told me what she thought of French, English, and American men and women; how the different societies seemed to differ. It is the most sensible bit of conversation I have had since the voyage. I am going to take advantage of being away from home to meet all the various kinds of people. Such incidents are the punctuation marks of travel.

The morning was spent in writing my diary. At lunch a couple of the men asked if I were going to Versailles, so I joined them. We went direct to the Tower, where a guide was waiting, who had made arrangements to visit an aeroplane depot. We took a hurried view of the grounds, and then by taxi went to the Buc Farman Depot, where aeroplanes are made and turned over to the government. The guide introduced us to three aeronauts, who showed us about and ended up by asking if we wouldn’t fly across to another depot in some new machines. Did we refuse? Well, it was wonderful. Sitting in the long, dragon-fly body, there was a moment to think. Then the pilot gave the signal for the blocks to be taken away, and like some animal the machine snorted and quivered as if unable to realize it was released. Then there was a bound; a crashing roar of wind passed my helmet; a blurr of ground as we sped along the turf; and then suddenly all vibration stopped. The ground flew away beneath, and we mounted. I had thought to see things diminish gradually, but the earth fell away. We skimmed a grove of trees. I glanced up at the pilot to see how he controlled, and when I looked down again I noticed a team of white flies drawing a match head along a crayon mark. It was a team of horses on a country road. Then the sense of speed was lost and we seemed to be drifting along like a cloud. That rush of air had been caused only by the motor. Then I saw our shadow cross a large field in three seconds, and I decided we were still moving. A design in the map below proved to be the gardens of the palace.

The great lagoon looked like a veined setting of lapis lazuli. Still we were going up, but there was no fear, no doubt, nor distrust. It was all wonderful sport. How could anyone think of it but as a sport? I was so elated that I almost missed the city of Paris as it passed beneath.

Then we came into some light clouds. Up there the sky line, the horizon, was made of clouds that seemed to encircle us at the edge of a crater, with the multicolored molten lava beneath. Then the plane began to rock, as on a choppy sea, and we encountered what they call “bumps.” All of a sudden the engine seemed to stop. There was a queer sensation of having left something behind, and before I realized it, we were almost on the ground, having dropped two thousand feet in less than a minute. The landing was like passing from asphalt to cobblestone pavement in an automobile. We had been in the air twenty minutes, and had gone thirty-two miles. When I found that out, I felt like a wireless telegram. And then what did those cordial French aeronauts do but take us home in a taxicab and invite us to lunch with them at their homes next day. At supper we were the heroes, the envy of the table, and it was just luck that I was included in the party.

We landed at Versailles at 11 A.M. and were met by the aviators. My host’s name is Louis Gaubert. He is a splendid, unassuming man. He took me out to a little country home, a few miles from Buc, where his wife and little three year old girl met us a hundred yards from the gate. Both were pretty and affectionate and thoroughly French. Gaubert himself speaks poor, broken English, which he learned in the States some years ago. He is the oldest living French aviator, and his wife was probably the first French woman in an aeroplane. They had a garden and arbors and chickens and dogs and rabbits and birds and a player piano and a Ford and trellis roses – in fact, everything that a man could desire. To be taken into such a home is to me the greatest favor. They were so free and hospitable and so entertaining. On our way to the aviation field Gaubert took his wife and mother-in-law and baby to the station to go to Paris. They let me hold the little girl going into the station, and twice she reached up and kissed me on the cheek. It was surely a happy day. Again we went high over Paris on the cloud path, and again rode home in a taxi.