The Death of Mme. Blancharde

 

While not the first female hot air balloonist, Mme. Blanchard was the most well-known, and Louis XVIII named her the “Official Aeronaut of the Restoration”, after she performed for him. She was the first female to pilot her own hot air balloon, and the first to make ballooning her career.

Unfortunately, several years after her husband (also a balloonist) died in a ballooning accident, Blanchard was also killed. During a demonstration for a large crowd in Tivoli Gardens, she lit several fireworks, which ignited the gasses within her craft, causing her to fall to the ground and sustain fatal injuries.

Her legacy lived on, though, as the Tivoli Gardens announced that all admission proceeds would go to her children, and an additional 2400 francs were raised for them before the night was out. As she had no surviving children, the fund was used to erect an elaborate statue memorial at her grave site, and the remainder was donated to the church she attended.

Jules Verne and Dostoevsky both paid homage to Blanchard in their writings.