One of the few occasions when the balloon was allowed a major role in official festivities arose when the famous aeronaut and parachutist A J Garnerin was commissioned to build an elaborately ornamented aerostat to be released on the occasion of Napoleon’s coronation in 1804. This original design, which has luckily survived and is reproduced here, was not carried out; but it shows to what heights an ingenious collaboration of artist and technician can rise. We see a combination of large and small hydrogen balloons, with a parachute below. Instead of a basket beneath the large envelope, there is a great Imperial eagle with outstretched wings. The green and silver parachute is of particular interest because it as Garnerin himself who make the first aerial parachute decent in history in 1797 and it was natural that such a device was incorporated by its hero. The magnificent balloon which finally ascended from in front of Notre Dame was simpler in design and did not have the floating miniature balloon above; nor was there a parachute. But the great eagle was sill suspende4d beneath the gasbag, which itself carried more restrained designs. No aeronauts went up in this balloon and the flight turned out to be a most embarrassing affair. Dogged by misfortune, the great machine drifted away and right across Europe and landed on Nero’s tomb in Rome before being finally blown into Lake Bracciano. This event, of course, provided a field day for ribald journalists and is said to have turned Napoleon against further use of balloons in warfare, a use he had pioneered in the French military observation balloons of 1794.