Reposted by Tim
It’s 156 years since French lawyer/politician Léon Gambetta decided, during the Franco-Prussian war that Paris under siege wasn’t the safest place to be, so skipped town in a coal-gas-fired balloon
theparisreview.org
All Aboard L’Armand-Barbès by Dan Piepenbring
October 7, 2014 – Say you’ve got to skip town in a hurry. Maybe you owe somebody a lot of money; maybe the mayor’s daughter is in love with you and you’re below her