The business sessions arranged by Berg had begun their first full day in Paris. Wilbur had been taken to meet an active patron of ballooning with a strong interest in aviation, Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe, whom Wilbur described for Orville as “the Standard Oil King of France.” There were sessions with Arnold Fordyce, Commandant Bonel, and officials of the French government. Berg was a “pretty slick hand,” Wilbur told Orville, and things were going well. Berg was “very practical,” and Wilbur liked the way he was always at hand to explain what was being said in French and said so often at an extremely high speed. Berg could be depended upon to do his utmost. Besides, he was “about as enthusiastic now as a man could be, and he really has a remarkable faculty for reaching people.”
The business talks often seemed endless, but thus far the prospects for an agreement looked encouraging. In general outline, the Wrights were to receive $350,000 for their Flyer, once a public demonstration was made in France, before any agreement was struck. The French insisted on seeing the plane and seeing it operate, which was clearly their right.
“The pot is beginning to boil pretty lively,” Wilbur reported. But then one French faction tangled with another, political intrigue intervened, progress slowed.
Not so many years before, Wilbur had decided he was unsuited for “commercial pursuits.” Now he found himself in the thick of extremely complex commercial dealings, playing for extremely high stakes with highly experienced entrepreneurs, politicians, and bureaucrats, and in a language he neither spoke nor understood. The whole game, the players, the setting, the language were all new to him. Yet he was more than holding his own, and in good spirits, aware as he was of the derision to be found behind the scenes. At the war ministry it was being said the Wrights were “bluffers like all Americans,” “worthless people” trying to sell to France “an object of no value” that even the Americans did not believe in.
Alert, patient, closely attentive, Wilbur “never rattled,” as his father would say, never lost his confidence. He could be firm without being dictatorial, disagree without causing offense. Nor was there ever a doubt that when he spoke he knew what he was talking about.
Most importantly, he remained entirely himself, never straying from his direct, unpretentious way, and with good effect. If anything, his lack of French, his lack of sophistication, seemed to work to his advantage. He was, indeed, as Hart Berg had anticipated, a capital Exhibit A and more.
That Wilbur neither drank or smoked or showed the least interest in women remained, of course, a puzzlement to the French.
The whole while he was keeping those at home, and Orville in particular, fully abreast of all that was happening, by mail and by cable, often in lengthy detail, describing the various configurations of how they were to profit financially depending on who put in what money. An experienced financial reporter could hardly have provided clearer coverage.
For occasional relief, Hart Berg would treat Wilbur to a pleasant chauffeur-driven drive with him and Mrs. Berg in their grand automobile through the Bois de Boulogne or out to Fontainebleau or Versailles.
One Monday morning, while Wilbur was lying in bed, a hotel clerk knocked at the door to say a dirigible, known as La Patrie, was flying over Paris. La Patrie, as Wilbur knew, was the first “airship” ordered by the French army. He dressed at once and went up to the roof garden.
La Patrie (The Homeland), was a giant, sausage-shaped gas bag with an open gondola for the crew hanging below. It passed over the Arc de Triomphe and almost directly over the Meurice at what Wilbur estimated to be 15 miles per hour. He judged it a “very successful trial.” But as he was shortly to write, the cost of such an airship was ten times that of a Flyer, and a Flyer moved at twice the speed. The flying machine was in its infancy while the airship had “reached its limit and must soon become a thing of the past.” Still, the spectacle of the airship over Paris was a grand way to begin a day.
Most mornings only meant more meetings.
The primary question at issue had become whether to sell to the French government or set up a commercial company with Henri Deutsch. The possibility of a contract with the government seemed all but certain, until the French army insisted the Flyer trial be conducted in winds too strong and demanded an exclusive agreement for three years, neither of which Wilbur would agree to.
Then, for the first time, it became clear that Flint & Company was expecting a commission of 20 percent not only on what they sold, as had been agreed on, but also on what the brothers retained. (“Don’t worry over Flint’s commission,” he told Orville. “We can hold them level.”)
Next thing, Wilbur was informed confidentially that if he, Orville, and their associates were to raise the price to the French government by $50,000, this sum could be “distributed among persons who had the power to put the deal through.” In other words, those in power would need to be bribed substantially. This Wilbur refused even to discuss.
The longer the talk dragged on, the more obvious it became that little would ever be decided until a demonstration was staged, and Wilbur kept urging Orville to speed up progress at home. “I presume you will have everything packed and ready before this letter arrives,” he wrote. “Be sure to bring everything needed in the way of spare parts. . . . Bring Charlie Taylor along, of course, when you come. . . . It will pay to have enough trustworthy assistance when we come to experiment.”
This was written on June 28. Wilbur had had no word from Orville for nearly a month.
In a letter from Katharine, dated June 30, he was to learn that things were not going at all well at home, that she and Orville felt left out of what was happening in Paris. “Orv can’t work any,” Orv was quite “uneasy,” Orv was “unsettled,” “really crazy to know what is going on,” “wroth” over how things were being handled in Paris without him. Clearly she was, too.
She and Orville had lost all patience with Flint & Company and questioned whether they could be trusted. She had had little or no experience with Jews, but having seen a photograph of Hart Berg, she wondered if he might be one. “I can’t stand Berg’s looks,” she wrote. “It has just dawned on me that the whole company is composed of Jews. Berg certainly looks it.”
A few days later, she let Wilbur know the situation at home had become even worse. She was nearing a crack-up, and it was largely his doing. “What on earth is happening to your letters?”