To François Peyrey, who had seen more of Wilbur than had others and knew more, he was “un timide”—shy, a simple man, but also a “man of genius” who could work alongside the men of the Bollée factory, just as he could work entirely alone, who could cook his own meals and do whatever else was necessary under most any conditions and quiet by nature. He went his way always in his own way, never showing off, never ever playing to the crowd. “The impatience of a hundred thousand persons would not accelerate the rhythm of his stride.”
Further, Peyrey, unlike others, had discovered how exceptionally cultured Wilbur was, how, “in rare moments of relaxation,” he talked with authority of literature, art, history, music, science, architecture, or painting. To Peyrey, the devotion of this preacher’s son to his calling was very like that of a gifted man dedicating his life to a religious mission.
At the close of one long day at Le Mans, Peyrey had caught Wilbur gazing off into the distance as if in a daydream. It reminded him, Peyrey wrote, “of those monks in Asia Minor lost in monasteries perched on inaccessible mountain peaks. . . . What was he thinking of this evening while the sun was dying in the apricot sky?”
On Thursday, August 13, Wilbur flew again, this time circling the field several times. It was his longest flight yet at Le Mans and before the biggest crowd, which cheered every round he made. So loud was the cheering that he flew to nearly 100 feet in the air, in part to lessen the distracting effect of the noise.
He was trying to master the use of the control levers and after one turn he found himself flying too low. To compensate he made a “blunder,” as he would later explain to Orville. He pushed the left lever forward instead of back and the left wing hit the ground. It was, he acknowledged, “a pretty bad smash-up.” He himself, however, had been uninjured.
The admiration of the crowd diminished not at all. Those who knew the most about the art of flying were more impressed than ever. One French aircraft designer told a reporter for the New York Herald, “Mr. Wright is as superb in his accidents as he is in his flights.”
Wilbur could scarcely believe the change that had come over nearly everyone—the press, the public, the French aviators and aircraft builders. “All question as to who originated the flying machine has disappeared,” he wrote Katharine. The popular “furor” could be irksome at times, to be sure. “I cannot even take a bath without having a hundred or two people peeking at me. Fortunately everyone seems to be filled with a spirit of friendliness.”
A new song, “Il Vole” (“He Flies”), had become a popular hit. Also, much to Wilbur’s liking, a stray dog had been added to his camp life by Hart Berg and christened “Flyer.”
Much of the feeling back in Dayton was expressed in a wholehearted home-town tribute published in the Dayton Herald. All were extremely proud of the brothers, declared the paper, and not because that was the fashion of the moment, but because of “their grit, because of their persistence, because of their loyalty to conviction, because of their indefatigable industry, because of their hopefulness and above all, because of their sterling American quality of compelling success.”
A letter from Katharine assured Wilbur that the whole family was thrilled by the news from Le Mans, but that thrilled and proud as they were, their minds were greatly on edge over young Milton, Lorin’s fifteen-year-old son, who had been stricken by typhoid fever and was in a struggle for his life. “How many, many times have we wished for Jullum, since Milton has been sick,” she wrote. “Of course we were ‘de-lighted’ over your flight . . . but we can’t half enjoy anything now. . . . If we weren’t so poor—we’d cable congratulations!”
A week later she could happily report that Milton was out of danger and the Dayton papers were still going wild over the news from Le Mans. They were even proposing a big “welcome home.”
With the demonstrations at a standstill momentarily until repairs were made, Wilbur had more time to appreciate those around him and enjoy the attention they were giving him. A local manufacturer of canned goods was providing “all kinds of the finest sardines, anchovies, asparagus, etc., etc., you ever saw,” he reported to his father.
The people of Le Mans are exceedingly friendly and proud of the fame it [the experiments] is giving their town. I am in receipt of bouquets, baskets of fruit, etc., almost without number. The men down at Bollée’s shop have taken up a collection to buy me a testimonial of their appreciation. They say that I, too, am a workman.
When the French army offered Wilbur a larger field for his demonstrations, he accepted and so the Flyer, its damages fully repaired, was moved seven miles east to Camp d’Auvours. “The new grounds are much larger and much safer than the old,” he reported home. “I can go four miles in a straight line without crossing anything worse than bushes.” He resumed flying at d’Auvours on August 21 and the crowds arriving by special trains grew larger by the day, the “excitement almost beyond comprehension.”
Though Camp d’Auvours was “lost in the middle of the woods,” as said and less convenient to town than the racecourse of Hunaudières, the crowds came in numbers greater than ever. “They flock from miles,” their “curiosity too strong,” reported Le Figaro, only to find that Wilbur, for some reason or other, was not flying that day. “Never mind,” was the response. “We’ll come back.” It was almost as though the less he flew the greater the curiosity of the crowd.
The public is of an untiring and admirable patience. It waits for hours on end to see nothing . . . but the famous launching pylon. . . . When it is late and they know that Wright won’t fly . . . these good people gather at the foot of the pylon, measure it with their eyes, touch it, because they know what they will have to do tomorrow: come back.
Brother Orville was much on Wilbur’s mind, for by then Orville had gone to Washington to begin preparing for the flights he was to make at Fort Myer, Virginia. Earlier, in midsummer, as Wilbur had been about to proceed with his demonstrations for the French, he had received a letter from his father urging him to “avoid all unnecessary personal risk.” Now Wilbur sent off much the same kind of warning to Orville, as older brother but also as one who had now experienced a number of turns onstage before enormous crowds and an ever-eager, ever-demanding press.
I tell them plainly that I intend for the present to experiment only under the most favorable conditions. . . . I advise you most earnestly to stick to calms, till after you are sure of yourself. Don’t go out even for all the officers of the government unless you would go equally if they were absent. Do not let yourself be forced into doing anything before you are ready. Be very cautious and proceed slowly in attempting flights in the middle of the day when wind gusts are frequent. . . . Do not let people talk to you all day and all night. It will wear you out, before you are ready for real business. Courtesy has limits. If necessary appoint some hour in the daytime and refuse absolutely to receive visitors even for a minute at other times. Do not receive anyone after 8 o’clock at night.