'The Vauxhall balloon of Mr. Green' Engine room worker Napoleon leans against the wall

Napoleon leans against the wall

You done yer werry best to win

Tower Dock

This cartoon relates to the rumours in France that Pope Pius IX had threatened to excommunicate Louis Napoleon

'The Vauxhall balloon of Mr. Green' Engine room worker Napoleon leans against the wallView of the Royal Vauxhall, later renamed Royal Nassau flown by the pioneering balloonist Charles Green (1785 1870). The balloon was inflated using coal gas and launched from sites that included Vauxhall Gardens in London. Plate from Animal locomotion or walking, swimming and, and flying, with a dissertation on aeronautics, by James Bell Pettigrew (Henry S. King & Co., London, 1873). James Bell Pettigrew (1832 1908) comparative anatomist, was elected