Chapter 19

CHAPTER XIX

A MONSTER MEETING

On the following day Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet
questions might be put to Michel Ardan, was desirous of reducing
the number of the audience to a few of the initiated, his own
colleagues for instance. He might as well have tried to
check the Falls of Niagara! he was compelled, therefore, to
give up the idea, and let his new friend run the chances of a
public conference. The place chosen for this monster meeting
was a vast plain situated in the rear of the town. In a few
hours, thanks to the help of the shipping in port, an immense
roofing of canvas was stretched over the parched prairie, and
protected it from the burning rays of the sun. There three
hundred thousand people braved for many hours the stifling heat
while awaiting the arrival of the Frenchman. Of this crowd of
spectators a first set could both see and hear; a second set saw
badly and heard nothing at all; and as for the third, it could
neither see nor hear anything at all. At three o'clock Michel
Ardan made his appearance, accompanied by the principal members
of the Gun Club. He was supported on his right by President
Barbicane, and on his left by J. T. Maston, more radiant than
the midday sun, and nearly as ruddy. Ardan mounted a platform,
from the top of which his view extended over a sea of black hats.

He exhibited not the slightest embarrassment; he was just as
gay, familiar, and pleasant as if he were at home. To the
hurrahs which greeted him he replied by a graceful bow; then,
waving his hands to request silence, he spoke in perfectly
correct English as follows:

"Gentlemen, despite the very hot weather I request your patience
for a short time while I offer some explanations regarding the
projects which seem to have so interested you. I am neither an
orator nor a man of science, and I had no idea of addressing you
in public; but my friend Barbicane has told me that you would
like to hear me, and I am quite at your service. Listen to me,
therefore, with your six hundred thousand ears, and please
excuse the faults of the speaker. Now pray do not forget that
you see before you a perfect ignoramus whose ignorance goes so
far that he cannot even understand the difficulties! It seemed
to him that it was a matter quite simple, natural, and easy
to take one's place in a projectile and start for the moon!
That journey must be undertaken sooner or later; and, as for the
mode of locomotion adopted, it follows simply the law of progress.
Man began by walking on all-fours; then, one fine day, on two
feet; then in a carriage; then in a stage-coach; and lastly
by railway. Well, the projectile is the vehicle of the future,
and the planets themselves are nothing else! Now