Paris balloon post
News News blog
Paris balloon post refers to the postal connection by balloons and carrier pigeons between Paris and unoccupied France during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71.
During the siege of Paris between 23 September 1870 and 22 January 1871, 67 unguided balloons took to the skies, carrying around 2.5 million letters and postcards, 363 carrier pigeons, 238 passengers and even six dogs.
Most of the balloons landed in safe foreign countries or in unoccupied France. The collection centre for the letters was in Tours. The balloon letters were first sent there and then forwarded to their recipients.
"Pigeongrams"
The carrier pigeons carried by the balloons were intended to deliver letters to Paris. The messages were written on extremely light tissue paper and tied around the pigeon - for the first time on 9 October 1870. However, a carrier pigeon could only carry very few messages in this way.
René Dagron came up with the idea of microphotographically transferring the messages as letterpress printed on gallon skins, so that one carrier pigeon could carry up to 40,000 letters with a maximum of 20 words each. By the time Paris capitulated on January 28, 1871, two million messages had been transmitted in this way as "pigeongrams".
In Paris, these pigeongrams were then displayed greatly enlarged on a screen using a magic lantern. Postal workers copied these messages and delivered them to the recipients.
