It was important their action should not be seen.
The "Albatross," like a huge coleopter, glided gently over the mighty city.

She took the line of the boulevards, then brilliantly lighted by the Edison lamps.

Up to her there floated the rumble of the vehicles as they drove along the streets, and the roll of the trains on the numerous railways that converge into Paris.

Then she glided over the highest monuments as if she was going to knock the ball off the Pantheon or the cross off the Invalides.

She hovered over the two minarets of the Trocadero and the metal tower of the Champ de Mars, where the enormous reflector was inundating the whole capital with its electric rays.
This aerial promenade, this nocturnal loitering, lasted for about an hour.