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Nearly 500,000 men, women and children lined the streets to see the ambassador-conqueror on his way to the city's official reception, on the day when Marshal Ferdinand Foch said to him: "Come right next to me and stand very straight, so that the whole world can see-that you are bigger than I am." Captain Lindbergh blushed, crouched.
He climbed into a French fighting plane, a 300-horsepower Nieuport; did loop-the-loops, head-spins, side-drifts, grapevines, fluttering-leaves over Paris, on the day he told French senators: "That [Atlantic] flight of mine has not done anything to advance the cause of civilization. Yet I am not unaware that it marks a date. . . ."
He arose at 6:30 a. m., worked on his own plane Spirit of St. Louis, at Le Bourget airport. Then he left the soil of France, circled the Eiffel Tower twice, flew low over the Arc de Triomphe, dropped a farewell message on the Place de la Concorde. It read: "Goodbye, dear Paris. Ten thousand thanks for your kindness to me."
At Brussels. Having arrived promptly and greeted Albert, King of the Belgians, with: "I have heard much of the famous soldier-king of the Belgians" Captain Lindbergh was decorated by his Majesty with the order of Chevalier of the Royal Order of Leopold. Next day, he flew to London.
At London. More than 100,000 people were waiting for Captain Lindbergh at the Croydon Aerodrome. They broke down police barriers, swarmed on the landing-field as soon as his plane was sighted. He swooped down looking for barren ground, saw none, returned skyward. On the second attempt, his plane touched ground, but was forced to rise again because hero-worshipers insisted on dogging his path. His third attempt was rewarded with a clear field. Before he could climb out of his plane, the sea of the mob surrounded him-bowling over women, leaving the official reception committee stranded in the distance. Finally, the police succeeded in roping off the Spirit of St. Louis, and Captain Lindbergh was carried by automobile to U. S. Ambassador Alanson B. Houghton and Sir Samuel Hoare, British Secretary for Air.
Poetry. The vision of a lone pilot in a grey bird (plane) over the yawning Atlantic caused many people to develop poetic ecstasy. The fruits of more than 200 inspirations reached the New York Times; the New York World reported 2% bushels of verse. But at Le Bourget, shortly after Captain Lindbergh landed a fortnight ago, there was a poet who squatted on the flying field to gain first-hand inspiration-like Francis Scott Key writing the Star Spangled Banner. The squatter was sleek Maurice Rostand, son of the late Edmond Rostand.* The results were disappointing, particularly when translated into English. An excerpt:
And it was a heart lost in the wind
Which braved aloft the salty breeze,
And you lost not a single instant, Son of Evangeline.
And you flew a day and a half
Above the sea, above the earth;
A day and half you did not sleep,
Not even a second.
Frenchmen wished that the father, instead of the son, could have been on the field at Le Bourget.