The Olympic Hot Air Balloon Cauldron and Its Ties to French History

The flight of a dramatic hot air balloon cauldron at the Paris 2024 Olympics capped off an ambitious Opening Ceremony along the Seine River and marked the first time that the cauldron was ever sent aloft in the history of the Olympic Games. The golden balloon and cauldron, designed by Matthieu Lehanneur, sits in the Tuileries Gardens surrounded by a nearly 23-foot diameter ring of fire. It is sent a hundred feet up in the air every day at sunset. The Olympic cauldron is a tribute to the French inventors Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier who invented the Montgolfier-style hot air balloon in the late 18th century but, something most Olympic watchers may not know is that the Tuileries Gardens have a long history connected to hot air balloons.

In 1783, the Mongolfier balloon took off from the Tuileries in front of 400,000 rapt spectators. In the 1790s, the first-ever aerostiers brigade, the French Air Force’s hot air balloon corps, did its earliest hydrogen experiments in the Tuileries next to the Louvre. Large crowds gathered to watch the balloons magically float into the air. Reconnaissance balloons then helped the French win the Battle of Fleurus in 1794.

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, balloons launched from the Tuileries inside a besieged Paris literally turned the tide of the conflict. More than sixty balloons took flight named after heroic figures alive and dead like the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington, George Sand, and Victor Hugo. Hugo wrote a dramatic letter to be delivered in his namesake balloon urging the Prussians to sign an armistice. “I believe its effect will be incalculable!” Hugo proclaimed. He was right. It was a military and psychological coup against the enemy. Carrier pigeons sent back heartening reconnaissance reports, while Bismark became so irritated by the endless balloon landings he admitted, “Decidedly, those devilish Parisians are ingenious!” The aerostiers also made an appearance in Les Miserables as one of the many heroic forces guarding Napoleon and in 1878 the a hot air balloon took off from the same exact location as today’s Olympic balloon and cauldron at the 1878 World’s Fair.

In World War I and II, hot air balloons returned to the Tuileries, rising night and day over the city. Some of the balloons were unmanned, used for both reconnaissance and defense, with thin steel cables ready to entangle enemy airplanes. Soldiers in berets and blue uniforms marched back and forth at the Tuileries, holding the inflated balloons aloft. In World War II, the actor Paul Amiot, who had just starred in the big box office war spy thriller, Trois de St. Cyr, was assigned to the aerostiers, further increasing their renown.

Hot air ballooning was also an Olympic sport at the 1900 Paris Olympics, with two world records set by French balloonist Henry de la Vaulx who flew all the way to Kyiv, Ukraine, traversing almost 769 miles over the course of 36 hours.

There was no hot air balloon competition at this year’s Olympics, but the cauldron was a first on many points. The fuel-free flame is powered without fossil fuels using light and water and had never been tested in its entirety until the moment it went aloft, although certain elements had been tried out. As Lehanneur describes it, “Light, magical and unifying, it will be a beacon in the night and a sun within reach during the day. The fire that burns in it will be made of light and water.”

Michelle Young covers part of the history of hot air ballooning in Paris in her forthcoming book from HarperOne, The Art Spy, about World War II resistance hero Rose Valland.

Next, check out A Guide to NYC’s Little Paris