Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [94]
LUCIA’S CRÈME AU CHOCOLAT
Half a stick of chocolate
Four egg yolks
Four tbsps of sugar
Half a cup of flour
1/6 pint of cream
Chop the chocolate stick into small pieces and mix with two or three tablespoons of cream in a casserole on a low fire until the chocolate has melted. Let it cool for a while so that when you add the egg yolks they won’t curdle. Add the egg yolks, the sugar and the flour. Mix and slowly add the rest of the cream. Put the casserole back on the fire, and when it reaches boiling point and has started to thicken, pass the chocolate cream through a strainer and then pour into the cups and let it cool. Makes six cups.18
Despite Lucia’s efforts to improve life at Margarethen, it was usually a relief to get back to the city, away from the headaches of running the farm. In Maria, she found the close, intimate friend she had always longed for in Vienna. The two became inseparable, running around town like two young girls, and often dragging Alvisetto off with them, to his utter delight. Lucia realised that she had been so wrapped up in Vienna’s social life before that she hardly knew the city at all. They went to see the fabulous jewels in the Habsburg Treasury, they visited the celebrated cabinet de minéralogie, which reminded her of her summer in Valdagno twelve years earlier, and where she saw “certain rocks fallen from meteorological clouds—rocks that most experts here believe come from the moon.”19 They spent delightful afternoons studying the Renaissance masterpieces in Prince Liechtenstein’s collection, and made repeated visits to the first kangaroo on display in Vienna, drawn by “that bizarre pouch he has in front of his tummy.”20
Lucia had seen balloons rise in the air, but never one carrying passengers. So she was excited about the arrival in town of Etienne-Gaspard Robertson, the most famous aeronaut of his time. Robertson was an eccentric and tireless Belgian self-promoter, who had first gained notoriety in 1796, during the Directoire, when he had presented the French government with a plan to send the British fleet up in flames with a giant miroir d’Archimède—an assemblage of mirrors that beamed solar rays on to a distant object. Eight years later his fame across Europe was mostly based on his flamboyant balloon flights—he had recently established an altitude record in Hamburg. In Vienna, he planned to mesmerise the crowd with his first parachute launch.
It was a beautiful spring day when Lucia and Alvisetto joined hundreds of Viennese at the Prater to see Robertson float down. At the last minute, however, Robertson decided to send up his young assistant, Michaud, while he watched from the ground. Michaud ascended to an altitude of about 900 feet. The long silence was broken by a cannon shot—the signal to Michaud that he had to cut himself loose from the balloon. The young apprentice slashed the ropes, the balloon soared away and for instant Lucia had the impression that the box carrying Michaud was about to crash to the ground. Suddenly, two parachutes unfolded—one was attached to Michaud and the other one to the box—and came down gently (Lucia had read they were made of silk from Lyon) to a spot that was just a short distance from where the balloon had risen. The crowd applauded as Michaud scrambled out of the box. Lucia and Alvisetto walked back home elated and entirely wrapped up in fantasies about airships and air-exploration.
Robertson went on to propose to the Austrian government a scheme for making a tour of the world with the Minerva, the fantastic airship he had designed. The balloon, with a diameter of 150 feet, was to be the largest ever made. The ship, decorated with two giant ornamental wings, would accommodate up to sixty scientists and carry a weight of 150,000 pounds. Robertson planned a fully furnished observatory, a recreation room for walking