Saturday evening, Christmas Eve;
December, 24, 1836.

Jean & Charlotte-Philippe Valcour's residence;

Rue de l'Ouest, Paris.

The smoke-stained curtains were parted demurely for a second or two; Charles peering briefly through the water-streaked window
to see what the conditions outside were like that evening; Christmas Eve.
The cobble-stoned street outside had a grimy layer of slushy snow blanketing it.
The slowly thawing wet-snow was marred by a scattering of boot and shoe impressions, along with horse hoof indentations and parallel grooves slicing through it,
left by passing carriages and wagons.
In that part of Paris, not far from a renowned cemetery, street lights were very feeble, still using flickering, unreliable wax-candles inserted in glass-paned
compartments; the winter darkness made more dismal as a result.
Charles sighed & shrugged, returning to his padded wooden chair parked beside the warmly inviting fireplace where he once again plopped himself down, drawing a nearby oil-lamp closer; scooping up an American periodical, the Southern Literary Messenger, dated June, 1835, turning its pages to finish reading a short fiction story that caught his eye, written by an upstart American writer from Baltimore named Edgar Allan Poe.
Thanks to his wife's persistent
tutorial efforts, Charles could now
comfortably converse in and read Anglais.
The story written by that emerging American author was called "The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall.". In later years it would be recognized as one of the first
science-fiction works to be published by an American author. But, Charles could see little 'science' in that work of fiction. He winced
every so often; occasionally shaking his head; even bursting out in laughter as he read. Charles also used a pencil to underline passages for future reference.
Supper being over; the dishes, utensils and kitchenware having been washed and dried, his wife quietly slipped into the den where her husband was reading, bearing with her a violin, a bow, and some sheet-music which she spread out on a short-legged table near the fire place.
He interrupted his reading, lifting his eyes to acknowledge his wife's presence.
"Ahhh - - - You are about to entertain me with some appropriate music played this Christmas Eve, my dear?"
His tender query was met with a silent but warm smile, his wife making tonal adjustments to her instrument; taking her time tweaking the pegs.
"Don't mind me, dear." he softly implored, "My eyes maybe open to this literature, but my ears and heart are always open to your lovely melodies. Besides! I'm just a chapter away from finishing this periodical story. It's well written, though much of it is devoid of scientific facts. Imagine! The hero in this story journeys to the Moon by means of a - - - balloon, aided by a preposterous method of shrinking the vacuum between the Earth and the Moon."
He snickered, shaking his head derisively.
"I've already read it." Charlotte mumbled, appearing to be paying him scant attention as she continued to tune her violin, "Maybe you'll have opportunity soon to read one of Mademoiselle Austen's books; like, Pride and Prejudice, perhaps."
He tried to conceal a smirk. "Yes, I suppose it could happen, my darling. I see you now have a small but growing collection of books written by women. I have read Mary Shelley's, Frankenstein," he confessed. There was a hint of revulsion
in that admission; Charlotte ignored it.
Heartened & curious, she shot him a sanctioning look as she carefully laid aside the violin and bow for the time being, softly shuffling over to his chair where she affectionately draped her arms over his shoulders.
"So you find this American author's concept of vanquishing the vacuum between the Earth and the Moon to supposedly enable a journey by balloon to that celestial orb to be utter humbug? hmmm?"
He offhandedly grumbled his agreement and nodded. Looking over his shoulders she could see that he was scribbling some math equations on the magazine.
Showing great interest, she asked,
"What are you doing, dear? What are these calculations for?"
He paused and looked up, carefully formulating the answer.
"Let us - suppose that a balloon were to ascend through a - - - theoretically vanquished vacuum, or by some - magic means, up through the aether at an rate of speed of perhaps forty kilometers an hour. And then let us assume that it were to rise high and far enough to be - - - snared by the Moon's gravity and begin to descend to its surface at that same speed. It would take something like four - hundred - days to span the distance between our world and the Moon!" he scornfully and emphatically declared.
She gave him a little kiss on the cheek.
" I see - - - So how will humanity journey to the Moon in ages to come? Perhaps propelled there in a hollow projectile by a large cannon?
Could it be that the occupants inside may use a series of - - - electrically-detonated gunpowder charges to slow their shell's descent onto the Moon's surface?"
Charlotte's musings, posed as questions, aroused his interest.
She could sense that he was vigorously
pondering a response. Charles once again began to scribble a series of math, as well as physics equations over the remaining untouched margins of the periodical.
He sighed in disappointment upon completing and examining the work.
"The speed of cannonballs emerging from barrels has been measured at rates of over three-hundred meters per second of time.
But to reach the Moon? You would have to accelerate a projectile to theoretical speeds of over eleven kilometers per second to overcome the pull of Earth's gravity." he cynically groaned, adding, "And when you take into account the resistance of the elastic fluid, the emergent speed would need to be practically greater still."
Making some quick mental estimations, Charlotte shook her head ruefully,
"That would mean an unrealistically huge cannon whose barrel would surely rival the height of the highest cathedral spires, several times over - - - and would require gunpowder
in quantities that are extraordinary! Perhaps enough explosive powder to fill the holds of
a thousand ships or more."
Charles canted his head and tenderly
planted a kiss on one of her hands.
"That is very insightful and true. But
there is something else," he admitted, while continuing to jot down numbers and algebraic calculations, "If an imaginary
cannon barrel of perhaps a kilometer in length were to propel a projectile to an departure speed of eleven kilometers per second, the mean accelerating rate in the barrel would be? - - - Over sixty-thousand meters per-second of time squared by my calculations."
Her forehead furrowed in thought as she struggled to comprehend the enormous figure, and what it implied.
"The Earth's gravitational acceleration value
has been calculated to be just under ten meters per-second of time squared," she thought aloud, continuing, "and it has both a mathematical and an all too tangible relationship to the measured weight of our body substance - our physical mass."
Charlotte reached down and grabbed the pencil out of her husband's hand and scribbled some math of her own over the open magazine page.
"See!' she posited, "I'm of about fifty kilograms in corporeal quantity. If there were an imaginary place in the cosmos where the gravitational attraction and pull were somehow to be zero, my body would still have fifty kilograms of substance or corporeal quantity! - - - But with the pull of Earth's gravity, it can be considered fifty kilograms substance multiplied by the acceleration value of Earth's gravity. That would mean my weight could be considered as a value of nearly five-hundred kilogram gravity-weight units..."
It was as if a light had turned on in Charles' brain.
"...Which would mean that if you were to be shot out of that imaginary cannon your body would very briefly be subject to gravity-weight
numbers that would soar to - fatal and hideous values of over - - - three-million kilogram gravity-weight units, according to the suggested measure you give." he elucidated, shuddering in revulsion as he concluded, "If some fool were to gather and stack a pile of wood and brick comparable to the weight of this house, such an enormous quantity and weight crushingly bearing down and compressing some wretched soul's flesh would fall short of the gravity-weight measurement applied on each of the - - - victims inside that imaginary Moon-bound projectile."
Charles was eager to divert the subject away from such a hypothetically gory scenario. He became thoughtfully silent, taking in a deep breath and lightly patted one of his wife's hands.
"My sweet thing? I commend you on your remarkable reinterpretation and reapplication of the kilogram measure, which as we know
was meant to be a measure of weight alone.
But to use it specifically as a measure of corporeal substance - of mass of the substance, aside from its weight in Earth's gravity, or it's weight in the Moon's gravity is a wonderfully novel concept. I think I will use it from now on as such in my science writings, would you approve?"
He didn't notice the playful glint that came to her eye,
"Of course, my dear. As for the kilogram?
It can still be used as a weight-measure in markets," she flippantly remarked, "but in the halls of science it should become a measure of substance alone!"
He was silently agreeable.
"Are you now going to compare me to Countess Emilie du Chatelet?"
she jestingly whispered in his ear.
"No! She published her results. You have yet
to do so. We'll do it together. And I wonder if we can compare her clearly revolutionary discovery of physical quadratics to your admittedly novel and commendable method of reapplying the kilogram measure to substance instead of weight? You would best be compared to Monsieur Lavoisier's wife."
Charlotte started giggling. She was sure that he was only being half-serious.
It was her turn to jest in part.
"Flattery is a sin," she scolded, "and besides, where can one still purchase those powdered pompadour wigs?"
He shrugged.
Shaking off the silliness, becoming quietly contemplative, she resumed her speculation.
"So no cannon, nor balloon would suffice to send any members of humanity to the Moon anytime in the future. - - - what about rockets?"
Charles wasn't too impressed with the suggestion.
"The day I live to see a rocket ascend higher
than the summit of Mont Blanc
will be the day I strap wings to my body
and soar like the birds." he skeptically quipped.
Then he thought better of it, pausing to readdress the issue. "Of course that Englishman, Monsieur Congreve
I have heard had plans to build an iron-tubed
rocket that would have weighed a ton - - -
and I wonder if an enormous assembly of those types of rockets? - hundreds, more likely thousands of them, clustered, would
suffice?..."
He gave his head a quick vigorous shake,
doubting his own offhand conclusions.
"No! It's silly! I'm..."
His words were cut off in mid-sentence, he being distracted by Charlotte's sudden and obvious discomfort accompanied by a deep moan as she rushed off towards the commode where he heard her vomit.
Alarmed, he thrust himself up off the chair and hurried over, anxiously awaiting her reemergence from the facilities.
She emerged wiping her mouth with a clean cloth, demurely smiling and nodding reassuringly, "You need not worry, my dear, I have had these episodes over the past week. You have been so busy lately, working late hours, and waking late, that you
haven't witnessed my spewing at other times. - - - I am bearing your child."
She reverently declared, nervously beaming.
He became numb, unable to respond right away to the news. At last his pleasant sense of shock subsided and he erupted in joy; embracing and kissing her with gusto.
A few minutes later she gently nudged him aside, and wandered over to her neglected musical instrument, picking it up and raising it to her shoulder.
"We can carry on later. It's Christmas Eve. It's time for some appropriate music." his wife calmly remarked; then began to melodiously stroke the strings of her violin with the bow.
As a familiar and moving melody poured off the strings, her husband started to sing along: "Angels from the Realms of Glory - Wing
your flight o'er all the earth - Ye who sing Creation's Story - Now proclaim Messiah's Birth..."