Upon coming into touch with Governments, they found the French most interested. The French War Department, in fact, sent an agent to America to see the brothers; and this agent, on his return to France, reported favourably upon the invention. But experimenters were now nearing success in France, and the Wrights would consider nothing but a large cash payment; so negotiations fell through. During the next two years, practically nothing was heard of the Wrights. They were, as a matter of fact, still perfecting their machine, still negotiating for its sale; but they declined to come into the open and show what their craft would do. There was method, of course, in this attitude; they aimed for one definite goal--that being a large sum as a reward for their labours. But there is no doubt that precious time was lost. Had the Wrights been able to place confidence in some agent or manager, he would have acted for them and advised them; their position would have been strengthened and vital years would not have slipped away. They were ready, as we have seen, to fly long distances in 1905; and yet it was not until 1908 that, persuaded at last to emerge from their seclusion, they demonstrated effectually what their machine could do. But others had been busy during those wasted years; and, when the Wrights did appear, their triumph was not so sweeping as it might have been. Other men, in fact, could fly; and though neither they, nor their machines, represented the skill and progress of the Wrights, still they had flown; and this, at anyrate in the public mind, depreciated the performance of the two Americans. Had the Wrights come forward when no one else could fly, they would have been hailed as unchallenged conquerors of the air; but as it was, they were recognised only as being a certain distance ahead of their French rivals. Progress in France, though many inventors were at work, had been slow. The Wrights, in fact, by the sureness of their methods, had far outstripped those Frenchmen who had followed up the problem at Lilienthal’s death. Yet French experiments moved along the same path as had those of the Wrights. First there had come tests to find wing-curves; then the flying of gliders. [Illustration: FIG. 38.--Voisin Glider towed by a motor-car.] [Illustration: FIG. 39.--Voisin Glider on the river Seine.]