Wilbur journeyed to France after completing the tests at Kill Devil Hills, while Orville returned home to complete the construction of an airplane for the United States Government. As Wilbur set about methodically to assemble his airplane at Le Mans, some 125 miles from Paris, skeptics greeted the delay by accusing him of bluffing. But Wilbur refused to hurry. “_Le bluff continue_,” cried a Paris newspaper. However, when Wilbur took off on August 8, circling the field to come in for a perfect landing, the crowd could scarcely believe its eyes. Skeptics were confounded, and enthusiasm was uproarious. [Illustration: Orville and his passenger, Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois, round the captive balloon which marked the turning point of the Army speed test flight from Fort Meyer, July 30, 1909. The flight was just under 43 miles an hour. _Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution._] Wilbur’s complete lack of conceit, together with his decency and intelligence, won from the French people a hero-worship attitude, while the press was unsparing in its praise and lamented having called him a bluffer. The _Figaro_ commented, “It was not merely a success but a triumph; a conclusive trial and a decisive victory for aviation, the news of which will revolutionize scientific circles throughout the world.” It was a statement to the press by a witness, Maj. B. F. S. Baden-Powell, president of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, that is most often quoted: “That Wilbur Wright is in possession of a power which controls the fate of nations is beyond dispute.” One of Wilbur’s sayings in France became famous: “I know of only one bird, the parrot, that talks,” he said, “and it can’t fly very high.” Orville’s first public flight was on September 3, 1908 at Fort Myer. He circled the field one and one-half times on the first test. “When the plane first rose,” Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., recorded “the crowd’s gasp of astonishment was not alone at the wonder of it, but because it was so unexpected.” Orville’s final flight at Fort Myer in 1908 ended in tragedy. The airplane crashed, killing Lt. Thomas Selfridge, a passenger flying with Orville. Orville suffered broken ribs, a fractured leg, and hip injuries. In 1909, Orville completed the Government test flights by flying 10 miles in 14 minutes, or just under 43 miles an hour. The United States Army formally accepted its first airplane from the Wrights on August 2, 1909. During the same year both brothers made further flying triumphs in Europe where they became famous flying in France and Italy. While Orville was making sensational flights in Germany (as required for the formation of a Wright company in that country), Wilbur, in America, made spectacular flights at New York City where more than a million New Yorkers got their first glimpse of an airplane in the air.