Adrien Tournachon's paintings are worth a second look. France's Air and Space Museum has three of them in their permanent collection. They all relate to Félix's aerial exploits, including the Paris Commune episode. On October 7, 1870, Léon Gambetta was whisked out of Paris, then under siege, in the basket of a balloon called the Armand Barbès, in honor of a revolutionary who had died a few months earlier. Gambetta had just been apponted Minister of the Interior of the provisional government formed after the fall of Napoleon III, and he was trying to join the rest of the government in the city of Tours. The "getaway" ballon he used had been supplied by Félix Nadar, who had founded a balloon company in order to provide postal service for the residents of the besieged French capital.