Le Réveillon was the French hot-air balloon that carried a rooster, duck and sheep in 1783.
The Montgolfier brothers launched the animal-carrying balloon at Versailles on 19 September 1783. The flight was conducted before King Louis XVI and demonstrated that living creatures could survive an ascent. The animals were a sheep named Montauciel, a duck and a rooster; the sheep’s name means “climb-to-the-sky.”
The experiment preceded the first free flight by humans. The balloon was made of paper and silk and was associated with the wallpaper manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, whose name is often used for the craft. It is sometimes confused with the later balloon used by Pilâtre de Rozier and François d’Arlandes, who made the first free human ascent in November 1783.