×Answer these questions about the text.
1. What was the basis of Sauvant's invention?
2. Why wouldn't the police let him test his machine ?
3. How did he eventually test it?
4. Why was the test a disaster?
5. What do you think about Monsieur Sauvant?
TEXTUL
Monsieur Sauvant was a French inventor. Although he wasn't very successful he became quite famous- as one of the world's worst inventors. ..........The Wright brothers had invented the first plane when he was a child, but commercial airlines had only been operating for a few years. There had been some accidents, which worried Sauvant, so he decided to design a plane which would be completely crash-proof.
........Aircraft should be egg-shaped,' he decided. He had been doing experiments with eggs and for some time he had been observing how resistant egg shells were. Apparently he had been putting hens' eggs inside ostrich eggs and dropping them on the floor. The chicken embryo inside the hen's egg was never harmed in the fall because the larger egg protected it. How did he get the hen's egg inside the ostrich egg? No one knows.
.............He had been working on it for a number of years- and probably spending large amounts of money- when in 1932 he was finally able to announce that he had built the perfect anti-crash aircraft. It looked like a metal egg!
...........The greatest problem was that nobody thought it would work. On three occasions the police removed the wheels from the strange-looking machine to prevent him taking off. Monsieur Sauvant was not discouraged and asked some friends to help him test the machine. At first they were not willing to help, but Monsieur Sauvant seemed so sure of himself that in the end they agreed. They pushed him off a 25 metre cliff in the South of France.
.........When his friends looked down onto the beach, they were horrified. They had been expecting to see Monsieur Sauvant get out and wave. Instead, they saw that the machine had been totally wrecked. Luckily Monsieur sauvant was not badly hurt. Later, when he had recovered, he declared that he was delighted with the success of the experiment!