Some people had heard those notes as "Yankee Doodle," others had heard them as "Rule Britannia," and hence the quarrel between the Anglo-Saxons, which ended with the breakfast on Goat Island.

Perhaps it was neither one nor the other of these patriotic tunes, but what was undoubted by all was that these extraordinary sounds had seemed to descend from the sky to the earth.
What could it be?
Was it some exuberant aeronaut rejoicing on that sonorous instrument of which the Renommee makes such obstreperous use?
No! There was no balloon and there were no aeronauts.

Some strange phenomenon had occurred in the higher zones of the atmosphere, a phenomenon of which neither the nature nor the cause could be explained.

Today it appeared over America; forty-eight hours afterwards it was over Europe; a week later it was in Asia over the Celestial Empire.
Hence in every country of the world--empire, kingdom, or republic--there was anxiety which it was important to allay.

If you hear in your house strange and inexplicable noises, do you not at once endeavor to discover the cause?
And if your search is in vain, do you not leave your house and take up your quarters in another?
But in this case the house was the terrestrial globe! There are no means of leaving that house for the moon or Mars, or Venus, or Jupiter, or any other planet of the solar system.