I am not immune to the human failings that have beset others who sent you historic photos of Mel. I sorrowfully report that the photo you printed (AIR Vents 14:3) which I sent you which shows Mel during his visit to Notre Dame in 1909, with an inscription on the back signed by three Paris gendarmes who escorted Mel on that famous day, all three of whom are visible in the photograph, was authenticated by me in error. The pen marks, which I believed in good faith to have been emplaced by the senior gendarme, whom you can see here standing prominently on the bridge, were in fact not placed by him. I have circled what I believe to be the true location of Mel in the photo-graph; he is visible inside a window, to the left of the plaster bust of Napolean. A thousand apologies for my mistake. I am almost completely certain that this new marking is the correct one. I apologize also to the memory of Mel. Mel would forgive me, I hope, were he alive to see this mistake and my immediate, dutiful, enthusiastic, public correction of it. Robert Couvert, Head Archivist
Notre Dame Scientific Club Archives, Paris France
(That’s an excerpt from the article “Air Vents,” published in AIR 14:4.)