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The Consequences of Flight (12944 words) by Tournevis
Chapters: 14/?
Fandom: Murdoch Mysteries
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: William Murdoch/James Pendrick
Characters: William Murdoch, James Pendrick, Julia Ogden, Inspector Brackenreid, Georges Crabtree, James Gillies, Dr. Roberts (Murdoch Mysteries), Thomas Edison, Auguste Lumière, Gustave Eiffel, Marcel Guillaume, Antoine Lumière, Alphonse Bertillon, Louis Lumière
Additional Tags: A host of OCs - Freeform, A host of historical figures, Diary/Journal, Fake Academic Essay, Historically Accurate, Bycicles
Series: Part 2 of The Dancing Suite
Summary:

The following is taken from a recently defended Master’s cognate in History entitled « The Consequences of Flight : The Rediscovered Diary of a Canadian Homosexual in the Late-Victorian Era. »

**The Murdoch Diary, part 2:

Paris

26 and 28 April, 1900

26 April, Thursday.

My fellow proofers at the Bank spent most of the day asking me if there were kids around. I imagine they thought it funny.

28 April, Saturday.

Writing before Church on the Sunday.

Last night we were strolling back to our bicycles after visiting this Exhibition -- still the Concessions scientifiques^1^, though I would not mind going to the national pavilions soon for a change -- we passed under the 300 Meter Tower^2^, where we witnessed the most peculiar sight of three elderly well-dressed gentlemen in top hats and coat tails, engaged in a three-way shouting match. More peculiar was James's reaction of infinite mirth. The gentlemen were arguing about metal alloys, of all things, and none too politely, and gathering quite a crowd. James recognized them instantly, but only informed me of their identity when he managed to stop laughing when the oldest of the three left in a huff, the gathered public parting like the Red Sea at his exit.

We had witnessed the end of a rare and most-specialized engineering debate between France's best-known modern architects, no other than Armand Moisant^3^, Jules Bourdais^4^ and Gustave Eiffel^5^ himself. I only knew of the latter until last night, and we were standing under his greatest creation at the time. James tells me we will need to visit the others' respective great works. Trocadero Palace^6^ for Bourdais; Apparently, he lost a bid for construction of the tower Mr. Eiffel built. James calls Moisant the most proficient in the design of modern metal-framed buildings, and who James admires the most, but I know his preference for metal structures since structural engineering is his own specialty. He listed a host of Parisian buildings we should see some day. We did not linger after the debate fizzled, James was not willing to chance being recognized by Bourdais, whom he met twice before. As we cycled home, James recounted how Moisant's building of the Bon Marché^7^ was "messed up" by Eiffel when the latter "intervened" in the building's extension. I did not know how petty engineers could be.

The scientific section of the Paris Exhibition grounds in 1900 flanked the Champ-de-Mars garden park on three sides, with the large Gallerie des machines and its elaborate waterworks (Château d'eau) facing the Eiffel Tower at the other end of the garden park.
The Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition, was originally called the "Tour de 300 mètres" and was only beginning to be habitually referred to as Eiffel Tower at the turn of the 20^th^ century.
Armand Moisant (1838-1906), engineer and architect. Specialized in large metal-framed buildings and contributed the most buildings for the 1900 Exhibition.
Jules Bourdais (1835-1915), engineer and architect. Bourdais was favourite for the design of a monumental column cum lighthouse to be built for the 1889 exhibition until Gustave Eiffel proposed his famous metal tower.
Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), engineer, architect and industrialist. He and his firm designed and built hundreds of buildings and structures all over the world, the most famous arguably being the Eiffel Tower (1889) and the base of New York's Statue of Liberty (1886).
Co-designed by Jules Bourdais and Gabriel Davioud, Trocadero Palace was built for the 1878 Universal Exhibition. Always a contested building, it and its gardens were modified for the 1900 Exhibition and finally torn down in 1937 to make way for buildings for the 1937 Special Exhibition.
Le Bon Marché (originally called Au Bon Marché until 1989) is one of Paris's oldest department stores. Founded in 1838, it was expanded in 1869 by architect Alexandre Laplanche, and expanded again in 1872 by architect Louis-Charles Boileau (1837-1914) and engineer Armand Moisant. A further expansion occurred in 1879, in which Gustave Eiffel was involved, though Moisant was the primary structural engineer for all works on the structure from 1870 to 1887. Le Bon Marché is still open today.