 As a demonstration , Desbouvrie brought an untamed swallow from the Roubaix area to Paris and released it . The bird returned to its home 258 kilometers away in 90 minutes . Desbouvrie promised that trained swallows would provide even better speeds . The governor of Lille oversaw testing near Roubaix and a military engineer named Captain Degouy was ordered to oversee a duplication of the Roubaix experiments . 
