Didier on the "Le Monstre"
Didier Pierre Soupape was born in 1868 in the Alsace region of France, to a middle class family of mechanics who were employed at the local gas works.
As a young boy Didier would go to work with his father, and stare with wonderment at the complex gas distribution machinery his father maintained. That started a fascination in Didier for all things mechanical, and by the age of fifteen with the help of his father, Didier had built a velocipede, a mechanical potato peeler and had learned to sand cast bauxite blanks of machine spares for the gas works. Didier was in the process of becoming an apprentice at the gas works, when in 1880 his family moved to Toulon at the behest of his grandfather, Herbert Henry Soupape, who had been struck with rheumatic fever.
In 1880 France was at the center of experimentation with self-propelled vehicles, and this piqued an interest in Didier to design and build his own motorized vehicle. Several types of engine designs were invented around that time, and Didier focused on combining the best features of each into one grand device that would work better than any other. Lucky for Didier, his grandfather was a tool and pattern maker for LeBlanc Desproux, an absinthe distillery, and had a workshop full of tools and material at his disposal.
In 1883, Didier fitted a small benzene engine to the velocipede he had built at the gas works. But the fuel delivery system was inadequate, and caused the vehicle to have limited power, and a range of only a few hundred yards before it would run out of fuel. To increase the range (and power) Didier enlarged the fuel inlet pipe and benzene storage tank capacity several liters, but forgot to re-rout the exhaust port, which resulted in an explosion and large fire that burned his grandfather’s workshop to the ground, along with all the tools and machine parts inside. Didier’s grandfather was furious, and kicked him and the velocipede out for good. 
Benzene Engine
After leaving his grandfathers house, Didier took odd jobs and lived in a youth hostel for a few months, and in 1884 got a job in Lorraine as a peat mucker. Didier mucked peat for a while, until he met his future partner Henry Di Dion in an absinthe bar. As luck would have it Di Dion was looking for a mechanics apprentice to work in his bicycle shop. Di Dion was also interested in self-propelled vehicles, and together over a bottle of absinthe they struck a pact to build a bicycle that incorporated a new type of motor that ran on petrol (gasoline), invented a few years before by Nikolaus Otto.
That next day Didier traded his peat-mucking rake for a stool behind a workbench at Di Dion’s bicycle shop. By that time the velocipede was obsolete, and Didier had modern bicycle designs to work with. With the help of a friend at the Siegfried Marcus works, Di Dion secured a small petrol motor, and within a few hours they had it mounted in one of Di Dion’s bicycles. In their haste both Didier and Henry forgot to mount any braking device on the machine, and when Didier took the vehicle out for it’s maiden run, he crashed into a baguette cart, destroyed the bicycle, the cart and ruined most of the baguettes. Didier suffered a badly sprained wrist, and knocked out a tooth, but was otherwise unscathed.
The baguette vendor was incensed, and turned Didier in to the local constable who fined both Soupape & Di Dion five francs each for operating a bicycle in a dangerous manner. After salvaging what parts they could from the wrecked machine, Soupape & Di Dion started on their next creation, nicknamed “Le Monstre” by local patrons of the shop.
“Le Monstre” was an enlarged heavy-duty bicycle with cincher type tyres and a rod operated external-contracting rear brake. Also new was the belt drive that replaced the inefficient friction drive of the previous effort. The Siegfried Marcus sourced motor was replaced with a motor designed by Britton James Atkinson that used one power phase per crankshaft revolution, via an eccentric link on the crankshaft and a variable volume combustion chamber. It was originally a stationary motor, designed to run on coal dust, but Soupape modified it with a petrol drip-tube and adjustable bronze petcock that worked to some satisfaction. This machine was a prototype to be exhibited to a group of financial backers who wished to produce similar machines for the domestic market. A date was set for the exhibition, with Soupape and Di Dion looking forward to it. 
Atkinson Motor
The day of the exhibition dawned and both Soupape and Di Dion met with the potential investors at a large dirt field next to a meat packing plant on the outskirts of Lorraine. The machine performed flawlessly, and impressed the group to no end, in fact it impressed them so much that one of the investors, a large man by the name of Maurice insisted upon riding the machine himself. Didier hesitated, but then offered Maurice the bicycle. Maurice straddled the motorbike, and without warning push started Le Monstre down a slight incline in the dirt lot, and the bike took off at full throttle. Maurice had not gotten any instructions on how to operate the vehicle, and was now going full chat, straight for a hedgerow, completely out of control. The group stood silent, transfixed, knowing down deep that some horrible accident was about to take place. One investor covered his eyes, the others looked up at the sky, or at their feet. Di Dion yelled incomprehensible commands at Maurice, but it was too late, as Maurice hit the hedgerow at about 15 miles an hour.
It was a thick hedgerow, and at first Maurice completely disappeared from view when he crashed through it, the only signs of his entrance was one shoe and his hat laying on the ground. On the other side, the Le Monstre had fallen over and spun a circle in the dirt, the throttle still locked wide open. It made a few revolutions and finally wheezed to a stop, its petrol-drip tube bent from going through the hedge. When the rest of the group found him, Maurice was busy collecting parts of his wardrobe that were removed when he went crashing through the the thick hedgerow, and he seemed a little smaller without his topcoat (that was still stuck in the foliage). Finding an audience, Maurice then threw up his hands, glared at Soupape and Di Dione and said in a low voice, “This is the devils machine, I will not have any thing more to do with such a dangerous contraption.” and quickly left, most likely to the nearest absinthe bar with the other investors in tow.
Diedier & Henry surveyed the damage done to Le Monstre, but besides the bent petrol-tube, the bike was otherwise intact. After picking branches and leaves out of the machine, and re-bending the drip-tube back into place, Henry and Diedier made the journey to their shop two-up on the bike and were amazed at the how well the bike pulled from low speed. Pedestrians along the way shouted and waved, as the Le Monstre sputtered and popped along, The Atkinson motor used an atmospheric intake valve, and the sound of it was quite musical, like a Calliope.
Back at the shop, the two partners sat down at the workbench, and Henry broke out a bottle of Pernod to celebrate Le Monstre’s performance in the face of adversity. What better test of a new machine than to put it in the hands of an idiot, and see if it survives? They both laughed at the thought of Maurice being disrobed by the hedge, and wondered if perhaps it wasn't’t better this way, not to involve outsiders in the development of new ideas? Ideas only they seemed to understand, and bring to life? They laughed some more, and had a few more toasts. Didier, a little drunk now, raised a toast to Le Monstre, and promptly fell asleep at the workbench, spent from the days activities. Henry put a blanket around Soupape, and went to bed himself. But before retiring for the evening, he sat on Le Monstre and pondered on the future of motorcycling.
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