He also established in 1788 in Warsaw a publishing house named Drukarnia Wolna (Free Press) as well as the city's first free reading room. In 1790 he became the first person in Poland to fly in a hot air balloon when he made an ascent over Warsaw with the aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard, an exploit that earned him great public acclaim. Potocki's colorful life took him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies, contributed to the birth of ethnology - he was one of the first to study the precursors of the Slavic peoples from a linguistic and historical standpoint. He was probably a Freemason and had a strong interest in the occult. He was educated in Geneva and Lausanne, served twice in the Polish Army as a captain of engineers, and spent some time on a galley as a novice Knight of Malta. Jan Potocki was born into the Potocki family, an aristocratic family, that owned vast estates in Poland.
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