Simplex bloviates - An airship, with a propeller similar to the ones used by the Wright brothers in Dec. 1903, appears in three pictures in L'Aerophile from April 1902
You disappoint me. Why not go father back and contend that they copied the propeller from the Alphonse Pénaud helicopter toy that they played with as children in 1878 or so?
It's French too, and at least they actually saw that one.