THE FRENCH LIGHTNING ROD EXPERIMENTS. 587 



raised to erect liis long-desired pinnacle. But the receipts 

 were small and their advent slow. Waiting was tedious 

 all other experiments seemed so tame beside this one. 

 Kinnersley was drawing off the popular excitement ; the at- 

 tractions of political life began to look once again very fas- 

 cinating. 



The summer came a bad season for electrical experi- 

 menting, as he was well aware. He would put it all aside 

 until the old interest should revive with different condi- 

 tions, when the news came from across the sea that the ex- 

 periment had been tried! Tried by the first philosophers 

 in France under the auspices of the French King himself. 

 Tried with magnificent and unquestionable success, and 

 that all Europe was ringing with it. 



He needed all his philosophy now. 



How had they done it? 



Cave, with characteristic prudence, had issued but a few 

 copies of the pamphlet containing Franklin's letters ; and 

 now, as nearly a year had elapsed, and no notice of it had 

 been taken, was doubtless applauding his own foresight. 

 Some one, however, had sent a copy to De Buffon in Paris, 

 and he perceived instantly that here was something both 

 extraordinarily novel and extraordinarily strange. He 

 persuaded D'Alibard to translate the work into French a 

 task very imperfectly done, but not so obscurely as to pre- 

 vent the quick-witted Frenchmen from seeing the import- 

 ant nature of the discoveries, and the logical skill which 

 had been exhibited in their announcement. D'Alibard's 

 book sold tremendously doubtless to the agony of Cave, 

 who got no profit out of it. The probability of success 

 of the Philadelphia!! experiments was the staple of con- 

 versation everywhere ; from the meetings of the phil- 

 osophers it spread to the gatherings of the beau monde 

 from the salons to the Court to the King and the result 

 was his Majesty's command that Franklin's experiments 

 should be repeated before him. 



