588 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



The Duke D'Ayen placed at the King's disposal his 

 chateau at St. Germain. De Lor, master of experimental 

 philosophy, was selected to make the exhibition, and Louis 

 watched with the keenest interest the great sparks from the 

 cascade (series) battery and the performances of the various 

 ingenious contrivances which Franklin describes in his 

 early letters to Collinson. 



Meanwhile, De Lor, De Buffon and D'Alibard, having 

 got together, found themselves agreeing that the experi- 

 ment of all others was that of the pointed rod. They did 

 not show that to the King, doubtful perhaps of its success; 

 but De Lor and D'Alibard each separately undertook to 

 test the matter. 



D'Alibard, in a garden at Marly la Ville, about eighteen 

 miles from Paris, had erected a sharply-pointed iron rod 

 an inch in diameter and forty feet high. This rod was 

 insulated at its base, which rested upon a table, arranged 

 within a small cabin, to the posts of which last the rod 

 was also secured by silk ropes. A thunder storm not being 

 immediately at hand, D'Alibard employed an old dragoon, 

 one Corffier, to watch the apparatus, and provided conve- 

 niently at hand a brass wire mounted in a glass bottle for 

 a handle, with which to draw off the sparks from the rod, 

 if it should become electrified, as he hoped would be the 

 case. Some days elapsed, and when the thunder-gust did 

 come, Corffier was on guard alone. Instead of waiting for 

 D'Alibard's arrival, he concluded to try the experiment 

 himself, and so, grasping the wire, he presented it to the rod. 

 The sparks flew, with loud reports. Corffier dropped the 

 wire in terror, and shouted to his neighbors to send at once 

 for the village priest, for the fierce flame and the sulphur- 

 ous odor were clearly infernal. 



The ecclesiastic came in full run, with the villagers in 

 throngs at his heels. The hail-storm was terrific, but, as 

 all believed Corffier had been killed, no one minded it. 

 Corffier, however, was found uninjured, and, as the good 

 Prior of Marly had no fear of the machinations of the fiend, 



