Dalibard’s intention to make the experiments himself; but almost immediately after the structure in his garden had been completed, he was called by business to Paris, and left the whole in charge of one of his servants, an old soldier, formerly in the French dragoons, Coiffier by name. With true military spirit, Coiffier thought that he ought to spend the greater part of his time in the sentry-box in his master’s garden, and there he sat in the afternoon of Wednesday, May 10, 1752, when a violent thunderstorm drifted over the plain of Marly. Sufficiently instructed by his master what to do under the circumstances, he touched the electrical apparatus with a key, silk-bound at the handle, and to his extreme surprise, sees a flame bursting forth. He touches another time, and there is a second flame bursting forth, stronger than before. Then the old dragoon rushes from his sentry-box--most famous private dragoon that ever lived, born to the high honour of being the first man that ever drew lightning from heaven. It was not fear that drove the worthy servant of M. Dalibard from his post, but a far better motive. He judged, with the prudence of an old soldier, that the astounding things he had seen required witnesses, in order that his master might not think him an inventor of fairy tales. Accordingly, he hurried to the house of the prior of Marly, M. Raulet, who lived close by, and asked him to behold the marvel of marvels. The prior hesitated not for a moment to go, and, entering the sentry-box, he also drew sparks from the electrical machine. Others of the inhabitants of Marly-la-Ville, seeing the prior run, followed in his wake, notwithstanding the rain was pouring down in streams, and terror was struck among all of them in witnessing the dreaded lightning creep down, serpent-like, but bereft of all its terrors, into the sentry-box, in the centre of which stood the now exulting old dragoon. As soon as the storm was over, the prior insisted upon Coiffier at once saddling a horse, and riding full speed to Paris, to acquaint his master with the great news that lightning had been drawn from the skies by his apparatus at the blessed village of Marly-la-Ville. The obedient dragoon did as advised, and three days after, on May 13, 1752, M. Dalibard startled all the members of the Académie des Sciences of Paris, convoked together in haste, by reading to them a full report of what had taken place in the first great experiment for ascertaining the truth of the suggestions of Benjamin Franklin.