Several trials came to the electrical Pastor, and from quarters least expected. It happened in the second year after the erection of the apparatus that the summer was unusually dry, in consequence of which the crops failed almost completely. The farmers of the neighborhood were always suspicious of the strange-looking mast of Prenditz; and, be it said, that they were more than diffident about the propriety of interfering with the forces of nature even under the plea of protection, forgetting that they took great care to protect themselves against heat and cold, rain, snow and hail. The country ladies, no doubt, used parasols for one kind of protection; and the gentry, umbrellas for another. Anyhow, the people of Prenditz and the good folk around did not like the lofty mast, with its outstretched arms and bristling rows of suspicious-looking iron points connected to the ground by means of four long, heavy chains. For the nonce, they deemed their Pastor a queer fellow, who thought that he could avert the anger of heaven by the oddest kind of a machine which they ever laid their eyes on. It was argued in the councils of the hamlets that, whatever advantages Divisch claimed for his "machine," they were all of a negative character. It _prevented_ the lightning stroke, he said; that might be, but they did not _see_ the prevention. What they did see and keenly realize was the failure of their crops. That affected them very closely; and if, as they supposed, the apparatus of Prenditz had anything to do with it, the sooner they got rid of the machine the better. Divisch, it must be said, was liked by his people; but despite his popularity, the men of violence carried the day and the machine was doomed. Popular passion, excited by personal interest, got the better of the consideration due to the Pastor. On an appointed day, a band of bellicose farmers came down on the village and wrecked the apparatus which had cost the priest so much thought and manual labor and on which, knowingly and justly, he relied for the protection of the homesteads of his rustic flock. This recalls a similar incident of mob violence which occurred at St. Omer in the north of France, where a manufacturer of that quaint old town, who had been in America and seen the usefulness of lightning conductors, proceeded to erect one over his own house. Hardly was it completed before the populace gathered together; and, when passion was sufficiently aroused by inflammatory remarks of the demagogues, the house was attacked and the conductor torn down. The manufacturer complained of the inaction of the "gardiens de la paix" and appealed to the courts to uphold his right to protect his home against lightning. He entrusted his case to a young, brilliant lawyer, as yet unknown to fame, but one destined to achieve unenviable notoriety during the revolutionary period. This, the first defender of the lightning-rod in a court of justice, was Robespierre.