I can now inform you, Sir, of what you are looking for. The experiment is completely successful. To-day, at twenty minutes past two, P. M., the thunder rolled directly over Marly; the clap was rather loud. The desire to oblige you, and my own curiosity, made me leave my arm-chair, where I was occupied in reading. I went to Coiffier's, who had already sent a child to me, whom I met on the way, to beg me to come. I redoubled my speed through a torrent of hail. When I arrived at the place where the bent rod was set up, I presented the wire, approaching it several times toward the rod. At the distance of an inch and a half, or about that, there came out of the rod a little column of bluish fire smelling of sulphur, which struck the loop of the wire with an extreme and rapid energy, and occasioned a sound like that which might be made by striking on the rod with a key. I repeated the experiment at least six times, in the space of about four minutes, in the presence of several persons; and each experiment which I made lasted the space of a _Pater_ and an _Ave_. I tried to go on; the action of the fire slackened little by little. I went nearer, and drew nothing more but a few sparks, and at last nothing appeared.
The thunder-clap which caused this event was followed by no other; it all ended in a great quantity of hail. I was so occupied with what I saw at the moment of the experiment, that, having been struck on the arm a little above my elbow, I cannot say whether it was in touching the wire or the rod, I was not even aware of the injury which the blow had given me at the moment when I received it; but as the pain continued, on my return home I uncovered my arm before Coiffier, and we perceived a bruised mark winding round the arm, like what a wire would have made if my bare flesh had been struck by it. As I was going back from Coiffier's house, I met Monsieur le Vicaire, Monsieur de Milly, and the schoolmaster, to whom I related what had just happened. They all three declared that they smelt an odor of sulphur, which struck them more as they approached me. I carried the same odor home with me, and my servants noticed it without my having said anything to them about it.