Jacques de Romas, inventor of the electric kite (1713–1776)
Passionate about physics and electricity, Jacques de Romas follows in the footsteps of the innovators ofthe 18thcentury, the Age of Enlightenment, when men driven by their passion and curiosity conducted experiments to discover the laws that govern the world.
Born in Nérac in 1713, Jacques de Romas began his career in the judiciary as an assessor at the Nérac presidial court. A self-taught physicist, he became famous for his studies and experiments on atmospheric electricity, which led him to discover the laws of electricity at the same time as Benjamin Franklin.
At a time when interest in electricity was growing rapidly, with King Louis XV himself taking an interest in various experiments, Jacques de Romas demonstrated his powers of observation and inventiveness.
He studied the effects of lightning at the Château de Tampouy in 1750 and later on the towers of the fortified mill at Barbaste, which inspired him to devise a plan to divert lightning using a metal rod. Multiple successful experiments were conducted at the Château de Vivens in Clairac and Nérac in 1752.
Convinced that electrical charge increases with altitude, Jacques de Romas devised a new instrument capable of attracting lightning: a kite equipped with a metal tip.
The first public experiment was conducted on June 7, 1753, near Nérac, on the road to Mézin. Here is Maisani's account in the Revue de l'Agenais: "Accompanied by a large crowd, Romas waited for the wind to be strong enough to launch his kite. A storm was approaching, so Romas grabbed an exciter, consisting of a tin tube insulated by a glass rod and connected to the ground by a metal chain. When brought close to the cylinder, the exciter produced sparks. Spontaneous three-meter-long flashes of fire burst forth. The explosions followed one after another, and their crackling could be heard as far away as Nérac. The experiment was magnificent."
This was not always the case. In 1759, an experiment carried out in Bordeaux's public garden ended in disaster. Lightning struck a house where the kite had been placed. The audience who had witnessed the experiment mistakenly believed that the thunder had been attracted by the kite and destroyed the instrument. From then on, Romas was considered a sorcerer by the people of Bordeaux!
Jacques de Romas acknowledged that Franklin's first experiment with his electric kite in July 1752, nearly a year before his own, had come first. However, convinced that he owned the rights to the idea of the invention while insisting that he had not been inspired by Franklin, which seems accurate given the extreme difficulty of establishing correspondence between Europe and America inthe 18thcentury, Romas wanted to establish his rights to this type of experiment, which he pushed further scientifically than his competitor.
In 1764, after questioning witnesses who had observed Romas' experiments, the Paris Academy of Sciences ruled: "We believe that Mr. de Romas did not borrow from anyone else the idea of applying kites to electrical experiments and that he should be regarded as the first author of this invention, until Mr. de Franklin or someone else provides sufficient evidence that they had thought of it before him."
In the Albret region, Jacques de Romas repeated his experiments, and it seems that the inhabitants of Nérac were terrified by the dazzling sparks they produced.
Thanks to his discoveries and scientific writings, Romas became a celebrity who attracted distinguished visitors to Nérac: the Chevalier d'Acosta, former Portuguese ambassador to the Netherlands, and Milady Worthley-Montaigu, an Englishwoman known for her adventures, who became friends with Romas' wife.
In Nérac, many places remind us of the scientist: the vocational high school and the main street in the town center bear his name. On Cours Romas, there is a bronze statue of the famous physicist and a commemorative plaque marking the location of his house.
