J.A. Nollet. Abbe [abbot] Jean Antoine Nollet (1700-1770), French physicist (second from left), performs an electricity experiment in 1750. In his right hand he is holding a Leyden jar, a device for containing electrical charge. The troopers seen with him are in a circle and holding hands. When the circle was completed an electrical shock passed instantaneously around the circle. Nollet demonstrated this with 180 troopers before King Louis XV; he later used up to 700 monks who 'outrivalled a corps de ballet in spontaneity of leaping'. In 1746 Nollet proposed the theory of effluence and affluence, claiming that electricity flowed in and out through two sets of body pores.