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Among the devastating effects of the eruption of the Laki volcano (June 1783-1784), huge aerosol clouds spread across western Europe, causing an exceptionnal rise of 50 % in the seasonal death rate. In the face of such a climatic disturbance, this study focuses on the capacity of the socio-ecological system in France to feel the brunt of the “Laki effect” and to resist its various perturbations; it is thus a study of the quality of this society’s resilience in historical terms. By focusing on the first summer phase of the climate disorder which followed on the heels of the eruption, it is possible to re-assess the types of knowledge which were built around the lightning rod, notably the binary model of popular science versus enlightened science. The fact that the overpopulation of some unhealthy districts in Paris made them susceptible to a rapid propagation of the new epidemic was a vulnerability linked to complex human-induced and environmental interactions – and not the result of a supposed hostile “nature”.