A loud explosion preceded the meteorite's arrival near the city of Ensisheim at about noon local time. Only a young boy saw the stone fall at Les Octrois Laubourg, south of Ensisheim in the province of Alsace, and afterwards he led the local peoples to the field where it landed. After it was removed from its meter-deep hole, the locals began chipping souvenirs from the mass, which they believed to be a divine sign, until the local magistrate stopped them. Twenty days later, King Maximilien of Austria, in conflict with the King of France Charles VIII, heard about the stone. He used thus supernatural phenomenon as a symbol of divine intervention and announced a forthcoming victory of his armies, and he also decreed that the meteorite would be chained down (such that it would not escape on its own volition) and displayed in the chorus of the church of Ensisheim. In 1794, it was transported to the Museum of Colmar, and in 1804 the town of Ensisheim recovered its trophy which by then weighed no more than 55 kilograms. Fifty years later, after the collapse of the church bell tower, the meteorite was relocated to the Palate of Regency. Today the main mass weighs 53.831 kilograms and is protected by the Brotherhood of Saint-Georges of the Guardians of the Meteorite of Ensisheim. It is about the first well documented fall ever observed.