COUNT RUMFORD 175 



Independence broke out, he took service in the American 

 Army; for he had a passion for a soldier's Hfe. But his aristo- 

 cratic opinions soon made him suspected in America, so that 

 he was obliged to take flight to an English ship. He never 

 saw his wife again; his daughter, at that time in the cradle, 

 only returned to the house of her father twenty years after. 

 He was then in English service, where he soon became 

 Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry for the Colonies by 

 virtue of his attractive personality and tactful and trust- 

 worthy manner. He then began his scientific investigations, 

 which first dealt with munitions of war.^ Later on he joined 

 the German princes; he made so good an impression on the 

 Kurfijrst Carl Theodor that he was taken into the Bavarian 

 service, and after occupying various high offices of state, be- 

 came Minister for War. In this capacity he also had work- 

 shops at his disposal, in which he carried out the remarkable 

 investigation above described. He showed great love for 

 his adopted country, carried out a reconstruction of army 

 organisation, and showed the most active care by means of all 

 sorts of inventions - heating, lighting and cooking apparatus 

 -for the poverty-stricken people. He thus became much 

 beloved in Bavaria, ^ where he was given the title of Count 

 Rumford, which he afterwards always used. However, the 

 death of his patron, Kurfiirst Carl Theodor (1799), under- 

 mined his position in Bavaria, so he decided to live in Paris, 

 where the first Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, received him 

 with distinction. He died there at the age of sixty-one. 



1 In London he also founded the Royal Institution, an institution for 

 research and lectures, where Davy, Faraday and Tyndal worked. Their 

 place is occupied to-day by Sir William Bragg. 



2 He laid out the 'English Garden' in Munich. The memorial to him 

 there was put up in 1795. 



