Biographical Memoir of Count Rumford. 215 



and others being apparently too much so to think that titles 

 were worth the trouble of being refused, every body accepted 

 them. We do not therefore condemn Count Rumford for ha- 

 ving done like all the world ; we even pardon beforehand those 

 who may imitate him in this respect, provided they imitate him 

 in other respects also. 



His new master not only procured honourable distinctions for 

 him, but also confided to him a real and very extensive power, 

 by uniting in his person the administration of war and the di- 

 rection of the police ; and his reputation, besides, soon gave him 

 a great influence over all parts of the government. 



Most of those who have been led to power by the course of 

 events, arrive there already misled by public opinion ; they 

 know that they will infallibly be called men of genius, and that 

 they will be celebrated in prose and verse, if they succeed in 

 changing in some point the forms of the government, or extending 

 a few leagues the territory in which this government is exercised. 

 Is it therefore surprising, that internal commotions and external 

 wars incessantly disturb the repose of men ? It is to themselves 

 that men ought to look. Fortunately for Count Rumford, Ba- 

 varia could not at this period hold out these temptations to her 

 ministers. Her constitution was fixed by the laws of the em- 

 pire, her frontiers by the great powers that surrounded her ; and 

 she was reduced to the condition, which most states find so hard, 

 of confining all her cares to ameliorating the condition of her 

 people. 



It is true that she had much to do in this respect. Her so- 

 vereigns, enriched at the period of the religious wars, in conse- 

 quence of their zeal for Catholicism, had long carried the marks 

 of this zeal far beyond what an enlightened Catholicism requires ; 

 they encouraged devotion, and did nothing for industry ; there 

 were more convents than manufactories in their territories ; the 

 army was almost reduced to nothing ; ignorance and idleness 

 predominated in all classes of society. 



Time does not permit us to mention all the services which 

 Count Rumford rendered to this country and its capital, and we 

 are obliged to limit ourselves to a few of the more remarkable. 



He first occupied himself with the army, in the organization 

 of which, a peace of forty years had allowed gross abuses to be 



