46 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



"Knight of the dish-clout, whereso'er I walk, 

 I hear thee, Rumford, all the kitchen talk: 

 Note of melodious cadence on my ear, 

 Loud echoes, 'Rumford' here and 'Rumford' there. 

 Lo! every parlor, drawingroom, I see, 

 Boasts of thy stoves, and talks of naught but thee." 



After two years in his quiet villa in Brompton Row his visits 

 to the continent became longer and more frequent, as he looked 

 about for a new field of activity. Besides his offer from America, 

 he had an invitation from the Czar of Russia to enter his service, 

 and the new Elector of Bavaria, afterwards made king by Napo- 

 leon, showed him some favor and increased his pension. But 

 Paris drew him the strongest, chiefly by two attractions, Napoleon 

 and Madame Lavoisier. At a meeting of the French Institute in 

 1801 he sat near the First Consul, while Volta read his paper on 

 his galvanic pile, which was discussed by Napoleon with great 

 clearness and force. When Rumford was presented to him, 

 Napoleon said he knew him by reputation, and that the French 

 nation had adopted some of his inventions. Immediately after 

 this interview he received an invitation to dine with Napoleon, as 

 the only stranger present. Rumford was later elected a member of 

 the French Institute, on the same date as Jefferson, President of 

 the United States, and he contributed to it many important papers. 



He had become intimately acquainted with Madame Lavoisier 

 while traveling in Switzerland, and, since she was handsome, 

 rich, clever in conversation and interested in science, he had rea- 

 son to suppose that she would make a desirable wife. She was 

 the daughter of Mr. Paulze, a contractor of the finances under the 

 old regime. At fourteen she had been married to the chemist 

 Lavoisier, then twice her age, and she assisted him in the labora- 

 tory, in translating and in drawing the illustrations for his great 

 Traiie de Chimie. When the Revolution broke out Lavoisier was 

 arrested at the instigation of Marat, whose essay on fire he had 

 contemptuously criticized. When brought before the revolutionary 

 tribunal in 1793 Lavoisier begged for a few more days of life, in 

 order to see the outcome of a chemical experiment on which he 



