152 COUNT RUMFORD. 



experience, the thought of which, pressing on him con- 

 tinually, destroyed all magnanimity in his references 

 to her. 



From 1772 to 1800, Eumford's 'house at Auteuil 

 had been the residence of the widow of a man highly 

 celebrated in his day as a freethinker, but whom Lange 

 describes as " the vain and superficial Helvetius." It is 

 also the house in which, in the month of January, 1870, 

 the young journalist Victor Noir was shot dead by 

 Prince Pierre Bonaparte. Here, towards the end of 

 1811, the Count was joined by his daughter. They 

 found pleasure in each other's company, but the affec- 

 tion between them does not appear to have been intense. 

 In his conversations with her the source of his bitterness 

 appears. " I have not," he says, " deserved to have so 

 many enemies; but it is all from coming into France, 

 and forming this horrible connection. I believe that 

 woman was born to be the torment of my life." The 

 house and gardens were beautiful; tufted woods, wind- 

 ing paths, grapes in abundance, and fifty kinds of roses. 

 Notwithstanding his hostility to his wife, he permitted 

 her to visit him on apparently amicable terms. The 

 daughter paints her character as admirable, ascribing 

 their differences to individual independence arising from 

 having been accustomed to rule in their respective ways : 

 " It was a fine match, could they but have agreed." One 

 day in driving out with her father, she remarked to him 

 how odd it was that he and his wife could not get on 

 together, when they seemed so friendly to each other, 

 adding that it struck her that Madame de Bumford 

 could not be in her right mind. He replied bitterly, 

 " Her mind is, as it has ever been, to act differently from 

 what she appears." 



The statesman Guizot was one of Madame de Eum- 

 ford's most intimate friends, and his account of her 



