274 Life of Count Rumford. 



Had the daughter written the pages which have been 

 copied at the date of the incidents related in them, she 

 would doubtless have had much more to tell us about 

 the distractions and anxieties of the time and place on 

 her arrival in Munich. Her father was for a few weeks 

 engrossed and heavily burdened by the responsibilities 

 laid upon him in the turmoil which then convulsed the 

 continent of Europe. Bavaria sought to maintain a 

 rigid neutrality between the contending powers of the 

 great revolutionary upheaval, and was therefore, of 

 course, in imminent risk of being scourged by either or 

 both of them. The immunity with which, for a time, 

 she escaped was secured to her by the wisdom and skill 

 of Count Rumford, whose services in the emergency 

 were most gratefully appreciated. His military talent 

 was again called into exercise to meet a threatening 

 emergency. General Moreau, after having crossed the 

 Rhine, and by a series of successes beaten the various 

 corps which had disputed his passage and his onward 

 march, made an advance towards Bavaria. Count Rum- 

 ford arrived at Munich eight days before the Elector 

 was compelled to quit his residence and to take refuge 

 in Saxony. Rumford remained in the city with full 

 delegated authority, and with instructions from the 

 Elector to watch the course of events, and to act accord- 

 ing to the exigency of circumstances. These were not slow 

 in requiring his intervention. After the battle of Fried- 

 burg the Austrians, repulsed by the French, withdrew 

 to, Munich. The gates of the city were shut against 

 them. They then made a circuit, passed the Iser by 

 the bridge, and established themselves on the other side 



O ' 



of the river on a height which commanded the bridge 

 and the city. There they planted batteries, and anx- 



