Life of Count Riimford. 575 



serted in the Biographie Universelle* of Messrs. Mi- 

 chaud, but which had been printed only for her friends, 

 and was known in its completeness only to them." 



This charming memoir the author reproduces as one 

 of the "historical pieces" in his Appendix. It pre- 

 sents the house in the Rue d'Anjou, which Count Rum- 

 ford had done so much to beautify, and the lady, with 

 whom he was so unfortunately at variance, under very 

 different aspects than those which they have had for 

 us in the preceding pages. Writing in 1841, Guizot 

 says : 



" It is now five years since in a beautiful and delightful house, 

 which no longer exists, situated in the midst of a lovely garden, 

 now coursed by a street, was gathered twice or thrice a week a 

 choice and varied company, men of the world and of letters, 

 savant. Frenchmen and foreigners, men of the past time and 

 of the present, old and young, men of the government and of 

 the opposition. Many of those who met there met nowhere 

 else ; and others of them, if they did meet elsewhere, probably 

 met in coldness, or scarcely tolerated each other. But there 

 they treated each other with extreme politeness, and almost 

 with cordiality. It was not that any one was attracted there by 

 any private interest, or for an object which compelled him to 

 disguise his own sentiments ; it was not a house for political or 

 literary patronage, where one might push his fortunes or secure 

 success. ."He attraction of good company, the pleasures of the 

 intellect and c. conversation, the desire to share in the daily 

 incidents of social life, which make the amusement of the polite 

 world and the relaxation of the toiling world, were the sole 

 motives and the charms which collected at Madame de Rum- 

 ford's such an eager circle, and in it so many men of such 

 varied distinctions. 



" Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Turgot, D'Alembert, 

 if they could revisit us, would be surprised at seeing that we 



* In the Supplement to that work, Vol. LXXX., 1847. 



