Life of Count Rumford. 157 



tions; and of these Thompson would have perfect 

 knowledge officially, if not from personal observation. 

 It would be very agreeable for those who had come out 

 sound in limb from the recent struggles to recount the 

 incidents of them at hospitable tables. The French 

 officers could not have found a better-informed or a 

 more communicative companion to tell them whatever 

 might gratify their curiosity. 



M. Pictet does not inform us where the following 

 incident of sentiment and moralizing, which he relates, 

 occurred. It is reported as taken down from his friend's 

 lips. 



" I owe it," said he to me, one day, " to a beneficent Deity, 

 that I was cured in season of this martial folly. I met, at the 

 house of the Prince de Kaunitz, a lady, aged seventy years, of 

 infinite spirit and full of information. She was the wife of 

 General Bourghausen. The Emperor, Joseph II., came often 

 to pass the evening with her. This excellent person conceived 

 a regard for me ; she gave me the wisest advice, made my ideas 

 take a new direction, and opened my eyes to other kinds of 

 glory than that of victory in battle." 



It was well, therefore, that he could not fight against 

 the Turks. Colonel Thompson had received from the 

 Elector an earnest invitation to enter into his service in 

 a joint military and civil capacity. It was the very year 

 in which Bavaria was a prize in contest between the 

 imperial Continental powers, Austria, Prussia, and 

 Russia, with France in abeyance only to wait a later 

 opportunity, intriguing and bargaining for a territory 

 which, under changing dynasties and disputed succes- 

 sions of dukedoms and palatinates, could hardly be said 

 to be either independent or in vassalage. . The Elector, 

 Charles Theodore, whom we are henceforward to regard 



