312 Life of Count Rumford. 



" The time arrived for me to be plunged in study, surrounded 

 by my teachers, Signor Alberty, with his four feet in stature, 

 his great nose and tremendous prominency of back, at the head 

 of them. It was, nevertheless, in Italian that I made the most 

 progress. Not that I neglected any of my studies. I succeeded 

 in giving such satisfaction that my father in great affection 

 called me his own child, a little vanity in the expression which 

 must be excused. Alas ! frail nature admits of no control. In 

 vain would vanity and ambition take the lead. My health 

 began to decline. My flesh left me as if it had wings to fly 

 away. I became ailing, and this ended in the whooping-cough. 

 As already mentioned, the house, or rather the palace, we occu- 

 pied was large; my father living at one extremity, and I at the 

 other. All who have had the whooping-cough must know how 

 troublesome it is, and that a person is everything but interesting 

 when in a fit of it. My father had never exactly seen me at 

 one of these moments, till going in haste into his apartment set 

 me out coughing with the whoop. After looking at me with 

 something bordering on a frown, he told me to ring a bell. I did 

 so. He sat writing, and, looking up, said it was not the right 

 one, it must be another. My father had great order in every- 

 thing. If, for instance, a particular servant was wanted, there 

 would be a particular bell to give him notice. Two servants 

 now came, I having rung two bells ; the valet, being one, was 

 kept, and the other sent away. My father said to him, ' Macht 

 der Haubenel hier kommen ! ' I did not know German, but 

 understood enough of this to conclude that it summoned the 

 doctor, and began retreating. My father called me back, ask- 

 ing me if I was afraid of a doctor ; adding, that he understood 

 I had not treated him civilly some time before. I was informed 

 that in all probability the doctor would soon be with me ; as it 

 happened, nearly as soon as I had got into my own room. I 

 was to show the doctor politeness. Very well ! That was not 

 difficult. But to be dosed, I muttered to myself, for so sim- 

 ple a thing as the whooping-cough, I never heard of such a 

 thing. 



" A word of explanation for this apparent obstinacy may not 



