574 Life of Count Rumford. 



That venerable French statesman and man of letters, 

 Monsieur Guizot, was one of the warmest and most 

 intimate friends of Madame de Rumford, and clung 

 to her society in the last years of her protracted life 

 as to one of* his fondest ties to a long-vanished pasc. 

 The beautiful and affectionate tribute which he has 

 paid to her will doubtless afford a grateful relief to the 

 reader.* 



M. Guizot writes : " When I search among my 

 reminiscences of the year 1831, I find there only three 

 persons around whom society still gathered with no 

 other object but that of enjoyment. Imperturbable in 

 her habits of life as in her sentiments, through these 

 revolutionary times, Madame de Rumford always assem- 

 bled in her saloon Frenchmen and foreigners, savans, 

 men of letters and men of the world, and always assured 

 for them alike around her table the interest of excellent 

 conversation, as in her more numerous reunions the 

 delight of the choicest music." 



The other two distinguished ladies whom Guizot 

 mentions were the Countess de Boigne, daughter of the 

 Marquis d'Osmond, and the mistress of his hospi- 

 talities, and Madame Recamier. He adds : "Of these 

 three persons, justly esteemed and courted, Madame de 

 Rumford was, in 1831, the only one whom I con- 

 stantly visited." In a note he says, " Five years after 

 her death, by the desire of her family, I gathered my 

 remembrances of this lady, her life and her saloon, in 

 a little memoir, some extracts from which were in- 



* It is found in " Me"moires pour servir A 1'Histoire de mon Temps. Par M. 

 Guizot. Tome deuxieme. Paris, 1859." My references are to pp. 241 and 242 in 

 the body of the volume, and more particularly to No. VII., Pieces Historiques, 

 " Notice sur Madame de Rumford. Ecrite"e en 1841," in the Appendix to the 

 volume. 



