582 . Life of Count Rumford. 



wholly in her drawing-room. Indeed, she almost died there on 

 the loth of February, 1836, having been surrounded on the 

 evening before by those whom she delighted to draw around 

 her, and who will never forget the charms of her dwelling nor 

 the constancy of her friendships." 



This affectionate and appreciative tribute of M. 

 Guizot must be the compensation for any aspersions 

 or rude epithets which the papers that have been quoted 

 in these pages have cast upon the fair repute of the 

 lady who so engaged his admiration as the represen- 

 tative of an age, a tone of manners, and a form of 

 social delights, which were for him the glory of his 

 own prime and of his past. One can hardly, however, 

 fail of reflecting that some of the qualities and habits 

 which the memorialist himself commended in Madame 

 de Rumford would have no such charms for her hus- 

 band. Brusque and rough manners in herself, or in 

 any class of her guests, would offer more offence to his 

 refined sensibility than vivacity of spirit or compass of 

 varied knowledge would impart of social pleasure. 



It is observable that in no other references to the 

 alienations between Count Rumford and his wife do we 

 find mention of that matter of variance which Guizot 

 makes so prominent. The Count, it seems, had agreed, 

 and had allowed the agreement to form part of a formal 

 legal contract, that his wife should continue to bear the 

 name of Lavoisier as a part of her title. Whatever 

 may be thought of the taste or the propriety of the 

 lady's thus constituting herself a monument of her 

 former husband, it was unpardonable in Count Rum- 

 ford that he should require of her the annulling of, or 

 even the keeping in abeyance, that condition of their 

 union. It was one which, having exacted, the lady 



