34 Biographical Memoir of Count Rumford. 



of men ? It is to themselves that men ought to look. Fortunately 

 for Count Rumford, Bavaria could not at this period hold out these 

 temptations to her ministers. Her constitution was fixed by the laws 

 of the empire, her frontiers by the great powers that surrounded her; 

 and she was reduced to the condition, which most states find so hard, 

 of confining all her cares to ameliorating the condition of her people. 



It is true that she had much to do in this respect. Her sovereigns, 

 enriched at the period of the religious wars, in consequence of their 

 zeal for Catholicism, had long carried the marks of this zeal far be- 

 yond what an enlightened Catholicism requires ; they encouraged de- 

 votion, and did nothing for industry ; there were more convents than 

 manufactories in their territories ; the army was almost reduced to 

 nothing ; ignorance and idleness predominated in all classes of society. 



Time does not permit us to mention all the services which Count 

 Rumford rendered to this country and its capital, and we are obliged 

 to limit ourselves to a few of the more remarkable. 



He first ocupied himself with the army, in the organization of 

 which, a peace of forty years had allowed gross abuses to be intro- 

 duced. He found means of removing the soldier from the ill-treat- 

 ment of officers, and of adding to his comfort at the same time that he 

 diminished the expenses of the state. The equipment of the troops, 

 their clothing and head-dress, became more suitable and more con- 

 venient. Each regiment had a garden, where the soldiers them- 

 selves reared the vegetables which they required ; and a school 

 in which their children received the elements of education. The 

 military discipline was simplified ; the soldier was brought nearer to 

 the citizen; the privates had more facilities afforded them of be- 

 coming officers ; and a school was at the same time established, 

 in which young men of family might receive the most extensive 

 military education. The artillery, as being more connected with tlie 

 sciences, chiefly attracted the regard of Count Rumford, who made 

 numerous experiments for its improvement. Lastly, he established 

 a workhouse, in which were manufactured, with regularity, all the 

 articles necessary for the troops — a house which, at the same time, 

 became in his hands a source of improvement in the police still more 

 important than those which he had introduced in the army. 



After what we have said of the state of Bavaria, it will be easily 

 conceived that mendicity must there have become excessive ; and it 

 was in fact asserted, that, next to Rome, Munich had the greatest 

 number of beggars of any city in Europe. They obstructed the 



