3C Biographical Memoir of Count Rumford, 



positions that were manifested to promote their well being. It was, 

 sa3'^s Count Rumford himself, by rendering them happy that they 

 were taught to become virtuous. Not even a child received a blow. 

 Still more, the children were at first paid merely for looking on the 

 work of their companions, and they soon came weeping to implore 

 that they also should be set to work. Some praises properly bestow- 

 ed, some handsomer dresses, recompensed good conduct, and ex- 

 cited emulation. The spirit of industry was roused by self-love, for 

 the springs of the human heart are the same in the most opposite 

 conditions, and the equivalent of a cordon of nobility exists even in 

 the lowest grades of society. 



It was not, however, the medicants alone whose condition was ame- 

 liorated. The bashful and honest poor were also admitted to ask 

 work and food. More than one woman of rank that had fallen into 

 misfortune, obtained flax and soup from the commissioners, without 

 being ever questioned, and among the brave of the Bavarian army, 

 there were many who wore clothes that had been spun by a noble 

 and delicate hand. 



The success was such that not only were the poor completely suc- 

 cored, but their number was greatly diminished, because they learn- 

 ed to support themselves. In one week two thousand five hundred 

 had been registered, and some years after they were reduced to four- 

 teen hundred. They even learned to feel a sort of pride in reliev- 

 ing their old companions ; and nothing prevented better their asking 

 alms, than having enjoyed the pleasure of bestowing them. 



Although Count Rumford had been directed in his operations more 

 by the calculations of a politician than by the impulses of a man of 

 feeling, he could not help being truly moved at the sight of the 

 change which he had effected, when he beheld on those countenan- 

 ces, formerly shrivelled by misfortune and vice, an air of satisfaction, 

 and sometimes even tears of tenderness and gratitude. During a 

 dangerous illness he heard a noise under his window, of which he 

 inquired the cause. It was a procession of the poor who were go- 

 ing to the principal church, to implore of heaven the safety of their 

 benefactor. He confessed himself that this spontaneous act of reli- 

 gious gratitude, in favor of a person of another communion, appear- 

 ed to him the most affecting of recompenses ; but he did not dissem- 

 ble that he had obtained another, wliich will be more lasting. In 

 fact it was in laboring for the poor that he made his most imporiant 

 discoveries. 



