Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/55

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COUNT RUMFORD
51

between Franklin and the Gout" Franklin is accused of taking too little exercise. Gout says: "Behold your fair friend at Auteuil. . . . When she honors you with a visit, it is on foot. In this see at once the preservation of her health and personal charms. But when you go to Auteuil, you must have your carriage, though it is no farther from Passy to Auteuil than from Auteuil to Passy."

Rumford's house appears to be much as it was one hundred years ago, although shorn of its two acres of gardens and now with shabby exterior. The front is enclosed by a high iron fence, with heavy gates and there still remains a suggestion of shrubbery and flowers. In 1870 this house was the scene of a tragedy in which Prince Pierre Bonaparte shot and killed Victor Noir, a young journalist, who had presented a challenge.

Half a mile southward in the Rue Michel Ange is the cemetery of Auteuil. It is surrounded by a high wall and contains probably more than half an acre of ground. The graves are much crowded and the paths narrow. ~No interments are now made there. The tomb of Count Rumford is near the south wall. The horizontal stone is perhaps six feet square; the vertical stone of about the same dimensions, and three feet thick. The material appears to be a soft marble, now so badly weathered that the inscriptions are illegible.