Passing through France on his way to Vienna he had reached Strasburg on the German frontier, when an incident occurred which changed his prospects and gave a direction to his life different from what he intended, or could have anticipated. A review of the garrison of Strasburg being held, he presented himself on the field as a spectator, ‘mounted on a superb English horse, and in the full uniform of his rank as a colonel of dragoons. The French officers were eager to make the acquaintance of a conspicuous stranger, the more so that his attendance at a review of French troops in full English uniform was regarded as an act of courtesy which deserved a return. Among those who entered into conversation with him was Prince Maximilian, nephew and presumptive heir of the Elector of Bavaria, and who had served as the commander of a French regiment in the American war. So agreeable was the impression which Thompson made on the prince, that on learning his circumstances and intentions, the later offered him an introduction to his uncle the Bavarian elector, in case he should be inclined to alter his design of proceeding to Vienna, and make trial of the Bavarian service. The proposal pleased Thompson, and, furnished with the prince’s letter of introduction, he set out for Munich. Wherever he went he seems to have had the art, almost in spite of himself, of conciliating favor; and on his very first audience with the Elector of Bavaria, he was offered an important situation at court. Still clinging, however, to his resolution to visit Vienna, he did not accept the offer; but after spending some time at Munich, during which the elector’s esteem for him increased more and more, he set out for the Austrian capital. The elector, however, continued to send him pressing invitations to enter his service; and learning at Vienna that the Turkish war was likely to be brought to a speedy conclusion, Colonel Thompson at length promised that, provided he could obtain the consent of his British majesty, he would take up his residence at Munich. Proceeding to London, in order to obtain the consent which was required, he was received with great kindness by George III, who conferred on him the honor of knighthood, and gave him permission, while resigning the command of his regiment, to retain the title of lieutenant-colonel, and the half-pay attached to it.
In the close of the year 1784, Sir Benjamin Thompson took up his residence in Munich, filling the posts of aid-de-camp and chamberlain to the elector, thus connected both with the military and civil service. Charles Theodore, the ruling prince of Bavaria, was a man of enlightened mind, whose ambition was to elevate the state over which he reigned to a high rank among the various members of the German confederacy. The aristocracy of Bavaria itself not furnishing men of sufficient liberality of view to coöperate with him in his designs of improvement, and the prejudices of the court preventing him from employing able men from among the people, even had there been any such qualified for his purpose, he had judiciously resolved to employ foreign talent in the difficult work of reforming his dominions. The capacity, therefore, in which Sir Benjamin Thompson took up his residence in Munich was that of a man who, unconnected by ties of blood or interest with the people of Bavaria, and furnished only with general ideas applicable to all times and places, was to make it his business, under the auspices of the elector, to take a general survey of the condition of Bavaria, with a view to rectify as much as possible of what was wrong in it. A more noble or responsible situation can scarcely be conceived; and the dignity and responsibility will appear all the greater, when we reflect that the government of Bavaria, being, in its nature despotic, the powers of a man in Thompson’s position—that, namely, of virtual though not ostensible prime minister—were almost unlimited, seeing that there were no constitutional forms, and nothing but the absolute will of the elector, to check or thwart his proceedings.
Another circumstance which rendered the situation of Sir Benjamin Thompson a peculiarly interesting one, was the position of Bavaria at the time. ‘Most of those,’ says Cuvier, ‘who are called to power by adventitious circumstances, are led astray by the opinion of the vulgar. They know that they will infallibly be called men of genius, and be celebrated in prose and verse, if they succeed in changing the forms of government, or in extending the territory of their sovereign but a few additional leagues.’ Happily for Count Rumford, Bavaria at this period had no such temptations for her ministers. Her constitution was fixed by the laws of the empire, and her frontiers defined by the more powerful states who were her neighbors. She was, in short, reduced to that condition which most states consider so hard a one—namely, to have her whole attention confined to the sole object of ameliorating the fortune of her people. The whole attention of Sir Benjamin Thompson, therefore, was necessarily to be concentrated on the internal condition of Bavaria—a country about the size of Scotland, but considerably more populous.
The first subject which occupied the attention of the American-born prime minister of Bavaria was the condition of the army. There were three reasons for this early consideration of the state of the army. In the first place, the condition of the continent of Europe at the time rendered the state of the defensive force a matter of extreme importance to so critically situated a state as Bavaria; in the second place, Thompson’s own tastes inclined him to take an interest in military matters; and lastly, in a despotic state, where a little physical force might be necessary to compel the people to adopt good sanitary or other regulations, the army was the natural instrument to be employed in all such reforms, and to render this instrument efficient was but to begin at the right end.
Omitting all the miscellaneous improvements of a minor or mechanical nature which were effected by Thompson in matters connected with military service—as, for instance, in the construction of cannon, in the uniform of the soldiers, their drill, &c.—let us attend to the moral principle which ruled all his proceedings with regard to the organization of the army. ‘I have endeavored,’ he says, ‘in all my operations, to unite the interest of the soldier with the interest of civil society, and to render the military force even in time of peace, subservient to the public good. To facilitate and promote these important objects, to establish a respectable standing army, which should do the least possible harm to the population, morals, manufactures, and agriculture of the country, it was necessary to make soldiers citizens, and citizens soldiers.’ To this principle, or at least to the precise form in which it is here stated, different persons will make different objections, according as their sympathies are civil or military; but Rumford’s general view, that soldiers should be treated as men, cannot be excepted against. The army being essentially the offspring of an age of physical force, it is certainly difficult to organize it conformably to the spirit of an age which repudiates physical force. To do this—in other words, to make the army, as such, a moral agent—is impossible; but it is quite possible to render a large general culture, and much individual freedom, compatible with strict discipline; and at all events, the modern maxim is, that the army is a part of society, employed, it is true, in services of a peculiar nature, which require a peculiar organization, but not on that account cut off from the general mass of the community. Such was the maxim of the Bavarian minister. Besides what he did to increase the physical comfort of the soldier by superior food, clothing and accomodation, he adopted means for the intellectual and moral improvement of all connected with the military service. ‘Schools were established in all the regiments for instructing the soldiers and their children in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Besides these schools of instruction, others, called Schools of Industry, were established in the regiments, where the soldiers and their children were taught various kinds of work, and from whence they were supplied with raw materials to work for their own emolument.
As nothing is so certainly fatal to morals as habitual idleness, every possible means was adopted that could be devised to introduce a spirit of industry among the troops. Every encouragement was given to the soldiers to employ their leisure time when they were off duty in working for their own emolument; and among other encouragements, the most efficacious of all, that of allowing them full liberty to dispose of the money acquired by their labor in any way they should think proper, without being obliged to give any account of it to anybody.’ Besides working at their various trades for such as chose to employ them, the soldiers were employed as laborers ‘in all public works, such as making and repairing highways, draining marshes, repairing the banks of rivers, &c.; and in all such cases the greatest care was taken to provide for their comfortable subsistence, and even for their amusement. To preserve good order and harmony among those who were detached upon these working parties, a certain proportion of officers and non-commissioned officers were always sent with them, and these commonly served as overseers of the works, and as such were paid.’
The particular plan, however, which enabled Thompson, while he was improving the personal condition of the soldier, and turning the peace establishment to greater account than before for the general good of the country, at the same time to diminish greatly the expense of its support, was that of permanent garrisons. The whole army was distributed through the various cities of the electorate, each city being garrisoned by troops drawn from the surrounding district. This plan possessed many advantages. ‘A peasant would more readily consent to his son engaging himself to serve as a soldier in a regiment permanently stationed in his neighborhood, than in one at a great distance, or whose destination was uncertain; and when the station of a regiment is permanent, and it receives its recruits from the district of country immediately surrounding its head-quarters, the men who go home on furlough have but a short journey to make, and are easily assembled in case of emergency.’ Every encouragement was given to all who could be spared from garrison duty to go home on furlough; an arrangement which was both agreeable to the men—who, during their absence, might be cultivating their little family farms, or otherwise employing themselves at any trade—and economical for the state, because, while the men were on furlough, they received no pay, but only their rations. Thus, while in every garrison town there remained a sufficient nucleus of men to do garrison-duty, and who, while receiving full military pay, were at liberty to earn additional money during their leisure time by extra work, the greater part of the army were distributed through the community, pursuing the ordinary occupations of citizens, but ready to assemble at a few hours’ notice, and bound to be in the field at least six weeks every year. The assumed necessity for such a state of military preparation gives one a striking idea of the condition of the continent at this epoch.
Not content with the mere negative achievement of organizing the army, so that ‘it should do the least possible harm,’ Thompson endeavored to make it an instrument of positive good. His plan of permanent garrisons and easy furloughs, by establishing a constant flux of men to and from a centre, suggested the somewhat novel idea of making the army the medium for spreading useful improvements of all kinds through the country. Supposing, for instance, that pains were taken to teach the soldiers in garrison any useful art not then known in Bavaria, but which might be naturalized there, it is obvious that when these men were distributed over the country on furloughs, they would carry with them not only their own superior industrial habits, but the art itself. The improvement of Bavarian agriculture by this means was one of Thompson’s most anxious wishes. Very few of the recent improvements in that art, he says, such as the cultivation of clover and turnips, the regular succession of crops, &c., had then found their way into general practice; and, above all, the potato was almost unknown in Bavaria. With a view to introduce a better system of agriculture, and especially with a view to naturalize the potato among the Bavarians, Thompson devised the system of military gardens—that is, ‘pieces of ground in or adjoining to the garrison towns, which were regularly laid out, and exclusively appropriated to the use of the non-commissioned officers and private soldiers belonging to the regiments in garrison.’ In these gardens every private soldier was assigned a piece of ground, about three hundred and sixty-five square feet in extent. This piece of ground was to remain the sole property of that soldier as long as he served in the regiment: he was to be at liberty to cultivate it in any way, and to dispose of the produce in any way he chose; if, however, he did not choose to work in it, but wished rather to spend his pay in idleness, he might do so; but in that case the piece of ground was to be taken from him, and so also if he neglected it. Every means was used to attach the soldiers to their garden labor: seeds and manure were furnished them at a cheap rate; whatever instruction was necessary, was given them; and little huts or summer-houses were erected in the gardens, to afford them shelter when it rained. ‘The effect of the plan,’ says Rumford, ‘was greater and more important than I could have expected. The soldiers, from being the most indolent of mortals, and from having very little knowledge of gardening, became industrious and skillful cultivators, and grew so fond of vegetables, particularly potatoes, that these useful and wholesome productions began to constitute a very essential part of their daily food. These improvements began also to spread among the farmers and peasants throughout the whole country. There was hardly a soldier that went on furlough that did not carry with him a few potatoes for planting, and a little collection of garden seeds; and I have already had the satisfaction to see little gardens here and there making their appearance in different parts of the country.’
After reforming the army, the next subject which occupied the attention of the Bavarian statesman was one of universal and perpetual interest—the condition of the poor. In order, however, not to be interrupted in our narrative of his measures for the relief of the poor of Bavaria, we shall note a few of the principal events in his personal history during the period of his residence in that country. In 1784, when he commenced his residence in Bavaria, he was thirty-one years of age. The titles which were then conferred on him were, as we have already informed our readers, those of aid-de-camp and chamberlain. Soon afterwards, however, he received the appointments of member of the council of state, and major-general in the army; the elector at the same time procuring him the decorations of two orders of Polish knighthood, in lieu of the Bavarian order, which the rules of German knighthood prevented him from bestowing. The scientific part of the community also showed their esteem for him by electing him a member of the academies of Munich and Manheim. All this took place not long after Thompson had settled in Munich. Every year of his subsequent stay brought him fresh honors. In 1787, when on a visit to Prussia, he was chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin; in Bavaria, to follow the list of dignities given by his American biographer, ‘he attained the military rank of lieutenant-general, was commander-in-chief of the general staff, minister of war, and superintendent of the police of the electorate; he was for a short time chief of the regency that exercised sovereignty during the absence of the elector; and in the interval between the death of the Emperor Joseph and the coronation of his successor Leopold, the elector becoming vicar of the empire, availed himself of the prerogatives of that office to make him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire.’ When this last dignity was conferred on him, Thompson chose the title of Count of Rumford, in memory of the American village where he had once officiated in the humble capacity of schoolmaster. Although it was not till the year 1790, that this title was bestowed on him and the measures we are about to detail were for the most part matured before that time, we shall consult our convenience by henceforth calling him Count Rumford.
The condition of the poor, and the mode of treating them, are questions which every country on earth must incessantly be occupied with; but in few countries, probably, was the necessity of coming to some decided practical conclusion on the subject more glaring, more imperious, than in Bavaria at the time when Count Rumford undertook the social survey of that state. Beggary had there become an enormous and apparently ineradicable evil—a weed overgrowing the whole field. The beggars almost ate up the industrious part of the community. ‘The number of itinerant beggars of both sexes and all ages, as well foreigners as natives, who strolled about the country in all directions, levying contributions upon the industrious inhabitants, stealing and robbing, and leading a life of indolence and the most shameless debauchery, was quite incredible; and so numerous were the swarms of beggars in all the great towns, and particularly in the capital, so great their impudence, and so perserving their importunity, that it was almost impossible to cross the streets without being attacked, and absolutely forced to satisfy their clamorous demands. They not only infested all the streets, public walks, and public places, but they even made a practice of going into private houses; and the churches were so full of them, that people at their devotions were continually interrupted by them, and were frequently obliged to satisfy their demands in order to be permitted to finish their prayers in peace and quiet. In short, these detestable vermin swarmed everywhere; and not only their impudence and clamorous importunity were without any bounds, but they had recourse to the most diabolical arts and most horrid crimes in prosecution of their trade. The growing number of the beggars, and their success, gave a kind of eclat to their profession; and the habit of begging became so general, that it ceased to be considered as infamous, and was by degrees in a manner interwoven with the internal regulations of society. Herdsmen and shepherds who attended their flocks by the roadside, were known to derive considerable advantage from the contributions which their situation enabled them to levy from passengers; and I have been assured that the wages they received from their employers were often regulated accordingly. The children in every country village, and those even of the best farmers, made a constant practice of begging from all strangers who passed; and one hardly ever met a person on foot upon the road, particularly a woman, who did not hold out her hand and ask for charity.’