Count Rumford was in very good health, and proposed to spend the winter at Munich; he was going into a magnificent house, or rather palace, lent him by one of the nobility, an old friend, in which he meant to give concerts as he used to do. The Elector continued to treat him with the most marked distinction, but he did not seem to be engaging in any public business. Indeed, the country was rather in a state of alarm, on account of the menacing appearances of the Emperor, who evidently wants part of Bavaria as a further compensation to the Grand Duke. The Count's opinion when I quitted him was that he should be in Paris next spring, and thence return to England.
Two months later Sir C. Blagden said: 'The Count finds the climate of Mannheim much milder and more suitable to his constitution than that of Munich, which is really sharp and trying.' And afterwards he wrote regarding the French Institute:
Count Rumford has been removed from the third class to the first, a change which I believe he very much desired. In consequence there is now only one vacancy to be filled up in the first class, and I think that Volta will be the man chosen at the next election.
Unless we are all sent away by the war, I shall probably stay near a fortnight longer than the 5th of April.
The Count expects to be in England some time in the summer. He is very busy making experiments on heat, and says his new-invented instruments have already put him in possession of several new and interesting facts.
Sir C. Blagden wrote to Rumford's daughter from London, August 8, 1803:
When my letter of last June was written I thought your father pretty much fixed at Munich, and therefore ventured to suggest to you that it might contribute to your happiness if you were to be established at that Court. But I learn since that the Elector has set him more at his liberty, and that in consequence he intends to return to England this autumn. Political difficulties may possibly stand in the way of this journey, but he hopes to avoid them. I am still as much at a loss as I was in June to answer your question whether your father be going to marry. He is now, as I told you in that letter, making the tour of Switzerland with a very amiable French lady. But I have no reason to think that they have any idea of matrimonial connexion. When the Count comes to England she is to return to Paris; at least so he writes me word.