Herr Wilhelm von Humboldt[105], brother of my illustrious friend the Baron Alexander, was in Berlin: I had known him as minister in Rome; suspected by the Government because of his opinions, he led a retired life; to kill time, he learnt all the languages and even all the dialects of the world. He reproduced the peoples, the ancient inhabitants of a soil, by means of the geographical denominations of the country. One of his daughters talked ancient and modern Greek with equal ease; if one had happened on a good day, one might have chatted at table in Sanskrit. Adelbert von Chamisso[106] lived in the Botanical Gardens, some way from Berlin. I visited him in that solitude, where the plants froze in the hot-houses. He was tall, with rather agreeable features. I felt an attraction towards that exile, a traveller like myself: he had seen the Polar seas to which I had hoped to penetrate. An Emigrant like myself, he had been brought up in Berlin as a royal page. Adelberg, travelling through Switzerland, stopped for a moment at Coppet. He took part in an excursion on the lake, where he was in danger of being drowned. He wrote that same day: "I clearly see that I must seek my safety on the high seas." Herr von Chamisso had been appointed professor at Napoléonville by M. de Fontanes; later Greek professor at Strasburg; he rejected the offer in these noble words: "The first condition for working at the instruction of youth is independence; though I admire Bonaparte's genius, it is not to my taste." In the same way he refused the advantages offered to him by the Restoration: "I have done nothing for the Bourbons," he said, "and I cannot accept the price of the services and the blood of my fathers. In this age, every man must provide for his own existence." In Herr von Chamisso's family this note is preserved, written in the Temple, in the hand of Louis XVI.: "I recommend M. de Chamisso, one of my faithful servants, to my brothers." The Martyr King had hidden the little note in his bosom to have it handed to his first page, Chamisso[107], Adelbert's uncle[108]. Herr von Chamisso embarked on the ship equipped by Count Romanzoff[109], and, in company with Captain Kotzebue[110], discovered the strait to the east of Behring's Straits and gave his name to one of the islands from which Cook had caught sight of the American coast. In Kamchatka he picked up a portrait of Madame Récamier on porcelain and a copy of his little tale, _Peter Schlemihl_, translated into Dutch. Adelbert's hero, Peter Schlemihl, sold his shadow to the devil: I would rather have sold him my body. I remember Chamisso as I do the imperceptible breeze that lightly swayed the stalks of the heather through which I passed when returning to Berlin.