HUMBOLDT AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 361 



great care. Yet tliis is a fact on which M. Humboldt 

 hangs one of his numerous theories." 



But enough of reviewers and tourists. 



Ilumboldt^s visit to London in the summer or fall of 

 1818, had something of a political cast, for in addition to 

 his receiving a commission from the Allied Powers to 

 compose a political treatise on the colonies of South 

 America (probably in relation to the boundaries of 

 French and Portuguese Guiana) he was summoned by the 

 King of Prussia to Aix-la-Chapelle, where the Congress 

 of the Allied Powers was to be held. Pie arrived there 

 on the 13th of October, and remained till the 26th of 

 November. Famous as Aix-la-Chapelle was, for the 

 treaties that had been signed there, it was never so re- 

 splendent as now. The object of the Congress being an im- 

 portant one, namely, the settling of all the old scores that 

 Napoleon had entailed upon Europe, before and after the 

 battle of Waterloo ; the adjustment of that formidable 

 bugbear, the Balance of Power; in short the formation 

 of what has since been called the Holy Alliance, — (as if 

 any alliance between kings and emperors could be 

 holy !) it was necessary for all the leading potentates of 

 Europe to be present. Thither came the King of Prus- 

 sia, and the Emperors of Russia and Austria, each with 

 his train of diplomcUs^ astute statesmen, headed by the 

 wily Metternich, and the sagacious Nesselrode. France 

 sent Talleyrand, and England Castlereagh and Welling- 

 ton. On the 5th of November came William Yon 

 Humboldt, somewhat disgusted with politics. Another 

 potentate was present, though we question his being 

 taken into the account by many of the great personages 

 that attended the Congress. It was Alexander Yon 



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