APPENDIX. 399 



Bonpland assisted not a little in laying out the gardens at Mal- 

 maison, which at that time excited universal admiration ; in the 

 midst of his official employment he enjoyed sufficient independ- 

 ence and leisure to assist in the publication of the results of the 

 American journey, though he did not devote himself to the work 

 with energy and perseverance sufficient to preclude the necessity 

 of calling in the help of Willdenow, and securing the prolonged 

 labours of Kunth. 



Associated with Humboldt in his work, in the enjoyment of 

 friendly intercourse with Gay-Lussac, Arago, Thenard, and the 

 most noted scientific men of the day, honoured with the kind con- 

 sideration of the empress, who entered with quick intelligence into 

 all his pursuits, and unrestrained in the management of one of the 

 most beautiful flower-gardens in the world, Bonpland was now in 

 the enjoyment of the happiest period of his life. 



But these days were numbered. Napoleon's divorce of Josephine 

 soon brought over them a cloud ; to the watchful guardian of her 

 flowers this noble woman was accustomed to confide the anguish of 

 her grieved and troubled heart. ' Ce n'est pas la perte de la cou- 

 ronne qui m'afflige,' she expressed herself to him on one occasion, 

 * mai's c'est la perte de 1'homme que j'ai plus aime que ma vie, et que 

 je ne cesserai d'aimer jusqu'au tombeau.' The misfortunes of the 

 emperor broke her heart, and she died on May 30, 1814. Bonpland 

 stood beside her on her death-bed. 1 



After this event, Bonpland appeared unable to settle to any other 

 occupation, and seemed as if irresistibly impelled to quit Europe. 

 Even the continuation of his magnificent work, ' Description des 

 Piantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre ' (Paris, 1813), as 

 well as the further arrangement of the plants collected in company 



in America or Asia, to public or private museums it was given to Willdenow, his 

 friend and early instructor. By the subsequent purchase of the herbariums 

 belonging to Willdenow and Kunth, the whole of the collections made by Hum- 

 boldt and Bonpland in America became incorporated in the extensive herbarium 

 of the Koyal Botanic Gardens of Berlin. Many of the duplicate specimens from 

 the Humboldt-Bonpland collection are still preserved among the herbariums of 

 Spain and England. The plants collected during the united expedition to America 

 must not be confounded with those collected subsequently by Bonpland during his 

 residence at Buenos Ayres ; it is to this more recent collection that he chiefly 

 refers in his letters of later date. In the year 1858 the herbarium belonging to 

 the Eoyal Botanic Gardens at Schoneberg was transferred to the university 

 buildings at Berlin, where it has been rearranged, and is preserved in admi- 

 rable condition. 



1 It will not be out of place here to correct the erroneous statement (repeated 

 in the Supplement to No. 197 of the Augsburg ' Allgemeine Zeitung ' for July 16, 

 1858), that it was Bonpland who advised the emperor in the days of his calamity 

 at Fontainebleau to choose Mexico for an asylum, as a central point whence to 



