10 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



dependencies was, in fact, Government property. The money 

 and estates thus laid claim to were estimated at seventeen 

 million thalers. 



The King of Saxony acted the part of a compassionate and 

 considerate mediator ; the claims of private individuals received 

 attention as soon as their ownership was proved. Meanwhile 

 the Prussian Government refused to allow the publication of 

 the papers containing the demands of the Bayonne conven- 

 tion, and issued letters patent requiring that its claims upon 

 Poland should be paid into the Bank of Berlin, and not to 

 the Exchequer at Warsaw, against which prohibitory mea- 

 sures were enacted by the new duchy in the decree of January 

 6, 1809. This led to negotiations which resulted in the ab- 

 rogation, by mutual consent, on September 10, 1810, of the 

 act of sequestration. 



Under such circumstances it is highly probable that the 

 property held by the Humboldts in those provinces suffered 

 sequestration. Be this as it may, it is certain that Alexander 

 von Humboldt, during the first part of his sojourn in Paris, 

 was in pecuniary embarrassment, by which he was hampered 

 in the publication of his works, x and other scientific under- 

 takings. 



These difficulties had, however, no effect in diminishing his 

 industry ; obstacles seemed only to nerve his energy, and 

 strengthen his capacity for work. Soon after writing the 

 letter above quoted to Pictet, in which, as we have seen, he 

 alludes to his pecuniary difficulties in a semi-humorous strain, 

 he addressed him again in a jubilant tone of scientific enthu- 

 siasm : c I am living entirely among " soda " and " potash "- 

 between Thenard and G-ay-Lussac. " Ammonia," M. Berthollet, 

 comes to see us occasionally ; and then we all think ourselves 

 to be hydrogenated. Gay-Lussac commissions me to send 

 you his respects. We continue to live in a very fraternal 

 manner, in what you call our flying camp at Paris. . . . 

 Ecole Poly technique, Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, 26 May, 

 1808.' l 



During this year he was gratified by the favourable recep- 



1 <Le Globe/ &c. (1868), vol. vii. p. 193. 



