FRIENDS AND COADJUTORS AT PARIS. 27 



and Sub-Director of the Botanic Gardens, and in 1829 was- 

 elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. He continued 

 to reside at the capital, where he was held in great esteem as 

 a lecturer and industrious writer till his death, March 22, 1850. 

 In the ' Staatsanzeiger ' of May 9, 1851, Humboldt refers to 

 his departed friend in the following terms : 6 The memory of 

 my friend will long be cherished, not merely by those able to 

 estimate his brilliant services to science, and the valuable 

 influence he has exerted upon the analytic and systematic 

 method of botanical classifications, but also by 'those whose 

 liberal and noble sentiments enable them to appreciate the 

 simplicity of a sterling character, in which to great sensibility 

 of temperament was united the charm of agreeable manners.' 



As Humboldt progressed with his work at Paris, and gathered 

 an increasing number of scientific friends around him, the 

 greater was the enjoyment that he derived from his residence 

 in that city, and the more sensitive did he become to the 

 exciting influence of the society in which he moved. He en- 

 thusiastically refers to the stimulus thus mutually afforded in 

 his letter to Pictet at the commencement of 1808, when de- 

 scribing the days spent with Gay-Lussac ; and the same 

 expression might be employed with equal propriety in reference 

 to all his friends during his long sojourn at Paris. 



Humboldt's Parisian friends were, many of them, connected 

 with a former generation, and were contemporaries with him 

 only in consequence of their extreme age. It might almost be 

 said that in his two oldest friends, Deluc of Geneva, and 

 Jacquin of Leyden, he had selected models for imitation, not 

 merely with respect to vast acquirements and indefatigable 

 industry, but also in regard to their remarkable longevity, for 

 both of these distinguished men in science born in 1727, died 

 in 1817 were alike spared to the remarkable age of ninety, 

 an age subsequently attained also by Humboldt. Among his 

 friends may also be classed Ingenhousz, born at Breda in the 

 year 1730, and Lalande, the celebrated astronomer, who was 

 born in 1732. 



Side by side with this distinguished astronomer may be 

 ranked his scarcely less distinguished pupil, Delambre, who, 

 born in 1749, succeeded his learned instructor in the Chair of 



