FRIENDS AND COADJUTORS AT PARIS. 45 



The imagination is led back to those primeval days when whole 

 nations were in perpetual migration. The history of the past 

 finds a striking exemplification in the fact that in our own day 

 one million three hundred thousand Kirghissians are still 

 leading a wanderiog life, transporting themselves on their 

 waggons. We have been certified of this by history, but I have 

 a mania for seeing everything with these old eyes of mine. 

 We were favoured with the finest weather throughout our 

 summer excursion, and for nearly nine months I was almost 

 constantly in the open air, day and night. It was a delicious 

 sedative.' 



A few months later, in consequence of the Revolution' 6t^ * X 

 July, Gruizot became a member of the ministry formed by ' 

 Laffitte. Humboldt used his influence with the renowned 

 statesman to further the claims of men of science, as in the 

 case of Valenciennes and Bonpland. A letter l addressed to 

 him November 2, 1832, concludes with the words: 'Pray 

 present the homage of my respectful devotion to Madame 

 Guizot, for whose talent and amiability I have the highest 

 admiration, and do not quite forget an old friend who has been 

 devoted to you from antediluvian times.' He was soon called 

 upon to write a letter of much sadder import. Guizot 

 had lost his first wife, the talented Mademoiselle Pauline de 

 Meulan, in August 1827, and was married the following year to 

 her niece, Mademoiselle Elise de Dillon. It was this lady, 

 the second Madame Guizot, to whom Humboldt here alludes. 

 Her death took place early in the following year 1833, nearly 

 at the same time as that of Humboldt's sister-in-law, the wife 

 of William von Humboldt. Upon which occasion Humboldt 

 thus wrote to his friend from Potsdam on May 25, 1833 : 2 



' Had I thought that I could trust myself merely to the 

 guidance of feeling, I confess that my heart would have dic- 

 tated the expression of my profound grief some months ago. 

 Received into your family with so much kindness and pleasant 

 hospitality, I am well able to appreciate the severity of your 

 irreparable loss. How irresistible is the charm when to those 



1 De la Roquette, vol. ii. p. 95. 



2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 105. 



