52 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



exile from France, and therefore drew down suspicion upon 

 everyone who associated, or was in any way connected with 

 her, especially if a foreigner residing in Paris. Humboldt, 

 moreover, seems never to have been inspired with any great 

 admiration for this talented, though exceedingly arrogant 

 woman, even when meeting her as one of the sentimentally 

 poetic circle assembling at the house of his brother at Albano. 



Humboldt, as a Grerman, could only secure a peaceful resi- 

 dence in Paris for the completion of his scientific labours by 

 the maintenance of the greatest reserve on political subjects 

 especially during the war of 1 8 1 3. It would be doing him there- 

 fore an injustice to infer from this any want of sympathy in the 

 affairs of his country. The following letter to his sister-in-law, 

 Caroline von Humboldt, carefully as it is worded, gives evidence 

 in every line that he was willing to run any risk in making 

 himself useful to others through the relationships he had 

 formed at Paris. 



'Paris: August 24, 1813. 



6 My dearest Li, We are indeed living in wonderful times, 

 when everything is rapidly hastening to its consummation. 

 Scarcely a week has passed since I wrote to you through a 

 mercantile house, and now we hear that the mails have 

 probably been stopped, and that my letter cannot have 

 reached you. I am going to entrust these few lines to Floret, 

 who is also going to beat a retreat : thus every avenue is 

 closed, and I shall live here in as complete isolation as on 

 the Orinoco. I do not intend to murmur, but shall joyfully 

 endure if Grod in his over-ruling Providence should bring 

 succeur to oppressed humanity. But it will deeply grieve me 

 to be long without news ; would that there were some channel 

 of communication still open. Our letters are not on subjects 

 of importance, and now we must restrict ourselves to our family 

 relationships to yourself, Bill [as he called his brother Wil- 

 liam], and the children. Every battle fills me with anxiety 

 about Theodore. 1 I am now for the first time experiencing 



1 Theodore, a son of William von Humboldt, after completing his educa- 

 tion at the University of Heidelberg, entered the Prussian army as a volun- 

 teer, and served in the campaign against Paris. He died at Berlin on .Tune 

 20, 1871. 



