RESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 8t 



plate glass of but moderate dimensions into a window of the 

 Koyal Palace excited universal attention ; it was unique in 

 the city, and was reported to be a present from the Emperor 

 of Eussia. 1 



Society was stirred only by interests of trifling moment. 

 The influential circles breathed a purely political existence, and 

 even the ordinary affairs of life were regulated according to the 

 unalterable dictates of official routine. At the close of 1819, 

 in consequence of the decrees of Carlsbad, a reactionary move- 

 ment had taken place in the Home Government which resulted 

 in the retirement of William von Humboldt, Beyne, and Boy en 

 from the service of the State. Alexander, who fully sympa- 

 thised with his brother's political sentiments, and theoretically 

 even surpassed him in the liberality of his views, must have 

 regarded the party thus brought into power with, if possible, 

 less indulgence ; personal intercourse with such a clique, made 

 up entirely of sprigs of nobility and hereditary hangers-on of 

 official life, could not but be highly distasteful to him, and yet, 

 from his intimate connection with the court, this would seem 

 almost unavoidable, while William, in the happy freedom of 

 his voluntary retirement, could devote himself to his family and 

 his pursuits. It is true that a retrograde movement had also 

 set in at Paris, but this served only to develope Avith greater 

 energy a tone of liberal thought among the homogeneous 

 circles of the middle classes, with whom as a foreigner Hum- 

 boldt moved with unrestrained freedom. That even in Berlin 

 public and political events were not entirely excluded from 

 discussion, Varnhagen's notes furnish abundant evidence. Set- 

 ting aside the exaggerated expressions of such a writer, who, 

 with the discontented feelings of wounded vanity, hears the 

 grass of revolution growing where it had never even been 

 sown, how despicable and insignificant seem the tactics of the 

 Opposition, how prejudiced the attacks, descending even to 

 personalities, how puerile the expression of a dissatisfaction 

 so universal in a witty sarcasm or the turn of a bon mot! 

 In Paris, the easy flow of this kind of wit had always been 

 accompanied by brilliant flights of intellectual converse. In 



1 < Karl Hitter/ &c. vol. ii. p. 3. 

 VOL. II. G 



