106 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



little village of Paretz, of which the king himself constituted 

 the chief magistrate, where no soldier ever entered, and 

 scarcely even a minister of State. Bunsen remarked that the 

 people there c might make good subjects, but were but in- 

 different associates.' As the appointment of Humboldt as 

 cicerone to Bunsen was no doubt intended by the king as a 

 mutual pleasure to these celebrated men, so he conferred a far 

 higher honour and gratification upon his distinguished chamber- 

 lain when commissioning him to attend upon Karl August on 

 the occasion of his visit to the court in June 1828. It was 

 a strange coincidence, as Goethe remarks, ' that the Grand 

 Duke should spend the last few days of his life in almost un- 

 interrupted intercourse with Humboldt at Berlin, discussing 

 with his friend to the last many important problems in the 

 solution of which he had always manifested the keenest in- 

 terest ; nor was it of slight moment that the closing days and 

 last hours of one of the greatest princes that Germany ever 

 saw should have been witnessed by such a man as Humboldt.' 

 The memorable and unreserved expressions made use of by 

 Karl August during those sad days have already been given in 

 another portion of this work. 1 



It was regarded as a further proof of royal favour that in 

 the summer of 1828, Humboldt was selected by the king to 

 accompany him to the baths of Teplitz an arrangement which 

 afterwards became almost an established custom. Shortly 

 before his Asiatic expedition, Humboldt was created, on April 

 6, 1829, Actual Privy Counsellor, with the title of excel- 

 lency a distinction which, unlike his brother William, he 

 failed to appreciate, and indulged his customary satire when 

 entreating his friends in addressing him to omit ' the de- 

 testable Excellency.' 2 On his return from Eussia he was 

 further invested with the order of the Eed Eagle of the first 

 class. 



These proofs of royal favour, unimportant as they may seem 

 to us, naturally made him an object of envy to many of his 

 associates. c His enemies,' remarks Varnhagen, ' multiply in 

 proportion to the increase of his honours, dignities, and in- 



1 Vol. i. p. 207 ; see Eckermann, vol. iii. p. 257, &c. 



2 Berghaus, vol. i. p. 116. 



