FROM REVOLUTION OF JULY TO DEATH OF THE KING. 173 



for Humboldt, the more so as she manifested a full appreciation 

 of his intellectual superiority. She perused his works, with 

 which he had presented her, with interest, and requested ' the 

 pleasure of his instructive society ' when she or her German 

 guests paid a visit to Versailles. The conversations she had 

 enjoyed with him at St. Cloud, and in the red drawing-room 

 at the Tuileries, were retained by her in grateful remembrance 

 till the latest days of her exile, and doubly precious to her in 

 that sad time was the thought that he looked back with plea- 

 sure on the days that were past. The new edition of the * As- 

 pects of Nature,' brought out in 1849, was greeted by her with 

 deep interest ' as a quickening fountain for those who had ex- 

 perienced the sorrows of life, and suffered from the turmoils of 

 the world.' She never failed to convey to the royal exiles in 

 England news of his health, and implored her children to bear 

 him in remembrance. Her views on the wild course of events 

 then agitating France coincided with those of Humboldt. 

 His calm assurances that mankind was striving after a fable 

 convenue a chimera, scarcely perhaps believed in at once 

 secured her sympathies, for, fully as Humboldt agreed with 

 Arago in his c radical ' and anti-ministerial views, and clearly 

 as he saw through the folly of Louis-Philippe and his ministry, 

 it must not be supposed that he viewed the Revolution of 1848 

 with any brighter hopes than that of 1830. Neither could, he 

 place any greater confidence in the republic of which Arago 

 was a leader, although in common with the Duchess of Or- 

 leans he was united with him in a sympathetic bond of hatred 

 against the usurper, who, by a coup d'etat, had in a moment 

 destroyed the hopes both of the republicans and royalists. For 

 many years Humboldt watched keenly for the signs of a change 

 in the affairs of France, of which he was kept informed by the 

 princess and the Duchess von Sagan, as he could view with 

 calmer feelings than those experienced by the princess the 

 probability of a new dethronement ; these secret communica- 

 tions, together with information of a similar nature derived 

 from Arago, he faithfully forwarded to the Princess of Prussia, 

 who was equally interested with himself in the Duchess of 

 Orleans, and ever expressed warm admiration for her and the 

 Orleans family. Against Louis Napoleon 3 of whom he spoke 



