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had already asserted and proved by facts) : his earlier liberal 

 opinions on finance, municipal institutions, trade and commerce, he 

 had borrowed from the age in which he lived ; but had afterwards 

 completely abandoned, and even combated them, when such was the 

 fashion of the day. He had so ignominiously deserted his former 

 principles, that Kunth a friend of his earlier years who had 

 remained faithful to those principles, and yet had not wished to 

 compromise Stein had burned upwards of three hundred of his 

 letters, since, as he said, they would bring shame on the man for 

 whom he had such reverence, exposing his contradiction with himself. 

 Speaking of the Prince of Prussia, Humboldt said the Prince had 

 said at St. Petersburg, just as he had previously done here, that the 

 war would have been avoided if Prussia, at the very outset, had 

 assumed a resolute attitude; the Emperor Nicholas would then have 

 yielded. The imperial family were quite united, not excepting the 

 Grand Duke Constantine, who did not appear to him as dangerous 

 as he generally was represented to be. The Empress Mother 

 (dowager) said they were all of them children ; she was obliged to 

 remain with them to keep them in order. The war was severely felt ; 

 all was at a dead lock, the country was drained of men, the armies 

 not numerous enough. Poland, the Baltic provinces, Finland occu- 

 pied only by scanty forces. The main part of the army was in the 

 Crimea, the losses enormous, and no possibility to make up for 

 them. Gortschakoff reported the daily losses in fighting to amount to 

 1 80 or 200 men, an appalling sum total for the month. Kesselrode 

 was planning new negotiations, but in the meanwhile great blows 

 would very likely be struck on one side or the other : they were not 

 without serious apprehensions about Sebastopol. The Prince is 

 gone from here to Erdmannsdorf to the King, from thence he will 

 hasten to Baden. The King has with him at Erdmannsdorf, 

 Lieutenant- General von Gerlach; amongst others, also, R.,* un- 

 less he has already become tired of him, as will happen so often. 

 Humboldt speaks of R. as being decidedly a Jesuit ; he calls him 

 Ignatius, and sneers at and ridicules him over and over again. 

 ' The great destinies of Italy leave the King altogether unmoved, 



* Thus in the original, but evidently referring to Eaumer, Minister of 

 Public Works. TR. 



