242 



its own sworn defenders.' At last Humboldt added : * If one has 

 the misfortune of being compelled to live with such wretches as 

 Gerlach, Baumer, and the rest who have gained a footing at this 

 Court !' He drove from me to the Kothen Strasse, to look at a pic- 

 ture, I remaining behind in great excitement. I was not able to 

 remember or write down the tenth part of what he had said !" 



On the 12th August, Varnhagen makes the following post- 

 script : " Speaking of the position of Prussia, Humboldt said it 

 reminded him of a pleading which he had once heard in Paris ; the 

 counsel for the prosecution, in the matter of a box on the ear, had 

 wound up, triumphantly exclaiming: ' Au fond nous n'avons pas 

 regu le soufflet, nous n'avons eu que le geste ! ' ' 



CLXIX. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 13th January, 1856. 



Smile, my dear friend (you are perfectly right in 

 doing so !) at the strange lines from Princess Lieven, 

 and also at my importunate inquiry. Madame de 

 Quitzow, who has never written to me for the last 

 twenty-five years, wants to know from me, whether 

 the Emperor Paul, during the epoch of his political 

 insanity, had caused the proposal to be made by 

 Kotzebue, that instead of the armies, the Ministers 

 of Foreign Affairs should engage in single combat. 

 I was at that time (1799 and 1800), traversing the 

 Delta of South America, and had no knowledge 

 whatever of the anecdote which the Russian Princess 

 (who, as it now appears to me, has a very strong 

 leaning towards Western ideas and predilections), 

 wishes to have authenticated. According to rather 

 unreliable accounts which I have gathered, the pro- 

 posal was, that the Monarchs themselves, not the 



