Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 09

CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D., Professor of Hebrew, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D., Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, New Haven, Conn. WILLIAM M. SLOANE, Ph. D., L. H. D., Professor of History and Political Science, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B., Professor of Literature, Columbia University, New York City. JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D., President of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. WILLARD FISKE, A. M., Ph. D., Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D., Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley, Cal. ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT. D., Professor of the Romance Languages, Tulane University, New Orleans, La. WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A., Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English and History, University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. PAUL SHOREY, Ph. D., Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D., United States Commissioner of Education, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D., Professor of Literature in the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C.
ouis Charles Adelaide de Chamisso, known as Adelbert von Chamisso, the youngest son of Count Louis Marie de Chamisso, was born in the paternal castle of Boncourt, in Champagne, January 30th, 1781. Driven into exile by the Revolution, the family of loyalists sought refuge in the Low Countries and afterward in Germany, settling in Berlin in 1797. In later years the other members of the family returned to France and established themselves once more as Frenchmen in their native land; but Adelbert von Chamisso, German by nature and characteristics as well as by virtue of his early education and environment, struck root in Germany and was the genuine product of German soil. In 1796 the young Chamisso became page to Queen Louise of Prussia, and while at court, by the Queen's directions, he received the most careful education. He was made ensign in 1798 and lieutenant in 1801, in the Regiment von Goetze. A military career was repugnant to him, and his French antecedents did not tend to make his life agreeable among the German officers. That the service was not wholly without interest, however, is shown by the two treatises upon military subjects written by him in 1798 and 1799.