Lepsius had now completed his life as a student, and with the highest honors which the greatest of the German universities could bestow. He was a sound philologist, archaeologist, Sanscrit scholar and linguist, but at no time had he given any thorough study to the Oriental-Semitic languages, and he had paid no attention whatever to the Hamitic (ancient Egyptian, Coptic, etc). His neglect of the former was often afterwards an embarrassment and matter of regret to him; of the latter he became an expert master after the formal completion of his studies, in consequence of notable circumstances with which we are about to become acquainted.
THE JOURNEYMAN.
PARIS.
Before the close of the examination Richard had already written admirable letters to his father, in which he consulted with him, as one friend would with another, as to what he should do after graduating. Paris was at that time still esteemed the centre of learning, and to work for a time in Paris was to give one’s studies the final polish and to place the crown upon them. Even Lepsius had yet much to gain there, and therefore we see the father grant his consent that the young doctor should bring his apprenticeship to a final close upon the Seine.
He arrived in Paris on the fourteenth of July, 1833, a year after the death of Champollion, the first decipherer of hieroglyphics. The diary which he kept during his residence there, (in after years he only made occasional short notes in memorandum books arranged as calendars), as well as the letters to Bunsen which were kept to the very last fragment, and the less perfectly preserved letters to his father, all testify to the zeal, the discretion, the cheerful courage, and the alert attention with which he made use of his long sojourn in what was then the “focus of the intellectual life of the world.”
The period spent in Paris had a still more decisive influence upon him than that at Göttingen. During this time the youth matured into a settled man; his scientific inclination received a new bias, and its objects became plainly defined.
Champollion had said, in his introductory lecture, that the science of archaeology was a beautiful maiden without a dower. This aphorism was at that time entirely appropriate, yet not only the young scholar himself, but his father also, knew the wonderful charms of the bride, and every possible exertion was made by both, to win her for the ardent wooer. The “court president” in Naumburg was an official of the higher class, in good standing, with moderate property, and many children, nevertheless he allowed his highly gifted son the necessary means with which to remain for a time in Paris and devote himself, free from care, to his scientific education. But the young investigator felt that he would not have attained his purpose at the end of the “several months” which his father had originally contemplated. He did not wish to leave France or its capital, until he had gained all that was there to be won, and especially (this he insists upon repeatedly), not until he had acquired perfect command of the French language. In order to earn the necessary means for a longer stay he at first thought of translating into French his vademecum, Otfried Müller’s Handbook of Archaeology, which, to him, was such a dear and familiar friend. But this undertaking was not carried out, and he began by giving German lessons to two renowned scholars. From one of them, Dureau de la Malle, membre de l’Institute, whom he calls a specimen of a dissipated, frivolous Frenchman, he received five francs an hour, from the excellent De Witte only four. “He learns more for his four francs than the other for his five.” Meanwhile the desired opportunity soon presented itself for earning in a suitable manner the necessary addition to the yearly allowance from his father. The learned Duc de Luynes, “such a duke as is seldom seen, a ἀυὴρ καλὸς κἀγαθὸς in the fullest sense, who is also well-versed in the classical languages,” commissioned Lepsius to collect for him from the Greek and Latin authors the material which he needed for his archaeological-philological work. “On the Weapons of the Ancients.” Lepsius received a handsome monthly salary for this work, which he could easily manage in addition to his other studies, and he executed it so entirely to the satisfaction of the duke that the latter afterwards awarded him special remuneration.
Lepsius was now in such a position that he could conveniently, and without material anxieties, profit by all that Paris offered in the way of instruction, and at the same time participate in all the intellectual pleasures of life in the capital. We see him working indefatigably in his pleasant apartment, and in his leisure hours enjoying the society of his friends and playing on his own good piano. He was very musical and sang well and correctly. The public libraries and museums are at his disposal, and he makes diligent use of them; private collections are also opened to him, and he attends the lectures of the most eminent professors at the university. Those of the great philologist and archaeologist, Letronne, appear to him particularly attractive, and among them one especially “On the Ancient History of Egypt.” He praises these lectures for their great critical acumen and clearness, and declares that Letronne takes pleasure in contradicting everything not capable of proof, and in denying all earlier influence of Egypt upon Greece, (before Psammetik. Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.) Letronne only accepted what was indisputable of Champollion’s discoveries, and it was he who especially roused and fostered in Lepsius the distrust which he too bore towards the great investigator, and which caused him to hesitate about entertaining Bunsen’s proposition that he should devote himself to Egyptology.
Alexander von Humboldt, with whom he had become acquainted in Berlin, had commended him warmly to the celebrated philologist, Hase, and from him and others he had received excellent introductions. He was highly esteemed also by the members of the Institute, on account of his admirable first work. Thus he was enabled to make the acquaintance of the greatest Orientalists, philologists and archaeologists of France, and was most cordially received by Silvestre de Sacy, Quatre-Mère de Quincy, Raynouard, Raoul-Rochette, the Duc de Luynes, etc. He became intimate with Panofka, and the learned Stahl, secretary of the Asiatic Society, invited him to drink German beer in his apartment. This man he calls “a paragon of the learning of the whole world.” “He may be called greedy in regard to time and knowledge. He sleeps seven hours, cooks his dinner,—a little rice,—himself, spends almost no time at all on all the externals of life, such as eating, dressing, shaving, visiting, etc., and all the moments thus gained he spends in study. He knows a host of Asiatic languages, Chinese among others, and almost all the European, is incredibly conversant with the history and geography of all countries and times, as well as with all literatures, swims and fences very well, is a sturdy pedestrian, conducts the whole Asiatic correspondence, etc.” Yet, “this phenomenon of learning” had been in nowise distinguished at school, and had usually occupied the lowest places there. A genius he cannot call him, for his power of original production has suffered from his erudition, and with all his attainments he has never written any complete work. But Lepsius understood how to learn from him, and obtained through him an insight into the construction of Chinese. Stahl’s opinion, that among the Chinese as also among several uncivilized nations, intellectual conceptions were developed before sensuous, seems to Lepsius entirely contrary to reason; and he only apprehends from this that we have become acquainted with the intellectual culture of the Chinese at a very late, and consequently intellectually abstract, period.
He seeks to profit by the learning of other Parisian scholars, as well as by Stahl’s surpassing erudition. Amongst the noted Germans with whom he associated on the Seine, he names Wagen, the historian of art from Berlin, Müntz, Himly, Urlichs, the painter Bonterweck, Tix, Dübner, Stickel, Spach, the Alsatian Lobstein, and the historian Zinkeisen.
He also devoted many precious hours to learning engraving on copper and lithography. He used his first independent attempt in the art of engraving on copper, (the central portion of the plan of Paris), to adorn the sheets of letter paper on which he wrote home to his family, and on this neat engraving he marked in fine writing the houses which he most frequented, the museum of the Louvre, the Library, the Institute, the two restaurants where he usually took his meals, and even the dwellings of Panofka, Müntz, and Count de Bouge, between whose wife and himself a charming friendship existed, and whose salon he often visited on Sunday.