"The first condition for working at the instruction of youth is independence; though I admire Bonaparte's genius, it is not to my taste."
In the same way he refused the advantages offered to him by the Restoration:
"I have done nothing for the Bourbons," he said, "and I cannot accept the price of the services and the blood of my fathers. In this age, every man must provide for his own existence."
In Herr von Chamisso's family this note is preserved, written in the Temple, in the hand of Louis XVI.:
"I recommend M. de Chamisso, one of my faithful servants, to my brothers."
The Martyr King had hidden the little note in his bosom to have it handed to his first page, Chamisso[107], Adelbert's uncle[108].
Herr von Chamisso embarked on the ship equipped by Count Romanzoff[109], and, in company with Captain Kotzebue[110], discovered the strait to the east of Behring's Straits and gave his name to one of the islands from which Cook had caught sight of the American coast. In Kamchatka he picked up a portrait of Madame Récamier on porcelain and a copy of his little tale, Peter Schlemihl, translated into Dutch. Adelbert's hero, Peter Schlemihl, sold his shadow to the devil: I would rather have sold him my body.
I remember Chamisso as I do the imperceptible breeze that lightly swayed the stalks of the heather through which I passed when returning to Berlin.
*
Following a rule of Frederic II., the Princes and Princesses of the Blood in Berlin do not see the diplomatic body; but, thanks to the carnival, to the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland with the Princess Frederica of Prussia, sister to the late Queen[111], thanks also to a certain relaxation of etiquette which they permitted themselves, it was said, because of my person, I had occasion to be oftener with the Royal Family than my colleagues. As from time to time I visited the Great Palace, I there met the Princess William[112]: she liked taking me over the apartments. I never saw a sadder expression than hers: in the uninhabited rooms at the back of the palace, on the Spree, she showed me a chamber haunted on certain days by a white lady, and, pressing herself against me with a certain terror, she looked like that white lady herself. On the other hand, the Duchess of Cumberland told me that she and her sister the Queen of Prussia, when both still very young, had heard their mother[113], who had recently died, talk to them from under her closed curtains.