an to discuss the most necessary
matters with M. Gathy. He was the most charming of men, half German,
half French, full of _esprit_, and, what was more important to me,
full of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I felt I was
safe, and so I was, though I had still some battles to fight. First of
all, I had taken but little money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of one of his friends, about
whom Hagedorn had often spoken to me and who was in Rothschild's Bank.
I went there to find that he was away, but another gentleman there
told me that I could have as much as I liked till Hagedorn or his
friend came back. So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.

The next step I had to consider was what I should do for my breakfast,
luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast I could have at home, but for the
other meals I had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I could. It
was not always what I wanted, for it had to be cheap, and even a
dinner _a deux francs_ in the Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I
became more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller and simpler
restaurants, where Frenchmen dined and had arranged for a less showy
but more wholesome diet.

The impression that my first experience of life in one of the great
capitals of the world made on me is still fresh in my memory. My
principal amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery through
the town. The beauty of the city itself, and the rush and crowd in
the streets delighted me, and I remember specially a few days after my
arrival, when I went to watch "le tout Paris" going out to the races
at Longchamps, that I was so struck by the difference between these
streets full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent dresses,
and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet streets that I had been
accustomed to in Dessau and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself
from laughing out loud. However, when the novelty wore off there was
another contrast that struck me, and made me more inclined to cry this
time than to laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew almost
every face I passed, here in these crowds I was a stranger and knew no
one, and I suffered cruelly from the solitude at first.

I began my work, however, at once, and on the third day after my
arrival I was at the Bibliotheque Royale armed with a letter of
introduction from Humboldt, and the very next day was already at work
collating the MSS.