o dwell.
Instead of meeting with sympathy on account of his peculiar situation,
Chamisso was frequently doomed to hear, in the Capital of Prussia, the
headquarters of the confederation against France and Napoleon,
expressions of hatred and scorn directed against his countrymen. He was
himself too fair-minded to mistake the cause of such expressions, which
were, after all, only natural in the circumstances, but they
nevertheless deeply hurt the sensitive poet when they reached his ears.

After the treaty of Tilsit had been signed by Napoleon and the King of
Prussia, Chamisso visited France, where his family regained possession
of part of their estates, and our author secured, for a short time, the
post of professor at the school at Napoleonville in the Vendee. It was
during his stay in France that Chamisso was drawn into the circle of
Madame de Stael, and he followed her to Coppet, where she had been
exiled by Napoleon in 1811. In the house of this "magnificent and
wonderful woman," as he calls her in his letters, he passed
incomparable days in the company of August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Madame
Recamier and other celebrities. It was also then that he began to study
botany on the advice of an English friend. Soon, however, Chamisso
returned to Berlin, which was to him what Delphi once was to the
ancient Athenians. He continued his botanical studies and at the age of
31 entered the University as a student of medicine. Again the war broke
out, and the uprising of the Germans against Napoleon involved Chamisso
once more in the popular hatred against the French. Anyone who lays
claim to some historical knowledge and a dash of culture is acquainted
with the events of 1813. A wave of patriotic enthusiasm swept over
Germany, and Germans rose like one man, in answer to the appeal of
Frederic William, King of Prussia. Houses, streets and universities
resounded with the clash of arms and the shouts of war-like patriots.
In the midst of this effervescence Chamisso suffered greatly. He loved
Germany and liberty, but he also cherished France, his native land;
moreover, he could not help admiring Napoleon, in spite of the latter's
tyranny. While the German poets Koerner and Eichendorff took up arms,
while Arndt, Rueckert and Uhland fired the courage of their compatriots
by their warlike songs, Chamisso not only stood alone, but was even
exposed to danger. His friends therefore decided to remove him from
Berlin. Lichtenstein, his profes