by Andrea Wulf
Wherever Humboldt went, he sparked frenzied activity. The French Board of Longitude used his exact geographical measurements, others copied his maps, engravers worked on his illustrations and the Jardin des Plantes opened an exhibition displaying his botanical specimens. The rock samples from Chimborazo caused an excitement similar to that afforded to the rocks that would be brought back from the moon in the twentieth century. Humboldt was not planning to keep his specimens, but was instead sending them to scientists across Europe because he believed that to share was the path to new and greater discoveries. As a gesture of gratitude to his faithful friend Aimé Bonpland, Humboldt also used his contacts to secure him a yearly pension of 3,000 francs from the French government. Bonpland, Humboldt said, had greatly contributed to the success of the expedition and he had also described most of the botanical specimens.
Although Humboldt enjoyed being fêted in Paris, he also felt like a stranger and dreaded the first European winter – and so perhaps it was no surprise that he gravitated towards a group of young South Americans living in Paris at that time whom he probably met through Montúfar. One was twenty-one-year-old Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan who would later become the leader of the revolutions in South America.2
Born in 1783, Bolívar was the son of one of Caracas’s wealthiest creole families. They could trace their lineage back to another Simón de Bolívar who had arrived in Venezuela at the end of the sixteenth century. The family had flourished since then and now owned several plantations, mines and elegant town houses. Bolívar had left Caracas following his young wife’s death from yellow fever only a few months after their wedding. He had loved her passionately, and to drown his grief he had embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe. He had arrived in Paris around the same time as Humboldt and threw himself into a round of drinking, gambling, sex and late night discussions about Enlightenment philosophy. Dark, with long black curly hair and beautiful white teeth (which he particularly cared for), Bolívar dressed in the latest fashion. He adored dancing, and women found him immensely attractive.
When Bolívar visited Humboldt in his lodgings, which were filled with books, journals and drawings from South America, he discovered a man who was enchanted with his country, a man who couldn’t stop talking about the riches of a continent unknown to most Europeans. As Humboldt spoke of the great rapids of the Orinoco and of the soaring peaks of the Andes, of towering palms and electric eels, Bolívar realized that no European had ever painted South America in such vivid colours before.
They talked about politics and revolutions too. Both men were in Paris when Napoleon crowned himself emperor that winter. Bolívar was shocked to see how his hero had transformed himself into a despot and a ‘hypocritical tyrant’. But at the same time, Bolívar also saw how Spain struggled to withstand Napoleon’s military ambitions and began to think what this changing shift in power in Europe could mean for the Spanish colonies. As they discussed South America’s future, Humboldt argued that while the colonies might be ripe for a revolution, there was no one to lead them. Bolívar, though, told him that the people would be as ‘strong as God’ once they had decided to fight. Bolívar was beginning to think about the possibility of a revolution in the colonies.
Both men had a deep-seated desire to see the Spanish driven out of South America. Humboldt had been impressed by the ideals of the American and French revolutions, and also espoused emancipation in Latin America. The very idea of a colony, Humboldt argued, was an immoral concept and a colonial government was a ‘government of distrust’. When he had travelled through South America, Humboldt had been astonished to hear people enthuse about George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. The colonists had told him that the American Revolution gave them hope for their own future, but at the same time he had also seen the racial mistrust that plagued South American society.
For three centuries the Spanish had stoked suspicions among classes and races in their colonies. The wealthy creoles, Humboldt was convinced, preferred to be ruled by Spain rather than share power with the mestizos, slaves and indigenous people. If anything, he feared, they would only create a ‘white republic’ based on slavery. To Humboldt’s mind these racial differences were so deeply ingrained in the social make-up of the Spanish colonies that they were not ready for a revolution. Bonpland, though, was more certain and encouraged Bolívar in his emerging ideas; so much so that Humboldt believed Bonpland was as deluded as the impetuous young creole. Years later, though, Humboldt would fondly remember his encounter with Bolívar as ‘a time when we were making vows for the independence and freedom of the New Continent’.
Although surrounded by people all day, Humboldt remained emotionally distant. He was quick in his judgement of people, too quick and indiscreet, he admitted. There was certainly a streak of Schadenfreude in him and he enjoyed exposing people’s missteps. Always quick-witted, he would occasionally get carried away, inventing derogative nicknames or gossiping behind people’s backs. The King of Sicily, for example, he renamed the ‘pasta king’ while a conservative Prussian minister was declared ‘a glacier’ who was so icy, Humboldt joked, that he had given him rheumatism in the left shoulder. But behind Humboldt’s ambition, hectic activity and sharp comments, his brother Wilhelm believed, was a great gentleness and a vulnerability that no one really noticed. Though Alexander hankered after fame and recognition, Wilhelm explained to Caroline, it would never make him happy. During his explorations nature and physical exertion had fulfilled him, but now that he was back in Europe, Humboldt was feeling lonely again.
As much as he was forever connecting and relating everything in the natural world, he was strangely one-dimensional when it came to his personal relationships. When Humboldt heard, for example, that a close friend had died while he had been away, he wrote the widow a letter of philosophy rather than of condolences. In it Humboldt talked more about Jewish and Greek opinions of the concept of death than about the widow’s late husband – he had also written the letter in French which he knew she didn’t understand. When, a few weeks after his arrival in Paris, Caroline and Wilhelm’s own three-month-old daughter died after a smallpox vaccination – the second child they had lost in a little more than a year – Caroline fell into a deep melancholy. Alone in her grief and with her husband far away in Rome, Caroline hoped for some emotional support from her busy brother-in-law but felt that his expressions of sympathy were just ‘demonstrations of sentiments rather than deep feelings’.
But Caroline, despite her own misery, worried about Humboldt. Though he had survived his expedition, he was less capable when it came to the more practical aspects of his day-to-day life. He ignored, for example, the extent to which the five-year voyage had eaten into his fortune. Caroline thought him so naïve about his financial situation that she asked Wilhelm to write a serious letter from Rome to explain the true nature of Alexander’s dwindling funds. Then, in the autumn of 1804, as Caroline prepared to leave Paris to return to Rome, she found herself reluctant to see Alexander stay behind. To ‘leave him by himself without any restraint’, she wrote to Wilhelm, would be disastrous. ‘I trembled for his inner peace.’ Hearing her degree of concern, Wilhelm suggested that she stay on a little longer.
Alexander was as restless as ever, Caroline reported to her husband, constantly concocting new travel plans. Greece, Italy, Spain – ‘all European countries are wandering through his head.’ Fired up by his visit to Philadelphia and Washington earlier that year, he was also hoping to explore the North American continent. He wanted to go west, he wrote to one of his new American acquaintances, a plan for which Thomas Jefferson ‘would be just the right man to aid me’. There was so much to see. ‘I have my mind set on Missouri, the Arctic circle, and Asia,’ he wrote, and ‘one must make the most of one’s youth.’ But before setting out on yet another adventure, it was also time to start writing up the results of his previous expedition – but where to begin?
Humboldt was not thinking of just one book. He envisaged a series of large and beautifull
y illustrated volumes that would, for example, depict the great peaks of the Andes, exotic blooms, ancient manuscripts and Inca ruins. He also intended to write some more specialized books: botanical and zoological publications that described the plants and animals of Latin America precisely and scientifically, as well as some on astronomy and geography. He planned an atlas that would include his new maps showing plant distribution across the globe, the locations of volcanoes and mountain ranges, rivers and so on. But Humboldt also wanted to write more general and cheaper books that would explain his new vision of nature to a broader audience. He put Bonpland in charge of the botanical books, but all the others he would have to write himself.
With a mind that worked in all directions, Humboldt could often hardly keep up with his own thoughts. As he wrote, new ideas would pop up which were squeezed on to the page – here was a little sketch or some calculations jotted into the margins. When he ran out of space, Humboldt used his large desk on which he carved and scribbled ideas. Soon the entire table top was completely covered with numbers, lines and words, so much so that a carpenter had to be called to plane it clean again.
Writing didn’t stop him from travelling, as long as it was in Europe and near the centres of scientific learning. If he had to, Humboldt could work anywhere – even in the back of a coach, balancing his notebooks on his knees and filling the pages with his almost indecipherable handwriting. He wanted to visit Wilhelm in Rome, and see the Alps and Vesuvius. In March 1805, seven months after his arrival in France and only a few weeks after Caroline had finally left Paris for Rome, Humboldt and his new friend, the chemist Gay-Lussac, also set out for Italy. Humboldt now spent much of his time with the twenty-six-year-old unmarried Gay-Lussac, who seemed to have replaced Carlos Montúfar as Humboldt’s closest friend when Montúfar had moved on to Madrid earlier that year.3
Humboldt and Gay-Lussac travelled first to Lyon and from there to Chambéry, a small town in south-eastern France from where they could see the Alps rising on the horizon. As the warm air breathed life over the French countryside, leaves unfurled and clothed the trees in the fresh green of a new season. Birds were building their nests and the roads were lined with the bright blossoms of spring flowers. The travellers were equipped with the best instruments and regularly stopped to take meteorological measurements which Humboldt wanted to compare with those from Latin America. From Chambéry they continued south-east and crossed the Alps into Italy. Humboldt adored being back in the mountains.
On the last day of April they arrived in Rome and stayed with Wilhelm and Caroline. Since the couple had moved to Rome two and a half years previously, their house had become a meeting place for artists and thinkers. Every Wednesday and Sunday Caroline and William hosted a lunch, as well as welcoming a large number of guests in the evenings. Sculptors, archaeologists and scientists from all over Europe arrived – no matter whether they were famous thinkers, aristocratic travellers or struggling artists. Here Humboldt found an eager audience for his tales from the rainforest and the Andes, but also artists who turned even his roughest sketches into glorious paintings for his publications. Humboldt had arranged to meet Leopold von Buch, an old friend from his time at the mining academy in Freiberg, who was now one of the most respected geologists in Europe. They had plans to investigate Vesuvius and the Alps together.
Humboldt found more acquaintances in Rome. In July Simón Bolívar arrived from France. During the previous winter, as the cold days had enveloped Paris in a grey blanket, Bolívar had sunk into a dark mood. Simón Rodríguez, his old teacher from Caracas who was in Paris too, had suggested an excursion. In April they had driven by stagecoach to Lyon and then had begun to walk. They marched along fields and through forests, enjoying the rural surroundings. They talked, sang and read. Slowly Bolívar cleansed his body and mind of the dissipations of the previous months. All his life Bolívar had adored being outside, and now once again felt invigorated by the fresh air, exercise and nature. When he saw the Alps rising against the horizon, Bolívar had been reminded of the wild landscapes of his youth, the mountains against which Caracas nestled. His thoughts were now deeply engaged with his country. In May he crossed the Savoy Alps and walked all the way to Rome.
In Rome Bolívar and Humboldt talked again about South America and revolutions. Though Humboldt hoped that the Spanish colonies would free themselves, at no moment during their time together in Paris and then in Rome did he see Bolívar as their potential leader. When Bolívar argued rapturously about the liberation of his people, Humboldt saw only a young man with a brilliant imagination – ‘a dreamer’, as he said, and a man who was still too immature. Humboldt was not convinced, but as a mutual friend later recounted, it was Humboldt’s ‘great wisdom and accomplished prudence’ that helped Bolívar at a time when he was still young and wild. Humboldt’s friend, Leopold von Buch – a man famed for his geological knowledge, but also for his unsocial and brusque behaviour – was irritated by the political hijacking of what he had believed would be a gathering of scientific minds. Buch swiftly dismissed Bolívar as a ‘fabulist’ full of incendiary ideas. And so Buch was relieved to leave Rome for Naples and Vesuvius on 16 July – together with Humboldt and Gay-Lussac but without Bolívar.
The timing could not have been better. A month later, on the evening of 12 August, as Humboldt regaled a group of Germans who were visiting Naples with stories from the Orinoco and the Andes, Vesuvius erupted in front of their eyes. Humboldt couldn’t believe his luck. As one scientist commented, it was a ‘compliment that Vesuvius chose to give Humboldt’. From the balcony of his host’s house, Humboldt saw the glowing lava snaking down the mountain destroying vineyards, villages and forests. Naples was thrown into an eerie light. Within minutes Humboldt was ready to ride towards the spewing volcano to observe the eruption as closely as possible. During the next few days he climbed Vesuvius six times. It was all very impressive, Humboldt wrote to Bonpland, but nothing compared to South America. Vesuvius was like an ‘asteroid next to Saturn’ in comparison to Cotopaxi.
An eruption of Mount Vesuvius (Illustration Credit 9.4)
Meanwhile in Rome, on a particularly hot day in mid-August, Bolívar, Rodríguez and another South American friend walked to the top of the hill Monte Sacro. There, with the city at their feet, Rodríguez recounted the story of the plebeians in ancient Rome who – on that very hill – had threatened to secede from the republic in protest against the rule of the patricians. Hearing this story, Bolívar fell to his knees, grabbed Rodríguez’s hand and vowed that he would liberate Venezuela. He would not stop, Bolívar declared, until ‘I have broken the shackles’. This was a turning point for Bolívar and from now on his country’s freedom was the guiding torch of his life. Two years later, when he arrived in Caracas, he was no longer the party-loving dandy but a man driven by ideas of revolution and liberty. The seeds of South America’s liberation were germinating.
By the time Humboldt returned to Rome at the end of August, Bolívar had already left. Feeling restless, Humboldt also wanted to move on and decided to travel through Europe to Berlin. He rushed north, stopping briefly in Florence, Bologna and Milan. He couldn’t go to Vienna as planned because Gay-Lussac still travelled with him, and, with Austria and France at war, it would have been too dangerous for the Frenchman. The sciences, Humboldt complained, no longer provided a safeguard in this volatile climate.
As it turned out Humboldt’s decision to skip Vienna was a wise one because the French army had crossed the Rhine and marched through Swabia to take Vienna in mid-November. Three weeks later Napoleon defeated the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz (today’s Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic). Napoleon’s decisive victory at Austerlitz marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire and of Europe as it had hitherto existed.
1 After the revolution, the Académie des Sciences was incorporated into the National Institute of Sciences and Arts (Institut National des Sciences et des Arts). A few years later, in 1816, it once again became the Académ
ie des Sciences – and part of the Institut de France. For the sake of consistency, it will be the Académie des Sciences throughout the book.
2 It was probably Carlos Montúfar who introduced Humboldt to the South Americans in Paris – but Humboldt and Bolívar also had several mutual acquaintances. There was Bolívar’s childhood friend Fernando del Toro – the son of the Marquis del Toro with whom Humboldt had spent time in Venezuela. In Caracas Humboldt had also met Bolívar’s sisters and his former tutor, the poet Andrés Bello.
3 Montúfar returned to South America in 1810 where he joined the revolutionaries. He was imprisoned and executed in 1816.
10
Berlin
IN A DESPERATE attempt to avoid the battlefields, Humboldt altered his route to Berlin. He went via Lake Como in northern Italy where he met Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist who had just invented the electric battery. Humboldt then crossed the Alps as fierce winter storms were raging. Rain, hail and snow pounded down – Humboldt was in his element. As he journeyed north and across the German states, he visited old friends along the way as well as his former professor, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, in Göttingen. On 16 November 1805, more than a year after his return to Europe, Alexander von Humboldt arrived in Berlin with Gay-Lussac.
After Paris and Rome, Berlin felt provincial, and the flat countryside around the city seemed plain and dull. For a man who loved the heat and humidity of the rainforest, Humboldt had chosen the worst time of the year to arrive. Berlin was freezing cold during those first harsh winter months. Within weeks Humboldt was ill, covered in a measles-like rash, and weakened by a high fever. The weather, he wrote to Goethe in early February 1806, was unbearable. He was of a more ‘tropical nature’, Humboldt said, and no longer suited for the cold and damp north German climate.