ensuing year. Placed on parole he
went to France, where he found that both his parents were dead; and,
returning to Berlin in the autumn of 1807, he obtained his release from
the service early in the following year. Homeless and without a
profession, disillusioned and despondent, he lived in Berlin until 1810,
when, through the services of an old friend of the family, he was
offered a professorship at the _lycee_ at Napoleonville in La Vendee. He
set out to take up the post, but drawn into the charmed circle of Madame
de Stael, followed her in her exile to Coppet in Switzerland, where,
devoting himself to botanical research, he remained nearly two years. In
1812 he returned to Berlin, where he continued his scientific studies.
In the summer of the eventful year, 1813, he wrote the prose narrative
_Peter Schlemihl_, the man who sold his shadow. This, the most famous of
all his works, has been translated into most European languages (English
by W. Howitt). It was written partly to divert his own thoughts and
partly to amuse the children of his friend Hitzig. In 1815 Chamisso was
appointed botanist to the Russian ship "Rurik," which Otto von Kotzebue
(son of August von Kotzebue) commanded on a scientific voyage round the
world. His diary of the expedition (_Tagebuch_, 1821) affords some
interesting glimpses of England and English life. On his return in 1818
he was made custodian of the botanical gardens in Berlin, and was
elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1820 he married.
Chamisso's travels and scientific researches restrained for a while the
full development of his poetical talent, and it was not until his
forty-eighth year that he turned again to literature. In 1829, in
collaboration with Gustav Schwab, and from 1832 in conjunction with
Franz von Gaudy, he brought out the _Deutsche Musenalmanach_, in which
his later poems were mainly published. He died on the 21st of August
1838.

As a scientist Chamisso has not left much mark, although his
_Bemerkungen und Ansichten_, published in an incomplete form in O. von
Kotzebue's _Entdeckungsreise_ (Weimar, 1821) and more completely in
Chamisso's _Gesammelte Werke_ (1836), and the botanical work, _Ubersicht
der nutzbarsten und schadlichsten Gewachse in Norddeutschland_ (1829)
are esteemed for their careful treatment of the subjects with which they
deal. As a poet Chamisso's reputation stands high, _Frauen Liebe und
Leben_ (1830), a cycle of lyrical poems, which