Alexandre de Humboldt: La très longue amitié d’une famille française

Abstract

In 1798 in Paris, the Humboldt brothers became acquainted with an influential French family whose circle included the Countess Regnaud de Saint-Jean d’Angély, the astronomer Delambre and the academician Arnault. A central figure of this circle appears to have been Madame de Latour, whose Parisian salon and country residence served as the principal meeting places of this “very distinguished circle,” to use Wilhelm von Humboldt’s own expression. On 3 Brumaire An VII, Alexander von Humboldt, while passing through Lyon, sent Madame de Latour a letter, after having missed an appointment with her, which was the first one he wrote during his journey with Aimé Bonpland. Further documents, including his correspondence with Delambre between 1800 and 1804, two unpublished letters dated 1810 and 1853, and a police report from 1817, make it possible to reconstruct one of the longest-lasting friendships of Alexander von Humboldt’s Parisian life.