of January, 1781, at the Chateau of Boncourt, in Champagne, which he
made the subject of one of his most beautiful lyrics. He belonged
to a family faithful to Louis XVI., that fled to Wurzburg from the
fury of the French Revolution. Thus he was taken to Germany a child
of nine, and was left there when the family, with other emigrants,
returned to France in 1801. At fifteen he had Teutonised his name
to Adelbert von Chamisso, and was appointed page to the Queen of
Prussia. In the war that came afterwards, for a very short time he
bore arms against the French, but being one of a garrison taken in
the captured fort of Hamlin, he and his comrades had to pledge their
honour that they would not again bear arms against France during
that war. After the war he visited France. His parents then were
dead, and though he stayed in France some years, he wrote from
France to a friend, "I am German heart and soul, and cannot feel at
home here." He wandered irresolutely, then became Professor of
Literature in a gymnasium in La Vendee. Still he was restless. In
1812 he set off for a walk in Switzerland, returned to Germany, and
took to the study of anatomy. In 1813, Napoleon's expedition to
Russia and the peril to France from legions marching upon Paris
caused to Chamisso suffering and confusion of mind.

It is often said that his sense of isolation between interests of
the land of his forefathers and the land of his adoption makes
itself felt through all the wild playfulness of "Peter Schlemihl,"
which was at this time written, when Chamisso's age was about
thirty-two. A letter of his to the Councillor Trinius, in
Petersburg, tells how he came to write it. He had lost on a
pedestrian tour his hat, his knapsack, his gloves, and his pocket
handkerchief--the chief movables about him. His friend Fouque asked
him whether he hadn't also lost his shadow? The friends pleased