Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot was born on January 30, 1781, at the Boncourt castel near Chatons-en-Champagne. Only the date of his christening, January 31, 1781, is certain. Fleeing from the revolutionary armies, the family traveled through the Netherlands and southern Germany until they settled in Berlin in 1796. From 1798 until 1807, Chamisso served as a Prussian officer. Beginning in 1804, he published the Berliner Musenalmanach with friends of his from the Romantic circle "Nordsternbund." He then chose to call himself Adelbert von Chamisso. He stayed in France and Switzerland from 1810 until 1813. He was appointed second curator at the royal herbarium in the Botanical Garden in Berlin in 1819. Adelbert de Chamisso died on August 21, 1838, in Berlin.