and Göttingen, Huber fell ill and died on 24 December 1804. Family background and early life Huber was born on 15 August or 14 September 1764 in Paris. His parents were , a Bavarian-born writer, translator, and language teacher, and his wife Anna Louise, . His father had arrived in Paris as a language teacher but became known as the translator of the works of Salomon Gessner and for his contributions to the . Little is known about Huber's French mother; his parents were married before and about six of their children died in infancy before Huber's birth. The child was baptised Louis Ferdinand in the Catholic ; one godparent was the wife of Michael Huber's friend Johann Georg Wille, a German-born artist and engraver. The father had no reliable source of income in Paris. When the position of a teacher of French at the University of Leipzig became available in 1766, he was happy to accept an offer that had been mediated by the art historian and diplomat Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn and the writer Christian Felix Weiße. The Huber family left for Leipzig on 15 September 1766. Huber, who was still called Louis Ferdinand by his family, grew up bilingual in French and German in culture-rich surroundings. His father had many connections to Leipzig society, including to the artist Adam Friedrich Oeser, who had influenced the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as well as to poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. Michael Huber also had a large collection of engravings that attracted visitors and was mentioned in Goethe's autobiographical Dichtung und Wahrheit, and he became known as an art expert, However, he was never financially well off, and as a Catholic could not obtain a formal Chair at the Protestant university. Huber's mother offered regular dinners for paying students interested in improving their French. This was not a very lucrative business but provided interesting company. Huber also learned English during this time; it is likely he was instructed in speaking and conversation by one of his parents' boarders. Huber's mother was overprotective of her only surviving child and kept the boy from all physical exercise for years after a slight accident at the age of eight. Huber never learned to ride on horseback or to dance, and was physically awkward all his life, except while playing billiards or during theatrical productions. His education was unsystematic; he read voraciously the books