Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), a poet of Romanticism, a pioneer of the feuilleton, an Enlightenment thinker, a critical journalist, satirist, and skeptic, was for many an uncomfortable contemporary and for some a free spirit without ties. He was certainly a lateral thinker, but he was also a seeker of meaning in idealistic alternatives to a restless world: "Cosmopolitanism, humanism, freedom, morality, love and brotherhood, justice, equality of rights for all people." He reflected on these values in poetry and prose and sought them in the philosophical, religious, social, and political currents of his time. The author embarks on the trail of this search and discovers much of the "unknown Heine," who became a Freemason in Paris in 1844. Heine was deeply engaged with the idea of meaningful construction and shaping of time and space.