Across the Endless River (20 page)

Baptiste provides another kind of window on Europe, though his enthusiasm for the city does not mirror mine for the frontier. Still, he seems fascinated by what he discovers, and very often he observes aspects of life here that I would have imagined least worthy of notice. Nor is his experience always one of unalloyed joy. On first seeing the Seine, he was dismissive, proclaiming it a good-sized creek. Neither did the noble stone bridges impress him; rather, they seemed tangible proof of the river's puny size and its predictability. When I drew his attention to the carved forms that embellish the bridges, he pronounced them “Nice, for bridges,” and changed the subject. His standard of comparison is the Missouri River in all its unadorned and unspanned wildness, and on that score, I must admit, the comparison is ludicrous. What will he see in the Rhine?

Otherwise, Baptiste fits in easily and is quietly accommodating when introduced to friends and acquaintances. Many of my friends have commented upon the effortless nobility of his bearing. He seems to have a special understanding with Uncle Franz. He likes Uncle Franz's straightforward way of talking, and his opinions and anecdotes. Apparently, it reminds him of his General Clark. What Baptiste lacks, naturally enough, is a frame of reference for evaluating my uncle's categorical pronouncements. Napoleon was a genius, the Pope is a despotic temporal ruler, to cite but two of his themes. The other day, he railed against the Vatican's oppression in the Papal States. He could equally well have made a case for the tyranny felt under Bonaparte in Romagna twenty years ago, but that would subvert the standing of his hero, and so the Church was the target. Even an accomplished diplomat abandons nuance when it suits him. I wonder if Baptiste senses that.

This morning I asked Baptiste why he always refers to his guardian in St. Louis as
Captain
Clark, when I had been told he was properly
General
Clark, a rank he had held for years as head of the Missouri Territory's militia. Baptiste explained that, among a handful of men, Clark preferred “Captain.” It was the rank he had held as one of the leaders of the Corps of Discovery, and the accomplishments of that small band gave the name Captain a higher place in his esteem than any of the other titles—General, Governor, Superintendent—to which he could justly lay claim. Baptiste said that there existed among the survivors of the Corps of Discovery a sacred trust, and those who had been on the expedition still called him “Captain.”

In the short time I have known him, I have come to understand more of Baptiste's position in St. Louis as Clark's mixed-blood ward, and I understand, too, why it is important to him to be regarded as a full member of the Corps. Even though Baptiste was a baby, he told me, Clark always talked about the expedition as if Baptiste had participated fully. Clark welcomed the intimacy that “Captain” implied, and corrected those who had not made the voyage. It was also Clark's way of honoring the memory of Baptiste's mother, who served with her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, as a translator. I see that Baptiste has a sense of this birthright, a tradition of discovery, adventure, and no small amount of glory. It remains to be seen whether he will fulfill that destiny when he returns to North America.

Here in Europe, Baptiste is something of a chameleon, effortlessly absorbing European culture and assuming the superficial characteristics of the group in which he finds himself. With languages, this quality is nothing short of a phenomenon: His French has become entirely fluent, even Parisian, in expression and accent, while his German, nonexistent when we met, has benefited from Schlape's daily hour of exercises. Already I sense that Baptiste understands most of what Schlape and I say between ourselves, though he is careful to give nothing away, answering me haltingly when I query him in German. Uncle Franz is convinced that Baptiste possesses uncommon skills of social discernment that are masked by his exotic appearance and improbable origins. He would make the perfect spy, Uncle Franz said to me, since most Europeans are incapable of ascribing intelligence to those whose skin is not white; hence, Baptiste fits in everywhere without posing a threat. An interesting theory, one whose soundness I shall have occasion to judge, no doubt, in the months ahead.

P
ART
 
THREE

THE LIFE THAT LAY AHEAD

N
INETEEN

A
PRIL 1824

T
he trip from Paris to Stuttgart was long: almost two weeks of slow going because they had a wagon train of wine along, a gift for the king of Württemberg from Prince Franz. An armed guard accompanied them. The amount of protection puzzled Baptiste, as they met only a few border guards and some friendly soldiers at the different towns along the way where they left parts of their load. It occurred to him that not all the covered boxes they dropped off carried wine.

Baptiste was increasingly uncomfortable with the passive role he assumed in Paul's company, as if all that was expected of him was to go from one place to another and take in what he found. In the Mandan villages and even in St. Louis, intense physical activity and harsh conditions were a daily commonplace, but here they seemed distant: he saw others working, but he didn't have to do much himself. It was a strange and new feeling that left him ill at ease.

The inside of the coach was upholstered in dark blue velvet with tufted seats. The symmetrical array of dimples reminded Baptiste of the lining of Mrs. Clark's jewelry box, glimpsed once when he took it for her to the blacksmith in St. Louis to have the latch repaired. Now he sometimes felt they were locked inside an enormous jewelry box that was rolling its languid way across Europe. He didn't like riding in the coach—he knew that—but he realized that he was getting used to Paul's life of comfort and riches, as if his privileges were commonplace, and the idea caught him by surprise. This was an adventure, he reminded himself, and sooner or later it would end.

Early in their voyage, Baptiste asked Paul about the nature of Mr. Hennesy's business. He had been thinking about Maura and whether he would hear from her, trying to imagine what her life was like in Paris. She resembled no one else he had met, and he reasoned that it was because of the mix of Irish and French in her family and the travels she had mentioned, and something intriguing in her family's business. He knew that Paul could likely shed light on her father's mysterious undertakings.

“You know perfectly well he's a wine merchant,” Paul responded. It was late morning, and Baptiste was already tired of sitting in the coach.

“I also know there's more there than meets the eye. He has contacts all over Europe; people raise their eyebrows when his name comes up; these mounted soldiers”—he gestured outside the coach—“who never leave our sight: surely that is not all because of wine!”

Paul extended his hand and, as Baptiste shook it, he said, “Family secret.” Paul knew that Baptiste could be trusted absolutely, and this had become their ritual for signaling a bond of silence. Paul told him that Hennesy was a wine merchant, and a very good one. Over several generations, his family had built a renowned vineyard and a network of contacts second to none. A passionate believer in the ideals of the French Revolution, he had supported Bonaparte until he declared himself emperor, but had sought to make common cause with republicans since then. Using his wine business as a cover, Hennesy also regularly dealt in guns, often providing arms to those fighting what he regarded as oppression. Ireland had received many shipments over the years, and some of the guns they were delivering along their way to Stuttgart were destined for partisans in Greece fighting for independence. His dealings were secret, delicate, and highly lucrative.

“Uncle Franz buys large quantities of wine, and sufficient numbers of the latest weapons to keep the garrisons of Württemberg well stocked,” Paul said. “He turns a blind eye to Hennesy's other activities, but he finds him indispensable in the matter of intelligence regarding enemies, actual or potential. No one has better information.”

“It sounds dangerous,” Baptiste said.

“That is putting it mildly, my friend! But there are people in this world who have a gift for danger, and for always coming out on the side that prevails. Hennesy is one of that number. As a young man, he was caught up in the Irish Rising of
1798
, and ever since he has been at odds with the English. Of course I do not pretend to understand his scheme of values, necessarily filled with contradictions and
louche
characters, but he always seems serene. I think one can rightly call him an idealist.”

After a brief stop in Stuttgart—King Wilhelm was in Vienna—they left for Ludwigsburg, the king's country palace. They set out in the early morning in a large, black closed carriage, followed by a smaller carriage carrying servants and an open wagon for the luggage. They were joined by Paul's cousin Princess Theresa, who was a few years older than Paul and whom Baptiste had not met. At the
porte cochère
of the palace in Stuttgart, the princess didn't wait for the footman to hand her up, but climbed in on her own.

She was attractive, but not in a conventional way—not, certainly, like the profusion of young women at Prince Franz's ball in Paris. She wore a dress and cloak of light brown silk, and her chestnut hair was pulled back from her face. She used little of the heavy powder and rouge much favored by the ladies Baptiste had met so far. Her face was fair, her cheeks a healthy pink, and her full lips plum-hued. The sharp line of her nose and the piercing gaze of her amber eyes gave her face a solemn look that Baptiste found intriguing. She wore a single oval brooch where her lace collar closed, a cameo of a woman's head in pale white on a field of dusky rose, a reiteration of her own coloring, which Baptiste felt had not been worn by chance. She wore small coral earrings as well, but none of the pearls, rings, gemstones, or gold that Baptiste had by now come to expect. Neither did she use the cloying perfumes that enveloped so many French women in a cloud of nauseating sweetness.

They spoke French, the
lingua franca
for the three, and the language in which everyone at court was fluent. He enjoyed hearing Theresa speak since her accent differed significantly from his. Baptiste learned that the princess was Paul's favorite among his many cousins. She told him she had been raised in Stuttgart and shared Paul's fascination for geography and the natural sciences, though her curiosity had been discouraged by tutors and nannies who thought it improper for a young lady to be interested in such matters.

“I would see Paul at the palace on Sundays, along with the rest of the family, and after church and lunch I would force him to tell me about what he had read during the week. We'd spend hours in the library looking at the globe, imagining what manner of people and animals lived on all the territories marked ‘Unexplored.' ”

They talked of many things: news of family, different political systems, the new means of transportation. As the morning wore on and they rolled through the sun-bathed countryside, a shared understanding formed among the three.

Baptiste saw a side of Paul that he hadn't seen since their time together on the Missouri. In the carriage, he was not addressed as “Duke”; there were no servants or underlings, no public before whom an image had to be maintained or a role played. Paul enthused about his experiences on the Missouri, about meeting Cuvier, and about the work of organizing his collection.

“Paul, you are happy when you talk about serving science, just as you did in America when you were collecting specimens,” Baptiste observed. “Couldn't you have continued with your studies in botany and zoology and become a professor at the university?”

Paul shook his head. “The choice was not mine. The army was unavoidable.”

The princess took his arm gently in hers and said to Baptiste, “Wilhelm, the king, would not understand taking any other path. It is what a nobleman in Europe does. He serves his prince in the army, just as surely as a woman finds a husband and produces babies.”

“The warriors among the Hidatsa and the Mandan are the same,” Baptiste said. “It would be impossible for them to be anything else.” He had never imagined Paul as something other than totally free, a rich and influential nobleman with the world at his fingertips. Now he saw his host in a different light.

They stopped at midmorning to water the horses in a small town, and descended briefly from the carriage to stretch their legs. The other vehicles were covered with a layer of gray dust from following behind; they looked like a ghostly escort from a different world, both men and horses wearing a mantle of fine powder. Gradually they left behind the smells of undried hay that rose from the newly cut fields and Baptiste saw that the forest was now unbroken, its understory open and awash with the golden green infusion of light that filtered through the new growth above.