Across the Endless River (18 page)

Picard rose and added wood to the stove, making a small commotion of sparks and cinders, which suspended the spell of his story without breaking it. Then he settled himself again in his chair, glass in hand, and went on. His way of talking inspired confidence; his unhurried cadence and low-pitched voice made Baptiste curious about the details.

Burgundy was one of the bloodiest regions of the Revolution, he told them. Although his family was spared the fate of so many others, the constant spectacle of accusations, violence, looting, and fear changed him profoundly. “I was raised always to consider both sides of a problem, to weigh the arguments for and against, and then to decide by force of reason. I can thank the Jesuits for that particular way of analyzing the world and its ills. But I was also taught that in human dealings pure reason was always to be tempered by a consideration of what is just. By that standard, it was clear to us all that France had to be changed from top to bottom.”

Even in the villages of a region as prosperous as Burgundy, he explained, poverty and misery were commonplace. The Revolution hardly came as a surprise, but the form it took very quickly left reason and justice far behind. On both sides he saw rage, passion, and a vengeful fury he had never before witnessed in man or in nature. He stayed in the country and concentrated on his correspondence with his friend Georges Cuvier, who was just beginning his groundbreaking work in studying fossils.

“We were almost the same age, but even before he had reached the age of twenty, his genius at organizing the natural world was apparent. He encouraged me to collect all manner of specimens. Now Cuvier is known as the father of comparative anatomy, and is revered for those powers of classification he taught me so long ago. We remain good friends, but I can match him only in my ability to preserve specimens.”

Baptiste realized that Picard must have been close to his own age—nineteen—when this had all happened, and he tried to imagine himself in similar circumstances as he listened. In the moment, Picard seemed far younger than Paul, and Baptiste found both his irreverence and his moral code attractive.

Picard sipped his Armagnac. “My skill at embalming had happy consequences for some of my relatives. My great-aunt was the
chatelaine
of one of Burgundy's noblest and grandest châteaux, a country seat whose family was targeted for arrest early on by the revolutionary committee. My aunt was in her eighties and sickly at the time of the committee's first visit, and the family pleaded her infirmity to sue for time, even inviting them to see the invalid in her sickbed to judge for themselves. For many months there were surprise visits in the night and desperate pleadings, always ending in my great-aunt's bedchamber where, the committee was assured, the old lady was at death's door. When she actually died in late
1793
, my cousins were beside themselves: on their next summons the committee would surely arrest them all, ransack the house, plunder the stores, and reduce everything to ruin.

“I was called to the house and asked in the greatest secrecy if it would be possible to preserve my aunt's body so that with bedclothes and a nightcap her face could retain the appearance of someone near death. I filled a
baignoire
with preserving alcohol straightaway and set to work.” He lowered his eyebrows in mock disapproval and went on. “The results were remarkably satisfactory—good enough, at least, to fool the committee three times more. The chief difficulty was in keeping her skin from shriveling, though generous applications of
pommades
just before the bedchamber was opened kept a convincing tonus on her features. But I don't think we could have managed another visit. She had shrunk, poor woman, almost to nothing.”

Paul was uneasy with the images Picard's story conjured, and he shifted nervously in his chair as he listened. “Did you have to change the preserving liquid frequently in an open tub?” he asked. Picard exploded with laughter.

“Come, Paul, you needn't be clinical. You'll never be faced with such a situation. I've told you a most grotesque tale, gentlemen, one whose telling I can justify only by an appeal to that all-forgiving goddess, the truth. It is as fair a memory of the Revolution as any I can conjure from my own experience. But if truth is to be served, then I must add that that branch of my family were reprehensibly cruel to those who lived on their land, dreadful examples of all that the
ancien
régime
was reviled for. But they went free, while others who were far more just were led to ruin and death. That, too, was an education for me.”

Picard pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. “These embers still have the power to burn. The Revolution was a catastrophe for us—all of us. But its aftermath opened a door for me.” He went on to describe how Cuvier had enlisted his help in forming the nascent collection of the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle.

“We were all too young to be intimidated by the prospect of classifying the entire natural world!” They were a strange and improbable group of teachers, craftsmen, artists, doctors, and collectors, he explained, with one shared trait: a passion to know and name the constituent parts of the world. Buffon's writings guided them and his dictum was their creed: “Let us gather facts in order to have ideas.”

Picard nodded approvingly, then continued. “Increasingly there is specialization—anatomy, the science of forms and structures, the study of fossils, botany, languages, and human societies—but there is still so very much that is entirely unknown, especially from the New World, that the days of the dedicated generalist are hardly over.” He leaned toward Baptiste. “Now it is regarded as desirable to leave the books and the theories behind and go to the far ends of the earth to bring back whatever new and unthought-of mysteries may be hidden there. Beyond a certain intelligence and curiosity, the chief qualifications for such work are a probing mind, a grasping hand, and an unquiet spirit.”

Paul added, “You've left only one thing out of your list of necessities: a very full purse.”

“Of course. Nothing happens without money! But what price knowledge, my dear Paul?”

A delicate chime sounded from Picard's waistcoat and he removed a gold watch with a rosy patina from his pocket. As he opened the top, it sounded its fourth and final chime.

“Gentlemen, I had no idea I had been so long-winded. Forgive me. My wife has begged the pleasure of our company after four so that she can give us coffee.” Baptiste stood up and stretched his arms above his head, delighting in the luxury of movement after remaining immobile so long. “Let us stretch our legs in the garden and get some fresh air on the way to her,” Picard added.

“Is that a pocket repeater? Why didn't we hear it until now?” Paul asked.

Picard handed over the elegant instrument. “This one is rather special. It sounds the hours you choose. Breguet made it up for me.”

Paul looked at it admiringly and handed it back. “My favorite watch is at the bottom of the Missouri River. Do you think he would have another before we leave for Württemberg?”

“You must take this one,” Picard said without hesitation. “Breguet will make me another,” and he placed the watch in Paul's hand again. “It is a feeble gesture of thanks for the bounty you have showered on me today.”

Paul's protests were fruitless. He finally put the watch in his vest pocket.

Picard opened a box behind his desk and offered his guests each a small cigar, then took one for himself. Bending low in front of the stove, he fired a taper from the coals and deftly lit them, drawing the smoke with an air of deep satisfaction. As they made their way to the garden, the pungent smoke trailed in the air behind and settled slowly on the bones, rocks, plants, and other objects that sat on their tables in the twilight, awaiting Picard's attention before they could have names and a place in his order of things.

The sun had sunk below the walls and the air was chill when they emerged from the pavilion, though light still brightened the sky and sent long shadows across the garden. Picard led them back through the hidden gate in the hedge and then along graveled paths toward the far edge of the property. Baptiste was surprised at how much land was enclosed by the stone walls here—there were several acres within the tree-flanked walk that meandered around the perimeter.

They walked in silence for a while, enjoying their cigars and the deepening blue of the twilight. Between the brandy and the cigars, Baptiste was feeling a bit light-headed. He was being treated like a man of the world, an adult, someone who had his own voice and his own story to tell. Picard turned to Baptiste and said, “Which Indian languages do you speak?”

“I am strongest in Mandan,” Baptiste told him. “That was the language of my mother's tribe on the northern plains. I can generally understand and make myself understood in Hidatsa, Crow, Dakota—any of the Sioux tribal languages—though there is much I miss because of local variations. I also speak some Blackfoot because of my contacts with them in the fur trade, but it is limited to business on the river—fur, money, barter goods. Blackfoot is not related to the Sioux languages. I also have a few words of Shoshone from my mother; it is the tribe she was born into. But I couldn't speak with a Shoshone.”

Picard asked, “How do the different tribes like the Sioux and Blackfoot converse? Are there many polyglots? Or designated translators?”

Baptiste wanted to laugh out loud. The idea of designated translators suggested how little Picard grasped of life on the plains, but Baptiste liked him and decided to explain.

“For important occasions like war councils or signing treaties, there are translators. But in everyday life when different tribes come together, they use sign language.”

“I have read accounts of that but have never witnessed an exchange. Could you possibly show me?”

Baptiste clenched both hands into fists and, with a trembling motion, crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“You're cold!”

Baptiste couldn't help smiling at Picard's exuberance. Baptiste next bent his arms and raised his hands to shoulder level, fingers hanging down, then pushed his palms up and down slightly, wagging the fingers almost imperceptibly. Picard looked at him expectantly, straining to understand. Baptiste continued the motion, then looked up to the sky and moved his chin toward the clouds overhead.

“It's raining! Or, that is, it may rain.”

Baptiste nodded, then raised his right forefinger and pointed upward, then in a fluid motion pointed the same finger downward. He repeated the motion several times, but Picard's face showed puzzlement. “Up, then down. Is it a mountain? Or perhaps a law?” He paused, then cried, “A lightning bolt?”

Baptiste lowered his hand and shook his head.

“Ah, my dear Picard,” Paul said, “that sign is one of the most important.” Paul made the gesture, too. “It means chief.”

Awareness dawned on Picard's features. “I see. The chief on top and his people below, is that it?”

They reached the far end of the park and Picard stopped short at the high stone wall. “The dog has reached the end of his leash,” he said with mock resignation and slowly turned back toward the house. “Were you raised among the Mandan?” he asked Baptiste. “You seem to know many Indian tribes firsthand.”

“My father worked the Mississippi for years as a trapper,” Baptiste said, “before he headed up the Missouri and set his traps on the streams along Mandan country. That is where he met my mother, just before they set off with Captain Clark and Captain Lewis on their Voyage of Discovery. Indeed, sir, I was born on that journey. I spent four years in a Mandan village; then my parents left me in the care of Captain Clark in St. Louis so that I could have proper schooling. He has been my guardian ever since.”

“The same Captain William Clark whose map of western North America is so talked about by my colleagues in London?” Picard asked.

“The same man, sir.”

Picard shook his head slowly. “Your life has taken a most singular path. Did you go to a school in St. Louis?”

“I had several years with Jesuit teachers—at my father's insistence—and I perfected my French and learned Church Latin. There were still many Spaniards left in St. Louis, and I picked up Spanish from my friends at school.”

The aroma of wood smoke from the chimneys reached them as they approached the rear of the house.

“Forgive me,” Picard said. “I'm afraid I've worn you out with my questions. Allow me to lay the blame on the Jesuits, will you? We have that much in common.” Picard tossed the spent butt of his cigar into the empty fountain and led them inside. Baptiste was relieved that the memories Picard had conjured, and the longings they stirred, could be put aside for now.

S
IXTEEN

M
ARCH 23, 1824
P
ARIS

Dear Captain Clark,

I have finally got some time to myself and wanted to let you know of the many things that have happened since I last wrote. Where to start?

I have managed to see a good part of Paris, and you will be glad to know I get around on my own two legs. Duke Paul wanted me to take a horse, but, as you know better than anyone, it changes everything when you are in a saddle looking down on the world in the streets. It is far easier to pass unnoticed, I have found, in a crowd of passersby in a big city. Duke Paul told me, “In town a gentleman rides or takes a carriage,” so I suppose I am not a gentleman. He also told me, “A gentleman does not carry a concealed weapon,” after he saw the skinning knife strapped to my belt. I told him it was because I was interested in keeping my face in one piece. It has already come in handy more than once. There is sometimes a bad side to being on foot in a place like Paris; you don't want to be empty-handed in parts of that city, day or night. He didn't like it, but he looked the other way.