part of a diplomatic corps for the new French republic. This was Henri Montor. I was in Washington City researching Auguste Duponte in its libraries when he noticed with interest that I was struggling through some French newspapers. I explained my purpose and asked if he had known Duponte.
"Whenever there was a crime of great impact," Monsieur Montor said animatedly, "the people of Paris had always called for Duponte-and the criminal on the street would curse the year Duponte was born. A treasure of Paris is Duponte, Monsieur Clark."
During my subsequent visits, Henri Montor tutored me in French over supper and engaged me in long hours of conversation, comparing the French and American governments and people. He found Washington City rather desolate compared to Paris, the climate positively stifling and injurious to one's health.
By this time, when I met Monsieur Montor, I had already written to Duponte himself. I had outlined the events of Poe's death and described the urgent need to resolve the matter before Poe's sickly reputation worsened. After another week had passed, I had written Duponte two more letters, both marked "Immediate," with addendums and more details of the unwritten history of Poe.
Though our acquaintance was short, Montor invited me to join him at a dress ball that hosted several hundred guests at a lofty mansion near Washington City where I could meet numerous French ladies and gentlemen. Most had one title or another, and some, to my delight, humored my unpolished French, which I sought to perfect as much as possible. Jerome Bonaparte was there-he was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, born to an American woman whom Napoleon's younger brother Jerome the senior met nearly fifty years before while on excursion in the United States. This regal offspring was now standing before me dressed in a garish Turkish costume, with two curved swords hanging from his belt. After we had been introduced, I complimented his costume.
"No need for 'monsieurs,' anyway, Mr. Clark; we are in America," Jerome Bonaparte said, his dark eyes lit with good humor. Henri Montor fidgeted at this a bit. "As for this monstrosity," Bonaparte continued with a sigh, "it was my wife's pretty idea. She is in the next room somewhere."
"Oh, I believe she and I met. She is dressed as an ostrich?"
Bonaparte laughed. "There are feathers on her. Your guess of what animal is as good as mine!"
"Our American friend," Montor said, putting his arm through mine, "is trying to practice our native language for his private researches. Have you been back to Paris recently, my dear Bonaparte?"
"Father used to try to sway me to live there, you know. I cannot think for a moment of settling myself out of America, though, Montor, for I am too much attached and accustomed to it to find pleasure in Europe." He tapped an intricately detailed gold snuffbox and offered some to us.
A woman paraded toward us from where the host played his violin accompanied by an orchestra. She was calling out to Bonaparte by a nickname, and for a moment I thought it was his ostrich-feathered wife, until I saw that she wore the flowing robes and jewels of a queen. Montor whispered to me: "That is Elizabeth Patterson, Jerome's mother." His whisper was so discreet it was clear I should pay attention.
"Dear Mother," said Jerome formally, "this is Quentin Clark, a Baltimorean of some wit."
"How whimsical!" replied this costume-queen who, though not at all tall, seemed to tower over all of us.
"Mrs. Patterson." I bowed.
"Madame Bonaparte," she corrected me on both points and offered her hand. There was an irreducible beauty about her face and her pristine eyes that was almost tragic. One could not help but be in love with her, it seemed to me. She looked at me with sharp disapproval. "You are uncostumed, young man."
Montor, who was dressed fabulously as a Neapolitan fisherman, explained my lack of disguise by way of his last-minute invitation to me. "He is studying French customs, you see."
Madame Bonaparte's eyes flared at me. "Study hard."
I would realize once I arrived in Paris that this dress-ball queen was right about my grasp of French customs. Moreover, as I looked around at the extraordinary room of masked and obstructed faces, I understood that this was what both Peter and Auntie Blum wanted, in some way. There was something here, something beyond the liveried servants and banks of flowers glowing with lamps inside them, something powerful that had very little to do with money and that Baltimore