The Poe Shadow

I still collected articles on Poe's death from the reading rooms that carried American papers. Generally speaking, newspaper descriptions of Poe had worsened. Moralists used his example to compensate for the lenience shown in the past toward men of genius who had been praised after death despite 'dissolute lives.' A new low came when a merciless scribbler, one Rufus Griswold, in order to make a penny off this public sentiment, published a biography malevolently brimming with libel and hate toward the poet. Poe's reputation sank further until it was entirely coated in mud.

Occasionally amid this mad fumble to dissect Poe, a new and important detail arose illuminating his final weeks. It had been shown, for instance, that Poe had planned to go to Philadelphia shortly before the time he was discovered in Ryan's hotel in Baltimore. He was to receive one hundred dollars to edit a book of poems for a Mrs. St. Leon Loud. This information, however, was met with the usual mystification of the press, as it was not known whether Poe did go to Philadelphia or not.

Stranger still was the letter shown to the press by Maria Clemm, Poe's former mother-in-law, which she had received from him directly before he left Richmond, telling her of his plans regarding Philadelphia. It was Poe's last letter to his beloved protector. 'I am still unable to send you even one dollar-but keep up heart-I hope that our troubles are nearly over,' read Poe's tenderhearted letter to her. 'Write immediately in reply amp; direct to Philadelphia.' Then he went on: 'For fear I should not get the letter, sign no name amp; address it to E. S. T. Grey Esqre. God bless amp; protect you my own darling Muddy.' It was signed 'Your own Eddy.'

E. S. T. Grey Esqre? Why would Poe be using a false name in the weeks before his death? Why did he have such fear that Muddy's letter would not reach him in Philadelphia? E. S. T. Grey! The papers that reported this seemed almost to be grinning at the apparent madness of it.

My investigations seemed more urgent than ever, yet here I was in Paris, and Duponte would not even speak with me.

8

HAD THIS ALL been a tremendous mistake, a product of some delirious compulsion to be involved in something outside my usual scope and responsibility? If only I had been content with the warmth and reliability of Hattie and Peter! Hadn't there been a time in childhood when I needed no more than the swirling hearth of Glen Eliza and my trusted playmates? Why turn my heart and my plans over to a man like Duponte, encased alone in a moral prison so far from my own home?

I determined to combat my gloominess and occupy myself by visiting the places that, according to the advice of my Paris guidebook, 'must be seen by the stranger.'

First, I toured the palace at the Champs-Elysees, where Louis-Napoleon, president of the Republic, lived in rich splendor. At the great hall of the Champs-Elysees, a stout servant in laced livery accepted my hat and offered a wooden counter in its place.

In one of the first suites of rooms in which the public is permitted, there was the chance to see Louis- Napoleon himself-Prince Napoleon. This was not the first time I had glimpsed the president of the Republic and nephew of the once-great Emperor Napoleon, who was still the people's favorite symbol of France. A few weeks earlier, Louis-Napoleon was riding through the streets down Avenue de Marigny, reviewing his scarlet-and-blue- clad soldiers. Duponte had watched with interest, and (as he had still tolerated my companionship then) I had accompanied him.

Crowds on the street cheered, and those dressed most expensively yelled out with passion, 'Vive Napoleon!' At these moments, when the president was but an indistinct figure on his horse surrounded by guards, it was easy to see a resemblance, though faint, to the other sovereign Napoleon parading through the cheers of forty years earlier. Some said it was Louis-Napoleon's name alone that had recently elected the president-prince. It was reported that illiterate laborers in the poorer countryside of France thought they were voting for the original Napoleon Bonaparte (by now dead some three decades)!

But there were also twenty or so men, with faces, hands, and throats stained in black soot, repeating, in frightful chants, 'Vive la Republique!' One of my neighbors in the crowd said they were sent by the 'Red party' to protest. How shouting 'Long live the Republic' was considered a protest or insult in an official Republic was beyond my understanding of the current political state. I suppose it was their tone that made the words threatening, and that made the term 'Republic' fearful to the followers of this president, as if they were saying instead, 'This is no Republic, for with this man it is a sham, but one day we shall overthrow it and have a true Republic without him!'

Here at his palace he seemed a more contemplative man, quite pale, mild, and thoroughly a gentleman. Napoleon was flushed with satisfaction at the crowd of mostly uniformed people around him, many of whose breasts sparkled with impressively gilded decorations. Yet, I observed, too, a painful sense of awkwardness elicited by the reverence with which the president-prince was treated-one moment a monarch, the next an elected president.

Just then, Prefect of Police Delacourt came in from the next chamber and conferred quietly with President Napoleon. I was surprised to notice the prefect glaring quite impolitely in the direction in which I stood.

That unwanted attention expedited my departure from the Champs-Elysees. There was still the palace of Versailles to see, and my guidebook advised leaving first thing in the morning when traveling there, but I decided that it was not too late in the day to enjoy a full visit to the suburbs of the city. Besides, Duponte had advised me to visit Versailles-perhaps if he knew I had he would be more inclined to speak to me.

Once the railroad tracks exit Paris, the metropolis abruptly disappears, giving itself over to continuous vast open country. Women of all ages, wearing carnation-colored bonnets and laboring in the fields, briefly met my gaze as our train rattled by them.

We stopped at the Versailles railway station. The crowd nearly picked me up and carried me into a stream of hats and trimmed bonnets that ended under the iron gates of the great palace of Versailles, where the running water of the fountains could be heard at play.

Thinking back, I suppose it must have begun while I was touring the palace's suites. I felt the sting of general discomfort, as when wearing a coat a bit too thin for the first winter day. I attributed my uneasiness to the crowds. The mob that had driven away the Duchess d'Angouleme from these walls was surely not as boisterous as this one. As my guide pointed out which battles were depicted in the various paintings, I was distracted by feeling so many sets of eyes on me.

'In this gallery,' said my guide, 'Louis the Fourteenth displayed all the grandeur of royalty. The court was so splendid that even in this enormous chamber the king would be pressed round by the courtiers of the day.' We were in the grand gallery of Louis XIV, where seventeen arched windows overlooking the gardens faced seventeen mirrors across from them. I wondered whether the notion of a monarch was more attractive now that the late revolution had vanquished it.

I think my guide, whom I had hired at a franc an hour, had become tired of my distractedness over the course of the afternoon. I fear he thought I was ignorant of the finer qualities of history and art. The truth was, my distinct sense of being observed had been growing steadily-and in that hall of mirrors prodigal gazes were everywhere.

I began to take note of those people who recurred in the different suites. I had convinced my guide to modify our path through the palace-an alien idea to him, clearly. Meanwhile, he did not help my mental state when he turned to the topic of foreigners in Paris.

'They would know much about how you're spending your time here-you being a young energetic man,' he mused, perhaps looking for a way to vex me.

'Who would know about me, monsieur?'

'The police and the government, of course. There is nothing that happens in Paris that is not known to someone.'

'But, monsieur, I fear there is nothing so interesting enough about me.'

'They would hear all from the masters of your hotel, from the commissionnaires