Talk:Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg

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Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm (1797-1860), the son of King Friedrich Wilhelm I, was the scion of a dynasty that began in 1060, six years before the Norman Conquest. He was the nephew of King Paul I of Russia, whose sons, Alexander and Nicholas, were his cousins. Jerome Bonaparte, the King of Westphalia in Germany, was an uncle. Queen Victoria of Prussia was his aunt and Queen Victoria of England was a second cousin. For 44 years he was next in line for the throne.

Wilhelm lived in Stuttgart, Württemberg, Germany which was one of Europe’s oldest, finest cities at the beginning of the 19th century, with a population of nearly 20,000. There were several functioning 15th century gothic churches, hundreds of statues, fountains and several museums. The palace grounds included a Schossplatz, or castle courtyard, on which a new palace was built in 1807.

The Konigsbau, or “king’s bank,” included a ballroom, concert hall and academy. In 1819, King Wilhelm I established a progressive constitution under which serfdom and class privilege were abolished. The Duke was a trained scientist. On expeditions around the globe, he gathered, identified and catalogued several thousand plants, animals and insects. His private natural history collection was the largest in the world during his lifetime. He was versed in chemistry, paleontology, anatomy and botany. The scholarly Wilhelm also spoke German, Italian, French, Spanish and English.

He dreaded the thought of becoming king, unlike most European royalty. In 1830 he wrote, “An eventuality that might compel me to give up my predilection for travel and exploration has been the only dark cloud of my life. The [royal accouterments] of the ermine, the scepter and the crown would be to me the emblems of a galley slave, and my heart would never cease to hunger for vast, silent places and a simple life among free unaffected children of nature.”¹

RELEVANCE TO JEAN BAPTISTE CHARBONNEAU²

After his initial meeting with Jean Baptiste Charbonneau in 1823 at the Kaw (Kansas) River, likely arranged by Clark, Wilhelm left camp and headed north with plains veteran Toussaint Charbonneau, hired as an interpreter. The Duke’s party spent five months in the upper Missouri country visiting trading forts, tribes and collecting scientific data.

His northern sojourn ended, he headed south to again meet with Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Wilhelm wrote, “On the 9th the boat reached the Kansas River. I remained several hours and picked up the son of Charbonneau, who would accompany me to Europe.”³ Eighteen-year-old Jean Baptiste spoke both English and French, which meant he and Wilhelm, age 25, had complete conversations.

On December 3, 1823, the companions left St. Louis for the long journey to Stuttgart. They comfortably rode down the Mississippi on the Mandan, a wood-burning paddle wheeler. Sixteen days later they arrived in New Orleans.

The two men boarded the Smyrna, an ocean-going craft. They ran into severe weather in the Atlantic on January 29, 1824, and for two weeks huge waves pounded the ship. The thermometer sank to zero and water flooded the cabins. Finally, enveloped in thick fog, they entered the English Channel and found respite from the storms. On February 14 they landed on the coast of France.

The men traveled to Stuttgart where Jean Baptiste entered the heady milieu of one of Europe’s most exclusive royal courts. Living in Clark’s world with rare formal schooling helped prepare him for the experience.

The Duke treated Charbonneau as a friend and continued his education in the palace academy. Jean Baptiste likely read the poetry and prose of Johann von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, popular writers during Germany’s golden age. Elite entertainment venues were available to both, including the ballets of Filipo Taglioni, masquerade balls, theatres, operas and concerts. Elegantly dressed women wore wigs, lace veils and black velvet hats. Men wore white stockings, wigs and fine leather shoes.

The Duke and Jean Baptiste had access to a large stable of horses and carriages, and took long excursions into the countryside. Wilhelm referred to him as “my hunter extraordinaire,” a description that was later used by others in the West. The men frequently traveled across the Netherlands to the Atlantic to board a multi-masted ship. Their destination was the countries circling the Mediterranean Sea.

Wilhelm visited the West six more times over a 35-year period. On one of his trips, in August 1850, he became emotional at John Sutter’s California ranch when he saw a group of Indians threshing wheat. He thought they were Shoshone, who he considered the gentlest, most trustworthy of western Indians. Wilhelm tenderly wrote, “One of these Snakes [Shoshones] was a fine young lad, quite intelligent, who reminded me strangely and with a certain sadness of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who had followed me to Europe in 1823 and whose mother was of the tribe of the Shoshone.”4

The Duke had not seen him for 21 years and had no idea of his whereabouts. Ironically, Jean Baptiste, then a renowned frontiersman, was in California, only a day’s ride away at the North Fork of the American River. Documents do not show that the high-flying friends ever saw each other again.

NOTES

¹ Louis C. Butscher, ed., “A Brief Biography of Prince Paul Wilhelm of Wurttemberg, 1797-1860” New Mexico Historical Review 17 (July 1942): p. 190.

² Michael L. Ritter. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Man of Two Worlds. (Charleston: Booksurge LLC, WordCraft, 2005).

³ Savoie Lottinville, ed. and Robert Nitske, translators, Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Wurttemberg, Travels in North America, 1822-1824 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973), p. 180 (hereafter cited as Lottinville and Nitske, Paul Wilhelm).

4 Louis C. Butscher, ed., “Account of Adventures in the Great American Desert by His Royal Highness, Duke Paul Wilhelm of Wurttemberg,” New Mexico Historical Review 17 (October 1942): p. 296.

Katr67 19:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)