Читать книгу Calling on the Presidents: Tales Their Houses Tell - Clark Beim-Esche - Страница 6

Carol and I have visited James Madison's Montpelier three times now. And for good reason. The place keeps changing, both literally and figuratively.

The first time we stopped to see Montpelier, various architectural additions that had been made to the original home, additions commissioned by the duPont family who had owned the property most recently, were being removed in order to restore the house to its appearance at the time the Madisons resided there. The Montpelier we saw on this first visit, then, resembled a construction site, with large tarpaulins masking off the wings where the deconstruction was under way.

Nevertheless, our first tour of this site resulted in an important lesson for me, a lesson which can benefit any visitor to a historical location: always be sure to confirm questionable information imparted by an inexperienced docent before repeating it to others.

We had arrived in the late afternoon, and we were told at the Visitor’s Center that, if we hurried, we could join the final group of the day. We hastened to the home site and joined a small crowd of tourists already gathered there. Moments later, we were being guided toward the house under deconstruction. Our docent—a dear young woman who was trying to make the best of a difficult situation—informed us that, regrettably, we would not be able to enter the home, as much archeological work, as well as the demolition of the duPont additions, made visiting the interior potentially hazardous. We would be able, however, she assured us, to enter one wing of the home at what had been the kitchen level, and we would thereafter be free to wander the expansive grounds until the closing hour.

Carol and I were disappointed, as might be expected, to learn that the house itself would not be open to us, but we had driven all the way here, and we decided to make the most of our time. Even from the outside, Montpelier was a spectacular setting with a dramatic view of the Blue Ridge on the western horizon and a manicured formal garden on its south side. We were led up a walk to the right wing of the house where there was a cellar entrance to the kitchen area.

As the members of our group entered this lower level, however, I stopped to look at the mansion. I was struck by what appeared to be a sunken walkway that ran completely around the home. It was about seven or eight feet deep and four feet wide, and, for the life of me, I could not understand what function it might have served the Madisons.

“Excuse me,” I called to the docent who was waiting for me to follow the other members of our group. “Could you tell me what was the purpose of this walkway around the circumference of the house?”

The docent looked slightly uncomfortable at this question, but she motioned me to come over to her, and then she answered my query in hushed tones. “Mr. Madison never wanted to be reminded of the …” she paused momentarily, “…workers who made his lifestyle possible. They could move from one end of the mansion to the other by using this walkway, and they would be invisible to anyone strolling around the grounds.”

I nodded understandingly, and we both joined the others who were already waiting in the kitchen for the one room tour of Montpelier’s lower level. Afterwards, as Carol and I circumnavigated the exterior of the house, I informed her of my question and the rather telling response I had been given by our docent. Sure enough, we both noted, the sunken walkway was completely invisible from both the front lawn area and from the beautiful classic temple that Madison and his friends had enjoyed frequenting. “He didn’t want to be reminded of the slave labor necessary to enable his luxurious lifestyle,” I found myself thinking. Like so many of the most thoughtful Virginians, and Madison was nothing if not that, he had found the reality of the slave culture of plantation life at odds with the idealism at the heart of his political vision. Quite an exercise in denial, I concluded.

Weeks later, when I returned to my classroom, I made much of this story. It was the perfect metaphor, I would tell my students, of the southern lifestyle which was at once the ideal of an Arcadian dream and also the reality of the misery of an enslaved labor force. Madison’s solution to such a dichotomy, I noted, was simply to put slavery out of sight and, thus, out of mind. For me the matter was settled.

After two or three years passed, however, I became aware of the progress being made in the restoration of Montpelier. Furthermore, I determined that Carol and I should return in hopes of seeing the interior of the home in addition to our earlier appreciation of its impressive grounds.

This time, of course, we would know what to expect—at least on the outside.

As we arrived at the newly refurbished Montpelier, we were greeted at a well-appointed gatehouse where we purchased tickets while still in our car. Then we were directed to the newly constructed Visitor’s Center where we were to join members of another tour group who were getting ready to view an informative film presentation chronicling Madison’s life and political accomplishments.

One of my chief regrets about our first visit here, aside from not having been able to go inside the mansion proper, was the fact that I had neglected to take a picture of the sunken walkway. This time I was prepared and fully intended to get visual evidence to share with my students. But as we approached the home which looked beautifully restored to its Madisonian splendor, I was shocked to find the carpet of lawn graded right up to the foundation of the house. There was no evidence anywhere of the sunken pathway!

“Oh my," I thought, “not architectural revisionism! How could the renovators dare to erase this piece of history—however painful—simply to make Madison look more acceptable in the eyes of 21st century tourists?"

I was upset and confused, and I immediately questioned our docent about this alteration.

“I don't know what you are talking about, sir," he commented rather stiffly. “The restoration has put the mansion back into its exact state as the Madisons had it. There was no such feature at that time. I rather imagine that the archeological team that oversaw the restoration concluded that this feature, if it ever existed, was the addition of later owners."

“If it ever existed!" my mind shouted. “I saw it. Carol saw it. Does this fellow really think that the 20th century duPonts had had such a feature added to their estate?" Obviously not. This was, I concluded, nothing less than a cover-up promulgated by the Montpelier Foundation.

And if this disappointment had not been enough, Carol and I found that, although guests were now allowed to enter the mansion, its interior was almost completely still devoid of the Madisons' belongings. As I recall it, only one room, the downstairs parlor, was even partially furnished, though I do remember being struck by an ink stain on the floor of Madison's upstairs study. This, our docent assured us, was original and indicated the exact placement of Madison's desk as he had worked on his researches leading up to his writing of the Virginia Plan, prior to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

There were also some archeological displays explaining and illustrating the work of the ongoing restoration of the mansion, but it didn't take us too long to realize that, if Carol and I were ever to see the completely recreated Montpelier, we would have to return some years hence.

I had my big story, however. Once again, upon returning to my classroom, I was able to tell my students and colleagues the tale of the disappearing sunken walkway and to emphasize the dangers of altering historical truth to suit contemporary preferences. It would be another few years before Carol and I, once again touring Virginia in search of presidential sites and dwellings, would make our way back to Montpelier. But this visit would be very unlike the first two and would carry with it a very important lesson for me.

In April of 2012, Carol and I drove north from Charlottesville and presented ourselves for the third time at the Visitor's Center at Montpelier. Again, we saw the Madison film, and again we joined an assembled group for a tour of the home. This time our guide was a gentleman named Bob who led us up on the front porch and began his tour by talking about Madison's horticultural interests. Very quickly it became apparent that Bob was significantly more knowledgeable about Madison than had been either of our earlier guides. And, as we entered the house, it became equally apparent that Herculean strides had been made to decorate its interior in the years since our last visit.

Carol particularly enjoyed the fact that the Madisons' Montpelier had been, in fact, a sumptuous duplex. Madison's mother had occupied the right hand wing of the house, while James and Dolley had lived in the central and left wings. Each side had only been accessible to the other by exiting out onto the front porch and walking to the opposite wing's entrance door!

The central parlor was now completely decorated as the Madisons would have recognized it, and Bob was quite thorough in identifying the variety of marble busts that were displayed around the circumference of the room. Images of Washington, Madison himself, Lafayette, Jefferson, Franklin, even Robert Livingston, one of the diplomats responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, were all present in this sculptural grouping. (Bob smilingly noted that Livingston had sent his own statue to Madison to add to his collection, subsequent to visiting here for the first time.) Appropriately enough, though, it was the spirit of Madison's best friend, Thomas Jefferson, that most clearly permeated the room. In addition to his marble bust, two oil painting portraits of the third President hung on opposite walls, and a Campeche chair, Jefferson's favorite, sat in one of the corners of the parlor.

Bob then led us into the formal dining area, another beautifully decorated interior, complete with a grass-green scalloped design wallpaper that perfectly matched the sample of the original wall covering that had been discovered during the renovation. Gathered around the extended table were life-sized cardboard images of some of the most famous persons who had dined here, including Jefferson, of course, and Andrew Jackson.

Next was the room which had originally been James and Dolley Madison's bedroom. It now contained objects which had been part of Madison's library, including a large fossil of prehistoric marine life. Also of interest here was yet another portrait bust, but unlike the statues in the parlor, this piece, Bob informed us, was the only sculpture original to the house. As I inquired about just who this image was, Bob replied with a laugh, “I know the name, but you've got me here. You'll have to do a bit of research yourself to find out his significance to Mr. Madison. The man was George William Erving. That's all I know."

Now, nothing gives a writer more joy than such a challenge, and in the days following our visit, I did learn more about this interesting man. George William Erving had been a diplomat during the Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe administrations, serving as U.S. Consul in London from 1801 to 1804, Charge d'Affaires of the United States in Madrid from 1804 to 1809, Special Negotiator to Copenhagen in 1811, and U.S. Minister to Spain from 1814 to 1819. But it was not until I dug deeper that I discovered why Madison might have wanted to have the sculpted bust of this personage prominently displayed in his home. In a long out-of-print volume entitled Diplomatic Services by J.L.M. Curry, I found the following passage:

Mr. Madison then told me that he never had a more capable and faithful minister in his service during his sixteen years' term as Secretary of State and as President of the United States, than George William Erving. (6)

Any student of Madison's presidential years quickly discovers that he had been faced with daunting challenges, both from foreign quarters and from within regions of his own nation, sometimes even from within his own political party. It was telling to me that Madison had come to value so highly both the abilities and faithfulness of this now largely forgotten diplomat. Erving's marble image must have assured the now aging ex-President that his years as Chief Executive, as arduous as they had been, had not lacked loyal and capable workers within his administration. There must have been comfort in that remembrance.

Our last stop on the first floor of the house was James Madison's final study and sitting room. Its walls were colored a deep aqua, and it was here that Bob recounted the story of Paul Jennings, Madison's slave who had served him to the very end. It was Jennings who had helped Dolley remove the famous Stuart painting of George Washington on the night in 1814 when British troops had captured the capital and burned its public buildings, including the White House. It was Jennings who had continued to care for Madison at Montpelier during his difficult post-presidential years. And it was Jennings who had been present to overhear Madison's last words. When a visible alteration had passed over the old man's countenance, he had been asked if everything was all right. His response, his last response, was simply, “Nothing more than a change of mind." A moment later he had slumped over, dead.

After a moment of stillness, Bob then led our group upstairs, and here the renovation of the home was very much an ongoing process. There were no bookcases in Madison's second floor library, though the ink stain on the floor remained quite visible. Overall, this tour had been such a marked improvement over my earlier visits to Montpelier, that, after Bob had finished his presentation and had encouraged us to go off and wander the grounds, I couldn't resist cautiously questioning him about the sunken walkway. He was immediately interested, and he told me that he had never heard about it.

“But I know the person you should ask about this," he added. “Carole White is in charge of all the docents. If anyone can answer your question definitively, she's the one. Come on, I'll find her for you and introduce you."

Before I had a chance to respond, Bob was rapidly heading downstairs, and I sprang after him. At the foot of the stairway, he told me to wait, and he exited out a door. In only a minute or two, the same door opened, and a pleasant woman greeted me.

“I hear you have a question that Bob couldn't answer," she began. “Maybe I can help."

I recounted to Ms. White the story of the sunken walkway and its disappearance. She listened carefully, then quietly shook her head.

“Oh dear," she sighed, “I do so wish that those early docents had simply been willing to admit it when they didn't know an answer. I do know exactly what you saw, but it's nothing like what you were told. When the deconstruction and restoration of Montpelier got underway, a careful examination of the foundation of the home revealed serious cracks and water damage that threatened to weaken the overall structure of the mansion. It was decided that, first off, the foundation needed waterproof sealant applied to the entire exterior of the foundation. The restoration team dug that sunken walkway around the circumference of the house so that the foundation could be correctly sealed. Once the moisture problem had been solved, the ground was graded up to the foundation just as it had been during Mr. Madison's time. The Montpelier Foundation accepts the facts of Virginia's plantation life, and we would never have tried to conceal an original architectural feature of this home. I hope this helps you," she gently concluded.

It certainly had. How wrong, how eagerly wrong I had been—both to assume that Madison had wanted to hide his slaves from view and, next, to believe that such a careful and painstaking restoration of a site could be complicit with a cover-up of a historical truth. I thanked Ms. White and went to find Carol who had already exited the house. After I told her the information that Ms. White had just given me, I realized that I would have some important phone calls to make when I returned home, particularly to colleagues to whom I had told the infamous story of Montpelier's vanishing sunken walkway.

And I had also learned an important lesson about anecdotal information conveyed by docents. Check the facts before repeating a tale.

In some ways, like Mr. Madison, I had experienced a profound “change of mind" regarding what I had believed to be true. But also like Madison, my error had been “nothing more" than that, only a misunderstanding. The truth had never been affected by what I had been willing to believe. And now that I had experienced a “change of mind," I understood the reality of the situation. I wondered if Mr. Madison, too, as he had experienced “nothing more than a change of mind," had reached a similar revelatory understanding, only, in his case, of the much grander matter of the nature of life itself.