Friends in High Places

In letters to Charlotte and Waldemar, Edme boasts of his friendship with members of the Bonaparte family. He publishes a version of the Old Testament from which all miracles have been excised, though it excites the anger of "religious bigots." He urges his son and daughter-in-law to write his good friend Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, newly arrived in America, to court his favor. They do, and du Pont, residing in New York, engages Waldemar to investigate his land holdings in Scott County, Kentucky. The Mentelles provide him with candid observations on the population and economy of Lexington and the surrounding area. They begin lifelong friendships with Henry and Lucretia Clay and with Mary Owen Todd.