× Expand Illustration by Britt Spencer

Our city seems to have an affinity for bears. The zoo has the new $11 million Grizzly Ridge, we build bears, and we cheer for the Gateway Grizzlies and the Washington University Bears. If you ask Sage, it all started with that silly gift from explorer William Clark: a bear cub that he sailed overseas to the Marquis de Lafayette in a burst of generosity—or a polite prank, or an exercise in one-upmanship.

Those of us with a fondness for the French knew the marquis as Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, but today most of you just call him Lafayette. Born into the French aristocracy, he caught our revolutionary fever and sailed here at age 19, eventually fighting alongside us as a major general in the Continental Army. Some say the father-son bond that he formed with George Washington helped us win the Revolution. His bravery is now legend; you’ll hear it touted in the Broadway hit Hamilton.

When Lafayette’s work here was done, he sailed home to fight in the French Revolution. But in 1825, he retraced the sites of his American military campaigns, coming as far west as St. Louis. Nearly the entire city waited at the wharf, and a shout went up as he came into sight. We whisked him off, in an open barouche, to the home of Pierre Chouteau. That evening, there would be a fancy ball and a supper with toasts at the Mansion House Hotel. First, though, Lafayette wanted to tour the nearby Indian mounds and visit Clark.

Then superintendent of Indian affairs, Clark had his own little museum of Native American artifacts, among them four necklaces of giant pale–to–dark-brown claws. Lafayette marveled, remarking that the London Cabinet of Natural History had only a single claw from America’s most ferocious beast.

Clark had first recorded grizzly bears two decades earlier on his journey west. He tucked away the memory of Lafayette’s awe, even as he presented the Frenchman with a heavy buffalo-skin robe cut into a Russian riding coat. In turn, Lafayette gave Clark the mahogany mess chest (kitted out with sterling, crystal, and bone china) that he’d carried through the war.

When Lafayette returned to France, another gift arrived: a baby grizzly bear so gentle, he was tempted to “make a pet of him.” Advised against it, he donated the cub to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, a 60-acre menagerie and botanical garden. “His large vile and ferocious temper have since been developed,” Lafayette dryly wrote to Clark as the bear neared 1,400 pounds.