Bourgmont's story begins with disgrace. He had commanded the French garrison at Fort Detroit, but in 1706 he deserted after being criticized by Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, for his handling of a skirmish with Ottawa Indians in which a French priest and soldier were killed. Living among Native Americans and trading furs without authorization, Bourgmont became an expert on the lower Missouri River. In 1713, he wrote a document with the magnificently long title 'Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of a Colony.' A year later, he published an account of traveling to the mouth of the Platte River. Cartographer Guillaume Delisle used Bourgmont's descriptions for the first map of the region, adopting 'Missouri' for the river rather than 'Pekitanoui,' the name given by explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette when they first saw it in 1673.

Bourgmont's fortunes turned dramatically. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, founder of the Louisiana territory, recommended that instead of arresting Bourgmont, France should work with him. In 1720, Bourgmont and his son traveled to France with an Osage chief, where they were received as heroes. His reputation swelled when news arrived that the Pawnee -- allies of Bourgmont -- had annihilated the Spanish Villasur expedition near modern Columbus, Nebraska, blocking Spanish expansion into the Missouri River Valley. Stock in the Mississippi Company soared on promises of Louisiana's riches. Bourgmont was promised a title of nobility if he could build a fort and forge alliances with the Native Americans to keep the Spanish out. He married a woman in his Norman hometown in 1721 -- apparently without regard for his Missouri wife and children. He returned to New Orleans in 1722, fell ill, argued with his sponsors about whether a fort was even necessary, and finally, as ordered, established Fort Orleans on November 9, 1723, with a garrison of 40 French soldiers.

In 1724, Bourgmont traveled up the Missouri to a Kaw village near present-day Doniphan, Kansas, seeking trade routes to Spanish New Mexico. With a delegation from multiple tribes, he ventured west onto the Great Plains to visit the Padouca -- possibly Comanche or Apache -- near Lyons, Kansas. This was the first recorded French contact with these people. Bourgmont brokered a peace ceremony among the Padouca, Missouri, Osage, Iowa, Pawnee, Oto, Kaw, and Omaha nations, sealed with a ceremonial pipe. Then, in a spectacle that must have bewildered all involved, Bourgmont escorted the tribal chiefs to Paris in 1725. They toured the palaces of Marly, Fontainebleau, and Versailles, and hunted on the royal preserve with King Louis XV. Bourgmont, however, returned to his home in Normandy and never accompanied the chiefs back to Missouri. He had abandoned his Missouri family for the second time.

Without Bourgmont's charisma and diplomatic skill, Fort Orleans withered. The French abandoned it in 1726, only three years after its founding. One account says the garrison was reduced to eight soldiers when Native Americans attacked and burned the fort, killing all the troops. Another account says it was simply abandoned. Either way, the linchpin of France's continental empire was gone. Remarkably, no one has found it since. Lewis and Clark visited the area in June 1804, specifically looking for the fort's remains, and reported no trace. Archaeologists have proposed three possible locations: near Malta Bend in Saline County, on the north bank near Wakunda Creek in Carroll County, or on a now-vanished island in the Missouri River between the two. Van Meter State Park near Malta Bend contains promising archaeological sites, including an earthwork fort that turned out to be Native American rather than French. Fort Orleans remains one of Missouri's most tantalizing historical mysteries -- the first European settlement in the state, lost somewhere beneath the shifting sediments of the Missouri River.