CHAPTER II 



JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 



Extraordinary career of the naturalist's father— Wounded at fourteen and 

 prisoner of war for five years in England — Service in the French mer- 

 chant marine and navy — Voyages to Newfoundland and Santo 

 Domingo — His marriage in France — His sea fights, capture and im- 

 prisonment in New York — His command at the Battle of Yorktown — 

 Service in America and encounters with British privateers. 



Few names of purely Gallic origin are today better 

 known in America, or touch a more sympathetic chord 

 of human interest, than that of Audubon, and few, we 

 might also add, are so rare. John James Audubon first 

 made his family name known to all the world, and 

 though he left numerous descendants, it has become well 

 nigh extinct in America, and is far from common in 

 France. The great Paris directory frequently contains 

 no entry under this head; Nantes knows his name no 

 longer, and it is rare in the marshes of La Vendee, 

 where at some remote period it may have originated. 



The lists of the army of five thousand which Rocham- 

 beau's fleet brought to our aid in the American War of 

 Independence show but a single variant of this euphoni- 

 ous patronym, in Pierre Audibon, 1 a soldier in the regi- 

 ment of Touraine, who was born at Montigny in 1756; 

 but in the fleet of the Count de Grasse which cooperated 

 with our land-forces at the Battle of Yorktown, on 

 October 19, 1781, a ship was commanded by an officer 

 with whom we are more intimately concerned. This 



*For similar spelling of the name of John James Audubon, see 

 Appendix I, Document No. 12. 



24 



