lxviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST 



of his adoption [March 7, 1794] — nearly nine years — a gap 

 which has not been filled in. Where was the boy during this 

 time?" The evidence is fairly conclusive that Jean Audubon 

 took his son to France late in 1789, so that this "gap" is 

 reduced to about five years ; and it seems to me that in his 

 Ornithological Biography and the "Myself" sketch the sub- 

 ject has filled this interval quite well enough himself. In the 

 latter he spoke of "being constantly attended by two black 

 servants, who had followed my father from Santo Domingo to 

 New Orleans and afterwards to Nantes." Mrs. Tyler thinks 

 that "it can be only mental inertia which has allowed hundreds 

 of intelligent people to read this sentence, and not press the 

 inquiry why the illegitimate son of a common, seafaring captain 

 of Nantes should have been constantly attended by one or two 

 black servants." But what shall be said of the mental condition 

 of the people who have first read the opening sentence of the 

 very same paragraph about Audubon's first recollective powers 

 placing him in the central part of the city of Nantes? If that 

 statement were literally true, it would at once sterilize the idea 

 of Audubon being the lost Dauphin. In any case, one would 

 think that a household with an active boy rising five years (in 

 1790) and a girl rising three could keep any two black servants 

 on their toes for a good long time. Audubon did not mention 

 his little sister Rosa, but there is no reason to think that he 

 monopolized all the attention of servants. 



In 1789 Jean Audubon jumped from the frying-pan of 

 Santo Domingo into the revolutionary fires which were then 

 sweeping France. At Nantes he became an ardent revolution- 

 ist when his city was entering the most terrible years of its 

 history. It withstood a determined siege by the loyalists of 

 La Vendee under Charette, and a reign of terror under Jean 

 Baptiste Carrier, whose recall on February 14, 1794, just 

 twenty-one days before the act of adoption was signed, had 

 given Jean Audubon and his fellow-citizens the first respite they 

 had enjoyed in years. 



At Nantes, Captain Audubon had occupied a number of 



