xiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST 



me in 1917 that he owed his great desire to represent the beauty 

 of birds to Audubon's Birds of America, a copy of which was 

 given by Ezra Cornell to the institution that he founded and 

 that bears his name. Those resplendent plates of birds and 

 flowers enthralled the youthful Fuertes, who had free access 

 to them in the library of Cornell University, and they de- 

 termined the direction of his whole after life. Fuertes was no 

 imitator, but it should be remembered that he had the advantage 

 of following after a great pioneer. 



The legitimate curiosity about the life and accomplishments 

 of this singular genius has doubtless been whetted by the fan- 

 tastic theory that Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon was the real 

 "lost Dauphin," son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in 

 name the veritable King Louis XVII of France. 



Although the authoritative historians of the world long ago 

 may have rejected the idea that the Dauphin was "lost," except 

 in the sense that he had died, and may consider the question of 

 his survival after imprisonment in the Temple as too obsolete 

 an issue to even merit refutation, the recent attempts to place 

 John James Audubon at the end of a long line of false pre- 

 tenders have made it necessary for me to deal with the question 

 somewhat at length in the "Foreword and Postscript" to this 

 edition. 



In a case such as this, no honest writer can stoop to equivo- 

 cation, or attempt to carry water on both shoulders, whether 

 from a tender feeling for his subject, through domestic par- 

 tiality, or by playing with enigma or mystery in order to 

 heighten interest in his narrative. 



The subject is of such historical importance that it must 

 be treated with the strictest impartiality, by relying upon the 

 preponderance of evidence, without personal animosity, and 

 with the sole desire of uncovering the truth. The arguments 

 that the proponents of the Dauphin-Audubon alliance have ad- 

 vanced were known to me twenty years ago, and were rejected 

 then, as now, as wholly devoid of any proper and necessary 

 documentary support. It should be remembered that Audubon 



