FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lvii 



that of Audubon, which I revere, as I have cause to do.'* This 

 reference to property probably had to do with the wills of his 

 father and stepmother, in which the objectionable name occurs 

 many times. Audubon's dislike of the Rabin name does not 

 seem to have persisted, for in view of the settlement of prop- 

 erty under those wills, on July 25, 1817, a power of attorney 

 was drawn in favor of his brother-in-law, Gabriel Loyen du 

 Puigaudeau. In this curious document the naturalist refers 

 to himself as "John Audubon" and as "Jean Rabin, husband 

 of Lucy Bakewell." The Jean Rabin alias occurs four times 

 in the text, over the signature of "John J. Audubon" at the 

 end. 



An English reviewer once expressed regret that I had 

 probed the birth and parentage of Audubon, saying that he 

 preferred to take this illustrious man at his word that he 

 "belonged to every country." Such writers forget that a prime 

 duty of every biographer is to make his subject known, and 

 that this is impossible if he comes from nowhere, or, as John 

 Neal facetiously remarked, if he is "one of those extraordinary 

 men who are erected, — never born at all." Audubon's father 

 "had other reasons," thinks Miss Rourke, "for sending Fou- 

 gere to America which he did not disclose. . . . They could 

 not have had to do with money. . . . Whatever his reasons 

 were they persisted, and may have had to do with the boy's 

 parentage." 



Mrs. Tyler begins her book with a quotation, "Historv has 

 the inalienable right to be written correctly," to which every 

 honest person will subscribe, but which writers of biography are 

 too apt to forget. Throughout her book she refers to me as 

 "Robert," a praenomen I have never borne, but since names 

 are easily confused, I forgive her. The naturalist's father, 

 Jean Audubon, is called the "Admiral," a title he never bore, 

 which gives a sense of unreality to her text. The highest rank 

 that Jean attained in the French navy was lieutenant (lieu- 

 tenant de vaisseaua), one grade below that of captain. In my 

 Audubon the Naturalist I gave a summary of the naval career 



