142 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



from the director of the Natural History Museum at 

 Nantes. After various messages had been shouted back 

 and forth, I was led through another passage to the 

 tenant, who was talking with the peddler in the garden. 

 Julien Lebreton, who was a farmer on a small scale, 

 received me kindly and answered my questions to the 

 best of his ability; it did not surprise me that he was 

 both puzzled and suspicious, or that his first thought was 

 of our coming to look over the place with a view to its 

 purchase. 



The decayed villa, which stands in the midst of scat- 

 tered farmhouses of a humble order, reproduces a style 

 characteristic of many parts of France. The original 

 house, of two stories, was built of cream-colored lime- 

 stone, similar to that for which many French towns are 

 famous. It has a swelled slated roof with beveled 

 gables. Surmounting the roof is a cupola which sug- 

 gests a third story, carried out in harmony with the 

 lower structure. A narrow balcony, resting upon a 

 molding of stone and protected by an iron grill, with- 

 out which no such house would be considered complete, 

 runs the length of the second story, and is accessible 

 from every room by glass doors. From the main en- 

 trance below one passes directly through to the court, 

 about which are now grouped various stables and other 

 low buildings, not all of which date from Audubon's 

 day. 



What was once a small formal garden is still marked 

 by solid boundaries of cut limestone. This was evi- 

 dently constructed by Jean Audubon, since it occupies 

 the area in front of the original house and the easterly 

 extension which is attributed to him. The remaining 

 available land was devoted to fruit, vegetables, and pos- 

 sibly to the greenhouses which the naturalist mentioned. 



