CHAPTER IX 



AUDUBON'S LAST VISIT TO HIS HOME IN FRANCE 



Life at Coueron — Friendship of D'Orbigny — Drawings of French birds — ■ 

 D'Orbigny's troubles — Marriage of Rosa Audubon — The Du Puigau- 

 deaus — Partnership with Ferdinand Rozier — Their Articles of Asso- 

 ciation — They sail from Nantes, are overhauled by British privateers, 

 but land safely at New York— Settle at "Mill Grove." 



Reaching his home at Coueron in the spring of 

 1805, Audubon took his parents completely by surprise. 

 He found his father, then in his sixty-first year, still 

 "hale and hearty," and his "cliere maman as fair and 

 good as ever." It was a time of momentous events in 

 France; Napoleon had placed the crown upon his head 

 but a few months before; defeat and victory followed 

 in rapid succession. But this did not prevent the young 

 naturalist from spending a year in "the lap of comfort" 

 at Nantes and in the quiet villa of "La Gerbetiere," 

 where as usual he hunted birds and collected objects of 

 natural history of every sort. 



At this time also Audubon formed a friendship with 

 a young man after his own heart, Dr. Charles Marie 

 d'Orbigny, who "with his young wife and infant-son" 

 was then living near his home. "The doctor," he said, 

 "was a good fisherman, a good hunter, and fond of all 

 objects in nature. Together we searched the woods, 

 the fields and the banks of the Loire, procuring every 

 bird we could, and I made drawings of every one of 

 them — very bad, to be sure, but still they were of 

 assistance to me." * 



n Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i, 

 p. 39. 



127 



