CHAPTER II. 



Rcs'ult of Audubon^ s Voyage to France — Renewal of Bird-Jntnting 

 Ftirsiiits — Exa7ninatio7i for the French Marine^ and Appoint- 

 mejit to the Post of Midshipman — Return to America — Chased 

 by a Privateer — The Instincts of the Naturalist — Goes to New 

 Yoj'k to acquire a Knoivledge of Business — Portrait of Himself 



— Returns to Mill Grove — Marriage and Jotirney to Louisville 



— His Settlement there and Pleasant Life — Remwal of Business 

 to Hendersonville — Meeting with Alexander Wilson, the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologist and Paisley Poet. 



XPLAINING to his father the scandalous conduct 

 of Da Costa, young Audubon prevailed so far that 

 the traitor was removed from the position which 

 he had been placed in with such hasty confidence. He 

 had also to request his father's approval of his marriage with 

 Miss Lucy Bakewell, and the father promised to decide as 

 soon as he had an answer to a letter he had written to Mr. 

 Bakewell in Pennsylvania. Settled in the paternal house 

 for a year, the naturalist gratified in every fashion his 

 wandering instincts. He roamed everywhere in the neigh- 

 borhood of his home, shooting, fishing, and collecting 

 specimens of natural history. He also continued his 

 careful drawings of natural history specimens, and stuffed 

 and prepared many birds and animals — an art which he 

 had carefully acquired in America. In one year two 

 hundred drawings of European birds had been completed, 

 — a fact which displays marvellous industry, if it does not 

 necessarily imply a sound artistic representation of the 

 birds drawn. At this period the tremendous convulsions 

 of the French empire had culminated in colossal prepa- 

 rations for a conflict with Russia. The conscription 



