viii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST 



the right bank of the Loire. The part which Lieutenant 

 Audubon played in the French Revolution was fully revealed 

 in his letters, his reports to the Central Committee, and nu- 

 merous other documents which are preserved in the archives 

 of the Prefecture at Nantes ; while complete records of his 

 naval career both in the merchant marine and governmental ser- 

 vice (service pour VEtat) were subsequently obtained at Paris; 

 but at Nantes his name had all but vanished, and little could 

 be learned of his immediate family, which had been nearly 

 extinct in France for over thirty years. 



Again the quest seemed likely to prove futile until a let- 

 ter, which I received through the kindness of Mr. Louis Gold- 

 schmidt, then American Consul at Nantes, to M. Giraud 

 Gangie, coiwervateur of the public library in that city, 

 brought a response, under date of December 9, 1913, in- 

 forming me that two years before that time, he had met by 

 chance in the streets of Coueron a retired notary who assured 

 him that he held in possession numerous exact records of Jean 

 Audubon and his family. The sage Henry Thoreau once re- 

 marked that you might search long and diligently for a rare 

 bird, and then of a sudden surprise the whole family at dinner. 

 So it happened in this case, and since these manuscript records, 

 sought by many in vain on this side of the Atlantic, are so 

 important for this history, the reader is entitled to an account 

 of them. 



Upon corresponding with the gentleman in question, M. L. 

 Lavigne, I was informed that the documents in his possession 

 were of the most varied description, comprising letters, wills, 

 deeds, certificates of births, baptisms, adoptions, marriages 

 and deaths, to the number, it is believed, of several hundred 

 pieces. This unique and extraordinary collection of Audubon- 

 ian records had been slumbering in a house in the commune of 

 Coueron called "Les Tourterelles" ("The Turtle Doves") for 

 nearly a hundred years, or since the death of the naturalist's 

 stepmother in 1821. 



Since I was unable to judge of the authenticity of the 

 documents or to visit France at that time, my friend, Pro- 



