80 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



In virtue of the power conferred upon us by the Central 

 Committee, on the ninth of April we were transported to the 

 parish of Coueron, where we arrived at seven o'clock in the 

 morning. Proclamations were posted both at Coueron and at 

 Port Launay close by, while some were sent across the river to 

 Pellerin. We availed ourselves on this occasion of the services 

 of two officers of a corsair, who demanded that we aid in re- 

 moving from Pellerin four cannon with four-pound balls, and 

 we succeeded in putting to flight a small barque and four 

 men, who an hour later returned with cannon. . . . The parish 

 of Coueron appears very tranquil, and is in a better mood than 

 [at first] seemed to us. 



A little later Jean proceeded to Paimooeuf on a simi- 

 lar errand. His letters to the citizen-administrators of 

 that commune are dated at Nantes on the seventeenth 

 of April and the fourteenth of May; in one of these he 

 refers to "the sum of four hundred francs" due from 

 the Administration "for one year's rent of my house in 

 calle Rondineau (a la calle rondino), which you have 

 taken for a corps de garde" (see Vol. I, p. 32) . 



In July and August of this second year of the Repub- 

 lic, Citizen Audubon was sent to his native town of Les 

 Sables d'Olonne to follow the movements of the loyalist 

 generals Westermann and Boulart, 7 a mission which 



7 In the published orders and correspondence of the royalist General 

 Boulart the following letter, given here in translation, is addressed to 

 Citizen Audubon: "I give you notice, Citizen, that my aide-de-camp will 

 arrive immediately from Niort. I beg you to do all in your power to 

 come this evening to confer with me, since I have something to ask 

 you of the utmost importance. I also inform you that there has arrived 

 at Les Sables Citizen Anguis, the people's representative. Perhaps it 

 would be more advantageous that you should see him this evening, and 

 that tomorrow early we attempt to bring all three together. You could 

 depart in the morning for Nantes." [Signed] "THE GENERAL BOULART." 

 Jean Audubon filed this letter from the enemy with his Department, but his 

 answer is not given. See Ch. L. Chassin, Etudes Documentaires sur La 

 Revolution Frangaise: La Vendee Patriote, 1793-1800, vol. ii, p. 306, t. 1-4 

 (Paris, 1894-1896). 



