58 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



story proceeds we shall see that she was a most kind, 

 if over-indulgent, foster mother, and became excessively 

 proud of her handsome boy. 'The first of my recol- 

 lective powers," said the naturalist when writing of him- 

 self in 1835, 8 ''placed me in the central portion of the 

 city of Nantes . . . where I still recollect particularly 

 that I was much cherished by my dear stepmother . . . 

 and that I was constantly attended by one or two black 

 servants, who had followed my father to New Orleans 

 and afterwards to Nantes." 



Jean Audubon, who spent a good part of his life at 

 sea and in a country almost totally devoid of morals, 

 must be considered as the product of his time. He was 

 better, no doubt, than many who made greater profes- 

 sions, better certainly than a Rousseau, who gave excel- 

 lent advice to parents upon the proper methods of 

 rearing their children but sent his own offspring to 

 orphan asylums. As most men have their faults, said 

 the son, the father "had one that was common to many 

 individuals, and that never left him until sobered by a 

 long life"; but, he added, "as a father, I never com- 

 plained of him ; his generosity was often too great, and 

 his good qualities won him many desirable friends." 

 Whatever his faults, Jean Audubon was just, generous 

 and possessed of a kind heart. He was in reality a truer 

 father than many who give their children their name 

 but deny them sympathy and a wise oversight. Jean 



at various times at No. 5, rue de Gigant, and in the rue des Carmes, 

 where his wife possessed a house, as well as in the rue des Fontenelles 

 and the rue Saint-Leonard. Very likely "La Gerbetiere" at Coueron was 

 occupied intermittently, especially in summer, after the outbreak of the 

 Revolution and his reverses in fortune; even after his retirement there in 

 1801, he still kept a lodging (pied-a-terre) at Nantes, where, as it chanced, 

 he died, though it was not his usual stopping-place. See Note, Vol. I, p. 86. 

 8 See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and His Journals (Bibl. No. 86), 

 vol. i, p. 8. 





