78 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



engaged in revolutionary business during most of this 

 interval: his name begins to appear in the written rec- 

 ords of Nantes and of the department of the Lower 

 Loire in January, 1793, and existing documents 5 show 

 that he was engaged as a commissioner and member of 

 the Department and as a member of the Council of the 

 Navy until the twenty-fifth of June, when he enlisted for 

 active service in the navy of the Republic. Jean Audu- 

 bon served also on various republican committees, his 

 duties comprising the enlistment of recruits, organizing 

 the National Guard, soliciting funds and food supplies 

 for Nantes, finding cannon and other military or naval 

 materials, posting proclamations, administering the oath 

 of allegiance, and watching the movements of loyalist 

 troops in the district. We have seen that the father 

 of the naturalist was a game and determined fighter, and 

 there is ample written testimony to prove that in the 

 commune of Nantes he was regarded as an ardent 

 patriot, who could be relied upon to act with tact, and 

 if necessary with force. 



Having been appointed a Civil Commissioner by the 

 Directory of the Department on January 17, 1793, Citi- 

 zen Audubon was sent to Savenay, a town of some im- 

 portance twenty-five miles to the northwest of Nantes. 

 His instructions on this mission were to gather useful 



5 The unpublished documents of this Department are preserved in the 

 archives of the Prefecture at Nantes, and through the courtesy of their 

 custodians I was enabled to examine them freely. These documents 

 deal with all the revolutionary changes in church and state consequent 

 upon the breaking down of the old regime, and with the enrollment of vol- 

 unteers and the dispatch of armed forces to centers of disturbance 

 throughout that district. The present manuscripts are said to represent 

 but a fraction of those which originally existed, the archives having been 

 subjected to repeated raids, thefts, and wanton destruction by fire and 

 other means. The most important have been listed and published by the 

 Government in summary form under the title, Les Archives du Departement 

 de la Loire Inferieure, 1790-1799, Serie L. (Nantes, 1909). 



