176 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



It is your work, gentlemen, and the respect which you render 

 to the chief of your administration which speaks in praise of 

 your sentiments and virtues and which will transmit their 

 memory, along with your glory, to posterity. 4 



David worked on this portrait for about a month, 

 and on April 23, before his departure for Paris, he 

 asked the privilege of again addressing the Assembly. 

 Not only was the request granted, but he was publicly 

 thanked for the trouble he had taken in coming to their 

 city, and a committee was appointed to express the 

 sentiments of esteem with which he had inspired the 

 whole community. We may add that David seems to 

 have taken this canvas to his studio in Paris, where it 

 was subsequently lost or destroyed in the period of 

 turbulence that followed. 



David's radical speeches from the tribune, added to 

 his popularity as an artist, no doubt brought him pupils 

 in plenty from every quarter of republican France. 

 Young Audubon was probably admitted to the most 

 elementary class, for he received no instruction in the 

 use of oils but was directed to study the rudiments of 

 drawing from the cast. As he had hoped to perfect 

 himself in the art of depicting animals, he was disap- 

 pointed. "Eyes and noses belonging to giants," he 

 said, "and heads of horses, represented in ancient sculp- 

 ture, were my models." He also spoke of drawing 

 "heads and figures in different colored chalks," and of 

 "tolerable figures" obtained by use of the manikin, but 

 adds: 'These, although fit subjects for men intent on 

 pursuing the higher branches of the art, were immedi- 



4 F. T. Verger, Archives curieuses de la ville de Nantes et des 

 departements de I'ouest (Nantes, 1837-41); for further references to David 

 in this chapter I am mainly indebted to Georges Cain, Le Long des 

 Rues (Paris, 1812), and Charles Saunier, Louis David (Paris, no date). 



