8 



AUDUBON 



m 



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My father, through the intervention of some faithful servants, 

 escaped from Aux Cayes with a good portion of his plate and 

 money, and with me and these humble friends reached New 

 Orleans in safety. From this place he took me to France, where, 

 having married the only mother I have ever known, he left me 

 under her charge and returned to the United States in the employ 

 of the French Government, acting as an officer under Admiral 

 Rochambeau. Shortly afterward, however, he landed in the 

 United States and became attached to the army under La Fayette. 



The first of my recollective powers placed me in the central 

 portion of the city of Nantes, on the Loire River, in France, 

 where I still recollect particularly that I was much cherished by 

 my dear stepmother, who had no children of her own, and that I 

 was constantly attended by one or two black servants, who had 

 followed my father from Santo Domingo to New Orleans and 

 afterward to Nantes. 



One incident which is as perfect in my memory as if it had 

 occurred this very day, I have thought of thousands of times 

 since, and will now put on paper as one of the curious things 

 which perhaps did lead me in after times to love birds, and to 

 finally study them with pleasure infinite. My mother had several 

 beautiful parrots and some monkeys ; one of the latter was a full- 

 grown male of a very large species. One morning, while the ser- 

 vants were engaged in arranging the room I was in, " Pretty 

 Polly " asking for her breakfast as usual, ^^ Du pain au lait pour le 

 perroquet Mignonne" the man of the woods probably thought the 

 bird presuming upon his rights in the scale of nature ; be this as 

 it may, he certainly showed his supremacy in strength over the 

 denizen of the air, for, walking deliberately and uprightly toward 

 the poor bird, he at once killed it, with unnatural composure. 

 The sensations of my infant heart at this cruel sight were agony to 

 me. I prayed the servant to beat the monkey, but he, who for 

 some reason preferred the monkey to the parrot, refused. I 

 uttered long and piercing cries, my mother rushed into the 

 room, I was tranquillized, the monkey was forever afterward 

 chained, and Mignonne buried with all the pomp of a cherished 

 lost one. 



