20 



IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



While a pupil of David he witnessed many events that 

 haunted his mind in America. Let us picture one: 



It was a notable day among the scientists of Paris. 

 Audubon was a pupil there, and the Knitter of Nantes, his 

 old teacher, had come to the city, and he was glad to show 

 her the galleries of art. 



Excepting Napoleon, Alexander von Humboldt was the 

 most popular man in France and the most notable one in 



all Europe. To meet him was to 

 see one who was more than a 

 king. Had he not made South 

 America known to the world, 

 ascended icy Chimborazo and 

 burning Cotopaxi, mapped the 

 Orinoco and the Amazon, discov- 

 ered the isothermal lines, the pe- 

 riodicity of meteors, and re- 

 mapped the heavens from the 

 high Andes? 

 What king, even Napoleon, had achieved such triumphs 

 of human knowledge? This man was to appear at the 

 Academy. He, too, was a lover of birds, and of all persons 

 in the world young Audubon wished to see the great sci- 

 entist whose books on the cosmos formed a library of natu- 

 ral history, geography, animals, birds, and plants, with more 

 than twelve hundred copperplates. 



He was to appear at the Academy, and the port- 



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