Vili AUDUBON THE NATURALIST 
the right bank of the Loire. The part which Lieutenant 
Audubon played in the French Revolution was fully revealed 
in his letters, his reports to the Central Committee, and nu- 
merous other documents which are preserved in the archives 
of the Préfecture at Nantes; while complete records of his 
naval career both in the merchant marine and governmental ser- 
vice (service pour l’Etat) were subsequently obtained at Paris; 
but at Nantes his name had all but vanished, and little could 
be learned of his immediate family, which had been nearly 
extinct in France for over thirty years. 
Again the quest seemed likely to prove futile until a let- 
ter, which I received through the kindness of Mr. Louis Gold- 
schmidt, then American Consul at Nantes, to M. Giraud 
Gangie, conservateur of the public library in that city, 
brought a response, under date of December 29, 1913, in- 
forming me that two years before that time, he had met by 
chance in the streets of Couéron a retired notary who assured 
him that he held in possession numerous exact records of Jean 
Audubon and his family. The sage Henry Thoreau once re- 
marked that you might search long and diligently for a rare 
bird, and then of a sudden surprise the whole family at dinner. 
So it happened in this case, and since these manuscript records, 
sought by many in vain on this side of the Atlantic, are so 
important for this history, the reader is entitled to an account 
of them. 
Upon corresponding with the gentleman in question, M. L. 
Lavigne, I was informed that the documents in his possession 
were of the most varied description, comprising letters, wills, 
deeds, certificates of births, baptisms, adoptions, marriages 
and deaths, to the number, it is believed, of several hundred 
pieces. This unique and extraordinary collection of Audubon- 
ian records had been slumbering in a house in the commune of 
Couéron called “Les ‘Tourterelles” (“The Turtle Doves”) for 
nearly a hundred years, or since the death of the naturalist’s 
stepmother in 1821. 
Since I was unable to judge of the authenticity of the 
documents or to visit France at that time, my friend, Pro- 
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