PREFACE 
The origin of the gifted ornithologist, animal painter, and 
writer, known to the world as John James Audubon, has re- 
mained a mystery up to the present time. In now lifting the 
veil which was cast over his early existence, I feel that I serve 
the cause of historical truth; at the same time it is possible 
to do fuller justice to all most intimately concerned with the 
story of his life and accomplishments. 
The present work is in reality the outcome of what was first 
undertaken as a holiday recreation in the summer of 1903. 
While engaged upon a research of quite a different character, 
I reread, with greater care, Audubon’s Ornithological Biog- 
raphy, and after turning the leaves of his extraordinary illus- 
trations, it seemed to me most strange that but little should be 
known of the making of so original and masterful a character. 
As I was in England at the time some investigations were 
undertaken in London, but, as might have been expected, with 
rather barren results. After my return to America in the 
following year the search was continued, but as it proved 
equally fruitless here, the subject was set aside. Not until 
1913, when this investigation was resumed in France, did I 
meet with success. 
Every man, however poor or inconsequential he may ap- 
pear or be, is supposed to possess an estate, and every man 
of affairs is almost certain to leave behind him domestic, pro- 
fessional, or commercial papers, which are, in some degree, a 
mark of his attainments and an indication of his character 
and tastes. In the summer of 1913 I went to France in 
search of the personal records of the naturalist’s father, Lieu- 
tenant Jean Audubon, whose home had been at Nantes and in 
the little commune of Couéron, nine miles below that city, on 
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