26 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
Jean Audubon came by his sailor’s instincts and 
fighting prowess naturally, for his father, Pierre Audu- 
bon of Les Sables d’Olonne, was a seaman by trade. 
Like his son he captained his own vessel, and for years 
made long voyages between French ports in both the 
old and the new worlds. Pierre Audubon, the paternal 
grandfather of John James Audubon, and the first of 
that name of whom we have found any record,° lived 
at Les Sables d’Olonne, where with Marie Anne Martin, 
his wife, he reared a considerable family in the first half 
of the eighteenth century. 
Les Sables, at the time of which we speak, was a 
small fishing and trading port on the Bay of Biscay, 
fifty miles to the southwest of Nantes, but is now be- 
come a city of over twenty thousand people. Lying on 
the westerly verge of the Marais, or salt marshes and 
lakes of La Vendée, the inhabitants of the district, and 
more particularly of the Bocage, or plantations, to the 
north and northeast, were noted from an early day for 
their conservatism, as shown in a firm adherence to 
ancient law and custom, as well as for their unswerving 
loyalty to the old nobility and to the clergy. Like their 
Breton neighbors on the other side of the Loire, the 
Vendeans were honest, industrious, and faithful to their 
civic obligations; they were also independent, resource- 
ful, and knew no fear. When the neighboring city of 
Nantes planted trees of liberty and displayed the Na- 
tional colors in 1789, the Vendeans were stirred to indig- 
nation and later to arms, while the Chouans on the right 
bank of the river were quick to follow their example; in 
short, the rebels of La Vendée raised such a storm that 
* Pierre Audubon’s service in the merchant marine of France is un- 
doubtedly recorded in the archives of the Department of Marine in 
Paris, but all researches in that direction were suddenly halted by the 
war. 
