56 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
cination spread like wild fire over Europe, and it has 
never been appreciated more fully or more highly lauded 
by the best representatives of the medical profession 
everywhere than at the present day. 
The most interesting references in this historic 
document are to ‘““Mlle. Rabin,” whose name occurs no 
less than seventeen times, beginning May 21, 1784, and 
closing with the entry for the seventeenth of August, 
1785. We learn that the physician spent the nights of 
April 24 and 25, 1785, at the woman’s bedside, and that 
her child was born on the twenty-sixth day of that 
month, probably in the morning. It will be noticed fur- 
ther that she had been bled previously at the arm, that 
she had suffered also from the erysipelas, and that later 
she was treated for abscesses. These frequent attentions 
of the physician, extending over several months, the last 
record being for August 17, show only too clearly that at 
this time Audubon’s mother was in feeble health. All 
that is further known about her is that she died either at 
the close of 1785 or in 1786, when her infant son was 
probably less than a year old.° 
A daughter of Jean Audubon, Rosa, who was first 
called Muguet (in English, “Lily of the Valley”), was 
also born in Santo Domingo, and probably at Les Cayes, 
on April 29, 1787. Her mother, Catharine Bouffard, 
“créole de Saint-Domingue,”’ who subsequently went to 
France, had another daughter, born also at Les Cayes, 
named Louise, who was living at La Rochelle in 1819.° 
‘It was stated in the act of adoption, which was drawn up in March, 
1794, that Audubon’s mother had then been dead “about eight years,” 
and the testimony of the Sanson bill shows that she was alive as late as 
October, 1785. 
*The following letter of inquiry concerning Louise was written by 
Rosa’s husband when Jean Audubon’s will was being attacked in the courts 
at Nantes. It is dated at Couéron, June 26, 1819, and is addressed to 
“Monsieur Carpentier Chessé, engraver, place Royale, Nantes:” 
“Following the friendly offer that you made me, I have the honor of 
