BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 57 
When Captain Audubon finally left the West Indies 
in the autumn of 1789, he took with him, in the care of 
trustworthy slaves, these two children, Fougere or Jean 
Rabin, aged four and a half years, and Muguet or 
Rosa, an infant of less than two. We know that he 
visited Richmond, Virginia, to collect a long outstanding 
claim against David Ross, then engaged in an iron in- 
dustry near that city (see Chapter VIII, p. 121), and 
it is possible that he traveled by way of New 
Orleans and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. After 
spending some time at the close of this year in the 
United States, he went to France and made a home 
for his children at Nantes. This city became essen- 
tially their permanent abode until their father’s retire- 
ment from the navy on January 1, 1801, when he finally 
settled in the little commune of Cou€éron, on the north 
bank of the Loire. The storm that burst over Nantes 
soon after their arrival revealed the true colors of Jean 
Audubon’s patriotism, and the man was seen at his best, 
as will be related in the following chapter. 
Madame Audubon, who had no children of her own, 
tenderly received the little ones, thus wafted from over 
the sea to her door in the Rue de Crébillon.*. As the 
asking you to undertake, at your next visit to La Rochelle, the following 
inquiries: 
“1, There should be at La Rochelle (it is thought at the home of 
the widow Scipiot) a Miss Louise Bouffard, born at Les Cayes, Santo 
Domingo, in America. 
“What is her position? What is she doing? What is her conduct? In 
short I should like to know absolutely all about her, being charged by 
the Madame, her mother, to make all inquiries.” 
(Translated from original in French, Lavigne MSS.) 
7A principal street in the old quarters of Nantes, leading from the 
Place Royale to Place Graslin. Jean Audubon named this street as his 
place of residence in 1792, when he was living in a house belonging 
to Citizen Carricoule. He made his home also at No. 39, rue Rubens, a 
short street, with many of its houses still intact, in the same quarter; this 
was rented of Francoise Mocquard for five years, beginning June 24, 1799 
(le 6 Messidor, an 7), at four hundred francs per annum. He also dwelt 
