LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 81 
could hardly have been agreeable if, as seems to have 
been the case, some of his own people were loyal to the 
old régime. Correspondence by sea between Les Sables 
and Nantes, which was open before the siege, was not 
broken at this time, for the royalists had named one of 
their representatives, Benoit, as a delegate “to fraternize 
with the citizens of Nantes, to invite the authorities to 
correspond, and beg them to send food if they had more 
than they required.” Four of Jean’s letters, dated at 
Les Sables on the fifth and eighth of July and the sixth 
of August, besides one from La Rochelle on the four- 
teenth of July, all addressed to the Administration of 
the Loire inférieure, have been preserved. 
In the manuscript records of the Department for 
17938 is found also a notice of Jean’s appointment as Spe- 
cial Commissioner, with a memorandum of all the money 
paid to reimburse him for the expenses of his numerous 
journeys. Thus, it is noted that he had been paid 145 
francs for a service of twenty-nine days, which would 
represent the modest allowance of a dollar a day. An- 
other item shows that he had received 100 francs for a 
tour of ten days; a note which was added to this item 
to explain the Directory’s sanction for the payment of 
another forty-five francs and ten sous reads as follows: 
“by its order of the sixth of March last, the Council had, 
in effect, named Citizen Audubon as its Commissioner, 
to visit the coasts and to secure signatures, with full 
power to treat with all people, to acquire materials 
for the navy and other objects of his mission; if this 
mission did not prove successful, it was solely through 
force of circumstances, and not from any lack of zeal 
on his part.” ° 
® Délibérations-Arrétés de Directoire du Département. In MSS. pp. 
107-108. 
