LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 85 
of service, when, suffering from a pulmonary affection, 
he applied to his Government for a pension, he received 
the paltry annuity of 600 francs or $120. 
With this modest pension and a property yielding 
an income not above $2,000 a year,!® Lieutenant Audu- 
bon retired to his quiet villa of “Ia Gerbetiére,” at Coué- 
ron, where he could indulge his taste for country life and 
for raising his favorite fruits and flowers; he is said to 
have kept some live stock, but could have been a farmer 
only on a modest scale. Meanwhile he continued to 
maintain a house, or at least rooms, at Nantes, whither 
he went periodically to conduct his correspondence and 
business affairs. The following letter of attorney, issued 
by Lieutenant Audubon a year after he had retired from 
the navy, shows that he still had interests in Santo Do- 
mingo, and was endeavoring to collect rents, long over- 
due, from houses and stores that belonged either to 
himself or to his clients. Whether through the dishon- 
esty of agents or from what other cause, this property 
which the elder Audubon held in his own right seems 
gradually to have melted away: 
The 19th pluviose, in the eleventh year of the Republic, 
one and indivisible [January 7, 1802], before the public no- 
taries of the department of Loire inférieure, who reside in 
Nantes and Doulon, the undersigned have seen present the 
which he rose to the rank of captain of the first grade in 1774. He 
served in the French navy (service a l'état) 8 years, 2 months and 17 
days, ranking successively as sailor, ensign-commander, and _ lieutenant- 
commander (lieutenant de vaisseau); 8 months and 22 days of this period 
(1768-1769) were in intervals of peace, and 7 years, 5 months and 25 days 
(1793-1801), in times of war. Any conflict which may seem to occur in 
titles must be attributed to this double service. 
* This property was evidently encumbered to a considerable extent, 
for he repeatedly filed with the Department letters for the removal of 
restrictions placed upon it (lettres pour obtenir la main levée). I can- 
not give the dates of these letters, but believe that they were drawn in 
1801 or shortly after. 
