176 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
It is your work, gentlemen, and the respect which you render 
to the chief of your administration which speaks in praise of 
your sentiments and virtues and which will transmit their 
memory, along with your glory, to posterity.* 
David worked on this portrait for about a month, 
and on April 23, before his departure for Paris, he 
asked the privilege of again addressing the Assembly. 
Not only was the request granted, but he was publicly 
thanked for the trouble he had taken in coming to their 
city, and a committee was appointed to express the 
sentiments of esteem with which he had inspired the 
whole community. We may add that David seems to 
have taken this canvas to his studio in Paris, where it 
was subsequently lost or destroyed in the period of 
turbulence that followed. 
David’s radical speeches from the tribune, added to 
his popularity as an artist, no doubt brought him pupils 
in plenty from every quarter of republican France. 
Young Audubon was probably admitted to the most 
elementary class, for he received no instruction in the 
use of oils but was directed to study the rudiments of 
drawing from the cast. As he had hoped to perfect 
himself in the art of depicting animals, he was disap- 
pointed. “Eyes and noses belonging to giants,” he 
said, “and heads of horses, represented in ancient sculp- 
ture, were my models.” He also spoke of drawing 
“heads and figures in different colored chalks,” and of 
“tolerable figures” obtained by use of the manikin, but 
adds: “These, although fit subjects for men intent on 
pursuing the higher branches of the art, were immedi- 
4F. T. Verger, Archives curieuses de la ville de Nantes et des 
départements de louest (Nantes, 1837-41); for further references to David 
in this chapter I am mainly indebted to Georges Cain, Le Long des 
Rues (Paris, 1812), and Charles Saunier, Louis David (Paris, no date). 
