What little I saw of the interior of "La Gerbetière" was wholly devoid of interest, which agrees with the experience of another traveler who visited Couëron at a slightly earlier date;[118] at the time of his visit the place was unoccupied and forlorn, and the vegetation on the garden side so dense that it was utterly impossible to see any distance from the lower windows. When "La Gerbetière" came into Jean Audubon's possession it was already venerable with age, and it was completely restored for him by an architect named Lavigne.[119] In an inventory drawn up shortly after Madame Audubon's death in October, 1821, the property of "La Gerbetière" is described by reproducing the account given in an early deed bearing date of November 11, 1769, which reads as follows: A house called La Gerbetière, situated near the port of Launay, consisting of a sitting room, drawing room, kitchen, upper chamber ... garret, and other quarters serving as a laundry, stable at the back, with pigeon loft above, court, parterre, vegetable garden to one side, an orangery with orange trees, in the middle of the house, the whole in front of a close surrounded by high walls except on the side of the setting sun, with land belonging to the heirs of M. de la Haye Moricaud, held mutually,[120] the whole bounded on all other sides by highways. Notice: The aforesaid house and parterre [stand] in an empty field, which serves as a fair-ground, and is partly planted with young trees in serial rows; held in common with the Marquis de la Musse, with another empty field containing about two journals of land....[121] "La Gerbetière," never more than an unpretentious country house with an attractive garden, was idealized in the fervent imagination of Audubon when in after life he drew upon the memories of his youth in France; for it had meant to him escape from the city, which he detested, to the fields and river which he loved. Yet, in spite of the abuse which a long line of poor tenantry inevitably entails, with intervals of total neglect lasting for nearly a century, this decayed villa of pre-Revolutionary days still stands in marked contrast to its neighbors, and bears witness to a taste to which they were strangers. The greenhouses, the fruit and shade trees, if such it possessed, and all lesser adornments of the place have vanished long ago, but thanks to the durability of French stone and mortar, much about this old country seat is still well preserved. Whether Audubon ever saw his old Couëron home again after leaving it in 1806 is doubtful, though one of his sons visited the place, and the naturalist incidentally speaks of a pilgrimage to Les Sables d'Olonne which might have occurred in 1831 or a little later. In following the fortunes of the naturalist's family in France it will be necessary for us to return to La Gerbetière.[122] CHAPTER XI