_Nov. 3rd, 1820._ We left our harbor at daybreak, and passed Henderson about sunrise. I looked on the mill perhaps for the last time, and with thoughts that made my blood almost run cold bid it an eternal farewell. CHAPTER XVII THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE AND THE HISTORY OF HIS FAMILY IN FRANCE Death of Lieutenant Audubon—Contest over his will—Disposition of his estate—The fictitious $17,000—Unsettled claims of Formon and Ross—Illusions of biographers—Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau—Audubon's relations with the family in France broken—Death of the naturalist's stepmother—The du Puigaudeaus—Sources of "enigma." Lieutenant Jean Audubon, as already recorded, died at Nantes in 1818, at a time when his son's financial troubles in America were culminating, and left an estate, then none too large, for the sole enjoyment of his widow during her lifetime. The naturalist, so far as is known, never received a penny in payment of bequests made by either his father or stepmother, but the reasons for this fact were far different from those which his biographers have assigned. We have referred to the curious wording which appears in the six different wills that were executed by Lieutenant Jean Audubon and Anne Moynet, his wife, between the years 1812 and 1821.[232] The first four of these documents[233] were of a mutual nature, and were so drawn that the survivor should enjoy the entire property of the other during his or her lifetime, but this eventually was to be divided between their two children, or heirs of the latter should any exist. In Jean Audubon's last will, made at Couëron on the 15th of March, 1816, he added the provision that in case his "dispositions in favor of Jean Rabain and Rose Bouffard, wife of Loyen du Puigaudeau, should be attacked and annulled," he bequeathed his entire estate, without exception, to his wife, Anne Moynet, for her sole use. His fears, as already intimated, were well grounded, and his will was immediately contested by four nieces, Mme. Lejeune de Vaugeon of Nantes, Mme. Jean Louis Lissabé, whose husband was a pilot, and Anne and Domenica Audubon, seamstresses at Bayonne.[234] This trial dragged on in the courts for a long time, and served further to impoverish Madame Audubon, who was obliged to dispose of most of her valuable effects, but it was finally settled by a compromise in 1820. In that year, at the age of eighty-five, she left "La Gerbetière" to live with her daughter and son-in-law at "Les Tourterelles" close by, where she remained until her death on October 18, 1821.