Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time. Vol. 1 (of 2)Herrick, Francis Hobart
History
Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Herrick, Francis Hobart
Audubon, John James, 1785-1851
[17] Pierre Audubon's service in the merchant marine of France
is undoubtedly recorded in the archives of the Department of
Marine in Paris, but all researches in that direction were
suddenly halted by the war.
[18] Jean Audubon had a brother Claude, and on February
27, 1791, he wrote to him, asking for 4,000 francs, which
he needed for the purchase of a boat. It was probably this
brother who lived at Bayonne, and left three daughters, Anne,
Dominica, and Catherine Françoise, who married Jean Louis
Lissabé, a pilot (see Vol. I, p. 263). If this inference be
correct, and the sum referred to was demanded in payment of
a debt, it may explain a statement of the naturalist that his
father and his uncle were not on speaking terms.
Another brother is said to have been an active politician
at Nantes, La Rochelle and Paris from 1771 to 1796, when he
dropped out of sight for a number of years. When heard of
again he was living at La Rochelle in affluence and piety.
This was apparently the Audubon to whom the naturalist
referred in certain of his journals and private letters as one
who, possessing the secret of his birth and early life, had
done both him and his father an irreparable injury (see Vol.
I, p. 270).
A sister, Marie Rosa Audubon, was married in 1794 to Pierre de
Vaugeon, a lawyer at Nantes; their only son, Louis Lejeune de
Vaugeon, was living at Nantes as late as 1822, when he deeded
his former home to Henri Boutard. (The substance of this and
the preceding paragraph is based partly upon data furnished
by Miss Maria R. Audubon.)
Jean Audubon gave his daughter, Rosa, the name of her aunt,
but in later life seems to have broken off all relations with
his brothers. Upon his death his will was immediately attacked
by Mme. Lejeune de Vaugeon, of Nantes, and by the three nieces
from Bayonne (see Chapter XVII). The naturalist does not give
the name of the aunt who, as he said, was killed during the
Revolution at Nantes, but I have found no reference to any
other.
[19] This was recalled by the naturalist on March 5, 1827,
when he wrote: "As a lad I had a great aversion to anything
English or Scotch, and I remember when travelling with my
father to Rochefort in January, 1800, I mentioned this to
him.... How well I remember his reply.... 'Thy blood will
cool in time, and thou wilt be surprised to see how gradually
prejudices are obliterated, and friendships acquired, towards
those that we at one time held in contempt. Thou hast not been
in England; I have, and it is a fine country.'" (See Maria R.
Audubon, _Audubon and His Journals_ (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
p. 216).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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