[41] A principal street in the old quarters of Nantes, leading from the Place Royale to Place Graslin. Jean Audubon named this street as his place of residence in 1792, when he was living in a house belonging to Citizen Carricoule. He made his home also at No. 39, rue Rubens, a short street, with many of its houses still intact, in the same quarter; this was rented of Françoise Mocquard for five years, beginning June 24, 1799 (_le 6 Messidor, an 7_), at four hundred francs per annum. He also dwelt at various times at No. 5, rue de Gigant, and in the rue des Carmes, where his wife possessed a house, as well as in the rue des Fontenelles and the rue Saint-Leonard. Very likely "La Gerbetière" at Couëron was occupied intermittently, especially in summer, after the outbreak of the Revolution and his reverses in fortune; even after his retirement there in 1801, he still kept a lodging (_pied-à-terre_) at Nantes, where, as it chanced, he died, though it was not his usual stopping-place. See Note, Vol. I, p. 86. [42] See Maria R. Audubon, _Audubon and His Journals_ (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i, p. 8. [43] For the original text of this act, here given in translation, see Appendix I, Document No. 2. [44] Research at Nantes in 1915 revealed that the baptismal records of the parish of Saint-Similien were wanting for the period from 1792 to 1803, so it is probable that they were destroyed in the Revolution. The municipal archives of Nantes possess a book of baptismal records of the city without distinction of parishes, but this shows the names of neither "Fougère," "Rabin," nor "Audubon," for the year in question. The Abbè Tardiveau was _un prêtre assermenté_, or one of those priests who had sworn in 1790 to recognize the civil constitution of the clergy. For copy of the act of baptism in the French original, see Appendix I, Document No. 3. It is impossible to say whether the heading as given in my copy of this act was in the original or not. [45] An English writer once gave the name of Audubon's mother as Mlle. La Forêt. [46] Audubon's signature underwent frequent variations during the first twenty-five years of his life, but after 1820 he almost invariably signed himself "John J.," or "J. J. Audubon." In the record of the civil marriage of his sister, at Couëron in 1805, his name appears as "J. J. L. Audubon;" in the "Articles of Association" with Ferdinand Rozier, signed at Nantes in 1806, it is "Jean Audubon," and in the release given on the dissolution of this partnership, at Ste. Geneviève, in 1811, the English form, "John Audubon," appears. [47] This statement was made to me by Miss Maria R. Audubon in 1914.