There is a hopeless confusion as to certain important dates in Audubon's
life. He was often careless and unreliable in his statements of matters of
fact, which weakness during his lifetime often led to his being accused of
falsehood. Thus he speaks of the "memorable battle of Valley Forge" and of
two brothers of his, both officers in the French army, as having perished
in the French Revolution, when he doubtless meant uncles. He had previously
stated that his only two brothers died in infancy. He confessed that he had
no head for mathematics, and he seems always to have been at sea in regard
to his own age. In his letters and journals there are several references to
his age, but they rarely agree. The date of his birth usually given, May 4,
1780, is probably three or four years too early, as he speaks of himself as
being nearly seventeen when his mother had him confirmed in the Catholic
Church, and this was about the time that his father, then an officer in the
French navy, was sent to England to effect a change of prisoners, which
time is given as 1801.
The two race strains that mingle in him probably account for this illogical
habit of mind, as well as for his romantic and artistic temper and tastes.
His father was a sea-faring man and a Frenchman; his mother was a Spanish
Creole of Louisiana--the old chivalrous Castilian blood modified by new
world conditions. The father, through commercial channels, accumulated a
large property in the island of St. Domingo. In the course of his trading
he made frequent journeys to Louisiana, then the property of the French
government. On one of these trips, probably, he married one of the native
women, who is said to have possessed both wealth and beauty. The couple
seem to have occupied for a time a plantation belonging to a French
Marquis, situated at Mandeville on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
Here three sons were born to them, of whom John James La Forest was the
third. The daughter seems to have been younger.
His own mother perished in a slave insurrection in St. Domingo, where the
family had gone to live on the Audubon estate at Aux Cayes, when her child
was but a few months old. Audubon says that his father with his plate and
money and himself, attended by a few faithful servants, escaped to New
Orleans. What became of his sister he does not say, though she must have
escaped with them, since we hear of her existence years later. Not long
after, how long we do not know, the father returned to France, where he
married a second time, giving the son, as he himself says, the only mother
he ever knew. This woman proved a rare exception among stepmothers--but she
was too indulgent, and, Audubon says, completely spoiled him, bringing him
up to live like a gentleman, ignoring his faults and boasting of his
merits, and leading him to believe that fine clothes and a full pocket were
the most desirable things in life.
This she was able to do all the more effectively because the father soon
left the son in her charge and returned to the United States in the employ
of the French government, and before long became attached to the army under
La Fayette. This could not have been later than 1781, the year of
Cornwallis' surrender, and Audubon would then have been twenty-one, but
this does not square with his own statements. After the war the father
still served some years in the French navy, but finally retired from active
service and lived at La Gerbétière in France, where he died at the age of
ninety-five, in 1818.
Audubon says of his mother: "Let no one speak of her as my step-mother. I
was ever to her as a son of her own flesh and blood and she was to me a
true mother." With her he lived in the city of Nantes, France, where he
appears to have gone to school. It was, however, only from his private
tutors that he says he got any benefit. His father desired him to follow in
his footsteps, and he was educated accordingly, studying drawing,
geography, mathematics, fencing, and music. Mathematics he found hard dull
work, as have so many men of like temperament, before and since, but music
and fencing and geography were more to his liking. He was an ardent,
imaginative youth, and chafed under all drudgery and routine. His
foster-mother, in the absence of his father, suffered him to do much as he
pleased, and he pleased to "play hookey" most of the time, joining boys of
his own age and disposition, and deserting the school for the fields and
woods, hunting birds' nests, fishing and shooting and returning home at
night with his basket filled with various natural specimens and
curiosities. The collecting fever is not a bad one to take possession of
boys at this age.
In his autobiography Audubon relates an incident that occurred when he was
a child, which he thinks first kindled his love for birds. It was an
encounter between a pet parrot and a tame monkey kept by his mother. One
morning the parrot, Mignonne, asked as usual for her breakfast of bread and
milk, whereupon the monkey, being in a bad humour, attacked the poor
defenceless bird, and killed it. Audubon screamed at the cruel sight, and
implored the servant to interfere and save the bird, but without avail. The
boy's piercing screams brought the mother, who succeeded in tranquillising
the child. The monkey was chained, and the parrot buried, but the tragedy
awakened in him a lasting love for his feathered friends.
Audubon's father seems to have been the first to direct his attention to
the study of birds, and to the observance of Nature generally. Through him
he learned to notice the beautiful colourings and markings of the birds, to
know their haunts, and to observe their change of plumage with the changing
seasons; what he learned of their mysterious migrations fired his
imagination.
He speaks of this early intimacy with Nature as a feeling which bordered on
frenzy. Watching the growth of a bird from the egg he compares to the
unfolding of a flower from the bud.
The pain which he felt in seeing the birds die and decay was very acute,
but, fortunately, about this time some one showed him a book of
illustrations, and henceforth "a new life ran in my veins," he says. To
copy Nature was thereafter his one engrossing aim.
That he realised how crude his early efforts were is shown by his saying:
"My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples." His steady progress, too,
is shown in his custom, on every birthday, of burning these 'Crippled'
drawings, then setting to work to make better, truer ones.
His father returning from a sea voyage, probably when the son was about
twenty years old, was not well pleased with the progress that the boy was
making in his studies. One morning soon after, Audubon found himself with
his trunk and his belongings in a private carriage, beside his father, on
his way to the city of Rochefort. The father occupied himself with a book
and hardly spoke to his son during the several days of the journey, though
there was no anger in his face. After they were settled in their new abode,
he seated his son beside him and taking one of his hands in his, calmly
said: "My beloved boy, thou art now safe. I have brought thee here that I
may be able to pay constant attention to thy studies; thou shalt have ample
time for pleasures, but the remainder _must_ be employed with industry
and care."
But the father soon left him on some foreign mission for his government and
the boy chafed as usual under his tasks and confinement. One day, too much
mathematics drove him into making his escape by leaping from the window,
and making off through the gardens attached to the school where he was
confined. A watchful corporal soon overhauled him, however, and brought him
back, where he was confined on board some sort of prison ship in the
harbour. His father soon returned, when he was released, not without a
severe reprimand.
We next find him again in the city of Nantes struggling with more odious
mathematics, and spending all his leisure time in the fields and woods,
studying the birds. About this time he began a series of drawings of the
French birds, which grew to upwards of two hundred, all bad enough, he
says, but yet real representations of birds, that gave him a certain
pleasure. They satisfied his need of expression.
At about this time, too, though the year we do not know, his father
concluded to send him to the United States, apparently to occupy a farm
called Mill Grove, which the father had purchased some years before, on the
Schuylkill river near Philadelphia. In New York he caught the yellow fever:
he was carefully nursed by two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding house in
Morristown, New Jersey.
In due time his father's agent, Miers Fisher, also a Quaker, removed him to
his own villa near Philadelphia, and here Audubon seems to have remained
some months. But the gay and ardent youth did not find the atmosphere of
the place congenial. The sober Quaker grey was not to his taste. His host
was opposed to music of all kinds, and to dancing, hunting, fishing and
nearly all other forms of amusement. More than that, he had a daughter
between whom and Audubon he apparently hoped an affection would spring up.
But Audubon took an unconquerable dislike to her. Very soon, therefore, he
demanded to be put in possession of the estate to which his father had sent
him.
Of the month and year in which he entered upon his life at Mill Grove, we
are ignorant. We know that he fell into the hands of another Quaker,
William Thomas, who was the tenant on the place, but who, with his worthy
wife, seems to have made life pleasant for him. He soon became attached to
Mill Grove, and led a life there just suited to his temperament.
"Hunting, fishing, drawing, music, occupied my every moment; cares I knew
not and cared naught about them. I purchased excellent and beautiful
horses, visited all such neighbours as I found congenial spirits, and was
as happy as happy could be."
Near him there lived an English family by the name of Bakewell, but he had
such a strong antipathy to the English that he postponed returning the call
of Mr. Bakewell, who had left his card at Mill Grove during one of
Audubon's excursions to the woods. In the late fall or early winter,
however, he chanced to meet Mr. Bakewell while out hunting grouse, and was
so pleased with him and his well-trained dogs, and his good marksmanship,
that he apologised for his discourtesy in not returning his call, and
promised to do so forthwith. Not many mornings thereafter he was seated in
his neighbour's house.
"Well do I recollect the morning," he says in the autobiographical sketch
which he prepared for his sons, "and may it please God that I never forget
it, when for the first time I entered Mr. Bakewell's dwelling. It happened
that he was absent from home, and I was shown into a parlour where only one
young lady was snugly seated at her work by the fire. She rose on my
entrance, offered me a seat, assured me of the gratification her father
would feel on his return, which, she added, would be in a few moments, as
she would despatch a servant for him. Other ruddy cheeks and bright eyes
made their transient appearance, but, like spirits gay, soon vanished from
my sight; and there I sat, my gaze riveted, as it were, on the young girl
before me, who, half working, half talking, essayed to make the time
pleasant to me. Oh! may God bless her! It was she, my dear sons, who
afterwards became my beloved wife, and your mother. Mr. Bakewell soon made
his appearance, and received me with the manner and hospitality of a true
English gentleman. The other members of the family were soon introduced to
me, and Lucy was told to have luncheon produced. She now rose from her seat
a second time, and her form, to which I had paid but partial attention,
showed both grace and beauty; and my heart followed every one of her steps.
The repast over, dogs and guns were made ready.
"Lucy, I was pleased to believe, looked upon me with some favour, and I
turned more especially to her on leaving. I felt that certain '_Je ne
sais quoi_' which intimated that, at least, she was not indifferent to
me."
The winter that followed was a gay and happy one at Mill Grove; shooting
parties, skating parties, house parties with the Bakewell family, were of
frequent occurrence. It was during one of these skating excursions upon the
Perkiomen in quest of wild ducks, that Audubon had a lucky escape from
drowning. He was leading the party down the river in the dusk of the
evening, with a white handkerchief tied to a stick, when he came suddenly
upon a large air hole into which, in spite of himself, his impetus carried
him. Had there not chanced to be another air hole a few yards below, our
hero's career would have ended then and there. The current quickly carried
him beneath the ice to this other opening where he managed to seize hold of
the ice and to crawl out.
His friendship with the Bakewell family deepened. Lucy taught Audubon
English, he taught her drawing, and their friendship very naturally ripened
into love, which seems to have run its course smoothly.
Audubon was happy. He had ample means, and his time was filled with
congenial pursuits. He writes in his journal: "I had no vices, but was
thoughtless, pensive, loving, fond of shooting, fishing, and riding, and
had a passion for raising all sorts of fowls, which sources of interest and
amusement fully occupied my time. It was one of my fancies to be
ridiculously fond of dress; to hunt in black satin breeches, wear pumps
when shooting, and to dress in the finest ruffled shirts I could obtain
from France."
The evidences of vanity regarding his looks and apparel, sometimes found in
his journal, are probably traceable to his foster-mother's unwise treatment
of him in his youth. We have seen how his father's intervention in the nick
of time exercised a salutary influence upon him at this point in his
career, directing his attention to the more solid attainments. Whatever
traces of this self-consciousness and apparent vanity remained in after
life, seem to have been more the result of a naïve character delighting in
picturesqueness in himself as well as in Nature, than they were of real
vanity.
In later years he was assuredly nothing of the dandy; he himself ridicules
his youthful fondness for dress, while those who visited him during his
last years speak of him as particularly lacking in self-consciousness.
Although he affected the dress of the dandies of his time, he was temperate
and abstemious. "I ate no butcher's meat, lived chiefly on fruits,
vegetables, and fish, and never drank a glass of spirits or wine until my
wedding day." "All this time I was fair and rosy, strong and active as one
of my age and sex could be, and as active and agile as a buck."
That he was energetic and handy and by no means the mere dandy that his
extravagance in dress might seem to indicate, is evidenced from the fact
that about this time he made a journey on foot to New York and accomplished
the ninety miles in three days in mid-winter. But he was angry, and anger
is better than wine to walk on.
The cause of his wrath was this; a lead mine had been discovered upon the
farm of Mill Grove, and Audubon had applied to his father for counsel in
regard to it. In response, the elder Audubon had sent over a man by the
name of Da Costa who was to act as his son's partner and partial
guardian--was to teach him mineralogy and mining engineering, and to look
after his finances generally. But the man, Audubon says, knew nothing of
the subjects he was supposed to teach, and was, besides, "a covetous wretch,
who did all he could to ruin my father, and, indeed, swindled both of us to
a large amount." Da Costa pushed his authority so far as to object to
Audubon's proposed union with Lucy Bakewell, as being a marriage beneath
him, and finally plotted to get the young man off to India. These things
very naturally kindled Audubon's quick temper, and he demanded of his tutor
and guardian money enough to take him to France to consult with his father.
Da Costa gave him a letter of credit on a sort of banker-broker residing in
New York. To New York he accordingly went, as above stated, and found that
the banker-broker was in the plot to pack him off to India. This disclosure
kindled his wrath afresh. He says that had he had a weapon about him the
banker's heart must have received the result of his wrath. His Spanish
blood began to declare itself.
Then he sought out a brother of Mr. Bakewell and the uncle of his
sweetheart, and of him borrowed the money to take him to France. He took
passage on a New Bedford brig bound for Nantes. The captain had recently
been married and when the vessel reached the vicinity of New Bedford, he
discovered some dangerous leaks which necessitated a week's delay to repair
damages. Audubon avers that the captain had caused holes to be bored in the
vessel's sides below the water line, to gain an excuse to spend a few more
days with his bride.
After a voyage of nineteen days the vessel entered the Loire, and anchored
in the lower harbour of Nantes, and Audubon was soon welcomed by his father
and fond foster-mother.
His first object was to have the man Da Costa disposed of, which he soon
accomplished; the second, to get his father's consent to his marriage with
Lucy Bakewell, which was also brought about in due time, although the
parents of both agreed that they were "owre young to marry yet."
Audubon now remained two years in France, indulging his taste for hunting,
rambling, and drawing birds and other objects of Natural History.
This was probably about the years 1805 and 1806. France was under the sway
of Napoleon, and conscriptions were the order of the day. The elder Audubon
became uneasy lest his son be drafted into the French army; hence he
resolved to send him back to America. In the meantime, he interested one
Rozier in the lead mine and had formed a partnership between him and his
son, to run for nine years. In due course the two young men sailed for New
York, leaving France at a time when thousands would have been glad to have
followed their footsteps.
On this voyage their vessel was pursued and overhauled by a British
privateer, the _Rattlesnake_, and nearly all their money and eatables
were carried off, besides two of the ship's best sailors. Audubon and
Rozier saved their gold by hiding it under a cable in the bow of the ship.
On returning to Mill Grove, Audubon resumed his former habits of life
there. We hear no more of the lead mine, but more of his bird studies and
drawings, the love of which was fast becoming his ruling passion. "Before I
sailed for France, I had begun a series of drawings of the birds of
America, and had also begun a study of their habits. I at first drew my
subject dead, by which I mean to say that after procuring a specimen, I
hung it up, either by the head, wing, or foot, and copied it as closely as
I could." Even the hateful Da Costa had praised his bird pictures and had
predicted great things for him in this direction. His words had given
Audubon a great deal of pleasure.
Mr. William Bakewell, the brother of his Lucy, has given us a glimpse of
Audubon and his surroundings at this time. "Audubon took me to his house,
where he and his companion, Rozier, resided, with Mrs. Thomas for an
attendant. On entering his room, I was astonished and delighted that it was
turned into a museum. The walls were festooned with all sorts of birds'
eggs, carefully blown out and strung on a thread. The chimney piece was
covered with stuffed squirrels, raccoons and opossums; and the shelves
around were likewise crowded with specimens, among which were fishes,
frogs, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. Besides these stuffed
varieties, many paintings were arrayed upon the walls, chiefly of birds. He
had great skill in stuffing and preserving animals of all sorts. He had
also a trick of training dogs with great perfection, of which art his
famous dog Zephyr was a wonderful example. He was an admirable marksman, an
expert swimmer, a clever rider, possessed great activity, prodigious
strength, and was notable for the elegance of his figure, and the beauty of
his features, and he aided Nature by a careful attendance to his dress.
Besides other accomplishments, he was musical, a good fencer, danced well,
had some acquaintance with legerdemain tricks, worked in hair, and could
plait willow baskets." He adds that Audubon once swam across the Schuylkill
with him on his back.