The ancient city of Nantes, long famed for the beauty of its situation on the banks of a noble river, within easy reach of the sea, as well as for its importance in the arts of war and peace, numbered at the time of the Revolution 70,000 souls. The modern visitor to this favored spot will find quiet and orderly streets adorned with monumental statues (one of these representing Guépin, the revered historian of the city), the old buildings nearly all replaced by better, the Loire spanned by handsome bridges, and the ancient bounds of the town extended until it has become the sixth city of the Republic. Since Nantes formed a somber background to Audubon's youth, we shall follow in brief some of the ordeals through which his family, in common with thousands of other Nantais, were destined to pass during those eventful years which witnessed the close of the eighteenth century in France.
When Captain Audubon reached Nantes presumably not far from the beginning of 1790, he found the city in a state of the greatest turmoil and agitation. The commons, or third estate, included hundreds of its rich and influential citizens, and their demands for a fair hearing and a representation equal to that of the other orders had then passed the stage of open revolt, for they had planted their "liberty tree" and were sworn to defend it. In August of 1789 a permanent Committee of Public Safety had been constituted at Nantes, and by the end of that month 1,200 had volunteered for service in the National Guard. There were many loyalists in the city but they could not crush the ardent spirit of this revolt, and when in September money was needed to equip the revolutionary soldiery, young school children raised large sums for the popular cause. Jean Audubon immediately cast his lot with the revolutionists and joined the National Guard, but how much service he saw in the field cannot now be determined; it is known, however, that he was with these troops in the spring of 1792.[60]
In March, 1793, the loyalists of La Vendée rose to arms, and marching on Nantes under the able leadership of Charette, threatened to put its garrison to the sword if it were not surrendered within six hours. The National Guard met these invaders outside the walls and left the citizens to shift for themselves. Thus thrown upon their own resources, the Nantais showed that they could help themselves. They requisitioned and used for defense everything at hand; they exhumed the leaden coffins in their grand cathedral and appropriated waterspouts for ammunition, while their church bells were molded into cannon. Though held in check, the Vendeans laid siege to the city, and but for the resolution of its mayor, Baco, Nantes would probably have fallen—in which event Audubon would have had a different history and would probably never have become a pioneer naturalist in America. Baco, disregarding the advice of his military chiefs, immediately placarded the walls of Nantes decreeing death to any who should suggest capitulation, and called all the inhabitants to arms, sparing neither woman nor child. The Vendeans had met their match, for they were dealing with many of their own blood, but though the siege began in early March, they were not effectually dispersed until the end of June, and then only after much bloodshed without the walls. When the immediate crisis had passed, the Constitution of the Republic was unanimously accepted by the eighteen sections of Nantes, on the twenty-first day of July, 1792.
A few months later in that fateful year a more terrible calamity befell the city, when the reign of terror under the notorious ultra-revolutionist, Jean B. Carrier, began. Carrier reached Nantes on October 8 and at once proposed to exterminate both the Vendean royalists and their Nantais sympathizers. He reorganized the entire administration to suit his purposes, and to carry out his plans recruited from the lowest classes a revolutionary army to spy upon, denounce and arrest private citizens, many of whom were sent to Paris for trial when not secretly dispatched. The whole district was soon paralyzed by the barbarity of the crimes then committed, and the unhappy Vendeans were dragged to Nantes, to be shot, guillotined or drowned, in such numbers that the city was unable to bury its dead or the river to discharge them to the sea. Thus perished thousands, uncounted if not unknown, and the pestilence of typhoid fever that immediately followed claimed another heavy toll regardless of political sympathies. While these dire scenes were being enacted, Jean Jacques Fougère Audubon, then a lad of eight years, was living in the heart of Nantes, and his father was one of its leading revolutionists. An aunt of the future ornithologist, according to his account, who was one of these wretched victims of revolutionary fury, was dragged through the streets of Nantes before his eyes, but apparently she did not actually meet her death at that time.[61]
That Jean Audubon moved his family out of Nantes during the revolutionary crisis is possible, and Couëron would have been available as a place of refuge. Many Nantais are known to have fled to Lorient on the coast of Brittany, where they found in the heroic youth Julien the ardent and fearless patriot who was destined to become the real savior of their stricken city. Young Julien denounced Carrier in his letters to Robespierre, and when one of these was intercepted, defied him in person. When his stirring appeals finally reached the Tribunal at Paris, its misnamed representative was recalled, and left Nantes under cover of night on February 14, 1794. During his mad reign of four months, Carrier had gone far towards carrying out his theory of republican government, that should begin, as he openly avowed, by "suppressing" half of the population of France. The records show that nearly nine thousand bodies were buried in Nantes in a little over three months, from January 15 to April 24, 1794. The plague of fever no doubt accounted for many of these, but the wide reaches of the Loire never told their full story.
Though the most grievous affliction of Nantes passed with the recall of Carrier, the city had no lasting peace until the execution of the Vendean leader, Charette, in March, 1796; "Poor Charette," said Audubon, writing in his journal at Liverpool, December 24, 1827, "whom I saw shot on the place de Viarme at Nantes." This virtually ended the war in the Vendée, but the Chouans, under their intrepid chief, Dupré, the miller, called "Tête-Carrée," managed to furnish considerable excitement, and raided Nantes in 1799. Dupré's followers stole in secretly at three o'clock on the morning of October 19 and left before daylight, after liberating fifteen royalists from the prison, which seems to have been their chief purpose. The cannon of alarm was fired from the Chateau; the tocsin sounded, calling the city to arms; there was much street fighting, but it was too foggy and dark to distinguish friend from foe, and when the National Guard was finally assembled, the enemy had vanished. This brief attack cost the city twenty-one deaths and wounds for twice the number,[62] but it was only a passing incident in comparison with events that had gone before. Thenceforth the history of the town is blended with that of the nation.[63]
We have only slight indications of Jean Audubon's activities from the close of 1789, when, according to his own statement, he was in the United States, to the period of his service in the National Guard at Nantes in the spring of 1792; he was then living in the house of Citizen Carricoule, rue de Crébillon, and the lease of his "Mill Grove" farm, which was renewed in October, 1790, was dated at Nantes. We may safely assume that he was engaged in revolutionary business during most of this interval: his name begins to appear in the written records of Nantes and of the department of the Lower Loire in January, 1793, and existing documents[64] show that he was engaged as a commissioner and member of the Department and as a member of the Council of the Navy until the twenty-fifth of June, when he enlisted for active service in the navy of the Republic. Jean Audubon served also on various republican committees, his duties comprising the enlistment of recruits, organizing the National Guard, soliciting funds and food supplies for Nantes, finding cannon and other military or naval materials, posting proclamations, administering the oath of allegiance, and watching the movements of loyalist troops in the district. We have seen that the father of the naturalist was a game and determined fighter, and there is ample written testimony to prove that in the commune of Nantes he was regarded as an ardent patriot, who could be relied upon to act with tact, and if necessary with force.
LIEUTENANT JEAN AUDUBON ANNE MOYNET AUDUBON