Audubon has said but little of this Paris experience, but he remarked: "At the age of seventeen when I returned from France, whither I had gone to receive the rudiments of my education, my drawings had assumed a form. David had guided my hand in tracing objects of large size."[151] An interesting sidelight is thrown upon this incident by the fact that, not many years before, David had been warmly welcomed in the city of Nantes, when it is not unlikely that the naturalist's father was one of the throng of citizens who made his acquaintance. The occasion to which I refer was so noteworthy in the annals of Audubon's paternal city as to make a digression at this point of our narrative inevitable. In March, 1790, Daniel de Kervegan, a wealthy merchant who was then serving his second term as mayor, had aroused so much enthusiasm by his public spirit and sterling character that the citizens had voted the sum of 300 livres, or about $60, for his portrait, to be executed in oils and placed in one of their public buildings. The commission was offered to David, who accepted it, and with such enthusiasm did he set to work, that upon reaching Nantes he asked the privilege of paying his respects to the Municipal Assembly, which was in session. Upon being admitted to the Chamber, on the 24th of March, he expressed these sentiments:
If ever my art has brought me any gratification, or any success, never before have I had better excuse for boastfulness.
I have made it a duty to respond to the worthy invitations, inspired by patriotism and gratitude, that hallow this most timely and most astounding revolution.
It is your work, gentlemen, and the respect which you render to the chief of your administration which speaks in praise of your sentiments and virtues and which will transmit their memory, along with your glory, to posterity.[152]
David worked on this portrait for about a month, and on April 23, before his departure for Paris, he asked the privilege of again addressing the Assembly. Not only was the request granted, but he was publicly thanked for the trouble he had taken in coming to their city, and a committee was appointed to express the sentiments of esteem with which he had inspired the whole community. We may add that David seems to have taken this canvas to his studio in Paris, where it was subsequently lost or destroyed in the period of turbulence that followed.
David's radical speeches from the tribune, added to his popularity as an artist, no doubt brought him pupils in plenty from every quarter of republican France. Young Audubon was probably admitted to the most elementary class, for he received no instruction in the use of oils but was directed to study the rudiments of drawing from the cast. As he had hoped to perfect himself in the art of depicting animals, he was disappointed. "Eyes and noses belonging to giants," he said, "and heads of horses, represented in ancient sculpture, were my models." He also spoke of drawing "heads and figures in different colored chalks," and of "tolerable figures" obtained by use of the manikin, but adds: "These, although fit subjects for men intent on pursuing the higher branches of the art, were immediately laid aside by me"; yet he "returned to the woods of the New World with fresh ardor,"[153] and there began a series of drawings which were later published.
While this is virtually all that has been recorded of this incident in Audubon's career, a number of interesting facts might be added which throw light upon the surroundings of his life at Paris while under the tuition of this master. At that time David was enjoying the privilege, accorded to eminent artists from an early day, of living with his family and of having his studios in special quarters set apart for the purpose in the palace of the Louvre; this was continued until all the artist tenants were turned out by one of Napoleon's peremptory orders in 1806. David's principal studio was at the corner of the Quai de Louvre and the square, facing the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, at a point occupied in the present structure by the grand staircase leading to the Egyptian Gallery. It was here that his more advanced pupils studied; the appearance of its interior, with his pupils at work, as well as the view from one of its windows, by means of which its exact position can be determined, may be seen today in the interesting painting by Matthew Cochereau. This small picture, first exhibited in the salon of 1814, now hangs in the Louvre in company with some of the finest of David's works, and immediately beneath his huge canvas representing the coronation of Napoleon. Over his principal room David had also a private studio, and at one time he had another on the Quai, opposite the Institute of France, while his numerous pupils occupied a series of rooms, one above another, not remote from the first. Access to these apartments was gained from the street by means of a spiral stairway, the opening of which may still be seen in the Egyptian Hall.
It is common to speak of this gifted man as if he alone had stifled all the art of the eighteenth century in France, as if he were the molder of his age and not a part of it. Too often has he been judged on the basis of a few, unfortunately conspicuous, theatrical pieces, while his excellent portraits, of which there are many, entitle him to the gratitude of posterity. Buchanan remarked that the mannerism of David could "still be traced in certain pedantries discernible in Audubon's style of drawing," which is a fancy without any basis in fact. If it could be shown that drawing from the casts of antique statues could develop mannerisms in the careful delineation of birds and mammals, it would still appear that Audubon's style was really formed at a later period.
This brief Paris episode, which at most could have lasted but a few months, represented all the formal instruction which Audubon ever received in drawing, although he enjoyed some private tuition at a much later day. As to the sciences now embraced in biology, that is, zoölogy and botany, which would have been most useful to him, the score was blank; even books on any of these subjects were rare in America at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
When Audubon first came to the United States, he brought with him all his drawings of French birds, and a few pieces which may belong to this early period have been described.[154] Done in a combination of crayon and water color, they represent a European Magpie, a Coot and a Green Woodpecker, the latter especially, which bore the number "96," showing evidence of care and skill. The year passed at "Mill Grove" was not particularly fruitful, but during the Couëron visit which followed in 1805 and 1806, Audubon said that he made drawings of "about two hundred species of birds," all of which he brought to America and gave to his Lucy. After finally reaching this country in the latter year, these studies were continued, with an alacrity that seldom failed, until 1822, when he began to revise much of his earlier work, substituting water colors more completely for pastels, pencil and crayon point.