Early in April we find him back in London lamenting over his sad fate in being compelled to stay in so miserable a place. He could neither write nor draw to his satisfaction amid the "bustle, filth, and smoke." His mind and heart turned eagerly toward America, and to his wife and boys, and he began seriously to plan for a year's absence from England. He wanted to renew and to improve about fifty of his drawings. During this summer of 1828, he was very busy in London, painting, writing, and superintending the colouring of his plates. Under date of August 9, he writes in his journal: "I have been at work from four every morning until dark; I have kept up my large correspondence. My publication goes on well and regularly, and this very day seventy sets have been distributed, yet the number of my subscribers has not increased; on the contrary, I have lost some." He made the acquaintance of Swainson, and the two men found much companionship in each other, and had many long talks about birds: "Why, Lucy, thou wouldst think that birds were all that we cared for in this world, but thou knowest this is not so."
Together he and Mr. and Mrs. Swainson planned a trip to Paris, which they carried out early in September. It tickled Audubon greatly to find that the Frenchman at the office in Calais, who had never seen him, had described his complexion in his passport as copper red, because he was an American, all Americans suggesting aborigines. In Paris they early went to call upon Baron Cuvier. They were told that he was too busy to be seen: "Being determined to look at the Great Man, we waited, knocked again, and with a certain degree of firmness, sent in our names. The messenger returned, bowed, and led the way up stairs, where in a minute Monsieur le Baron, like an excellent good man, came to us. He had heard much of my friend Swainson, and greeted him as he deserves to be greeted; he was polite and kind to me, though my name had never made its way to his ears. I looked at him and here follows the result: Age about sixty-five; size corpulent, five feet five English measure; head large, face wrinkled and brownish; eyes grey, brilliant and sparkling; nose aquiline, large and red; mouth large with good lips; teeth few, blunted by age, excepting one on the lower jaw, measuring nearly three-quarters of an inch square." The italics are not Audubon's. The great naturalist invited his callers to dine with him at six on the next Saturday.
They next presented their letter to Geoffroy de St. Hilaire, with whom they were particularly pleased. Neither had he ever heard of Audubon's work. The dinner with Cuvier gave him a nearer view of the manners and habits of the great man. "There was not the show of opulence at this dinner that is seen in the same rank of life in England, no, not by far, but it was a good dinner served à la Française." Neither was it followed by the "drinking matches" of wine, so common at English tables.
During his stay in Paris Audubon saw much of Cuvier, and was very kindly and considerately treated by him. One day he accompanied a portrait painter to his house and saw him sit for his portrait: "I see the Baron now, quite as plainly as I did this morning,—an old green surtout about him, a neckcloth that would have wrapped his whole body if unfolded, loosely tied about his chin, and his silver locks looking like those of a man who loves to study books better than to visit barbers."
Audubon remained in Paris till near the end of October, making the acquaintance of men of science and of artists, and bringing his work to the attention of those who were likely to value it. Baron Cuvier reported favourably upon it to the Academy of Sciences, pronouncing it "the most magnificent monument which has yet been erected to ornithology." He obtained thirteen subscribers in France and spent forty pounds.
On November 9, he is back in London, and soon busy painting, and pressing forward the engraving and colouring of his work. The eleventh number was the first for the year 1829.
The winter was largely taken up in getting ready for his return trip to America. He found a suitable agent to look after his interests, collected some money, paid all his debts, and on April 1 sailed from Portsmouth in the packet ship Columbia. He was sea-sick during the entire voyage, and reached New York May 5. He did not hasten to his family as would have been quite natural after so long an absence, but spent the summer and part of the fall in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prosecuting his studies and drawings of birds, making his headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. He spent six weeks in the Great Pine Forest, and much time at Great Egg Harbor, and has given delightful accounts of these trips in his journals. Four hours' sleep out of the twenty-four was his allotted allowance.
One often marvels at Audubon's apparent indifference to his wife and his home, for from the first he was given to wandering. Then, too, his carelessness in money matters, and his improvident ways, necessitating his wife's toiling to support the family, put him in a rather unfavourable light as a "good provider," but a perusal of his journal shows that he was keenly alive to all the hardships and sacrifices of his wife, and from first to last in his journeyings he speaks of his longings for home and family. "Cut off from all dearest me," he says in one of his youthful journeys, and in his latest one he speaks of himself as being as happy as one can be who is "three thousand miles from the dearest friend on earth." Clearly some impelling force held him to the pursuit of this work, hardships or no hardships. Fortunately for him, his wife shared his belief in his talents and in their ultimate recognition.
Under date of October 11, 1829, he writes: "I am at work and have done much, but I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens; still I am delighted at what I have accumulated in drawings this season. Forty-two drawings in four months, eleven large, eleven middle size, and twenty-two small, comprising ninety-five birds, from eagles downwards, with plants, nests, flowers, and sixty different kinds of eggs. I live alone, see scarcely anyone besides those belonging to the house where I lodge. I rise long before day, and work till nightfall, when I take a walk and to bed."
Audubon's capacity for work was extraordinary. His enthusiasm and perseverance were equally extraordinary. His purposes and ideas fairly possessed him. Never did a man consecrate himself more fully to the successful completion of the work of his life, than did Audubon to the finishing of his "American Ornithology."