How long my father remained in the service, it is impossible for me to say. The different changes occurring at the time of the American Revolution, and afterward during that in France, seem to have sent him from one place to another as if a foot-ball; his property in Santo Domingo augmenting, however, the while, and indeed till the liberation of the black slaves there.
During a visit he paid to Pennsylvania when suffering from the effects of a sunstroke, he purchased the beautiful farm of Mill Grove, on the Schuylkill and Perkiomen streams. At this place, and a few days only before the memorable battle (sic) of Valley Forge, General Washington presented him with his portrait, now in my possession; and highly do I value it as a memento of that noble man and the glories of those days.[1] At the conclusion of the war between England and her child of the West, my father returned to France and continued in the employ of the naval department of that country, being at one time sent to Plymouth, England, in a seventy-five-gun ship to exchange prisoners. This was, I think, in the short peace that took place between England and France in 1801. He returned to Rochefort, where he lived for several years, still in the employ of government. He finally sent in his resignation and returned to Nantes and La Gerbétière. He had many severe trials and afflictions before his death, having lost my two older brothers early in the French Revolution; both were officers in the army. His only sister was killed by the Chouans of La Vendée,[2] and the only brother he had was not on good terms with him. This brother resided at
- ↑ The family still own this portrait, of which Victor G. Audubon writes: "This portrait is probably the first one taken of that great and good man, and although the drawing is hard, the coloring and costume are correct, I have no doubt. It was copied by Greenough, the sculptor, when he was preparing to model his 'Washington' for the Capitol, and he considered it as a valuable addition to the material already obtained. This portrait was painted by an artist named Polk, but who or what he was, I know not."
- ↑ There still remain those who recall how Audubon would walk up and down, snapping his fingers, a habit he had when excited, when relating how he had seen his aunt tied to a wagon and dragged through the streets of Nantes in the time of Carrier.
