This Strange Wilderness: The Life and Art of John James Audubon by Nancy Plain

Author:Nancy Plain [Plain, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: BIO000000 Biography & Autobiography / General
ISBN: 9780803248847
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska
Published: 2015-02-28T22:00:00+00:00

32. Bald Eagle, America’s national bird.

“I do any thing for money now a days,” he told Lucy.23 In between his stays in the big cities of Scotland and England, he toured the smaller ones, looking for new subscribers and collecting money from old ones. In September 1828 he went to Paris—his first time back to France in twenty-two years. Both his parents were dead now, but his sister, Rose, was still living in Couëron. Audubon did not visit her. Instead he stayed in the city, enjoying French coffee, which he thought was the best in the world, and trying to sell his book. Although he did not sign up many new subscribers, he met with Baron Georges Cuvier, the most respected naturalist in France. Cuvier took one look at Audubon’s portfolio and called it “the greatest monument erected by art to nature.”24 Cuvier introduced Audubon to the duc d’Orléans, who would soon become King Louis-Philippe. D’Orléans subscribed to The Birds of America, and so did the current French king, Charles X.

Back in London, Audubon concluded, “I have not worked in vain.”25 He had won great praise in Europe. And his “Great Idea,” thanks to the Havells’ engravings, was on its way to becoming a reality. But by 1829 he had been away from America for three years. His marriage with Lucy was at the breaking point, and he had missed seeing his sons grow from boys to young men. He had more work to do in America, too, with more species to find. On April 1, having left the Havells with enough watercolors to keep them busy for a whole year, Audubon boarded the ship Columbus and headed for home. Out on the Atlantic, he thought about the twists and turns his life had taken—“Fortune if not blind certainly Must have his Lunatic Moments.”26 He had left America under a cloud of bankruptcy and failure. He was coming home a star.

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