Audubon says of his mother: "Let no one speak of her as my step-mother. I
was ever to her as a son of her own flesh and blood and she was to me a
true mother." With her he lived in the city of Nantes, France, where he
appears to have gone to school. It was, however, only from his private
tutors that he says he got any benefit. His father desired him to follow in
his footsteps, and he was educated accordingly, studying drawing,
geography, mathematics, fencing, and music. Mathematics he found hard dull
work, as have so many men of like temperament, before and since, but music
and fencing and geography were more to his liking. He was an ardent,
imaginative youth, and chafed under all drudgery and routine. His
foster-mother, in the absence of his father, suffered him to do much as he
pleased, and he pleased to "play hookey" most of the time, joining boys of
his own age and disposition, and deserting the school for the fields and
woods, hunting birds' nests, fishing and shooting and returning home at
night with his basket filled with various natural specimens and
curiosities. The collecting fever is not a bad one to take possession of
boys at this age.

In his autobiography Audubon relates an incident that occurred when he was
a child, which he thinks first kindled his love for birds. It was an
encounter between a pet parrot and a tame monkey kept by his mother. One
morning the parrot, Mignonne, asked as usual for her breakfast of bread and
milk, whereupon the monkey, being in a bad humour, attacked the poor
defenceless bird, and killed it. Audubon screamed at the cruel sight, and
implored the servant to interfere and save the bird, but without avail. The
boy's piercing screams brought the mother, who succeeded in tranquillising
the child. The monkey was chained, and the parrot buried, but the tragedy
awakened in him a lasting love for his feathered friends.

Audubon's father seems to have been the first to direct his attention to