The two race strains that mingle in him probably account for this illogical habit of mind, as well as for his romantic and artistic temper and tastes.

His father was a sea-faring man and a Frenchman; his mother was a Spanish Creole of Louisiana--the old chivalrous Castilian blood modified by new world conditions. The father, through commercial channels, accumulated a large property in the island of St. Domingo. In the course of his trading he made frequent journeys to Louisiana, then the property of the French government. On one of these trips, probably, he married one of the native women, who is said to have possessed both wealth and beauty. The couple seem to have occupied for a time a plantation belonging to a French Marquis, situated at Mandeville on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Here three sons were born to them, of whom John James La Forest was the third. The daughter seems to have been younger.

His own mother perished in a slave insurrection in St. Domingo, where the family had gone to live on the Audubon estate at Aux Cayes, when her child was but a few months old. Audubon says that his father with his plate and money and himself, attended by a few faithful servants, escaped to New Orleans. What became of his sister he does not say, though she must have escaped with them, since we hear of her existence years later. Not long after, how long we do not know, the father returned to France, where he married a second time, giving the son, as he himself says, the only mother he ever knew. This woman proved a rare exception among stepmothers--but she was too indulgent, and, Audubon says, completely spoiled him, bringing him up to live like a gentleman, ignoring his faults and boasting of his merits, and leading him to believe that fine clothes and a full pocket were the most desirable things in life.