I Who Should Command All

Was John James Audubon, AmericaÃ¯Â¿Â½s most celebrated naturalist, really Louis Charles, Duc de Normandie, the Lost Dauphin of eighteenth-century France? The possibility that royalty flowed in the veins of Audubon has intrigued many a historian. Previous biographies have tried to unravel the threads of the Audubon familyÃ¯Â¿Â½s secret, but none have been as successful as I Who Should Command All . Extracts from letters of John James Audubon and statements of various family members shed light on the subject of AudubonÃ¯Â¿Â½s birth in the authorÃ¯Â¿Â½s attempt to solve this intriguing historical question. Tyler discusses how Admiral Jean Audubon, an intimate of the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington, and a ship commander at the Battle of Yorktown, came to adopt the mysterious youth the world would later know as John James Audubon. She also addresses the deeper meaning of AudubonÃ¯Â¿Â½s reference to himself in a letter to his faithful wife Lucy as, I who should command all. The original printing of I Who Should Command All was published in honor of the opening of Audubon Memorial Park and Museum at Henderson, Kentucky, in 1937.