Victor Tixier was a young M.D. that James Trudeau befriended while studying medicine in Paris, apparently at the College de Louis le Grande.

I have not been able to exactly ascertain the years of this, as he seems to have studied artillery in Switzerland sometime in the 1830s. I'm guessing it must have been in the 1834 or 1836 timeframe, which would've coincided with the Swiss military instruction camps that occurred every two years in various locations around the cantons, in the years before the foundation of the centralized Swiss Military School.

James Trudeau graduated from the Univ of Penna medical school in 1837. VT came to the US circa 1839 and the two of them, along with several others, traveled up through the northern Louisiana Purchase country, where they lived among the Osage Indians for a couple of months, not two years, as was erroneously reported in ELT's book.

Victor Tixier's "Travels on the Osage Prairie," his diary of the 1839-40 adventure, was reprinted by the Univ of Okla press some years ago. My local library even has a copy, which is where I saw the Audubon portrait.

Tixier seems to have faded into obscurity after this literary effort, but apparently had a long and successful career as a physician in Paris.

The Audubon portrait of Trudeau was painted about the time of their travels together.

Are you aware of any wartime portraits or CDVs of James Trudeau? I am particularly interested in obtaining any full-figure portraits of Trudeau in his Louisiana militia general's uniform.

Again I ask, please tell me how you came to this arcane interest in James deBerty Trudeau.

Are you perhaps affiliated with the Trudeau Institute, or connected with the family?