Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth Century Paris

Robbins, Louise E.

ISBN 10: 0801867533 / ISBN 13: 9780801867538

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002

About this Item

2002. Europe, Natural History. John Hopkins University Press. 349p., very good to nera fine cloth and dust jacket. 10/25.

Seller Inventory # -152833333

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth Century Paris
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801867533
• ISBN 13: 9780801867538
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

In 1775, a visitor to Laurent Spinacuta's Grande Menagerie at the annual winter fair in Paris would have seen two tigers, several kinds of monkeys, an armadillo, an ocelot, and a condor-in all, forty-two live animals. In Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots, Louise Robbins explains that exotic animals from around the world were common in eighteenth-century Paris. In the streets of the city, residents and visitors could observe performing elephants and a fighting polar bear. Those looking for unusual pets could purchase parrots, flying squirrels, and capuchin monkeys. The royal menagerie at Versailles displayed lions, cranes, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a zebra, which in 1760 became a major court attraction. For Enlightenment-era Parisians, exotic animals both piqued scientific curiosity and conveyed social status. Their availability was a boon for naturalists like Buffon, author of the best-selling Histoire naturelle, who observed unusual species in a variety of locations around the city. Louis XVI saw his menagerie as a manifestation of his power and funded its upkeep accordingly, while critics used the caged animals as metaphors of slavery and political oppression amidst the growing political turmoil. In her engaging and often surprising account, Robbins considers nearly every aspect of France's obsession with exotic fauna, from the vast literature on exotic animals and the inner workings of the oiseleurs' (birdsellers') guild to how the animals were transported, housed, and cared for. Based on wide-ranging and imaginative research, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots stands as a major contribution to the history of human-animal relations, eighteenth-century culture, and French colonialism.

About the Author

Louise E. Robbins is an independent scholar and an editor at Cornell University Press. She has a doctorate in history of science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.