Exotic animals in early modern France

In 18th century France, parrots such as yellow- and- breasted macaws were popular pets. The ladies' hats were decorated with feathers from ostriches and other exotic birds. (The oil painting shows Marie Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon , daughter of Louis XV. , And her son, painted posthumously in 1787/88 by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard .)

In the early modern period , especially in the 18th century , large numbers of exotic animals were shipped to France . The animals came from almost all parts of the world, especially from tropical and subtropical regions. They were kept in menageries , driven through the country with traveling menageries , exhibited at fairs, offered in shops and by street vendors, kept mainly in private households of wealthy citizens in Paris and set against each other in exhibition fights. Exotic birds were mostly used as ornamental objects, monkeyswho have been taught tricks and "talking" parrots especially for entertainment. Courtly menageries symbolized the monarch's claim to power.

Areas of origin and animal species

A puma was one of the exotic predators that were displayed at a fair in Paris in the 18th century. ( Copper engraving from the 1770s from Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon : Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du roi )

The animals shipped to France - mainly birds and mammals, more rarely reptiles - came from Africa, America, Asia and Australasia . After trade around the Mediterranean initially flourished in the Middle Ages , French merchant ships set off for the west coast of Africa and the North Atlantic in the 15th century, and also to Brazil in the early 16th century . In the 17th century, French colonies emerged in North America, the Caribbean and South American Guiana, among others . Thousands to tens of thousands of African slaves were abducted every year into the Caribbean sugar cane plantations alone ; the slave ships often had exotic animals on board, which - if they survived - were taken back to France. In the last quarter of the 18th century, 500 to 600 French ships headed for the Antilles and 50 to 100 ships a year in Africa.

The sales representative Jean Barbot bought not only humans but also monkeys and parrots in Calabar (Nigeria) , an important slave trading center, in the 1690s ; according to his records, he traded "three or four monkeys for an old hat or coat". The trade routes into the Indian Ocean also provided sources for exotic animals; in 1670, 260 primates from Madagascar arrived in Paris . Trade with South and East Asia also flourished in the 18th century. From India came Tiger to France. French merchant ships returning from Asia, whose route included a stop in South Africa, imported not only spices, tea and china, but also African animals such as zebras . Pacific islands like New Guinea have been a reliable source of importing colorful birds; Seafarers bought parrots there for "a few nails or inferior knives".

The imported birds included, among many other species, large birds such as ostriches, cassowaries , condors, and pelicans ; Parrots such as cockatoos , woodpeckers such as toucans , songbirds such as cardinals , trupials , blue jays , amaranth and, before they were widely bred in the 17th century, also Canary Islands girls . Among the mammals imported were monkeys such as vervet monkeys , capuchin monkeys , mandrills, and chimpanzees ; Predators such as lions , tigers , leopards , servals , ocelots , pumas , caracals , civets , hyenas, and polar bears ; Ungulates such as zebras, bison , dromedaries, and llamas ; Rodents such as pakas , porcupines and flying squirrels ; sometimes elephants and rhinos . The menagerie in Versailles also housed crocodiles; snakes were also presented at fairs.

Transport of the animals

According to the (unclear) picture inscription, these French ships set off either for India or for the West Indies to trade and establish new colonies. (Engraving from 1699 from a royal almanac )

Only a small percentage of the animals survived the transports to France. Reasons for this were, among other things, the catastrophic housing conditions on board as well as storms and cold. In addition, when there was a lack of fresh meat in the form of live cattle, ship crews used exotic animals such as monkeys and parrots for their diet. A big cat , presumably a jaguar , on board a ship under the command of Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1764, was strangled on the route between Montevideo and the Falkland Islands on the orders of the captain because it robbed the crew of sleep with nightly roaring and too much meat needed.

Parrots were caged on ships by one or two dozen, smaller birds sometimes by 200. During his circumnavigation of the world from 1766–1769, Bougainville acquired parrots in large numbers: locals from what is now Malaysia and Indonesia paddled in canoes to the two French ships and offered, among other things, cockatoos for sale; a cockatoo was the equivalent of a red handkerchief. After such an exchange, there were more than 400 parrots on board one of the two ships.

A leopard bought in Mozambique in 1787 was first transported by slave ship to Haiti , then to the French seaport of Lorient ; then the animal was carted overland to Versailles for weeks. Such transports of African animals by slave ships to the Caribbean and from there to France were not uncommon as early as the 17th century; only a small part of the animals survived the double crossing of the Atlantic. It is also known from the 18th century that African parrots, like lovebirds , died in large numbers on transports to France via the Antilles.

The fact that the vast majority of animals died during the crossings played a minor role from a commercial point of view, given the large number of animals transported: At the end of the 17th century, the sales representative Barbot received 480 livres for a surviving monkey in Paris , about the purchase price for five horses. Of the parrots that Barbot shipped, an average of one in 20 survived; All 50 died on one of the crossings. Parrots were offered in Paris for up to 2400 livres, on average they cost around 100 to 200 livres.

Courtly menageries

The menagerie in Versailles at the time of Louis XIV. Animals classified as "peaceful" such as young cranes , pelicans and ostriches were housed in outdoor facilities. (Hand-colored engraving from the late 17th or early 18th century by Pierre Aveline)

Large carnivores such as leopards were locked up in Versailles in narrow, brick-lined “dungeons” that were barred with iron bars. (Oil painting by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 1739)

The animals in court menageries were primarily status symbols: whoever, as a monarch, was master of big cats and other foreign animals, also controlled domestic and foreign policy affairs in accordance with this symbolism. In the 1660s, Louis XIV had menageries built in Vincennes on the eastern outskirts of Paris and Versailles. The animals kept in Vincennes - including lions, tigers, leopards and elephants - were intended to entertain visitors and state guests with bloody exhibition fights. The main purpose of the menagerie in Versailles was to display exotic animals and make them available for animal studies. Birds were housed in cages or outdoor enclosures. From 1687 to 1694 alone, the dealer Gasson Mosnier delivered 868 birds to Versailles, including 103 ostriches and 536 purple hens .

Other species such as carnivores were often confined in confined spaces and developed degenerative changes in physique and behavior as a result of the miserable housing conditions: they became ill and generally died early, which led to new imports of animals. Many of the exotic animals also did not survive the winters in northern France. The famous naturalist Buffon, who used animals shown in menageries and at fairs and offered for sale in pet shops for his research, found that menageries were unsuitable for behavioral studies because of the disturbed behavior of the animals housed in them. In the second half of the 18th century, educated visitors to the menageries, which until then had been praised for their entertainment value, began to rethink. French social critics influenced by the Enlightenment saw wild animals as symbols of freedom and independence, whereas their captive conspecifics were considered enslaved creatures.

“A living elephant has been seen here for some time. He is about 5 years old, 5½ feet tall, and extremely tame and sensible. He takes the rice from the ladies' hands, which they hold in front of him, and, when he is given a bouteille of beer, opens it to empty it. Since the year 1668, when the King of Portugal gave our court a present with an elephant, which lived 13 years in the menagerie at Versailles, no such animal has come to France. "

- Report in Reichs Post-Reuter of February 5, 1771

Fairs and traveling menageries

The Italian animal dealer Nicolet, who was traveling in France with his traveling menagerie in the 1770s, announced his appearances there with this notice. Among other things, he praises his three lions; the two Asiatic lions are even wilder than African lions. A leopard can also be seen - sired by a lion and a tigress. ("Notice with seven woodcuts of different animals", 1777, Historical Museum Frankfurt )

In the second half of the 18th century, private exhibitions of exotic animals competed with the royal menageries. At fairs in Paris, including the famous Saint-Germain fair , lions, tigers, elephants and baboons could be seen, as well as ostriches whose feathers were sold to spectators. The animals were probably housed in wooden shacks. Exhibition fights, in which big cats and other animals such as brown bears , wolves , domestic dogs or bulls tore each other apart, attracted numerous spectators - but were also criticized for their cruelty towards the end of the 18th century.

Wandering menageries drove through the country with exotic animals in cages and presented them to viewers, among other things, at fairs for an entrance fee. In contrast to exotic animals for court menageries, which were procured to order by animal dealers in the animals' countries of origin, private individuals bought the animals on display in ports such as Bordeaux , Le Havre or Marseille : They bought the animals that were bought by seafarers on a daily basis ships arriving at distant destinations were offered.

Museums

Later there was also a menagerie in the National Museum in Paris. In 1797 the French envoy Ader brought "several rare animals" here from North America, including rattlesnakes .

Exotic pets

Especially canaries , parrots, other exotic birds and monkeys were especially popular in the 18th century as well as pets. The birds were kept in cages in apartments, sometimes in aviaries built into window openings, and parrots tied to climbing trees. Nobles had elaborate aviaries built in the open air. Handbooks provided information on how to keep canaries or gave tips on how to teach parrots to speak. Monkeys were usually chained, but some were free to move around in apartments or were housed in a separate room.

Consequences of animal imports

Not only France, but also other European seafaring nations such as Great Britain and the Netherlands imported numerous exotic animals. The escalating numbers of animals removed from their habitats already had consequences for the population situation of some species in the early modern period. The population densities of parrots in the Antilles decreased rapidly; on Martinique parrots were already extinct in the 1750s. The special extent of French animal imports is not only reflected in the high numbers of animals transported, but also in the fact that in early modern France there were numerous series of attacks by predators on humans, of which the beast of Gévaudan was best known. Some historians attribute these attacks to wolves; However, contemporary descriptions of the attackers and their behavior suggest in many of these cases other large carnivores, particularly big cats. In addition, incidents of this kind increased in large part of Paris and Versailles at the time of Louis XIV.

literature

• Anita Guerrini: The king's animals and the king's books: the illustrations for the ParisAcademy's Histoire des animaux. In: Annals of Science, Vol. 67, No. 3, Oregon State University 2010, pp. 383-404. (academia.edu)
• Jean-Marc Moriceau: Histoire du méchant loup: La question des attaques sur l'homme en France XVe-XXe siècle. Paris 2016.
• Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Paris. Baltimore 2002.
• Peter Sahlins: The Royal Menageries of Louis XIV and the Civilizing Process Revisited. In: French Historical Studies, Volume 35 (2), 2012. (academia.edu)
• Karl-Hans Taake: Carnivore Attacks on Humans in Historic France and Germany: To Which Species Did the Attackers Belong? ResearchGate, 2020. (researchgate.net)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002.
2. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 13f, 25.
3. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 13ff, 21, 25f, 28f.
4. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 1f, 21, 24, 29, 30f, 33, 43, 45, 52, 65, 71, 79, 88, 103, 113.
5. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 9, 11.
6. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 9f, 22.
7. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 21, 27ff, 58.
8. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 28f, 126.
9. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 46.
10. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 38.
11. ^ Anita Guerrini: The king's animals and the king's books. 2010, p. 388.
12. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 37f.
13. ↑ Peter Sahlins: The Royal Menageries of Louis XIV and the Civilizing Process Revisited. 2012, pp. 244ff, 254.
14. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 65f.
15. ^ Anita Guerrini: The king's animals and the king's books. 2010, p. 387.
16. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 6, 39f.
17. ^ Pursuit of Paris, January 25th. In:  Reichs Post-Reuter , February 5, 1771, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).
18. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 7, 76f, 68, 85.
19. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, pp. 67ff, 72.
20. ↑ Short messages. In:  Gothaische learned newspapers , 23 August 1797, p. 608 (online at ANNO ).
21. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 122ff.
22. ^ Louise E. Robbins: Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots. 2002, p. 27.
23. ↑ Jean-Marc Moriceau: Histoire du méchant loup: La question des attaques sur l'homme en France XVe-XXe siècle. Paris 2016.
24. ^ Karl-Hans Taake: Carnivore Attacks on Humans in Historic France and Germany. 2020, p. 5ff.