Zoo History: The Sun King's Menagerie

During the Afghan War, one of the most compelling human interest stories to come out of Afghanistan wasn't even about a human - it was about Marjan, a lion at the Kabul Zoo who had been blinded by a Taliban grenade years before the American invasion.  Similarly, during the second Iraq War, the Gaza War, and the recent troubles in Ukraine, the media has generally carried at least an occasional story about the zoos in the afflicted areas and how the animals are surviving (or not) during the conflict.  Inevitably, the zoo suffers - keepers are drafted or killed, facilities crumble, and many animals die off (either through bombing or starvation).

Which makes it all the more interesting that one of the first - some would argue the first - modern zoos in the world was born from war.

1665, France was perhaps the most powerful nation on earth, and its ruler, Louis XIV - known as the Sun King - was the most powerful man in France.  As an expression of his power and wealth, Louis established perhaps the most decadent palace in Europe at Versailles, a palace which contained, among other features, the royal menagerie.  Collections of animals were hardly unusual among the royals of Europe - every king, prince, and pope had at least a few animals in their menagerie.  As he did with everything else, however, Louis resolved to have his menagerie on a grand scale.  Radiating out from an octagonal viewing pavilion were large paddocks for animals.  Birds, monkeys, and other small animals were kept in aviaries and cages.  More emphasis was placed on architecture and style (the purpose being to impress and intimidate visiting nobles and ambassadors) than on the care of the animals.  The size and variety of the collection waxed and waned over the years, depending on who sat on the throne and how much interest they were inclined to show on the menagerie.

A century of inertia - characterized by alternating periods of rise and decline - was shattered in 1789 with the French Revolution.  Angered by the decadence of the royal family, the mobs stormed Versailles and, enraged at seeing animals pampered (or at least fed... I doubt like in Versailles was too great for the captive creatures) while their families starved, they resolved to let the beasts out so that they could be eaten by the starving masses.  They were only stopped when the menagerie's keeper pointed out that many of the animals - including a lion and a rhinoceros - were more likely to prove lethal than edible.  Rethinking their strategy, the crowd crated up the animals and shipped them to the Jardin du Roi, the Paris botanical garden.  Of course, by this time "royal" things were out of favor, so the facility was soon renamed the Jardin des Plantes.

The Jardin had long been a living laboratory of the study of plants.  The addition of the Versailles animals (their numbers bolstered by the addition of animals confiscated from traveling circuses and performers in the name of public safety) allowed it to expand its role to include the study of animals.  By the end of the century, the collection included, at various points, polar bears, leopards, monkeys, elephants, a lion (accompanied by his pet dog), and the quagga, a now-extinct zebra relative from South Africa.  The collection did not thrive, at first - its academic directors being more interested in other pursuits, but eventually it grew, creating a scientific-zoo model which was soon being copied across Europe.

The menagerie the garden continued to rise and fall; most notably, the entire collection was devoured (yet again) by starving Parisians besieged during the Franco-Prussian War.  The small size of the Jardin des Plantes (or at least the portion devoted for zoo animals) has always limited the size of the collection and facilities.  Today, Paris boasts a newer, larger zoo, one which recently reopened after massive renovations.  There are, however, still animals on display at the Jardin des Plantes to this day.  Today, visitors from around the world can visit the zoo and admire the animals displayed there.  Three-hundred years ago, doing so would have been the sole privilege of an absolute monarch and his guests.