514 THE ROYAL MENAGERIE OF FRANCE. 



The owners were also to receive au indemnity which would enable them 

 "to get a living in some other manner." 



Toussaint Gharbonnier, commissary of police of the section of the 

 Tuileries received the next day, the 14th of Brumaire (November 4), 

 the first order of execution, and accompanied by the commissary of the 

 civil committee for the section went to the Place de la Revolution. 

 There, "on the left after leaving the Pont Tournant," he found in a 

 booth the said Dominique Marchini, who was exhibiting a sea lion, a 

 leopard, a civet cat, and a little monkey, and after having noted the 

 observations of the said Marchini and those of his boy, Eemi Amet, he 

 conducted the animals and men to the committee and turned all of them 

 over to the citizen corporal of the guard at the station of Eue St. 

 Mcaise to be taken after the manner of a caravan to the Jardin des 

 Plantes. 



Great flutter was at the Museum, where no inquiries had been made, 

 and where no one had been warned of the approach of these unexpected 

 guests. The professor m charge of the Museum was a young man, 21 

 years old, appointed five months before, who was just beginning his 

 career in both science and teaching, Etienne Geoftroy-Saint-Hilaire. 

 Being a man of action, he rose to the occasion and began arranging the 

 cages one after the other under the windows of the Museum, while 

 awaiting the orders of the committee of public instruction.^ This was 

 his first menagerie. 



Desfontaines, the secretary of the Museum, wrote next day to the 

 president of the committee to ask instructions. "There is, under the 

 galleries," he said, " a j)lace where these animals can be provisionally 

 lodged while we are preparing suitable quarters for them, and this 

 place is even large enough to hold a greater number, if others are 

 brought, and if the committee of public instruction should think proper 

 to keep them. There is no doubt," adds the secretary, " but that a 

 collection of living animals would be an advantage for the instruction 

 of the public and for the i)rogress of natural history, and.that it would 

 be the means of acquiring and multiplying, within the territory of the 

 Republic, many useful species that now exist only in foreign countries. 

 But it is left to the committee to consider, in its wisdom, whether these 

 advantages can be made compatible with the present needs of the 

 Republic." The four animals obtained from Marchini were to cost 12 

 livres per day, including the salaries of their keepers, and it was impos- 

 sible to meet this expense from the funds of the establishment. 



Desfontaines had not finished his letter before two other menageries 

 arrived in their turn, that of Louzardi and that of Henry, containing 

 a tiger cat, a white bear, two mandrill monkeys, two agoutis, two eagles, 

 and a vulture. These were lined up with the animals of Marchini in 

 the court of the establishment. 



' Is. Geoffroy-Samt-Hilaire, Vie. Travaux et doctrine scientifique. Etienne Geof- 

 froy-Saint-Hilaire, Pans, page 49. 



