THE ROYAL MENAGERIE OF FRANCE. 515 



The committee of public instructiou answered by a series of questions 

 concerning the installation of the animals, their value, the daily expense 

 they would involve, and even the purchase of adjoining land in case 

 the convention should decide to form a menagerie. The professors 

 redoubled their efforts to furnish without delay this very diversified 

 information, while at the same time they decided to grant a daily 

 indemnity to the proprietors of the confiscated animals. Their esti- 

 mates were sent to the committee as early as the 17th of Frimaire 

 (December 7, 1793), and their communication, giving details upon which 

 it would be useless to enter here, ended by asking for the final posses 

 sion "of all the materials and uteusils belonging to the menageries of 

 Versailles and Chantilly." 



Then, while the committee was deliberating, the council of professors 

 considered the most suitable means "for constructing temporary cages" 

 and for transporting the poor animals from Versailles. The cages were 

 finished the 16th of Ventose (March 3), and toward the end of Germinal 

 the three survivors of the royal menagerie enjoyed the modest hospi- 

 tality of the republican museum.^ 



The animals of the park at Raincy w^ere put at the disposal of the 

 Government by Crassous, a member of the convention (29th Germinal; 

 21st March). In short, when the citizens Billaud-Varennes, Barrere, 

 and Priem (of la Marne) came to visit the museum to see with their 

 own eyes what enlargements were necessary, Daubenton, who re- 

 ceived them at the head of the professors, could show them a national 

 menagerie already quite i^resentable. 



The new institution was definitely established by the adoption of the 

 report of Thibaudeau, read in the convention on the 21st of Frimaire 

 of the year III (December 11, 1794), and Etienne Geoffroy, its founder, 

 could then begin the works which have since immortalized his name. 



In the course of the century, which it has just completed, the menag- 

 erie of the Museum of Paris has had some fine days. The arrival of 

 ten cases (14th of Fructidor, year VI 5 August 31, 1796), escorted by 

 fourteen guards, in which there was brought from Holland the animals 

 and birds confiscated from the Stadhouder; the receipt of the male and 

 female elephants from the same collection ; the purchase of tigers, lynxes, 

 and other carnivorous animals brought from London by Pembroke 

 (1800) ; the arrival of a gnu, a zebra, etc., by the ships of Baudin (1801) ; 

 the installation of the bear pits, in which dynasties of bruins, white 

 or black, j)erform the same tricks before a crowd that is constantly 

 renewed; the acquisition of the animals of King Louis, brother of 

 Napoleon ; the opening of the new houses for wild animals, which seemed 

 in 1821 so finely arranged, and which appear to-day so mean and close; 

 the arrival of the first hipi)opotamus, the first chimpanzee, the first 

 gorilla — all these were marked events in the life of the establishment. 



' All these details are taken from the Pieces- Verbaux of the Council of the Profes- 

 sors (Arch, du Museum, Proc. Verb. Reg. I, pass.). 



