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  • Captive AudiencesA Concert for the Elephants in the Jardin des Plantes
  • Walter Putnam (bio)

The capture, displacement, and display of wild animals posed an inexhaustible array of cultural, scientific, and philosophical questions for their Enlightenment captors. Just as is the case with modern zoos, there have been rivalries among Caesars, Popes, kings, and merchants since antiquity for possession of the rarest species of animals from the furthest reaches of the known world. Indeed, wild and exotic animals served to measure the contours of the geographic world very much like they served to define the provinces of the animal kingdom. These fragments of empire placed before Western eyes inspired reactions of wonder and curiosity among audiences across Europe. As European powers carried out farflung exploration and colonization, travelers returned with specimens of plant and animal life that posed practical and speculative dilemmas to a world imbued with its enlightened pursuit of progress and modernity. They became markers of knowledge, helping to define the lines separating same from other, civilized from savage, center from periphery. This schematic outline of a much larger story will serve as a backdrop to a unique performance by/for two Indian elephants, Hans and Paraqui, who became objects of immense scientific and public curiosity in the early years of the new French republic. Departing from the age-old practice of inducing animals to perform for humans, a concert was arranged for these pachyderms in hopes of observing their reactions to a range of musical stimuli.

This performance has a specific genealogy and context. Collections of animals, especially exotic species, had been the purview of the wealthy and the noble throughout the ancien régime. Louis XIV established at Versailles in 1665 the most prominent menagerie in Europe, including, at its peak, 222 species of plant and animal life. With the removal of the royal family to Paris in October 1789, the menagerie became a site of contention between fervent revolutionaries and the community of naturalists at the Jardin du Roi who were busy creating the field of natural history. For the former, the royal menagerie constituted a wasteful relic of aristocratic luxury and privilege while the latter argued that it could become a republican institution and a shining example of the ongoing reforms needed in education and civic moral virtue. The collections became displays, which became public spectacles aimed at honing the natural sensibilité of the citizens of the young republic. Finally, in 1792, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, recently appointed intendant of the Jardin du Roi, addressed a long, sentimental plea to the Convention, arguing that "the study of nature is the basis for all human knowledge" (Laissus [End Page 154] and Petter 1993:81) and that it is crucial to scientists to be able to study living species rather than skeletons, skins, or cadavers.1 Scientists at the Jardin would go on to insist on the superior value of eyewitness observations of nature's spectacle, preferably with as little human intervention as possible. At the same time, numerous species of wild animals were roaming the streets of revolutionary Paris, competing for food and creating potential danger for citizens. By decree, wild animals on the loose were captured and delivered to the Museum of Natural History, created officially during the Reign of Terror in 1793 and placed under the direction of Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. The fledgling museum, situated on the grounds of the newly created Jardin des Plantes, had to compete for attention and resources with the political upheavals of the Revolution. By 1794, some 65 mammals and 25 bird species were housed in makeshift cages at the museum where scientists could study them.

While negotiations carried on between the scientific and political communities about captivity and slavery, nature and education, acclimatization and productivity, the animals of the museum were perishing in abominable conditions. The Reign of Terror had indirectly claimed numerous victims among the animal population. Their depleted ranks would soon be replenished by the armies of the republic that swept through Europe and, most notably, during the summer of 1796, when 10 carloads of animals from the menagerie of Loo in Holland were shipped back to Paris. The two elephants, a gift...

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