Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots
Subtitle: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Animals, History, Culture)
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: January 2, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780801867538
Subjects: Cultural studies; European history: c 1500 to c 1750; European history: c 1750 to c 1900; NATURAL HISTORY, COUNTRY LIFE & PETS; c 1700 to c 1800; History; Pets; History - General History; Science/Mathematics; Europe; Animals; Europe - France; History / Europe / General; Wild animals as pets; General; 18th century; Exotic animals; France; Human-animal relationships; Paris
First sentence: IF YOU HAD been walking down the rue Dauphine in central Paris in mid-January 1771, you would have encountered a large crowd of people clustered on the street.
Description: "In 1775 a visitor to Laurent Spinacuta's Grande Menagerie at the annual winter fair in Paris would have seen two tigers, several kinds of monkeys, an armadillo, an ocelot, and a condor - in all, forty-two live animals. In Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots, Louise E. Robbins explains that exotic animals from around the world were common in eighteenth-century Paris. In the streets of the city, residents and visitors could observe performing elephants and a fighting polar bear.

Those looking for unusual pets could purchase parrots, flying squirrels, and capuchin monkeys. The royal menagerie at Versailles displayed lions, cranes, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a zebra, which in 1760 became a major court attraction."--BOOK JACKET.