Le Ménagerie Royale de Versailles

King Louis XIV, the monarch who ruled France throughout most of the 17th century and is a central character in Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles, had his own zoo at Versailles. He called it Le Ménagerie Royale.

In this excerpt from Courting the Sun, Sylvienne takes Etienne, a young shoemaker who wants to marry her, to visit the menagerie at Versailles.

[Etienne] tied the horses to a hitching post outside the gate, and we made our way inside in silence. The Menagerie was a large domed pavilion surrounded by a series of enclosures fanning out like the spaces between spokes of a wheel. Etienne’s eyes grew wide with astonishment as we approached the first pen.

Around a pond stood several dozen pink birds with long necks and long spindly legs, some standing only on one leg, the opposing limb pulled up tight under their bodies. The tall birds chattered noisily as ducks and swans waddled and swam among them. Watching them helped quell my agitation. “They are flamants roses,” I said.

“I’ve read of them. They come from the Spanish Americas.”

I let him take my hand as we strolled to the next paddock, a grassy area with zebras grazing. Ostriches clustered nearby pecking at the ground, several peering over the fence at us. Another enclosure held an elephant tossing sand and dirt over its back with its trunk. Large clumps of its dung baked in the sun. Next to it, a glass wall surrounded a large tree with thick branches upon which playful, screeching monkeys romped.

But the animals I most wanted Etienne to see were still to come. A lion with a majestic mane lay sprawled across a large flat rock in its enclosure. On the ground at his feet, sat a lioness panting in the sun. In the next enclosure a golden-coated leopard, its fur marked with black rosettes, paced back and forth, eyeing us with wary interest. The last pen housed a tiger which paced in and out through its shed door, in and out, in and out.

“Aren’t they marvelous? Did you ever think you would see such animals in your life?” I looked up at Etienne, expecting awe that mirrored my own. Instead, he was quiet, almost sullen. “What’s wrong?”

“To be penned up like this. It must be awful for them.”

“They know no other life.”

“They must have come from somewhere.” He reached out and ran a finger down one of the vertical bars separating them from us. “Trapped. Unable to come and go as they wish, to live the life they were meant to live. Not unlike you and I.”

“What do you mean? You came here of your own accord.”

He shrugged. “Not any more than you did.”

I sucked in a breath. It was true. I had felt I was accepting a prized invitation; but no one refuses a summons from the King. And no one leaves court without the King’s permission. I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t have to. He was already striding out of the compound.

“Etienne! Wait!” I chased after him.

He stopped near the horses. “Sylvienne, this whole place, Versailles, it’s nothing more than one large…what did you call it? A menagerie. Everyone here lives their lives solely at the pleasure of the King. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“I never thought about it that way.”

He lifted me up onto Phoebe’s saddle.

“And anyway, what choice do I have?”

“That’s my whole point.” He put his foot in the stirrup and swung his leg over Jolie’s back. “A life without choice is no life at all.”

I used the idea of the menagerie to show how Etienne feels about being at Versailles. He is a talented shoemaker from Amiens, the same town from which Sylvienne came. Etienne is in love with Sylvienne, but she is a beautiful young woman fawned over by the king and others in the royal inner circle. Etienne is an outsider, a craftsman, brought to Versailles upon Sylvienne’s recommendation; and he resents his situation.

Louis XIV by Hyancinth Rigaud

Louis began construction on the menagerie in 1663; it took about five years to complete. He collected exotic animals and birds from all over the world, and he invited painters, zoologists, taxidermists and visitors of all types to view his collection. Many of the animals were offered as diplomatic gifts from countries seeking Louis’ good graces. The elephant was apparently a gift from Dom Pedro II, King of Portugal, and the lions and tiger were given by various Arab princes.

Louis started a trend with his menagerie. A number of palaces and noble houses throughout Europe began to build their own menageries modeled after Louis’—and thus was born the concept of the zoo. The menagerie at Versailles went into decline after Louis’ death in 1715; it was destroyed altogether during the French Revolution in the 1790s.

The Ménagerie at Versailles is an apt metaphor for the situation in which Sylvienne and Etienne find themselves in Courting the Sun. They were curiosities kept at court for the pleasure of the King. Outwardly, it might look as if they were free to come and go, but in the time of the Sun King, one did not refuse an invitation to court, and one did not leave without the king’s express permission.

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Images:

Ménagerie Royale de Versailles – Attribution: Artist: D’Aveline (French artist, late 17th and early 18th century), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Ostriches sketch – Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Louis XIV as Apollo in the Ballet Royal de la Nuit (1653) Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Louis XIV – Hyacinthe Rigaud, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons