THE ACCLIMATION GARDEN

what it was, what it should have been

We know that the charming park, drawn in 1859 by the landscape architect Barillet-Deschamps, in the marvelous setting of the Bois, has undergone numerous changes. Under the Empire, this zoological garden, well managed by Doctor Ruiz de Lavison and the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, experienced great prosperity. The war of 1870 and the Commune dealt it a serious blow, because everything there was devastated by the belligerents. Since then, the Jardin d'acclimatation has never completely recovered and its decadence only gradually increased during the twenty years preceding the last war. So much so that in 1910, the company's liabilities amounted to 9,435,063 francs, including 2,000,000 francs of share capital and 191,000 francs of bonds.

Previously, in 1902, the garden had been put into liquidation, and a concordat was entered into between the limited company of the Zoological Garden and the bondholders' union, to allow the latter union to control the financial operations of the company. As we can see, the situation was not brilliant. Besides, the appearance of the garden gave no impression of prosperity. Few rare animals, dilapidated housing, wild animals languishing in dilapidated cage cars: we were far from the model park dreamed of by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Haire, Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys and Anine Passy, the first founders of the garden , with the Count of Epremesnil and Prince Marc de Beauvau. Things could not remain as they were; the Paris municipal council had often invited the prefect of the Seine to intervene. In 1919, in particular, the council recommended the restoration of the garden to make it once again a center of attraction for families and at the same time, of popular scientific education.

A small effort in this direction was attempted over the last two years. Some animals were acquired by a Franco-American manager, interested in the business. The aquarium was transformed into a dwelling for carnivores, which is still poorly understood and still unfinished. This effort remained halfway.
Here we are announcing a new transformation of the Jardin d’acclimatation which would become a sort of luna-Park with fashionable attractions. of the day and in American taste.

That would be completely regrettable. There is hardly a large European city - let alone a capital - where the inhabitants do not have at their disposal a zoological garden, with a more or less complete collection of exotic animals, equipped with open-air restaurants. , enlivened by often excellent orchestras. In this picturesque setting, for a modest entry fee, families will spend the weekly rest day. Children learn while having fun, learning natural history and geography. What distraction is there that is more truly popular and democratic?

In Paris, nothing similar, and our old garden of Plants in ruins is not worth the sum that would have to be spent to restore it. Its location is poorly chosen, and its surface area much too small to accommodate the thousands of daily visitors the crowd of which would number, on Sunday, several tens of thousands.

The Paris Zoological Garden can only be located in the Bois de Boulogne or the Bois de Vincennes. Why not use for him the setting designed by Barillet-Deschamps, this charming wooded valley, watered by a cool stream, with small ponds, dotted here and there, for the frolics of aquatic birds? Lawns for ruminants already exist, the new menagerie would be used for small carnivores. We would build a rock in reinforced cement where the big cats would walk in the open air, like in Hamburg and Rome. The palmarium would be reconstituted, and as at Bellevue Gardens in Manchester, the reptiles and monkeys would roam freely among the tropical forest, separated from visitors by a simple frosted glass.

Obviously, to carry out this plan, it would be necessary to commit more considerable capital than to install a water chute or a slide. All the same, our capital would benefit from a somewhat more original attraction center whose educational action would be more sensitive to our fellow citizens.

For a long time, the shareholders and bondholders of the Jardin d’Acclimatation public limited company have been used to not receiving any dividends. On the other hand, many of them are wealthy and share the beautiful spirit of selflessness and dedication to scientific ideas that animated the company's first founders. Why not resolve, once and for all, to liquidate a poorly managed business and reconstitute it on new bases?

Moreover, it would in no way be prohibited from admitting, in the Zoological Garden of the City of Paris, various attractions intended for the recreation of visitors young and old. But the fund of the affair should be constituted by zoological and ethnological exhibitions, in accordance with the ideas of Isidore Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire.

And it is certain that, well managed, the enterprise would be a good return. The number of entries into the Jardin d’acclimatization is a sure guarantor of this. In 1910, this figure had risen to 665,081 francs, or around 100,000 francs more than that provided the same year by the entries of Regent's Park Zoo in London. Here is destroyed the legend that the Parisian publication does not like zoology.

All friends of science, all Parisians who have long complained of being deprived of the attraction of a true zoological garden, are asking that the Jardin d'acclimatation not be diverted from its true destination and that we Wait no longer to provide our capital with an establishment similar to the London Zoo, the Thiergarten in Berlin, the Schœnbrünn Park, near Vienna, or the Villa-Borghese in Rome, to name but a few.

We have said everything about the distress of our scientists and the means to remedy it... Isn't one of these most effective means to make science attractive to all, to help the dissemination of the true spirit? scientific in all classes of society.

Henry Thétard