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Title: Animal psychology in the early twentieth century Parisian zoos: an

unfulfilled promise?

Article Type: Full Length Article

Keywords: animal intelligence, zoological garden, amateur, Pierre Hachet-

Souplet, Paul Guillaume, Achille Urbain

Corresponding Author: Dr. Marion Constance THOMAS, Ph.D

Corresponding Author's Institution: Faculté de médecine

First Author: Marion Constance THOMAS, Ph.D

Order of Authors: Marion Constance THOMAS, Ph.D

Abstract: The zoo is not only a place for displaying animals in order to

educate and entertain a lay public; it is also a place for science. Yet,

this aspect has received little attention from historians of biology so

far. In this paper, I try to fill up a gap in the history of French zoos

by looking at the development of animal psychology in Parisian zoos in

the first half of the twentieth century. I intend to show that the study

of animal intelligence not only entails methodological issues such as the

respective merits of research in the zoo and in the wild, but also

illustrates the tensions between amateurs and professionals at a time

when animal psychology was trying to acquire academic legitimacy. The

paper also highlights the difficulties attached to the scientific study

of animals in a multipurpose and hybrid environment such as the early

twentieth century Paris zoos. Drawing on three case studies (Hachet-

Souplet, Guillaume and Meyerson and Urbain) it shows how attempts to use

the zoo to yield new insights on animal psychology either failed, faced

heavy restrictions or experienced false starts, and examines the reasons

why animal psychology could not properly thrive in this setting.

Dr Marion Thomas 00 33 3 68 85 39 73

Portable: 00 33 6 86 20 57 61

E-Mail: marion.thomas@unistra.fr

Localisation

Institut d'Anatomie pathologique

Rez-de-chaussée

Hôpital Civil

1, place de l'Hôpital

67000 Strasbourg

Adresse postale

Faculté de médecine

DHVS

4 rue Kirschleger

F-67085 Strasbourg Cedex

Faculté

de médecine

Strasbourg, the 8th

of October 2013

Pr. Dr. Gregory Radick

Editor of Studies in History and

Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical

Sciences

Object : Submission of a manuscript

Dear Sir,

I am very happy to submit to Studies in History and Philosophy of

Biological and Biomedical Sciences the enclosed article entitled : “Animal

psychology in the early twentieth century Parisian zoos : an unfulfilled

promise ?”.

As you offered us to express preference with respect to the reviewers, I

would like to let you know that I would very pleased to have Richard Burkhardt

as one of them.

I would be glad to supply any further information you may require, and

thank you in advance for the attention you may give to my request.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerly,

Marion Thomas

Cover Letter

1

Title: Animal psychology in early twentieth century Parisian zoos: an

unfulfilled promise?

Author name: Marion THOMAS

Affiliation: University of Strasbourg, SAGE (UMR 7363)

Postal address:

Faculté de médecine

DHVS

4, rue Kirschleger

67085 Strasbourg Cedex

France

Corresponding author: Marion THOMAS

Present/Permanent address: see above

*Mansucript Title including author details

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1. Introduction

In 1803, Frédéric Cuvier, the younger brother of famous naturalist

Georges Cuvier, was appointed as head keeper of the Ménagerie du Jardin des

Plantes, a position he held until his sudden death in 1838. Cuvier was eager

to take advantage of having so many living animals at his disposal to conduct

various experiments, hoping in particular to study the roles of instinct and

intelligence in animal behavior. Seeking to “provide the conceptual,

methodological and observational foundations for a new science: a science of

comparative psychology” (Burkhardt 2001, 76), Cuvier worked hard to develop a

new zoology within the zoo, but ultimately had limited success. Richard

Burkhardt’s close examination of Cuvier’s work highlights the difficulties

attached to the study of animals in captivity: at a time when anatomical

studies were more central, many naturalists considered that nothing of value

could be learned about animal life in these conditions (Burkhardt 2001, 82).

As this paper will show, these criticisms did not fade away and twentieth

century animal psychologists still had to come up with elaborate rationales to

justify menagerie studies.

The chair for comparative physiology opened for Frédéric Cuvier shortly

before his death outlived him but lost the psychological dimension he had

given to it. Only in 1933 would Cuvier’s old wish come true with the creation

of a chair for the ethology of wild animals at the National Museum of Natural

History (MNHN) on the occasion of the opening of the Vincennes Zoological Park

in Paris. While Burkhardt has extensively documented the first years of the

Parisian Ménagerie (Burkhardt 1997, 2001 and 2007) and demonstrated that

“Cuvier’s story constitutes an important chapter in the pre-history of

ethology” (Burkhardt 2001, p. 76), only a few studies have been published on

its history in the post-Darwinian period and beyond (Loisel 1907 and 1912;

Laissus and Petter 1993; Baratay and Hardouin-Fugier 2003). Loisel’s account,

*Manuscript excluding author detailsClick here to view linked References

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which charts the history of the zoo from the Antiquity up to the early

twentieth century, can be read as an attempt to make the case for turning the

Ménagerie into a modern zoo, especially after Carl Hagenbeck revolutionized

the display of animals with his “animal paradise” of Stellingen. Laissus and

Petter provide important material on the history of the Ménagerie from its

creation in 1793, the darkest year of the French Revolution, up to the

contemporary period. It contains a sociological study of the people working

there (including the directors and the staff), anecdotes about animals, a

technical history of the zoo, touching on subjects such as architecture and

integration into the city landscape, and also addresses the use of the

Ménagerie as a place for scientific and artistic activities. The book is

therefore a useful contribution to the institutional history of the Parisian

Ménagerie and the Vincennes zoo, and as such, it is relevant for the present

study.

Baratay and Hardouin-Fugier’s book is a major contribution to the

longue durée and cultural history of the zoo. Their history “reveal[s] the

diversity of, and changes in, the motives that have led Westerners to keep

animals in zoological gardens and to treat them as proof of the existence of

the Other, as hostages from a conquered world, as survivors of a universe on

the road to extinction”. According to the authors, while “until the twelfth

century, zoos clearly reflected the will of a triumphant Europe to classify

and dominate”, in the twentieth century, “Western society was increasingly

torn between the persistent drive to exploit and a new desire to preserve and

respect”. These contradicting impulses were reflected in the transformation

of the zoo into “an ersatz natural, open space” (Baratay & Hardouin-Fugier

2003, 281). In this paper, I intend to shift the focus by concentrating on the

science done within the precincts of the zoo and to study the extent to which

the zoo was an appropriate location for scientific work. The paper not only

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addresses major figures of twentieth century French academic life; it sheds

light on mostly forgotten contributions by amateurs, placing their views on

the animal mind within the context of changing scientific ideas regarding

animal instinct and intelligence, and showing how they envisioned the zoo as a

site of scientific investigation of the animal mind.

This paper also examines the attempts to use the Parisian Ménagerie for

the emerging discipline of animal psychology. Using animal intelligence as a

lens through which to address the more general question of “scientific”

observation in the zoo, it analyzes the rationales used by naturalists and

psychologists to justify the study of animals in captive conditions. The paper

also highlights the difficulties attached to the scientific study of animals

in multipurpose and hybrid environments such as the early twentieth century

Parisian zoos. Drawing on three case studies (Hachet-Souplet, Guillaume and

Meyerson and Urbain), it shows how attempts to use the zoo to yield new

insights on animal psychology either failed, faced heavy restrictions or

experienced false starts, and suggests some reasons to explain why animal

psychology could not thrive in the early twentieth century.

In the first section, I use the case of tamer and animal psychologist

amateur Pierre Hachet-Souplet to highlight institutional and epistemological

obstacles to the use of the Ménagerie as a place to implement animal

psychological studies. I show how, after various unsuccessful attempts to

enter the Ménagerie, Hachet-Souplet had to go back to the circus to perform

his idiosyncratic “taming method”. I then argue that Hachet-Souplet’s case

illustrates the tensions between amateurs and professionals, at a time when

animal psychology was trying to secure a niche in academia. I go on to show

how the two French psychologists Paul Guillaume and Ignace Meyerson benefited

from the support of a distinguished Pastorian figure of their time, Albert

Calmette, to conduct studies of the ape mind within the Ménagerie. Guillaume

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and Meyerson, who supported a laboratory-based psychology, saw the study of

ape intelligence as a means to give a scientific grounding to psychology and

to introduce Gestalt theory in France. I highlight the material difficulties

they encountered in their project to reproduce Wolfgang Köhler’s path-

breaking studies on the intelligence of chimpanzees in the context of the

Parisian Ménagerie. Finally, the third section explores the context

surrounding the creation of the chair for the ethology of wild animals in

1933, showing that its fate was intimately connected to the foundation of the

Vincennes zoo, the first in France to integrate Carl Hagenbeck’s

revolutionary display of animals. Surprisingly, animal psychology, which was

expected to thrive thanks to this chair, experienced a false start; however,

this time, the cause was not the untimely death of the incumbent, as in

Cuvier’s case. I show that – and consider a few reasons why – Achille Urbain,

who was entrusted with this chair, was more inclined to studying dead animals

than to investigating their psychology. I argue that animal tamer Henry

Thétard, who did not belong to the circle of the elite Parisian scientific

institutions, would have been a better candidate to develop animal psychology

within a zoological garden. This allows me to point out the role of

unacknowledged figures in early twentieth century French animal psychology,

and emphasize the role of amateurs as potential key figures in the field.

2. Hachet-Souplet’s “taming method”: an unsuccessful attempt to introduce

animal psychology at the Ménagerie

“It is hardly possible for a scholar to be recruited by a bohemian

troupe. He would be a useless mouth to feed… Otherwise, can we move a branch

of the Corvi circus [a travelling mini-circus founded by the family Corvi in

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Paris, in the mid-nineteenth century] into a Museum laboratory [i.e. at the

Ménagerie]? In my view we should do it if the need arises; when one concerns

himself with writing about animals, he should know all about them. But I am

also aware that it would be detrimental to the gravity and particularly, to be

precise, to the prejudices of a professor that aspires to a seat in the

Académie, to try to teach an ape how to somersault and write a report on the

conditions of its obedience!” (Hachet-Souplet 1896, 314; see also Hachet-

Souplet 1900, xiii-xiv). These words were written by Pierre Hachet-Souplet

(1867-1947), a self-taught man and prolific writer, who used his personal

income to dedicate himself to his passion: animals and their psychology. In

the late nineteenth century, his work on animal psychology and evolutionist

psychology had earned him a name among academic naturalists as well as

psychologists, and between the years 1897 and 1913, he was one of the most

important figures of animal psychology in France (Chapuis forthcoming).

Fig. 1. Hachet-Souplet’s portrayal (in late XIXth century). Illustration

from Hachet-Souplet (1897, p. 2).

2.1. A plea for an evolutionary approach of the animal mind

Hachet-Souplet’s case is an interesting one in that it epitomized the

tensions between amateurs and professionals at a time when animal psychology

was trying to find a niche and to emerge as a scientific discipline in France.

The creation of an Institut Général Psychologique was decided during the

Fourth International Congress of Psychology (1900) in Paris. Funded by a

private donation (on the initiative of the Russian embassy attaché, Serge

Yourievitch), the Institute was not a research institute in its own right but

rather a forum where academic and non-academics – zoologists, psychologists,

doctors and all kinds of other interested parties – could meet and exchange

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ideas. Initially intended for the study of psychological phenomena witnessed

at spiritualist séances, the Institut Général Psychologie was in December 1901

divided into four study groups including one for “zoological psychology”

(Yourievitch 1902, 5). Its board of advisors included professors from the

Faculté des sciences de Paris, such as Alfred Giard (1846-1908), a key figure

of the Neo-Lamarckian community as well as professors of the National Museum

of Natural History like the zoologist Emile Oustalet (1844-1905), who was

director of the Ménagerie from 1900 to 1905 and the biologist Edmond Perrier

(1844-1921), who was the director of the Museum and another major figure of

the French scientific scene. In 1887, Perrier prefaced George Romanes’s

Animal Intelligence (1882), in which this dedicated disciple of Darwin wrote

about the alleged mental abilities of animals from protozoa to monkeys. In the

preface, Perrier also put forward his theory of instinct, which, in a few

words, held that instinct and intelligence had the same origin – instinct

being merely intelligence whose development has been arrested. This theory,

which combined Darwinian features (the differences between animal and human

intellectual faculties being quantitative and not qualitative) and Lamarckian

elements (as it develops, instinct becomes a hereditary gain), was also the

subject of a lecture he gave at the Institut Général Psychologique in December

1901 (Perrier 1900-1901). It set the general tone for subsequent research on

the mental abilities of animals within the Institute. Auguste Ménégaux (1857-

1937), a member of the Institute who worked as an assistant at the National

Museum of Natural History and as secretary of the study group for zoological

psychology, spelled out, “Darwin’s illuminating theories could be as

fruitful [in psychology] as they are in the field of morphology”. He also

viewed the extension of the Darwinian theories to the domain of psychology as

“part of the task undertaken by the group for zoological psychology”

(Ménégaux 1903, 224).

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A proponent of evolutionist theories, Hachet-Souplet nevertheless

departed from Romanes’s colorful anecdotes (Hachet-Souplet 1900, VIII and

144) and, instead of making casual observations, defended an experimental

approach of animal intelligence through scientific taming. His “taming

method” derived from the “psychological theory of obedience” popularized by

Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) at the end of the nineteenth century, which was

based on the belief that education of any kind aims at transforming conscious

acts into unconscious acts (Le Bon 1892, 129). Following in Le Bon’s

footsteps, Hachet-Souplet argued that “when one teaches a given exercise to a

higher animal, a dog for instance, by means of persuasion, i.e. by making it

understand what it has to do, one quickly observes that its movements, which

are initially conscious, tend to become automatic as they are frequently

repeated” (Hachet-Souplet 1900, V, italics in the original). According to the

law of recurrence, the animal will learn the necessary acts gradually in

sequence, as the pleasure that comes with success “stamps in” an associative

connection between sensory impressions and motor impulses. Hachet-Souplet’s

main objective was to establish a psychological classification of species on

the basis of the intellectual abilities demonstrated by the animals during

taming sessions (Hachet-Souplet 1904, 1). This classification was roughly

divided into three categories: the first one was composed of animals, like the

Protozoa, which could only be excited; the second one comprised animals

ranging from low invertebrates, to fish, up to small vertebrates (like

pigeons, rabbits, or goats), which could be coerced but never persuaded; and

the third one included horses, speaking birds, big cats, and at the top, dogs,

apes, and elephants, all animals which could be more or less efficiently

persuaded (Hachet-Souplet 1900, Annex).

Fig. 2. Hachet-Souplet’s tamed monkeys. Illustrations from Hachet-

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Souplet (1896, p. 314)

Hachet-Souplet applied his “taming method” to different animals like

apes, homing pigeons, horses, dogs and big cats, and even to the education of

children (Hachet-Souplet 1913). His experimental work was printed by respected

French publishing houses as well as French and foreign popular journals.

Hachet-Souplet also found in the study group for zoological psychology of the

Institut Général Psychologique a space where he could present his animal

psychology experiments to a wider academic audience as well as discuss

research by his colleagues from the university and the Museum. At the time of

the creation of the study group, Hachet-Souplet had opened an Institut de

Psychologie Zoologique, then renamed Institut Zoologique1. Prestigious scholars

such as Perrier, Edouard Claparède, Etienne Marey and Théodule Ribot sat on

the board of this institute. In Hachet-Souplet’s view, the study group for

zoological psychology had picked up the ideas he had developed; accordingly,

he saw the group as something of an extension of his own institute (Hachet-

Souplet 1903a, 36). It seems however that Hachet-Souplet’s Institut

zoologique remained overshadowed by the study group. Even though it had an

official address at the Museum for some time, its existence mostly amounted to

a name on a piece of paper. Likewise, it is quite likely that the short

lifespan of its official organ, the Annales de la psychologie zoologique (only

published between 1901 and 1904, when it was renamed Les Annales

psychologiques), had to do with the competition from the Bulletin de

l’Institut Général Psychologique, which provided a forum for members of the

study group for zoological psychology, and where Hachet-Souplet published

1 The Institut Zoologique comprised three sections: zoological psychology, “taming

studies” and zoological aesthetic studies.

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numerous articles defending scientific taming between 1903 and 1910.

2.2. A plea for an experimental approach of the animal mind

While Hachet-Souplet was aware that his work had much in common with

animal taming (he owned a small circus himself), he nevertheless made sure to

assert its scientific dimension. As he wrote in 1902 to the Swiss psychologist

Edouard Claparède (1873-1940): “I was the first [...] to consider taming and

psychological stimulation techniques as scientific investigation techniques. I

have devoted to the study of animal mentality my fortune, my time and my

health” (Hachet-Souplet 1902 cited by Chapuis, forthcoming). In short,

Hachet-Souplet saw himself as one of the pioneers of the scientific study of

animal psychology – in his own words: “the psychologist must study animals on

the animal itself, in a laboratory for experimental and comparative

psychology, i.e., a laboratory for rational taming; this initiative will prove

a decisive step forward for science” (Hachet-Souplet 1900, XII). One of the

issues faced by Hachet-Souplet as he promoted experimental studies on the

animal mind was that of the scientific legitimacy of studying animals in

captivity. Hachet-Souplet was aware that many naturalists, like Buffon or the

eighteenth century royal gamekeeper Georges Leroy stressed the importance of

observing free-living animals under natural conditions and dismissed

observations on captive animals, describing menageries as places where animals

lose all their psychological faculties (Hachet-Souplet 1912, 17 and 47). In

response, Hachet-Souplet developed an argument in favor of psychological

studies in a non-natural environment: “The observation of animals in their

natural state”, he reckoned, “can provide no information on the evolution of

instinct, because it changes too slowly in natural conditions” (Hachet-

Souplet 1912, 18).

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Hachet-Souplet used rhetoric to devalue what he viewed as

“contemplative” field observations. “Just as the chemist and the physicist

are not content with merely observing phenomena that occur outside of all

human intervention [but] induce artificial phenomena before their eyes; the

psychologist should find in psychological experiments of rational taming,

which reveal natural faculties, means of investigation that match, for

instance, the role played by analysis in chemistry” (Hachet-Souplet 1900, vi-

vii). He argued that rational taming “allows us to measure the intellectual

faculties of mammals, birds, etc. by making them face certain hardships that

they would not have encountered in their natural state” (Hachet-Souplet 1906,

346). In other words, the captive conditions made it possible to observe

behavior that can occur only by chance, or perhaps never, in nature.

Hachet-Souplet’s insistence on the value of manipulating bodies

experimentally echoed the stance that Frédéric Cuvier (a chemist himself)

expressed in his 1807 paper on animal behavior: “To those concerned with

zoology, menageries can be what the chemist’s laboratory is to those engaged

in the study of unorganized bodies. There, one cannot see what occurs in

nature but what could occur in nature” (Cuvier 1807 cited by Burkhardt 2001,

82, italics mine). In Cuvier’s view, “it was only with the aid of captive

animals that one could examine the broad causes of animal behaviour and

discover the full potential of an animal’s intellectual faculties” (Cuvier

cited by Burkhardt 2001, 83). While Hachet-Souplet, like Cuvier, thought

captive conditions were best to study animal intelligence, he contended that

Cuvier had conducted “no methodically monitored experiments” and had merely

stuck to observing caged animals, a “much too contemplative” and

“practically sterile” technique in his eyes (Hachet-Souplet 1907, 3 &

Hachet-Souplet 1912, 47). By emphasizing the limitations of Cuvier’s method,

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Hachet-Souplet sought to give further credence to the idea that the art of

scientific taming, performed on menagerie animals outside of their cages,

could shed new light on the nature of animal intelligence and instinct.

2. 3. Hachet-Souplet’s search for a place to anchor animal psychology

In Hachet-Souplet’s eyes, the best place to develop a school of

scientific taming was a zoological park (Hachet-Souplet 1897, 224). “Every

zoological park”, he argued, “meant not for amusement, but for study, will

in the future have to include facilities allowing for the study of means of

locomotion, of the muscular machinery of animals in movement and for the

conduct of psychological experiments” (Hachet-Souplet 1912, 50). Hence, he

saw no contradiction in setting up what he called a “manège-laboratory” at

the Ménagerie (Hachet-Souplet 1901, 18). What made the zoo particularly

attractive for the opening of a psychological laboratory was the availability

of living animals and the possibility of experimenting with different sorts of

animals to study their life in all its forms, and particularly their mental

faculties. In short, the Ménagerie gave him an opportunity to do what he had

only been able to do with a few select species in his personal circus, but

this time on a much larger scale (Hachet-Souplet 1912, 46). In 1896, in order

to fulfill his scientific ambitions, Hachet-Souplet first set his sights on

the Jardin d’acclimation,2 but after an unsuccessful attempt, he fell back on

the Jardin des Plantes, which he viewed as a better place to have access to a

wide range of animal species. He was convinced that “the animals of the

Jardin des Plantes could be used for something other than entertaining nurses

and courting soldiers or playing the role of victim that is inflicted on them

2 The Jardin zoologique et d’acclimation was founded in 1860, on the initiative of

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1805-1861).

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by the cowardly and ferocious scoundrels who take a mind to devising a hundred

ingenious ways to hurt animals and make them suffer” (Hachet-Souplet 1912,

49). He was also quite confident that his “psychological circus” in the

Jardin des Plantes would win the approval of a public that was eager to see

animals that did not perform more or less comical circus acts, but displayed

their instinctive and intellectual faculties in lectures on animal psychology

(Hachet-Souplet 1901, 19-20).

Hachet-Souplet’s idea of creating an animal psychological laboratory

within the Jardin des Plantes was supported by psychologists like Claparède as

well as biologists like Giard and Perrier (Hachet-Souplet 1897, xviii-xix).

Giard held Hachet-Souplet’s work in high esteem and was convinced by his idea

that “zoological vivaria can be used for studies on the behaviors and psychic

manifestations of wild animals, about which so little is known yet” (Hachet-

Souplet 1897, xix). Giard was so enthusiastic about Hachet-Souplet’s project

that he wrote to the Minister of Public Instruction to support it (Hachet-

Souplet 1912, 49).3 But it was Perrier who played (or at least tried to play) a

pivotal role in favor of Hachet-Souplet’s plans. As seen above, Perrier was a

staunch advocate of evolutionary theories and a vocal proponent of

experimental biology and psychology. Having himself conceived a theory of

instinct that heavily drew from that of Romanes, he thought that the

scientific application of the taming method would yield rewarding results and

3 Giard’s support of Hachet-Souplet’s plan could be also viewed as part of a larger

project of founding what he called a “laboratory of experimental transformism”, which could

have been attached to the Chair for the Evolution of Organized Bodies, of which he was the

holder since 1888. See Giard (1889), p. 648. Eager to complement Darwin’s natural selection

hypothesis, Giard had posited the existence of two types of factors of evolution: primary

factors, i.e., environmental ones (also called Lamarckian factors) and secondary factors,

i.e., natural selection. Spurred on by the successes and opportunities offered by Claude

Bernard’s experimental physiology, Giard and his neo-Lamarckian colleagues attempted to

develop an analogous evolutionism, which they named “experimental transformism”. See Loison

(2010).

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that the idea of applying it to the animals at the disposal of the Museum was

an ingenious and potentially fruitful one (Hachet-Souplet 1912, 48-49). In

1900, Perrier had already promised Hachet-Souplet to support him in promoting

the setting up of a comparative psychology laboratory at the Museum. “Opening

a laboratory in such a place seemed to him all the more engaging as there were

precious elements for study [i.e., the animals] there that Cuvier had tried to

use” (Hachet-Souplet 1903a, 37-38). Pointing out the legacy of Cuvier, who,

in the mid-nineteenth century, had attempted to develop comparative psychology

at the Ménagerie, was a clever way to back up Hachet-Souplet’s request. In

defending his own project, Hachet-Souplet had resorted to a somewhat similar

argument, referring to another important figure of the Museum: Lamarck. “For

the Museum, which is seeking to right the wrongs caused by long-time

opposition to Lamarck’s theories, it would be a fitting tribute to his legacy

to turn the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes into a biology laboratory and in

particular to facilitate studies liable to demonstrate that the ideas of

[Georges] Cuvier’s illustrious victim, far from being proven wrong by

psychological facts, would conversely find in them a new and resounding

vindication” (Hachet-Souplet 1907, 19).

As the director of the Museum, Perrier was then led to negotiate with

the director of the Ménagerie, Oustalet, to convince him to open the doors of

the Ménagerie to Hachet-Souplet’s project. Despite all the goodwill that

Perrier harbored toward Hachet-Souplet’s project, he made no secret of a

number of practical issues that Oustalet would be sure to bring up (Hachet-

Souplet 1903a, 38). Yet, Oustalet’s objection to the creation of a new

laboratory was not only justified on material or financial grounds; his

opposition to the project had deeper roots. Not only did the technique of

scientific taming seem unscientific to him, but he thought the idea that it

might turn the Ménagerie into a circus intolerable (Hachet-Souplet 1907, 8).

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14

Thus, in 1901, he had written to Hachet-Souplet: “I wonder if the State and

even the Public would agree to the establishment of an actual circus (albeit a

circus with scientific objectives) in the Jardin des Plantes. We are not

merely considering a room where you will study animals, but a manège.”

(Oustalet 1901 cited by Hachet-Souplet 1907, 8). These hurtful words had not

discouraged Hachet-Souplet, who continued to hope that “the crude and

primitive hospitality of this scientific temple [the Museum]” would change

(Hachet-Souplet 1903a, 38). Thanks to Perrier’s intervention, Hachet-Souplet

was granted a limited authorization to work with some animals from the

Ménagerie on an occasional basis. Thus, in addition to his experiments in the

small laboratory attached to his Institut Zoologique, and in farms and

menageries where he had been allowed to work, Hachet-Souplet was very

tentatively introduced into the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes (Hachet-

Souplet 1903a, 36-37). In May 1901, for instance, he conducted an experiment

aimed at proving the lion’s intelligence there. The caged animal had

successfully learned to open a box that contained a bait. Perrier had report

on the experiment and mentioned it in one of his classes at the Museum

(Hachet-Souplet 1903b, 203-204)4.

Yet, Hachet-Souplet did not enjoy his working conditions at the

Ménagerie, calling them “just about impossible” (Hachet-Souplet 1903a, 36-

37). He complained of being able to “experiment only within the cages where

the animals live and behind the carnivore building, between the charnel ground

where the vultures’ meat is rotting and the butchery where the big cats’

food is chopped up” [obviously] “an extremely unhealthy place with no

comfort whatsoever” (Hachet-Souplet 1903a, 37). This is where Hachet-Souplet,

4 In his book The Psychology of Wild Animals (1940), Achille Urbain, future director of the Ménagerie and the Vincennes zoo, would also mention Hachet-Souplet’s experiment with a

Ménagerie lion. See Urbain (1940a), p. 148.

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15

as a dedicated Neo-Lamarckian, wanted to “give objective evidence of the

hereditary transmission of acquired movements” (Hachet-Souplet 1903a, 37,

italics in the original). The “sad thing”, he claimed, was that “in the

cages, nothing of interest to the psychologist happens, unless the latter has

previously intervened by devising an experiment” (Hachet-Souplet 1907, 4,

italics in the original). This epistemological approach put him squarely at

odds with Oustalet, who according to Hachet-Souplet only abided by observation

and dreamed, as he had confessed to Hachet-Souplet, “of having observation

cages built for the big cats, at the top of which one could open a small

window that would allow for watching the animals without disturbing them and

without them being aware of our presence” (Hachet-Souplet 1903a, 4). Indeed,

beyond the fact that Oustalet considered that Hachet-Souplet’s work lacked

scientific foundations and saw him as a simple animal tamer, to which the

prestigious Museum could not decently provide a place to work, there was an

epistemological dispute between the two men. Oustalet, a famous ornithologist

and avid curator of collections of stuffed animals (he contributed to the

reconstruction of the extinct dodo), was adamant about applying the

methodological requisites of fieldwork even when observing caged animals,

whereas Hachet-Souplet valued the artificial conditions of captivity to study

the mental life of animals, and was a spokesman for a laboratory epistemology.

Tired of dealing with these miserable working conditions Hachet-Souplet,

who had even improvised a small zoological garden in order to avoid working

with caged animals, requested once more the creation of a laboratory for

animal psychology at the National Museum of Natural History. He sent a letter

to the members of the Institut Général Psychologique, asking them to assist

him in the process. His text was read during the 8 December 1902 session and

approved by Perrier and Oustalet who agreed that “the animals of the

Ménagerie [would be] put to the disposal of those working on psychology

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16

studies as much as possible” (Perrier 1903, 1). Despite this gesture,

Oustalet remained apprehensive. He granted Hachet-Souplet the authorization to

make a few experiments within the cages and the parks where the animals lived,

but only with certain species. He entrusted him with mammals and birds that he

considered as “neither too rare nor too dangerous”, in his own words. His

preoccupation with not sacrificing rare species to psychology went so far,

according to Hachet-Souplet, that his definition of rare stopped at the common

macaque for mammals and at the rose-breasted cockatoo for birds (Hachet-

Souplet 1907, 8).

In 1904, even though, according to Hachet-Souplet, Oustalet had changed

his mind and finally agreed to look for a place to put at the disposal of

Hachet-Souplet and of his colleagues from the Institut zoologique, the

protagonists were still waiting (Hachet-Souplet 1907, 8). In fact, Oustalet’s

attempts were unsuccessful and Hachet-Souplet was told that a “suitable

location” could not be found on the pretext that existing buildings would

have to be demolished (Chapuis, forthcoming). In 1905, upon the death of

Oustalet, which left the chair for mammalogy and the leadership of the

Ménagerie vacant, Hachet-Souplet appeared to find in Gustave Loisel (1864-

1933) a new ally. Loisel, a professor of zoology at the Sorbonne, was at the

time trying to get closer to the Museum; in order to support his application,

he devised a plan to reorganize the Ménagerie. This did not yield direct

results (Edouard Trouessard was appointed as director), but Loisel was

nevertheless noticed by the Ministry of Instruction. He was entrusted with

several missions to study zoo facilities in Europe and the US in order to

suggest reforms in French zoological parks, including at the Ménagerie. The

long reports that resulted from these trips made up one of the most extensive

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historical studies on zoological parks.5 In the Histoire des ménageries (1912),

he envisioned an ideal zoo that included a “hill” specifically dedicated to

research and to art, i.e., animal painting and animal photography (Loisel

1912, Vol 3, 400-405). According to Loisel, a crucial area of study for the

scientific staff working in this ideal zoo would have to be “the intelligent

observation of animal behavior, of the relationships between the two sexes, of

familial and social ties, of the highly varied manifestations of instinct and

intelligence” (Loisel 1906, 784). He even claimed that “zoological

psychology, which [had become] […] a genuine science, relying on its own

method and processes of observation, mensuration and experimentation” still

required “fields of study that, barring nature, [could] only be provided by

zoological gardens” (Loisel 1906, 785). This fit perfectly with the idea

still defended by Hachet-Souplet at the time, who argued that “many

biological problems could be solved if, by using the menagerie as a vast

experimental laboratory, we decided to study the living animal there”

(Hachet-Souplet 1906, 347, italics in the original). Not only did Loisel

support Hachet-Souplet’s plea to develop animal psychology within the

Ménagerie. He also acknowledged his “taming method” as crucial for the

development of animal psychology and viewed him as the French counterpart of

the American psychologist Edward Thorndike, a pioneering figure of

experimental animal psychology (Loisel 1906, 785). It is quite likely that had

Loisel been appointed director of the Ménagerie after Oustalet’s death,

Hachet-Souplet’s wish would at last have come true.

Things, however, would turn out otherwise. In 1912 came a deathblow: the

Museum’s board of professors definitively turned down Hachet-Souplet’s

request (Chapuis, forthcoming). It was the end of a dream that Hachet-Souplet

5 On Loisel and his links with the Ménagerie, see De Bont (2010), and Bouyssi (1998).

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had nurtured since 1896, after an already unsuccessful attempt at the Jardin

d’acclimation. The same year, Henri Piéron (1881-1964), a major figure of

French psychology, wrote a somewhat damning review of Hachet-Souplet’s book

La genèse des instincts (1912), which was the quintessence of all his

research. Piéron described Hachet-Souplet as “neither a biologist, nor a

philosopher”, and further argued that “he [had] very fragmentary knowledge

on the comparative psychology literature, and his conceptions [were] sometimes

highly debatable”. Although Piéron acknowledged that he was “a very clever

experimenter”, he nevertheless viewed his “taming method” as not rigorous

and objective enough in comparison with the American experiments on animal

learning (Piéron 1912, 301-302). Like Piéron, Georges Bohn, one of the leading

French animal psychologists and the author of La Naissance de l’intelligence

(The birth of intelligence) (1909) and La nouvelle psychologie animale (The

new animal psychology) (1911), which was awarded a Prize by the French Academy

of Moral and Political Sciences, had harsh words about Hachet-Souplet. “In

the past ten years, despite Hachet-Souplet’s enthusiastic words, taming, as

such, has not been the subject of any scientific study, whereas the imitators

of Thorndike, in America, and especially the students of Pavlov, in Russia,

have reported on many facts that shed a bright light on the psychology of

higher vertebrates” (Bohn 1911, 191). Radically at odds with Loisel’s above

comment, Piéron (and likely Bohn) held Hachet-Souplet as an amateur, who could

not belong to the emerging community of “scientific” psychologists.6 Indeed,

in the late 1900’s, Piéron was working to give scientific legitimacy to

psychology, which also meant reshaping the boundaries of the refashioned

field. In this process, Hachet-Souplet’s idiosyncratic “taming method” was

6 Important to note is that Piéron like Bohn attended regularly the sessions of the study group for zoological psychology at the Institut Général Psychologique, and thereby met

Hachet-Souplet many times.

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19

pushed away to marginal venues, i.e. sent back to the circus. This ostracism

did not go unnoticed by Hachet-Souplet. In what was probably his last lecture

at the Institut Général Psychologique on 24 May 1909, Hachet-Souplet did not

mince his words as he berated “the fancy disdain or rather the unforgivable

thoughtlessness” of the scholars toward the “tamers”. In his words: “you

may send the champions of Zoopedia back to the circus, you may try to ridicule

the efforts of [those] who ride around in their laboratory-manège as if they

were simply Franconi’s horsemen;7 but it would perhaps be too unfair to claim

that their ideas also go around in circles; because they put the utmost effort

in extending their method a little more every day, in order to adapt it to the

very numerous subjects of zoological psychology” (Hachet-Souplet 1910, 170-

171). This was undoubtedly a heartfelt appeal by a man who was disappointed

after so much effort in vain to conquer the Ménagerie, but on a broader level,

Hachet-Souplet was taking a stance against segregation between amateurs and

scientists. As we will now see, Paul Guillaume and Ignace Meyerson, two

psychologists who belonged to Piéron’s inner circle, had more luck in their

own attempt to introduce animal psychology at the Ménagerie.

7 Antonio Franconi was an Italian equestrian who went on to open one of the most famous early modern circuses.

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20

3. Guillaume, Meyerson and the investigation of the ape mind at the Ménagerie

3.1. Of chimpanzees, tuberculosis and Parisian psychologists

In 1924, the bacteriologist Albert Calmette (1863-1933) was instrumental

in establishing an overseas Pasteur Institute at Kindia, in French Guinea.

Situated in the heart of the jungle, Pastoria – as the station was called –

was conceived to supply the Paris institute with apes for laboratory research

in microbiology and pathology, and it did ship several hundred chimpanzees

during the first years of its existence (Rossianov 2002, 292). Kindia was also

a place devoted to test vaccines, especially the famous BCG (Bacille de

Calmette et de Guérin) vaccine against tuberculosis, on anthropoid apes.8 In

addition to these biomedical activities, Calmette remarked that “it [would

be] extremely interesting to observe their intellectual development […] and

to learn that the chimpanzee’s intelligence is very perfectible […] This may

attract zoologists and philosophers, particularly those dealing with

experimental psychology, and the center for biological research in Kindia will

provide them with a wonderful field of study that we will be happy to put at

their disposal” (Calmette 1924, 14).9 However, Calmette’s hopes to unravel

the riddles of the ape at Pastoria were dashed due the lack of resources at

his disposal there and to the impossibility of constructing annex buildings

for raising chimpanzees in semi-liberty over several years with constant

monitoring from educators (Wilbert & Delorme 1931, 132). This may explain, why

in 1927, Calmette ended up asking a major figure of French psychology, Georges

Dumas (1866-1946), to find among his colleagues someone willing to conduct ape

psychological experiments in mainland France (Meyerson 1962, 1).

8 After its safety and effectiveness in protecting young animals against tuberculosis

was demonstrated, the BCG was used on newborn infants in France and then spread worldwide. 9 On Calmette’s views on Pastoria, see also Calmette (1931).

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21

Paul Guillaume (1878-1962) and Ignace Meyerson (1888-1983) were the two

French psychologists who accepted Dumas’s offer with great enthusiasm. Their

studies were conducted at the Pasteur Institute, where apes regularly arrived

from Pastoria for the purpose of biomedical research, and at the ape house of

the Ménagerie where Calmette had connections. In 1926, at the request of the

director Edouard Bourdelle (1876-1960), Calmette provided the Ménagerie with

BCG vaccines to test them on different animals, particularly apes and

monkeys.10 Tuberculosis was one of the most important scourges affecting

captive animals, and making them immune was a major concern for the

veterinarian Bourdelle when he arrived at the Ménagerie in 1926. In the early

1920s, the press painted a bleak picture of the old Ménagerie, with its

miserable and unhealthy animals gazing at visitors from behind the bars, at a

time when Hagenbeck’s groundbreaking work in Stellingen had already inspired

major transformations in numerous zoos around the world (Anonymous 1923, 150).

Bourdelle was well aware of the Ménagerie’s dilapidated state and of the

necessity to revamp it according to the new standards for hygiene and for the

keeping of animals in captivity. In 1928, he planned the construction of a new

ape house, a big cat house, a bird gallery and new facilities for carnivores

and small mammals (Laissus 1993, 176-177). Unsurprisingly, he turned to the

prestigious Hagenbeck firm for financial support: their proposal, estimated at

fifteen million francs, was supposed to be funded through the German

reparations of World War I. Unfortunately, in May 1929, a budget cut in the

German reparations regime hindered the entire process (Bourdelle 1941, 15-16).

However, the necessity of renovating the Ménagerie remained. In 1930,

thanks to the efforts of Bourdelle, the Ménagerie showed signs of revival with

10

“Notes sur l’emploi du vaccin antituberculeux B.C.G. à la Ménagerie du Museum

National d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris”, p. 1-6, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national

d’histoire naturelle, Box 44, Folder “Inventaire des animaux, 1926-1929”.

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22

his rich collection of 1600 animals including an African elephant, a

hippopotamus, thirteen big cats, and ten apes (Laissus and Petter 1993, 179-

180). In a talk broadcasted on 13 January 1930, Bourdelle boasted about the

rising birthrate and the improved life expectancy of the Ménagerie animals,

which he attributed to the quality of the food and the eradication of

tuberculosis.11 Bourdelle’s speech also stimulated national pride, emphasizing

the pioneering role of the French in the creation of the Ménagerie.12 As he

stated in his concluding remarks: “in this matter [the renovation of the

Ménagerie] as in many others, the good name of France in the world is at

stake”.13 Spoken by a Republican, these words curiously echoed Louis XIV’s

desire of making his Ménagerie the symbol of his absolute power over foreign

lands and ultimately over nature.

Although Guillaume and Meyerson expressed their gratitude to Bourdelle

for “having facilitated the course of [their] experiments in many ways”,

they complained that in France, unlike in the United States, the Soviet Union

and Germany, “there [were] no laboratories and centers for psychological

research specifically focused on the study of Apes”, and that “facilities

suited to the nature of these studies and richly endowed, with animals

uniquely used for such studies” were sorely lacking (Guillaume & Meyerson

1930b, 177-178 & Guillaume 1940, 45). Similarly, Meyerson envied the American

psychologist Robert Yerkes (1876-1956) for “having fulfilled [his] long-time

dream of going to Kindia”, insofar as this was “evidently the only way to

see the apes as they really are”. Meyerson contrasted his situation in

11 E. Bourdelle, “La Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes. Son Histoire - Son Etat actuel -

Son Avenir (Causerie faite à la Radio-Paris, le 13 janvier 1930)”, p. 3-4, in the Ménagerie

Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Box 43, Folder “E. Bourdelle, Notes sur la

ménagerie 1930-1932”. 12 Ibid., p. 5.

13 Ibid., p. 21.

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23

mainland France with this African ideal, and again wrote of his bitterness to

Yerkes: “during the two years of my work, although I was lucky to have some

excellent subjects (particularly a remarkable female chimpanzee), I have

always been under the impression that I was working in bad conditions”. Again

he envied Yerkes “for being able to work in the conditions of [his] dream”.14

Guillaume and Meyerson conducted their ape studies on roughly thirty

apes and monkeys. They relied on around six chimpanzees at the Institut

Pasteur and enjoyed a broader choice at the Ménagerie (Guillaume & Meyerson

1930a, 92). In April 1927, when they started their ape work, the Ménagerie

already possessed two chimpanzees, three orangutans, two gibbons, and a

gorilla, a somewhat rare specimen in zoological gardens at the time (Guillaume

& Meyerson 1930b, 180-181). Additionally, the collection of monkeys (guenons,

mangabeys, mandrills, maggots, macaques and spider monkeys) allowed Guillaume

and Meyerson to work on fifteen more animals. The variety of ape species

offered by the Ménagerie was an important advantage for Guillaume and

Meyerson, who were eager to analyze the animal psyche at various stages and to

establish a scale of intelligence levels (Guillaume & Meyerson 1930b, 178-

179); the Ménagerie animals were also in better physical condition than those

from the Institut Pasteur. For instance, Boubou, a “superb and robust

chimpanzee, aged 16 to 17, who just became an adult” and “probably one of

the most beautiful specimens in the zoological gardens of the entire world”,

the 1926 Ménagerie inventory read,15 but also very turbulent compared to the

other occupant of his cage, Louise (Feuillée-Billot 1929, 296). At the

Institut Pasteur, the apes were used for medical research and put in the hands

14 Letter from I. Meyerson to R. Yerkes, 17 June 1929, in the Yerkes Papers, Yale

University Archives, Box 34, Folder 650. 15 “Notes sur l’emploi du vaccin anti-tuberculeux B.C.G. à la Ménagerie du Museum

national d’histoire naturelle de Paris”, pièce 133, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum

national d’histoire naturelle, Box 44, Folder “Inventaire des animaux 1926-1929”.

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24

of psychologists when they survived. These medical experiments (such as

surgical interventions for the purposes of cancer research) were a source of

trauma and made them scared of men. An exception to this rule, a female chimp

from the Institut Pasteur called Nicole, who had been excluded from the

biomedical experiments because of her alleged bad temper and aggressive

behavior, was welcomed by Guillaume and Meyerson as their brightest, and

therefore favorite subject of research (Guillaume and Meyerson 1930a, 93;

1930b, 179). In both places, Guillaume and Meyerson insisted on the fact that

they never subjected their animals to any taming (Guillaume & Meyerson 1930b,

182). This echoed their general stance about distancing their work from

traditions that tapped into the fascination for animals with spectacular

displays, like the ape Consul, which was tamed in order to be exhibited to a

wide audience (Guillaume 1923, 948).

3. 2. Guillaume, Meyerson and the influence of Köhler’s discovery of

“insight”

The ape work was an important step of Guillaume and Meyerson’s

professional collaboration and also a landmark in their longstanding

friendship. In Guillaume’s obituary, Meyerson reminisced: “the Apes were

shared between us. Literary history has several examples of brothers in

writing, where each would look over the other’s shoulder and correct what the

other had just written. Experimenting, interpreting, writing – everything was

done together; we have, I believe, succeeded in complementing each other”

(Meyerson 1962, 3). Indeed, the men had much in common: both educated in

philosophy and natural science, they shared the same passion for psychology

and were instrumental in the development of this discipline in France.

Guillaume was particularly interested in the connection between child

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psychology and animal psychology. According to him, experiments with children

were not very reliable: “as soon as a child feels that you want to know

something about his character, he lies, he is reluctant, he poses, he seeks to

impose a certain idea of himself on us, he fabulates […]” whereas, on the

other hand “the animal does not defend himself against the curiosity of the

experimenter”.16 Like Guillaume, Meyerson’s approach to animal psychology was

related to a broader concern with comparative psychology, which included child

psychology. As a biographer mentioned, Meyerson’s interest in animal

psychology stemmed from his conviction that “in order to understand Man well,

[it is necessary] to also observe the animal, the Ape, the chimpanzee” (Leroy

1992, 358). Thus, Guillaume and Meyerson likely viewed Calmette’s offer to

work on ape psychology as an opportunity to provide input for their research

on child psychology, and more generally to contribute to the development of

psychology in France.

Fig. 3. Guillaume and Meyerson with a monkey. Illustration from internet

(http://bibliotheque.u-pec.fr/_medias/photo/img_1199703028749.jpg; accessed

07/10/2013)

Guillaume and Meyerson were also dedicated advocates of Gestalt

psychology.17 In 1924, Meyerson published an article by Kurt Koffka (1887-1941)

in the Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, while Guillaume penned

the 1927 French translation of Köhler’s book on the mentality of apes

(Intelligenzprüfungen an Anthropoiden, 1917). In 1937, Guillaume would write

La psychologie de la forme (The Gestalt psychology), which is still regarded

16

P. Guillaume, Conférence “La psychologie animale”, Centre de synthèse, 28 mai 1947,

p. 23, in the Meyerson Papers, Archives nationales de Paris, Shelfmark 19920046/18. 17 For an in-depth and illuminating history of the Gestalt theory, see Ash (1995).

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26

as one of the best accounts of the principles and contents of Gestalt theory.

Guillaume and Meyerson’s main source of inspiration was Köhler’s path-

breaking research on the intelligence of chimpanzees, conducted at the

anthropoid research station in Tenerife between 1913 and 1917. Köhler was

convinced that animal performance could not be adequately explained as the

result of a process of trial-and-error learning with accidental successes, as

the American psychologist Thorndike had shown with his famous puzzle box

experiments in the late nineteenth century. Köhler accordingly designed

experiments that were simple enough for the animal to understand elementary

problems, in which, if possible, the animal’s conduct had one meaning only.

Among those experiments, the “detour test” epitomized Köhler’s

investigations on the intelligence of chimpanzees in solving problems. In

Tenerife, Köhler built an enclosure in which he placed different animals in

turn, like dogs, chicken and then apes. Each time, a fence separated an

attractive object from the animal in such a way that it had to make a detour

to reach it. There were three stages in the detour test: a) a simple version

where the animal had to start at an angle of 90 degrees to the direction of

the objective, which always remained within sight, b) an intermediate problem

which involved starting at an angle of 125 degrees, c) a more difficult

situation where the detour was initially in the opposite direction to the

objective, which was out of sight for a considerable part of the detour. For

Köhler, the last test revealed that an animal was able to act with

“insight”, i.e. a form of mental processing accompanying the sudden

recognition of a solution to a problem, characterized by a “smooth,

continuous curve, sharply divided by an abrupt break from the preceding

behavior” (Ash 1995, 157). To explain this break in the curve, Köhler

referred to a Gestalt explanation: the abrupt change in performance occurred

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27

because the animal saw the situation in a different way – a process of

“perceptual restructuring” had occurred (Boakes 1994, 191).

Fig. 4. Variations of the detour test, differing in terms of the

starting angle with is 90° in a), 125° in b), and 180° in c). Illustration

from Boakes (1984, p. 189).

3. 3. How to make the best of the zoo’s restrictions

In Guillaume and Meyerson’s detour experiments, the arrangements

differed from Köhler’s due to the peculiarity of their research settings.

Contrary to Köhler’s apes, which could move freely in an enclosure, Guillaume

and Meyerson’s apes were locked up in cages, generally in pairs, either at

the Ménagerie or at the Institut Pasteur. Considering this limitation,

Guillaume and Meyerson reversed the experimental conditions. Unlike Köhler’s

apes, which could use an appropriate detour path to reach a desired object,

Guillaume and Meyerson’s caged apes had to move the desired object towards

them to get it. Then, Guillaume and Meyerson imagined different kinds of

detour experiments; one of them, called “detour with a stick” involved

catching a fruit placed on a box or on a writing board outside the cage by

using a stick. But again, the limitations of the Ménagerie’s setting curbed

their ambitions and forced them to delete some experiments from their working

agenda. The “detour with a stick” was for instance impossible to implement

at the Ménagerie, where, unlike at the Institut Pasteur, the holes in the

cages were so small that the animals were unable to reach out their arms and

use a stick to retrieve a fruit placed outside the cage; they could just let

one finger through (Guillaume & Meyerson 1930b, 182 and 209). Yet, Guillaume

and Meyerson eventually bypassed this obstacle: dropping the “detour with a

stick”, they concentrated on the “detour without a stick” which could be

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performed in both places, and, as such, allowed comparative studies. This

enabled them to compare the mind of Nicole, their brightest ape, to that of

members of different species in the Ménagerie, like the chimp Silène, the

orangutan Pâris, and also other numerous inferior monkeys. Moreover, since the

difficulty of using a stick was eliminated, the “detour without a stick” was

seen as the best way to show that “it is not this technique of the detour

that constitutes a difficulty for the animal; it is the detour itself that is

difficult” (Guillaume & Meyerson 1930b, 234).

The “detour without a stick” proved to be difficult to complete for

the animals. Nicole was quick to perform the 180° detour, but the chimp

Silène had to learn it through trial and error. The orangutan Pâris was rather

quick with the 90° detour, but totally unsuccessful with the 180° one. Among

the inferior monkeys, the black mangabey could not figure out the sides and

the exits of the drawer, and understood very little of the structure of the

netting. The guenon (Cercopithecus aethiops), on the other hand, understood

the sides, could use the netting to guide the fruit, but could not figure out

the exits. Worst, the mangabey chrysogaster did not understand the structure

of the experimental device at all. In Guillaume and Meyerson’s eyes, the

major difficulty of these experiments was to move an object toward a specific

direction. “Understanding” the drawer meant understanding that it has sides

without exits, a wire netting that could be a guide but also an obstacle, and

an exit where to push the fruit out. In a phenomenological perspective, the

difficulty of moving a fruit in the right direction pertained to the

understanding of the “perceptive field” and the capacity of organizing it at

the same time. The ability to view a situation as a whole, something easy for

a human being, appeared to be difficult, if not impossible, for a monkey,

although possible for a chimp. Based on results of the “detour experiments

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without stick”, Guillaume and Meyerson established a scale with levels of

intelligence, where the chimp “Nicole” ranked first, followed immediately by

Silène and the orangutan Pâris and, at the very bottom, the mangabeys and the

guenons.18 Ultimately, despite the material restrictions related to the layout

of the Ménagerie, the ape experiments yielded relevant results.

Another restriction of the Ménagerie in comparison with the Institut

Pasteur lay in the fact that although the public was not admitted inside, the

ape house was located in a public space. ”When the temperature allows it,

they open the glass walls, through which it is slightly difficult to get a

good glimpse of the monkeys” (Feuillée-Billot 1929, 296). This was not

without consequences on Guillaume and Meyerson’s work. On 15 June 1929, while

working with Silène, they noted: “the regressions that one sometimes observes

in the middle of otherwise successful tries seem to be due to the fatigue [of

the chimp] but also to the excitement spurred by the presence of watchers or

by the recurrent bothersome interference of his cage mate Zoé, who tried to

take advantage of the situation [i.e. try to steal a fruit offered as a reward

from him]” (Guillaume & Meyerson 1930b, 180 and 214). In practice, the

presence of the public and the pairing of the apes within the cages hampered

Guillaume and Meyerson’s studies. Last but not least, their working

conditions were even made more awkward by the fact that the ape house they

worked was provisional, and never had the opportunity to work in the new one,

which was only inaugurated in 1934. Covering a surface area of 2000 m2, the

Ménagerie’s new ape enclosure was described in the press as magnificent and

very comfortable for the animals. Its architecture combined outside cages –

sheltered and fenced – and inside cages where the animals could retire when

tired of playing or showing themselves to the public (Feuillée-Billot 1934,

18 P. Guillaume, “Notes sur les recherches sur l’usage de l’instrument chez les

singes”, pièce 12, in Meyerson Papers, Archives nationales de Paris, Shelfmark 19920046/26.

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30

366). These “inside cages” would have probably been ideal places to study

animals far from the disruption of the Ménagerie’s visitors. Yet, Guillaume

and Meyerson’s experimental ape work still yielded worthy results despite

difficult conditions.

Fig. 5. Inside view of the temporary ape house where Guillaume and

Meyerson conducted their ape studies. Illustration from the scientific popular

magazine La Nature (Feuillée-Billot, 1929, p. 297).

3. 4. Guillaume and Meyerson’s ape studies: a plea for a laboratory approach

In the late twenties, when Guillaume and Meyerson undertook their ape

studies, psychology was increasingly concerned with repeating, measuring and

recording facts. “The laboratory is a chosen milieu where one surrounds

himself with means to better see, measure and record” (Guillaume 1940, 44).

Conducting experiments in the artificial conditions of the laboratory, and one

could add of the Ménagerie, allowed for the realization of scientific ideals,

i.e. testing hypotheses through formal protocols and controlling

circumstances: it was thought to guarantee the scientific quality of the work

being done.19 Like Hachet-Souplet, who had argued that captive conditions

enabled the display of behavior that could only have occurred by chance, or

perhaps never in nature, Guillaume similarly praised the controlled

environment of the laboratory for observing phenomena that never occurred in a

wild environment: “it is in artificial experimental conditions restricting

his natural means, including his mobility, that the ape has shown himself

capable of a certain use of instruments that, as far as we know, does not seem

19

For further examination of Guillaume and Meyerson’s defense of the laboratory over a

field approach, and the way it informed their definition of naturalness, see Thomas (2010).

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31

to have an equivalent in the natural conditions of life in freedom”.20

Guillaume and Meyerson’s ape studies were thus conceived as attempts to

legitimize psychology at a time when the discipline was in need of a sound

scientific footing. In that sense, they were responding to the call of their

mentor Piéron to anchor the “new” psychology (i.e. “objective” psychology)

in animal psychology (Piéron 1915, 119). The studies were published under the

general title “Recherches sur l’usage de l’instrument chez les singes”

(“Studies on the use of tools by apes”) between the years 1930 and 1937 in

the Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique, which was the official

organ of the Société Française de Psychologie, run by Meyerson until his

death.21 In addition to these publications, Guillaume and Meyerson shot a short

film starring their beloved “Nicole” at the Pasteur Institute. As the title

indicates, the use of tools by apes was Guillaume and Meyerson’s main

concern. By identifying the limits of the ape mind, they sought to pinpoint

the stage at which humanity diverged from animality; they saw the use of a

tool as a good criterion for distinguishing men from animals.22 Considering

Guillaume and Meyerson had dropped experiments with a stick at the Ménagerie

and their mascot Nicole was at the Institut Pasteur, their work tended not to

be readily associated with that institution. Yet, Guillaume and Meyerson’s

work did not completely go unnoticed at the Ménagerie. In his book Psychologie

des animaux sauvages (Psychology of wild animals) (1940), Achille Urbain,

joint-director of the Ménagerie and then director of the Vincennes zoological

park, cited Guillaume and Meyerson’s ape work, albeit briefly (he placed more

20 P. Guillaume, “L’homme et l’animal”, proposition de rapport pour le Symposium du

Congrès de psychologie de 1937 sur la psychologie comparée de l’homme et l’animal, p. 12, in

the Meyerson Papers, Archives nationales de Paris, Shelfmark 19920046/43. 21

Later, in 1987, Guillaume and Meyerson’s studies were documented in a comprehensive

monograph entitled Recherches sur l’usage de l’instrument chez les singes published by Vrin. 22 P. Guillaume, “L’homme et l’animal”, op. cit, p. 8 & p. 11, in the Meyerson

Papers, Archives nationales de Paris, Shelfmark 19920046/43.

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32

emphasis on the contribution of Köhler and Yerkes to the study of the ape

mind) and curiously without mentioning that their work was partly conducted at

the Ménagerie (Urbain 1946, 91-93).

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4. The Vincennes Zoological Park and animal psychology’s false start

4.1. Achille Urbain, the creation of the Vincennes zoological park and of a

chair for ethology

Educated as a veterinarian at the prestigious Lyon Veterinary School,

Urbain embarked on a military career while studying natural science, until he

was awarded a PhD in 1920 (Urbain 1941, 1). Thanks to this brilliant training,

he was given a leave from the army and appointed at the recently created

Military Laboratory for Veterinary Research (LMRV). In the meantime, he worked

at the Institut Pasteur, with the blessing of Emile Roux (1853-1933) and

Albert Calmette, and under the supervision of Alexandre Besredka (1870-1940),

and studied there the reaction of fixation applied to the diagnostic of

certain microbiological or parasitological diseases common to men and animals

(Urbain 1927 & 1938a). This made up the material for a second PhD

dissertation, which earned him the respect of the Académie de Médecine, and

demonstrated his ability to produce research that yielded insights both for

human and veterinary medicine. Urbain’s interest in zoonosis, and especially

tuberculosis, would be a longstanding one, as we will see later.

Fig. 6. Urbain in front of a microscope at the Parc zoologique de

Vincennes. Illustration from the popular magazine Les Amis des bêtes (Méry,

1954, p. 21)

Upon his return to the LMRV in 1927, Urbain was named director, a

position he held for four years and gave up when he was appointed as sub-

director of the Ménagerie, at Bourdelle’s request. This nomination

undoubtedly had to do with esprit de corps, as Bourdelle had made it clear in

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the job posting that he was looking for a veterinary doctor.23 Among the four

selected applicants, he chose Urbain because of his high number of

publications (136), the wide range of research topics he had addressed and his

qualities as an administrator.24 It is also clear that for Urbain, who, so far,

was a simple officer, and whose career did not continue at the Pasteur

Institute, a position at such a prestigious institution as the Museum was a

golden opportunity. In June 1954, on the occasion of his scientific jubilee,

he would remind his audience how grateful and thankful he was to Bourdelle for

his appointment first at the Ménagerie then as head of the Vincennes zoo

(Urbain 1954, 59-60).

The Vincennes zoo opened its gates with great pomp in June 1934, as

attested by the stunning pictures of animals featured on the front pages on

many popular French newspapers that day.

Fig. 7. Vincennes zoo’s opening day: the presidential procession in front of the white

polar bears. Front cover of the French popular magazine L’Illustration, 9 June 1934.

Stretching on fifteen hectares on the edge of the Bois de Vincennes, it

borrowed much from Hagenbeck’s ideas.25 As the architect Charles Letrosne

(1868-1939) spelled out, the zoo was “a kind of theatrical scenery in

cement, a stylized wild landscape, sometimes soothing, sometimes severe and

impressive, but always openly artificial” (Lestone cited by Baratay &

23 “Déclaration de vacance d’emploi”, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national

d’histoire naturelle, Box 43, Folder “Personnel 1929-1932”, Sub-folder “Emploi des sous

directeurs de laboratoires à la chaire de mammologie et d’ornithologie”. 24 “Rapport sur les candidatures à un emploi des sous-directeurs de la chaire de

mammologie et d’ornithologie, attaché à la ménagerie des mammifères et des oiseaux en qualité

de vétérinaire”, pièce 158, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle,

Box 43, Folder “Personnel 1929-1932”, Sub-folder “Emploi des sous directeurs de

laboratoires à la chaire de mammologie et d’ornithologie.” 25 For an illuminating in-depth historical study of Hagenbeck’s work and personality see

Rothfels (2002).

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35

Hardouin-Fugier 2003, 251). This display had been chosen jointly by Letrosne,

Bourdelle and Urbain after touring the most important European zoos, among

which Stellingen, the one that had impressed Urbain the most (Rousseau 1988,

24). While most members of the MNHN board of professors agreed on embracing

the display of animals in semi-liberty, they were not completely enthusiastic

about it. For instance, Bourdelle thought it absurd that the animals were

placed in the same rocky scenery regardless of whether they came from the

steppe, the jungle or the forest – he called this the “mystique of the

rocks” (Bourdelle 1949, 17). Bourdelle’s plea for more geological

authenticity reflected his larger concern for an ecological display of

animals, as well as his commitment to animal conservation, a field in which he

had became invested in the late 1920s. At that time, he was entrusted with the

management of natural reserves in Madagascar, and with the development of

colonial zoological parks, not only to provide animals for metropolitan parks,

but also to protect endangered species (Chavot 1996, 178).

More importantly as far as this paper is concerned, the possibility

offered by the Vincennes zoological park to observe captive animals in a state

of semi-liberty justified the creation of a chair (within the MNHN) initially

called “chair for the biology of wild animals” and and then renamed “chair

for the ethology of wild animals”.26 The chair was rather broad in scope: its

subjects of study ranged from biology and psychology to animal pathology and

diseases, especially those communicable to humans (i.e. zoonotic diseases).27

Importantly, it was decided from the onset that the chair holder would be

26 Letter dated 25 November 1932, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national d’histoire

naturelle, Shelfmark PZ1, Folder “Création 1931-1938”, Sub-folder “Projet de création

1931-1933”. 27 Letter from P. Lemoine to the President of the city council of Paris, 2 December

1932, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Shelfmark PZ1, Folder

“Création 1931-1938”, Sub-folder “Projet de création 1931-1933”.

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36

appointed as director of the [Vincennes] zoological park.”28 This meant that

the chair did not cost anything to the City of Paris, which was the main

funding body of the Vincennes zoo.29 In July 1933, almost one year before the

opening of Vincennes, the City of Paris gave the green light for the creation

of this chair. It can be argued that this chair was tailored for the purpose

of making sure that someone from the Museum would keep an eye on the running

of the Vincennes zoo. However, since this chair was intended for the sole

person of the director of the Vincennes zoo, it definitely furthered the

career of that person: Achille Urbain.

As Bourdelle’s protégé, Urbain was not only entrusted with the

directorship of the Vincennes Zoo but also expected to teach and research on

the ethology of animals. As he declared in his 1934 inaugural lecture, the

chair for ethology should be dedicated to “the study of the behaviors of wild

animals, most specifically their reciprocal influence, their reaction to their

environmental conditions, their psychology, their parasitology and their

infectious diseases” (Urbain 1935, 297). In line with the aforementioned

administrative demands, Urbain reckoned that “in modern zoological parks,

[psychological observations] may be conducted more easily than in the old

menageries, where the animals are concealed behind bars and hindered in their

movements by the narrowness of the cages” (Urbain 1940a, 9-10). Urbain

considered the moated display of the Vincennes zoo as a guarantee of the

ability to observe natural animal behavior (Baratay & Hardouin-Fugier 2003,

252). It was also seen as the best way to improve animal welfare and

reproductive capacities, which were important to Urbain as a veterinarian. The

28 “Rapport sur les travaux scientifiques de Monsieur Achille Urbain”, dated 1933, in

the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Shelfmark PZ1, Folder

“Création 1931-1938”, Sub-folder “Projet de création 1931-1933”. 29 Letter to the President of the Commission of the Finances for the Paris Chamber of Deputies, 17 October 1933, in the Ménagerie Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle,

Shelfmark PZ1, Folder “Création 1931-1938”, Sub-folder “Projet de création 1931-1933”.

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37

diet of the captive animals and their diseases were also major concerns for

him, as he emphasized in his 1934 lecture: “But we shall not forget, either,

that the residents of the Parc zoologique du Bois de Vincennes, once dead, are

prime research material. We will have to look at their corpses to evidence the

causes of their diseases and chiefly, identify and study the microbes or

parasites responsible for the disease. We will then endeavor to fight them

using vaccination or vaccinotherapy devised by the [Vincennes Zoological]

Park’s research laboratories” (Urbain 1935, 298).

Though Urbain argued that animal psychology should “play a foremost

role in a Chair for ethology” (Urbain 1935, 302), the seven lectures he gave

as chair holder were rather disappointing in ethological terms, as they mostly

rehashed Loisel’s opus on the history of menageries from the Antiquity up to

the present day. However, Urbain’s 1934 lecture gave some insights on his

ethological research programme. Like Perrier when he supported Hachet-

Souplet’s project, Urbain cited Cuvier as a forerunner of his own project on

the question of the demarcation between instinct and intelligence in animals.

A convinced Darwinian, he announced that “numerous experiments on the animal

psyche are currently being conducted; their findings will be presented at a

later date” (Urbain 1935, 301-302). Yet, with the exception of occasional

detour experiments conducted at the zoo with a jaguar, a puma, a polar bear

and a sea-lion (Urbain 1940a, 154 & 172-174), and the observation of

imprinting behavior (which was not named as such) between a Bordeaux bulldog

and a lion (Urbain 1940a, 147), no advances in animal psychology were made at

Vincennes. Urbain only published a book entitled Psychologie des animaux

sauvages (Psychology of wild animals) (1940), which was more of a synthesis of

early twentieth century research on anthropoid apes than a major breakthrough

in the field of animal psychology. Urbain also co-wrote a short book called

Les singes anthropoïdes (The anthropoid apes) (1946), which was meant for an

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educated public, and dealt with the general physiology, anatomy and psychology

of apes. One chapter devoted to ape intelligence consisted mainly in a review

of studies done on that topic in the early twentieth century, with particular

emphasis on the contributions of Köhler and Yerkes.

4. 2. Exploring infectious diseases in wild animals under the guise of

ethological concerns

The discrepancy between Urbain’s ethological programme and what was

really done at the Vincennes zoo is rather intriguing. Upon closer examination

of Urbain’s activities as holder of the chair for ethology, it appears that

he may have been lured by his past interests and compelled to drop ethological

studies to focus on his veterinary interests. Since Urbain included the study

of animal infectious diseases within ethology, it must have been very tempting

for him to drift toward the part of his ethological programme that dealt with

research on animal microbes and parasites. In a recent study, the historian of

science Thierry Borrel argued that Urbain, as a pure product of the Institut

Pasteur, took the opportunity of holding the chair for ethology to tap into

the “giant reservoir” of animals constituted by both the Ménagerie and the

Vincennes zoo (Borrel 2011, 79). In his in-depth study of Urbain’s

publications, Borrel shows that, in the years 1931-1940, Urbain’s output

moved on from the study of domestic and laboratory animal diseases to wild

animal diseases (Borrel 2011, 81).30 Urbain may have envisioned the Vincennes

zoological park as an extension of the Pasteur Institute, and ethology as an

excuse to conduct microbiological studies on wild animals and experiment

30

Borrel also notes a concurrent shift in Urbain’s animal models, from dogs, rabbits,

cats, mice and horses to wild animals including sea elephants, exotic birds, apes, sea-lions,

ostriches, polar bears and cassowaries. See Borrel (2011), p. 83.

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39

vaccines on them. Indeed, following in the footsteps of his Pastorian mentor

Calmette who had conducted a vaccination campaign at the Ménagerie in 1926,

Urbain tested BCG vaccines on eighty chimpanzees and monkeys (including

mangabeys, guenons, hamadryas and maggots), a dozen big cats, one roe deer,

two antelopes and one potamochoerus of the Vincennes zoo. This proved to be a

success: between the years 1931 and 1933, autopsies showed that none of them

died from tuberculosis (Urbain & Bullier 1935, 315-316).

Lastly, Borrel also reports unambiguous evidence of Urbain’s discomfort

with the chair for ethology, in that in 1941, he asked for the creation of a

“Chair for physiology and comparative pathology” to which he would apply. To

back up his demand, he argued that “[…] with such extensive collections of

living mammals and birds, both at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes and at

the zoological park [of Vincennes] the Museum is the greatest center for

animal pathology in France; there, the distinctive diseases of wild animals,

both microbial and parasitological are frequently observed and the subject of

numerous and important studies [thus they] should be addressed in a

comparative pathology curriculum” (Urbain cited by Borrel 2011, 78).31

Urbain’s attempt to officially attach himself to a chair that fit his

research interests reflected both his dissatisfaction with the chair for

ethology and his intellectual honesty. However, his request went unheeded:

Urbain would only leave the chair for ethology in 1946 and pass it on to

Jacques Nouvel, who held it until 1979. At that time it was renamed “Chair

for ethology and animal conservation”.

While Urbain was obviously more interested in dissecting animals than in

observing them alive, his relationship to ethology did change over the course

of his career. In 1935, he set off to Africa (Chad & Cameroon) to study

31 These lines are taken from a letter that was personally handed to Thierry Borrel by a

relative of Achille Urbain, his granddaughter Véronique Guérin.

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animals in the wild and capture exotic animals for the Vincennes zoo. His

African adventures were narrated by a journalist who covered the expedition

and later told the whole story in the book De la brousse au zoo (From the bush

to the zoo) (1938). At that time, Urbain seemed to have adopted a more refined

conception of ethology as “the study of animal behavior in the milieu where

nature has placed it, in its adaptations, in its relationships with other

beings, in its geographical distribution, etc.” (Urbain 1938b, 9). Virtually

endorsing the epistemological stance of a field naturalist, Urbain claimed

that “in order to know the life of wild animals in their natural habitat, it

is necessary to go and observe them where they live” (Urbain 1938b, 9). Yet,

while Urbain recommended his book to any reader interested in the habits of

both Africans and animals, the book hardly contained anything of interest on

these habits. In the wild, Urbain apparently indulged his interest in the

capture of wild animals, like the young elephant Micheline (a future mascot of

the Vincennes zoo), instead of conducting careful studies of the habits of

monkeys as he planned to do (Boyer 1936, 216-217). Again heeding the call of

the wild, Urbain organized two other expedition, the first one to Indochina in

1937 and the second one to Cameroon and French Congo in 1939. This time, he

attached his name to the discovery of a new species of an Asian bovid, the

Kou-Prey (or grey bull), captured in North Cambodia in 1936 and then shipped

to the Vincennes zoo (Urbain 1938c). Under the cover of ethological studies,

it seemed that Urbain was more concerned with animal conservation (and the

supply of animals for the zoo) than with the study of their habits, let alone

of their psychology (with the exception of a publication on the habitat and

habits of the gorilla, see Urbain 1940b).

While Urbain enjoyed scientific recognition during his professional

career (a scientific jubilee was organized one year before his retirement), a

lone voice spoke out against his appointment as director of the Vincennes zoo

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and professor of ethology: that of animal tamer and animal popularizer Henry

Thétard (1884-1968), who was not unknown to Bourdelle and Urbain.

4. 3. Competing for the creation of a modern Parisian zoo

In March 1931, Thétard, who had served in the army in 1905 in Morocco

under the orders of the Maréchal Lyautey (1854-1934) and gained his esteem,

was named director of the zoological park of the 1931 Paris Colonial

Exhibition, of which Lyautey was the Chief Administrator. Lyautey appreciated

Thétard’s talents as an animal tamer and popularizer of animal life, and when

Thétard suggested the firm Hagenbeck as co-organizer of the Colonial

zoological park, he agreed, although the very idea that Hagenbeck was German

had initially dampened him (Thétard 1947, 9-10). With its five million

visitors, the Colonial zoo largely contributed to the success of the Colonial

Exhibition, which itself attracted thirty-three million visitors (Chavot 1995,

171-172). The zoological park was such a hit that it remained open to the

public for a few weeks after the Colonial Exhibition had closed. Thétard was

overjoyed: “the visitors of the Colonial Exhibition have shown by their

eagerness how much the presentation of this fauna in semi-liberty enchanted

them. It is a fact that, compared to this one, old-style zoological gardens

seem to be grim jails” – an allusion to the Parisian Ménagerie. Thétard was

convinced that “the Colonial Exhibition park is only the embryo of the great

zoological garden that Paris must possess” (Thétard 1931, 201).

The idea of turning the Colonial zoo into a permanent and “modern”

Parisian zoo made its way in Thétard’s mind. For that purpose, he founded the

Society of the Colonial Zoological Park and even convinced Heinrich Hagenbeck,

one of Carl’s sons, to be a member of the board. However, Thétard’s project

never came to fruition. The architectural services of the prefecture of Paris,

to which Thétard had turned to assess the financial feasibility of his

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project, deemed it financially flawed (Chavot 1996, 173). Beyond this money

issue, Thétard was intimately convinced that the most active resistance came

from the people of the Museum who, as the thought, feared that the public

would turn away from the Ménagerie (Thétard cited by Rousseau 1988, 21).

Indeed, when Thétard approached Bourdelle for a potential association for the

perpetuation of the Colonial zoo, the latter made it clear that he would go

for it only under the condition that the Museum would be “the unique leader”

(Thétard 1947, 156).32

This radical stance echoed a position Bourdelle had already adopted

when, in late December 1930, in an answer to the organizers of the Colonial

Exhibition, he had not only expressed his disapproval about not having been

consulted beforehand, but also bluntly stated that “no partial support shall

be granted to the International Colonial Exhibition outside of the framework

of a global collaboration for which the Museum would have been officially

commissioned […]” (Bourdelle 1930 cited by Laissus & Petter 1993, 182).

Interviewed in the press at the same time, Bourdelle used a scientific

rationale to justify the Museum’s refusal to get involved in Thétard’s

project. According to him, the Ménagerie was a place of science, where famous

naturalists like Cuvier, Saint-Hilaire, or Milne Edwards had made numerous

discoveries, while in contrast, the zoological park of the Colonial Exhibition

was just a place of entertainment (Lemoine 1931, 2) – a somewhat debatable

assertion that he would later himself contradict.

At the time Thétard was striving to turn the Coloniale zoological park

into a modern zoo, the MNHN had decided to extend the Ménagerie on the eight

hectares that it owned near the Bois de Vincennes, in a move that competed

32 Incidentally, during this meeting, which took place in the alleys of the Jardin des Plantes, Thétard happened to cross Urbain’s path. Bourdelle introduced the future Director of

the Vincennes zoo as the new veterinarian of the Ménagerie.

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with Thétard’s project. The success of the Colonial zoological park modeled

on Hagenbeck’s style certainly reminded Bourdelle of his unsuccessful 1929

partnership with the German firm; the fact that the Museum was sidelined for

this project, for which the reins were fully handed over to Thétard, also

distressed him. Understandably, this time, Bourdelle did not want to miss the

opportunity of attaching his name (and the Museum’s) to the creation of a

modern zoo in Paris. As Paul Lemoine, director of the Museum, would later

state: “the creation of the Zoo [i.e., the Vincennes Zoo] made the Museum

grow; it gave it some publicity and made it popular again. Think of what the

Museum would be now if the creation of the Zoo had occurred without it, and

how much its prestige would be diminished” (Lemoine 1934, 299).

Beyond personal rivalries and matters of institutional prestige, there

is no doubt that Museum was financially stronger than Thétard’s Society: it

already had fifteen million francs from the Parliament, and could also use

eight hectares of property as a bargaining chip with the City of Paris in

order to secure a more convenient location for the future zoological park.33

Most striking is how Bourdelle changed his tune when the question of the

creation of a modern Parisian zoo arose – he put forward scientific rationales

to justify the Museum’s monopoly. Having dismissed the Colonial zoo as purely

recreational, Bourdelle was now arguing that the future zoo (i.e. the

Vincennes zoological park) and the Ménagerie should have complementary

functions. In his words: “the vivarium for animals […] artificially kept in

captivity, will contrast, with no overlap, with the new ‘Parc zoologique de

Vincennes’, chiefly meant to accommodate groups of large animals in liberty

33 The Museum could also rely on several years’ worth of savings; it was able to buy the

animals lent by the Hagenbeck firm to the Colonial Exhibition zoo for one million francs.

Finally, it benefited of a 2 million donation of an artist, Monsieur Lhoste, who before dying,

had asked her mother to donate his fortune to create a big cats house which would be

accessible to artists. See Lemoine (1934), p. 5.

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or semi-liberty in conditions that are as close to nature as possible”.34

Lemoine supported Bourdelle’s argument, claiming that “the two

establishments do not have the same purpose, nor do they meet the same

needs”. He elaborated: “in the zoo, one can see animals presented in groups

and in liberty; but such facilities can only be made for a few select species,

those whose existence nobody can ignore, those who haunt our thoughts,

elephants, giraffes, lions, etc. Yet, our curiosity should not be dulled by

the sight of such animals; it must go further. The public, as they learn more

and more, want to know even more; they know there are rarer animals – those

are in the Jardin des Plantes” (Lemoine 1934, 300). Likewise, Bourdelle

agreed that the Ménagerie was “a vast vivarium where all the necessary and

best-suited material arrangements [would] allow for the conservation and the

biological study of all the animals, particularly delicate and rare

species”.35 In addition to this educational function, Bourdelle considered

that “the living collections [of the Ménagerie], a natural extension of the

dead collections of the [Museum] Galleries, [were] indispensable to the five

zoology chairs of the Museum, because of both the observations they enable[d]

on living bodies and the immeasurable supply of materials for study they

subsequently provide[d]”.36

In January 1932, the third committee of the Council of Paris met to

decide between Thétard’s project for the future of the Colonial zoological

park and the Museum’s. While Thétard was described as an “experienced and

34 “Etude de Mr Bourdelle, Professeur au Muséum, Directeur de la Ménagerie sur le

Programme des Travaux qui seraient à exécuter dans la Ménagerie du Muséum National d’Histoire

Naturelle, en vue d’une Restauration Complète, 22 octobre 1932, p. 57, in the Ménagerie

Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Box 43, Folder “Projet d’aménagement de la

Ménagerie 1928-1933”. 35 Ibid.

36 “La Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes, 24 novembre 1931”, p. 42, in the Ménagerie

Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Box 43, Folder “E. Bourdelle. Notes sur la

ménagerie 1930-1932”.

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conscientious technician who, in a very small space (barely 2.5 hectares, [the

dimensions of the Colonial Exhibition zoo]) had endowed the Exhibition with

one of its main attractions and had for the first time given the French public

a modern presentation of the exotic fauna”,37 the lease of the Colonial zoo

was nevertheless granted to the Society of the Friends of the Museum.

Thétard’s project was only turned down on 7 February 1932. The financial

power and the institutional prestige of the Museum, along with the scientific

arguments put forward by Lemoine and Bourdelle, undoubtedly contributed to the

success of the Museum project. Thétard had been warned that his idea of

putting the Colonial zoo in the hands of private societies might be considered

by the Museum as an “act of hostility” (Thétard 1947, 159). He was also

aware that his modest status as a journalist, his lack of academic background

and ambition to become part of the Museum elite did not make him a serious

contender. Surprisingly, Thétard did not appear to feel too resentful towards

the Museum: he provided Lemoine with his report on the Colonial zoo, which the

latter described as “highly informative”, owing to the fact that Thétard

“indicated everything in a genuinely scientific approach”.38 Lemoine also

thanked Thétard for “ensuring the transmission of the Exhibition Zoo to the

Natural History Museum”39 and even regretted the impossibility of further

collaboration with him, the main cause being, in his eyes, the fact that the

Museum was left aside for the Colonial Exhibition zoological park.40

Implicitly, Lemoine was putting the blame on Thétard’s shoulders and on his

stubbornness about working alone. Eventually, Thétard was sidelined from the

37

M. Paul Fleurot “Rapport du Conseil Municipal de Paris1931, p. 4, in the Ménagerie

Archives, Museum national d’histoire naturelle, Shelfmark PZ1, Folder “Création 1931-1938”,

Sub-Folder “Projet de création 1931-1933”. 38

Letter from P. Lemoine to H. Thétard, 2 November 1932, in Thétard 1947, 222. 39

Letter from P. Lemoine to H. Thétard, 27 janvier 1932, in Thétard 1947, 221. 40

Letter from P. Lemoine to H. Thétard, 2 November 1932, in Thétard 1947, 222.

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Vincennes zoo. He and his mentor Lyautey, the protagonists of the Colonial

Exhibition, were not even invited to the opening. This was a sign of a power

shift, indicating that the Museum had won. After the Colonial episode, Thétard

returned to his activities as animal tamer and journalist, and made a name

among circus people in 1949 by founding the Club du Cirque, which he directed

until 1955.

4. 4. Henry Thétard and the practice of animal psychology at the zoo

Even if Thétard was dismissed by the Museum, his thoughts on animal

psychology and how it should be practiced in a zoo are worth discussing.

Thétard publicized his views on the study of animal life and animal psychology

in his 1947 book Des hommes et des bêtes (Men and beasts), whose title clearly

alluded to Hagenbeck’s 1909 book Von Tieren und Menschen, and also in several

articles published mostly in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Thétard’s

idiosyncratic conception of animal psychology reflected two main concerns: not

only improving the captive animal’s welfare, but also monitoring its

psychological activity (Thétard 1947, 188). Thétard was close to Urbain on the

first point, and to Hachet-Souplet, whose work he knew well, regarding the

second. As an animal tamer, Thétard, unsurprisingly agreed that “the

discipline of taming [was] the best way for man to come into mental

communication with animals” (Thétard 1948, 524). Inspired by Hachet-Souplet,

who had pointed out the possibility of taming through persuasion, Thétard was

convinced that taming based on increasingly familiar daily contact between men

and animals would make the latter used to seeing human beings both as friends

and superiors, whose suggestions they would accept (Thétard 1947, 190). Like

Hachet-Souplet, he considered “the observation of free animals in nature [to

be] a difficult thing” and ultimately an “insufficient method” (Thétard

1948, 525). This did not mean, however, that he was entirely committed to

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laboratory studies. Although he paid tribute to Yerkes and Köhler’s studies,

he viewed them as too restrictive, in the sense that they valued the

intelligence of a few select animals, but wrongly dismissed many as stupid.

Indeed, in his eyes, “the animal does not respond in a satisfactory manner to

the test that is submitted to it because it does not see a point to it,

because his attention is required elsewhere, especially because the milieu

where it has been placed to solve the problem differs too markedly from its

usual outside environment and because its faculties are troubled” – in other

words, just because an animal failed a test did not mean it was unintelligent

(Thétard 1947, 186). Thétard contrasts the laboratory experiments that

scholars were so keen on with the experiments on associations of ideas

conducted by circus entertainers. Again much like Hachet-Souplet, he did not

hesitate to consider amateur and scholarly knowledge on the same footing,

arguing that circus entertainers could bring their contribution to animal

psychology (Thétard 1947, 186).

Thétard’s emphasis on acquiring knowledge of animal psychology through

an intimate relationship made possible by taming also made him aware of the

value of zookeepers and their knowledge. He argued that they should “not only

be grooms in charge of cleaning the litter or giving the residents their

meals, but also educators with all the moral qualities required by such a

function: patience, understanding, indulgence and also, sometimes, severity

without anger” (Thétard 1947, 190-191). His own experience of running the

Colonial zoo convinced him that one should hire competent keepers (and

therefore pay them well) to get the best of animals. An enthusiastic reader of

Rudolf Riedtmann’s Ein Zoowärter erzählt (Tales of a zookeeper) (1943),41 he

valued the importance of keepers for acquiring knowledge about animal life and

41 Originally written in German, the book was translated into French in 1946 but never

into English.

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habits (Thétard 1955, 331).42 This attitude was most definitely not shared by

the people of the Museum. When Thétard passed on the animals of the Colonial

zoo to them, he blamed them for claiming they would hire unemployed people

(who they could afford to pay very little) to look after the animals (Thétard

1955, 331).

Interestingly, Thétard was also connected with the Swiss biologist Heini

Hediger (1908-1992), who himself was anything but condescending towards tamers

and keepers (Thétard 1955, 331). Hediger, who would become zoo director

successively in Bern, Basel and Zürich, published several studies on animal

biology and psychology. His famous book Wildtiere in Gefangenschaft (1942) is

considered as a major breakthrough in the study of wild animals kept in

captivity. Thétard, who was twenty years his senior, met Hediger in the early

1930s at a circus show in the suburbs of Basel. Thétard later reported that

Hediger had wanted to make his acquaintance after reading his book Les

dompteurs ou la Ménagerie des origines à nos jours (Tamers and the history of

the Menagerie from its origins up to our days) published in 1928. At the time

Hediger was a young student in natural science, with a passion for animal

training and taming; he loved to attend circus shows in order to enrich his

own studies on animal psychology (Thétard 1955, 331). For his part, Thétard,

who must have read Hediger’s opus in its original version (since he already

mentioned it in his 1947 book, while Hediger’s book was translated in French

only in 1953), was deeply impressed by Hediger’s approach of captive animals.

Drawing upon Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt, as well as Konrad

Lorenz’s 1935 article on the bird territory, Hediger adopted an innovative

approach that consisted in applying the principles of ethology to the

improvement of conditions of captivity. He also touched upon the controversial

42

For an examination of the vexed question of the value of the knowledge of zookeepers,

see Hochadel (2011), pp. 195-196.

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issue of the taming of wild animals. At odds with the rather common view that

taming wild animals was noxious to them, Hediger thought that it was for

animals something akin to athletic competition for humans, and accordingly

helpful in making them adjust to captivity. He argued that taming helped to

reconstruct the destroyed Umwelt of a recently caged wild animal, and to

establish a new one, restoring its vital harmony and fitting its new captive

conditions, which gave the animal a new reason for living (Hediger cited by

Thétard 1947, 185). Such statements were of course music to the ears of a

passionate advocate of taming like Thétard, who himself believed that the

boredom that could lead animals in captivity to die could be avoided thanks to

taming, through which the animal is forced to train physically and

psychologically. In a very Hedigerian spirit, Thétard even argued that the

resistance opposed by the animal to its master would be a source of healthy

exercise (Thétard 1947, 185).

Thétard’s strong commitment to Hediger’s ideas made him a good

candidate for introducing the new principles of animal psychology in France,

using the zoo as a medium. It also helped him make a case against the

Vincennes zoo and highlight the inadequacy of its director Urbain to conduct

studies on living animals there. For Thétard, there seemed to be no redeeming

quality whatsoever to the Vincennes zoo. Thétard first blamed Letrosne for

having awkwardly transferred Hagenbeck’s moated display into what he called

“a hideous lunar landscape created by reinforced concrete blocks more or less

camouflaged as rocks” echoing Bourdelle’s criticism of the “mystique of the

rocks” (Thétard 1955, 335)43. He also criticized Letrosne and his advisors,

which included Urbain, for being unaware of Hediger’s major contribution to

animal psychology (Thétard 1947, 181). Laying the blame on Urbain for this

43 The criticism of the use of concrete rocks at the zoological park of Vincennes is recurrent in Thétard’s writings. See also Thétard (1947), p. 152 and (1949), p. 547.

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50

might have been more than a little unfair, considering that Hediger’s first

studies on the psychology of captive animals (in German, which Urbain may have

not been able to read) were published after the creation of the Vincennes

zoological park. Also, while Urbain did seem unaware of Hediger’s work,

Hediger knew about Urbain: two of his papers (on the mortality rates of the

Vincennes zoo animals) were listed among Hediger’s bibliographical references

in his 1942 book.

Finally, in Thétard’s imagined zoo, the ideal director, “either a

biologist or an animal psychologist”, should be able to spend hours observing

animals, getting to know them individually, and taking care of them, alone or

with the help of devoted keepers. In addition to being a “psychiatrist for

animals”, in Thétard’s words, the ideal zoo director should be also a

popularizer of animal life. For instance, Thétard predicted that a book

“relating the tribulations of the history of a clan of hamadryas or a family

of gibbons over the course of several years” would be a “bestseller”

(Thétard 1947, 202). The ideal zoo combined scientific research and public

entertainment of the non-sensationalist kind (Thétard argued for an harmonious

eco-ethological display of animals), which echoed Loisel’s 1907 plan for a

new Ménagerie (Loisel 1907). To make his point about what an ideal zoo

director should be clearer, Thétard described what he should not be. Fully

dedicated to the study of animal life, a zoo director should neither be

teaching (and even less be encumbered by administrative responsibilities), nor

be a “devotee of the scalpel”, spending most of his time in his anatomical

laboratory engrossed in the culture of microbes or viruses (Thétard 1947,

205). Similarly, the zoo should never be used as a place for conducting

experiments or inoculating animals with pathogenic bacillus. There is little

doubt that Urbain, the microbiologist par excellence, who devoted most his

time to the study of animal disease and took advantage of both the Ménagerie

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and the Vincennes zoo to advance his research, was targeted in these

recommendations. Where Urbain approached animals with veterinary concerns

(about food, welfare and health), Thétard was more of a watcher and breeder of

animals as well as a popularizer of animal life, not unlike Konrad Lorenz.

Fig. 8. Thétard’s portrayal with his lioness Dinah. Illustration from

Thétard (1947, p. 2)

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5. Conclusion

Burkhardt stated that “over the course of the nineteenth century, zoos

were founded in a great many major cities of Europe and other countries […]

[and] indeed became important emblems of the power and culture of these

different places. By and large, however, not much serious science was done

there before the twentieth century” (Burkhardt 2007, 693). It seems that the

Parisian zoos (the Ménagerie and later the Vincennes zoological park) were no

exception, at least as animal psychology was concerned. Hachet-Souplet was

allowed to step in sporadically in the Ménagerie to conduct experiments and

observations on animal psychology, but he never could achieve his longstanding

dream of having his “psychological circus” implemented within a zoological

garden. Guillaume and Meyerson fared better, but their stint at the Ménagerie

was also marred by material constraints which forced them to remove crucial

ape psychological experiments from their working programme. Finally, when

animal psychology found an institutional niche in the chair for the ethology

of wild animals, it experienced a false start. The incumbent quickly forgot

about his plans to observe the animal mind and habits in the conditions of

semi-liberty offered by the Vincennes zoo, focusing instead on the study of

dead animals, or using zoo animals as guinea pigs to extend his biomedical

studies on wild subjects.

In this paper, I have tried to evidence factors explaining the tortuous,

if not unsuccessful fate of animal psychology in early twentieth century

Parisian zoos. It appears that tensions between amateurs and professionals

played a role in the matter, as illustrated by the clashes between Hachet-

Souplet and Oustalet and later between Thétard and Bourdelle. In both

instances, these animal lovers and tamers, who saw the zoological garden as

the best place to promote animal psychology, did not find enough support among

academic figures to see their dreams come true. Hachet-Souplet and especially

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Thétard claimed to possess distinctive, intimate knowledge and practical

experience of animals, which was only partly acknowledged by the academics.

For instance, along with major figures of animal psychology such as Köhler and

Yerkes, Urbain cited Hachet-Souplet, giving him a newfound scientific

credibility and to some extent making up for Oustalet’s ostracism.44 Hachet-

Souplet and Thétard would nevertheless never be nearly as legitimate as the

scholars who were introduced into the elite precincts of the National Museum

of Natural History; both were relegated to the margins, particularly in the

circus. Also worth noting is that the condescending attitude of the Museum

people towards tamers – and keepers – contrasted with Hediger’s, who, despite

being a major figure of zoo ethology, expressed his gratitude to his keepers,

like Riedtmann and a certain Meier who provided useful observations for a book

on ape behavior (Thétard 1955, 331); he was also a fervent reader of

Thétard’s books.

In a broader perspective, this story also illustrates the tension

between a laboratory culture epitomized at its best in the microbiological

tradition of the Pasteur Institute and the natural history traditions embodied

by the Museum, hinting at the crucial role of Pastorian science in the inter-

war period and demonstrating its influential political power in the scientific

French scene of the time. It appears that having a connection with the Pasteur

Institute opened the doors to all other Parisian scientific institutions.

Guillaume and Meyerson were introduced at the Ménagerie with the blessing of

Albert Calmette; needless to say, Urbain’s experience at the Pasteur

Institute did not exactly harm his chances of getting a job at the Ménagerie.

In both cases, it seems that the protagonists were more concerned with career

advancements than with turning animal psychology into a real discipline.

44 Similarly, in 1934, Bourdelle allowed Hachet-Souplet to carry on his research on the ape mind at the Ménagerie. See Hachet-Souplet (1934).

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Guillaume and Meyerson arguably used the Ménagerie apes as vehicles to give

psychology a scientific footing and thereby facilitate its academic

recognition as a field in its own, where animals had no place. Although

Guillaume developed a real interest in animal psychology, as attested by his

publications,45 his career trajectory reveals that his ape work was conducted

at a sensitive juncture, between his stint as a high school teacher in

philosophy and his 1932 appointment as associate professor at the Sorbonne,

which tends to suggest that ape psychology was indeed more of a means for

career advancement than an end in itself. Urbain, for his part, used the chair

for ethology as a springboard to carry on his microbiological research, in the

pure Pastorian tradition, and to progress in his career as an administrator

(he was director of the Museum between 1942 and 1949 and then Emeritus

director until 1955). It seems rather obvious that Urbain deliberately missed

the opportunity to further develop Frédéric Cuvier’s initial achievements

within the context of the “chair for comparative physiology”. In the mid

twentieth century, animal behavior studies remained somewhat of a ghost

discipline in Parisian zoos, although a separate “chair for ethology” had

been created.

The development of animal psychology in the Parisian zoos was ultimately

highly dependent on institutional contingencies and epistemological tensions

between amateur and academic knowledge, between knowledge acquired in the

field and in the restricted conditions of the zoo, but also between individual

research agendas, and personal career advancements. As such the situation of

French zoos stands in sharp contrast with that in other European countries,

where ethology and animal psychology were blossoming. In the early twentieth

century, two zoo directors, Oscar Heinroth in Berlin and A. J. F. Portielje in

45

See Guillaume (1940) & (1941).

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Amsterdam, would play important roles in promoting ethological studies

(Burkhardt 2001, 97); additionally, Hediger largely contributed to make the

Zürich zoo a place for animal behavior research in the mid-twentieth century,

demonstrating the possibility of a fruitful alliance between amateurs and

academics for the understanding of the animal mind and behavior.

Acknowledgements

References

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1

Highlights:

1. an important contribution to the history of early-XXth century zoos

2. tensions between amateurs and professionals in the emergence of animal

psychology

3. difficulties of studying animal intelligence in a multipurpose hybrid

environment

4. debates over the respective merits of research in the zoo or in the wild

*Highlights (for review)

1

Fig. 1. Hachet-Souplet’s portrayal (in late XIXth century). Illustration

from Hachet-Souplet (1897, p. 2)

Figure

1

Fig. 2. Hachet-Souplet’s tamed monkeys. Illustrations from Hachet-

Souplet (1896, p. 314)

Figure

1

Fig. 3. Guillaume and Meyerson with a monkey. Illustration from internet

(http://bibliotheque.u-pec.fr/_medias/photo/img_1199703028749.jpg) accessed

07/10/2013

Figure

1

Fig. 4. Variations of the detour test, differing in terms of the

starting angle with is 90° in a), 125° in b), and 180° in c). Illustration

from Boakes (1984, p. 189)

Figure

1

Fig. 5. Inside view of the temporary ape house where Guillaume and

Meyerson conducted their ape studies. Illustration from the scientific popular

magazine La Nature (Feuillée-Billot, 1929, p. 297).

Figure

1

Fig. 6. Urbain in front of a microscope at the Parc zoologique de

Vincennes. Illustration from the popular magazine Les Amis des bêtes (Méry,

1954, p. 21)

Figure

1

Fig. 7. Vincennes zoo’s opening day: the presidential procession in

front of the white polar bears. Front cover of the popular magazine

L’Illustration, 9 June 1934.

Figure

1

Fig. 8. Thétard’s portrayal with his lioness Dinah. Illustration from

Thétard (1947, p. 2)

Figure