Rhinoceros of Versailles Rhinoceros of Versailles The Rhinoceros of Versailles was a living Indian rhinoceros which was kept in the Palace of Versailles menagerie from 1770 until 1793. The live rhinoceros was a gift from M. Chevalier, French governor of Chandernagor, to Louis XV. It left Calcutta, West Bengal on 22 December 1769, and arrived six months later in the seaport of Lorient, in Brittany on 11 June 1770. From there it was transported to the royal Ménagerie which had been built in response to increasing interest in zoology and Louis XIV's passion for the exotic, in 1664. The rhino was installed in
History of the Palace of Versailles XIV's; in a word, it is having given to this magnificent book that is called French history this magnificent binding that is called Versailles" (Victor Hugo). Later, Balzac characterised the effort in less laudatory terms as the “hospital of the glories of France”. The southern wing (Aile du Midi) was given over to the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which necessitated the demolition of most of the apartments of the Princes of the Blood who lived in this part of the palace during the Ancien Régime. The Galerie des Batailles was modeled on the Grande Galerie of the Louvre