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 but was never finished due to the king's death. Significant among Louis XV's contributions to Versailles were the "petit appartement du roi"; the "appartements de Mesdames", the "appartement du dauphin", the "appartement de la dauphine" on the ground floor; and the two private apartments of Louis XV – "petit appartement du roi au deuxième étage" (later transformed into the "appartement de Madame du Barry") and the "petit appartement du roi au troisième étage" – on the second and third floors of the palace. The crowning achievements of Louis XV's reign were the construction of the Opéra and the Petit Trianon.