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
Palace of Versailles more classical pavilion designed by Mansart, with a terrace and walls faced with different colored slabs of marble. After the Revolution, the Trianon served as a residence for both Napoleon I and later for King Louis-Philippe when they visited Versailles. It is decorated today largely as it was under Napoleon and Louis-Philippe. The Petit Trianon was created between 1763 and 1768 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel for Louis XV. The square shaped building, with each facade different, was a prototype of Neoclassicism in France. The most ornate facade, with Corinthian columns, faced the French landscape garden. Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon