Upon the whole this collection is very insignificant and compares very badly with Pidcocks Exhibition, over Exeter Change. The lions and one of the elephants are dead. Most of these animals were transported to Paris from the Royal Menagerie at Versailles, but in order to increase the effect of the scene, it was decreed by Governmental order that those wild animals which were exhibited about the country at fairs, should be put into a state of requisition in order to add to the savage population of the garden. Cossal (the Parisian Pidcock), who had made a valuable collection of rare animals which he sent about the country to public shows, was robbed of all of them and to indemnify him in some manner for his ruin, made Warden of the National Menagerie at a small salary. He was not the only sufferer in conformity with the political principle of the Revolution, that individual property must ever be ready as a sacrifice to the Nation, every man who led about a dancing bear in the street or a monkey, playing his tricks on the back of a dromedary, was obliged to lay aside his flageolet and tambourine and conduct his Bruin, his camel or his ape, to replenish the national stock. The two elephants were _borrowed_ from the Stadtholder, they came originally from Ceylon, whence they were sent to Holland, where they had remained fourteen years. The mode of transporting them was the subject of very grave discussion among the philosophers of Paris. It was first proposed to march them from Holland to Paris and to throw temporary wooden bridges over the canals, to facilitate their passage but on account of their aversion to water this sapient scheme was abandoned. A caravan was now constructed mounted on wheels, in order to drag the ponderous brutes along and in order to accustom them to their movable dwelling, they were never to be fed except in their travelling carriages. On the day of their departure, the elephants were driven into their conveyance and the keeper bolted the door. The moment the procession started, the male elephant gave the door a gentle tap with his head, which instantly shivered the panel to pieces, and the continent of organised matter marched out with the greatest ease. By separating the male and the female they at length succeeded in conveying these vast creatures to Paris. Thompson, the keeper, assured me that when the elephants met again in the garden, after their long journey, the air resounded with their cries and their eyes were bedewed with tears. The French had never seen an elephant in their country since the middle of the seventeenth century, when, in 1668, the King of Portugal presented one (which only survived thirteen years) to Louis XIV. [Sidenote: THE AMPHITHEATRE]