ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1826, the giraffe offered to Charles X by the Egyptian Pasha arrived in Marseilles, where it spent the winter acclimatizing itself to the population. During the spring of 1827, the giraffe toured many cities, including Aix and Lyon, on its way to Paris. The first living specimen ever seen in Europe, this giraffe sparked excitement in France. This chapter, stressing some methodological aspects of an animal approach, aims at restoring balance in the study of the relationships between man and animals through the analysis of the conditions of an encounter between two worlds: the wilderness and Western world. Without overlooking the human perspective of this confrontation, it focuses on its animal perspective: highlighting individuals’ fears, misunderstandings, passions, and mutual adjustments, it endeavours to show the interest in examining animals in order to reconstruct the encounter.
