Chameleons between Science and Literature: Observation,Writing,and the Early Parisian Academy of Sciences in the Literary Field

For general interpretations of early modern scientific academies, see Dear Peter , Revolutionizing the sciences: European knowledge and its ambitions, 1500–1700, 2nd edn (Basingstoke and New York, 2009), 99–126, and the two complementary essays by Mario Biagioli, “Scientific revolution, social bricolage and etiquette”, in Porter Roy Teich Mkuláš (eds), The scientific revolution in national context (Cambridge, 1992), 11–54; and “Etiquette, interdependence, and sociability in seventeenth-century science”, Critical inquiry, xxii (1996), 1996–238. For an astute analysis of the assumptions of many of the previous explanations of the rise of the scientific academies, see Lux David S. , “Societies, circles, academies, and organizations: A historiographic essay on 17th-century science”, in Barker Peter Ariew Roger (eds), Revolution and continuity: Essays in the history and philosophy of early modern science (Washington, D.C., 1991), 23–43.

“On a quitté une Physique stérile, et qui depuis plusieurs siècles en étoit toujours au même point; le règne des mots et des termes est passé, on veut des choses.” Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, “Préface de l'histoire de l'Académie des sciences depuis 1666 jusqu'en 1699”, in Niderst Alain (ed.), Œuvres complètes (9 vols, Paris, 1989), vii, 337. The term “physique” as used by Fontenelle can apply either to knowledge about nature in general, or to non-mathematical sciences, focused on the discovery of causes.

For a recent example and further references, see Klein Ursula , “The laboratory challenge: Some revisions of the standard view of early modern experimentation”, Isis, xcix (2008), 769–82.

“Ce n'est guère que de ce siècle-ci que l'on peut compter le renouvellement des Mathématiques et de la Physique. M. Descartes et d'autres grands Hommes y ont travaillé avec tant de succès, que dans ce genre de Litterature tout a changé de face.” Fontenelle, Œuvres (ref. 2), vii, 337. For Fontenelle, the word “literature” could still encompass all forms of in-depth knowledge and erudition, though as Alain Viala has argued, the narrower meaning of “literature” and a sense of the preeminence of belles lettres in comparison to older forms of erudition had already begun its ascent. See Viala Alain , Naissance de l'écrivain: Sociologie de la littérature à l'âge classique (Paris, 1985), 280–90. On the more erudite and ‘scholarly’ humanist approaches, whose connection to early modern science has been amply explored, see, for example, Blair Ann , The theater of nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance science (Princeton, 1997).

On the problem of the relation of philosophers working outside of the university to the literary world, I am much indebted to Ribard Dinah , Raconter, vivre, penser: Histoire(s) de philosophes, 1650–1766 (Paris, 2003). For an example of the use of the world of letters in scientific quarrels in a slightly later period, see Terrall Mary , The man who flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the sciences in the Enlightenment (Chicago, 2002). Indeed, such connections have been more visible to Enlightenment scholars, and this article makes an argument for their much earlier importance. For examples, see Ribard Dinah , “Philosophe ou écrivain? Problèmes de délimitation entre histoire littéraire et histoire de la philosophie en France, 1650–1850”, Annales: Histoire, sciences sociales, lv (2000), 2000–88; Shank J. B. , The Newton wars and the beginning of the French Enlightenment (Chicago, 2008); Schwegman Jeffrey , “The ‘System’ as a reading technology: Pedagogy and philosophical criticism in Condillac's Traité des systêmes”, Journal of the history of ideas, lxxi (2010), 2010–409.

For a recent summary of scholarship on the Academy under the Old Regime, see McClellan James E. III , “L'Académie royale des sciences (1666–1793)”, in Jacob Christian (ed.), Espaces et communautés, vol. i of Lieux de savoir (Paris, 2007), 716–36, and the references McClellan provides. For monographic treatments of the Academy in English, see Stroup Alice , A company of scientists: Botany, patronage, and community at the seventeenth-century Parisian royal academy of sciences (Berkeley, 1990); Sturdy D. J. , Science and social status: The members of the académie des sciences 1666–1750 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1995); and the classic Roger Hahn, The anatomy of a scientific institution: The Paris academy of sciences, 1666–1803 (Berkeley, 1971). On secrecy and separation of the Academy of Sciences from other practitioners, see the powerful model suggested in Biagioli, “Etiquette” (ref. 1), esp. p. 225 as well as David S. Lux, Patronage and royal science in seventeenth-century France: The académie de physique in Caen (Ithaca, 1989). If the Academy's “dependence on the prince and the prince's stake in its claims made it difficult to engage with an external audience” (Biagioli, “Etiquette” (ref. 1), 228), we could have hardly expected the Academy to publish its findings, and especially not in forms that call attention to themselves as lavish folio volumes. As this article argues, it is precisely the Academy's dependence on Louis XIV that led to significant investment in a publishing programme. For a different approach to this problem, see Lux David S. Cook Harold J. , “Closed circles or open networks? Communicating at a distance during the Scientific Revolution”, History of science, xxxvi (1998), 1998–211. On the gender aspects of the Academy's publics, the fundamental essay remains Mary Terrall, “Gendered spaces, gendered audiences: Inside and outside the Paris Academy of Sciences”, Configurations, iii (1995), 1995–32. and cf. Shank J. B. , “Neither natural philosophy, nor science, nor literature: Gender, writing, and the pursuit of nature in Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes habités”, in Zinsser Judith P. (ed.), Men, women and the birthing of modern science (DeKalb, 2005), 86–110.

This is not to say that medieval professors enjoyed an unlimited sense of autonomy in a unified institutional context; on the complexities of the medieval situation and the tensions between “professionalization” and “de-professionalization” it engendered, see de Libera Alain , Penser au moyen âge (Paris, 1991) and Raison et foi: Archéologie d'une crise d'Albert le Grand à Jean-Paul II (Paris, 2003). In general, on the changes in natural philosophy during the early modern period, see Blair Ann , “Natural philosophy”, in Park Katharine Daston Lorraine (eds), Early modern science, vol. iii of The Cambridge history of science (Cambridge, 2006), 365–406. On university and college professors in the period, see Brockliss L. W. B. , French higher education in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: A cultural history (Oxford, 1987), 37–51. On the importance of the pedagogical context, even for innovative natural philosophy, see Lüthy C. H. “Thoughts and circumstances of Sébastien Basson: Analysis, micro-history, questions”, Early science and medicine, ii (1997), 1997–73.

See Harth Erica , Cartesian women: Versions and subversions of rational discourse in the Old Regime (Ithaca, 1992), 98–106; Sutton Geoffrey , Science for a polite society: Gender, culture, and the demonstration of Enlightenment (Boulder, 1995), 123–30. The position presented here is closer to the one articulated by literary scholars, who have focused on Scudéry's naturalistic interests, though without discussing the implications of this episode for our understanding of the Academy of Sciences; see Aronson Nicole , “‘Que diable allait-il faire dans cette gallère!’ Mlle de Scudéry et les animaux”, in Niderst Alain (ed.), Les trois Scudéry (Paris, 1993), 523–32 and Grande Nathalie , “Une vedette des salons: Le caméléon”, in Mazouer Charles (ed.), L'animal au XVII^e siècle (Tübingen, 2003), 89–102. Anita Guerrini has been studying in greater depth and breadth the natural history projects of the Academy; see her, “Duverney's skeletons”, Isis, xciv (2003), 2003–603; ” The ‘virtual menagerie’: ” The Histoire des animaux project”, Configurations, xiv (2006), 2006–41; and ” The king's animals and the king's books: ” The illustrations for the Paris academy's Histoire des animaux”, Annals of science, lxvii (2010), 2010–404.

The bibliography on the relations between science and literature, conceived in terms of rhetoric or shared concepts, is significant. For starting points, see Hallyn Fernand , The poetic structure of the world: Copernicus and Kepler (New York, 1990); Dear Peter (ed.), The literary structure of scientific argument: Historical studies (Philadelphia, 1991); Moss Ann , Printed commonplace-books and the structuring of Renaissance thought (Oxford, 1996), and for seventeenth-century France, the works by Frédérique Aït-Touati, most recently, “La mesure du ciel: La correspondance de Chapelain et Huygens”, Études fran&çaises, xlv (2009), 2009–97; “Penser le ciel à l'âge classique: Fiction, hypothèse et astronomie de Kepler à Huygens”, Annales: Histoire, sciences sociales, lxv (2010), 2010–44; and Contes de la Lune: Essai sur la fiction et la science modernes (Paris, 2011).

This was the context for which Pierre Bourdieu developed the concept. See (among many possible references) Bourdieu Pierre , “Le champ littéraire”, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, lxxxix (1991), 3–46 and The rules of art: Genesis and structure of the literary field (Stanford, 1996), esp. ch. 3, ” The market for symbolic goods”. For a model discussion of the limits as well as the potential of the concept, see Lahire Bernard , “Champ, hors-champ, contrechamp”, in Lahire Bernard (ed.), Le travail sociologique de Pierre Bourdieu: Dettes et critiques (Paris, 1999), 23–57.

See Viala , Naissance (ref. 4) and the same author's later formulation in ” The theory of the literary field and the situation of the first modernity”, Paragraph, xxix (2006), 80–93. The model has led to much discussion; for the vexing questions of autonomy and the relations between patronage and “mecenat”, I rely for my argument regarding the “de-professionalization” of the Academy on Christian Jouhaud, “Histoire et histoire littéraire: Naissance de l'écrivain”, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, xliii (1988), 1988–66; Les pouvoirs de la littérature: Histoire d'un paradoxe (Paris, 2000); Christian Jouhaud and Hélène Merlin, “Mécènes, patrons et clients: Les médiations textuelles comme pratiques clientélaires au XVII^e siècle”, Terrain, xxi (1993), 1993–62. The use of the concept of the literary field allows for the study of a different object in comparison with studies of early modern scientific authorship, on which see the entry points in Domenico Bertoloni Meli, “Authorship and teamwork around the Cimento academy: Mathematics, anatomy, experimental philosophy”, Early science and medicine, vi (2001), 2001–94, and Roger Chartier, “Foucault's chiasmus: Authorship between science and literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”, in Biagioli Mario Galison Peter (eds), Scientific authorship: Credit and intellectual property in science (New York, 2003), 13–31, as well as the articles by Adrian Johns and Mary Terrall in the same volume.

This was a Thursday. Usually, topics related to natural history were treated on Saturdays, as the two other sessions related to the chameleon also demonstrate. The Academy also held Wednesday sessions, devoted to the mathematical sciences.

The origins and early years of the Academy of Sciences is a topic on which much more work is necessary, which would also place it against the wider backdrop of the role of the academies in the intellectual and political world. In addition to the works cited above in ref. 6, see Brown Harcourt , Scientific organizations in seventeenth century France (1620–1680) (Baltimore, 1934); René Taton, Les origines de l'académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1966); Sturdy , Science and social status (ref. 6), 3–79; Mazauric Simone , Fontenelle et l'invention de l'histoire des sciences à l'aube des Lumières (Paris, 2007); Dew Nicholas , Orientalism in Louis XIV's France (Oxford, 2009), 52–61. On the sixteenth-century academic movement, see the classic Frances Yates, The French academies of the sixteenth century (London, 1947). On Colbert's use of the world of scholarship, see Soil Jacob , The information master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert's secret state intelligence system (Ann Arbor, 2009).

On this process, see the contemporary testimony in Perrault Charles , Mémoires de ma vie, ed. by Picon Antoine (Paris, 1993), 136–42.

The first session is described in Archives de l'Académie de sciences, procès-verbaux (hereafter cited as AAS PV), iv, 227r–233v.

The second session is described in AAS PV, iv, 236r–238r.

The third session, including the manuscript version of the description, is in AAS PV, iv, 260r–294v. For the first printed versions, see Description anatomique d'un caméléon, d'un castor, d'un dromadaire, d'un ours et d'une gazelle (Paris, 1669) and the Journal des s&çavans (16 December 1669), 37–42. The review opens with the discussion of the chameleon, and devotes more space to it than to the other animals.

While I do not have the room to discuss this in detail, I see literary sociability as part of the culture of an urban elite that used literary glory as a way to promote personal and familial interests. I follow in this respect Nicolas Schapira, Un professionnel des lettres au XVII^e siècle: Valentin Conrart, une histoire sociale (Seyssel, 2003), esp. ch. 4.

On Scudéry and her circle, see Niderst Alain , Medeleine de Scudéry, Paul Pélisson et leur monde (Paris, 1976) and DeJean Joan , Tender geographies: Women and the origins of the novel in France (New York, 1991), esp. 71–93.

[Madeleine de Scudéry], Nouvelles conversations de morale, dédiées au Roy (2 vols, Paris, 1688), ii, 499–501.

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 508–517.

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 518–519 and passim.

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 529–33.

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 533–8.

These literary works are published in Scudéry, Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 542–627. For a brief discussion and identification of some of the anonymous authors, see Niderst , Scudéry (ref. 19), 499–502.

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 537–8.

On the importance of reading for early modern scienctific projects, see the example of Kepler as discussed by Grafton Anthony , “Humanism and science in Rudolphine Prague”, in Defenders of the text: The traditions of scholarship in an age of science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1991), 178–203 and “Johannes Kepler: The new astronomer reads ancient texts”, in Commerce with the classics: Ancient books and Renaissance readers (Ann Arbor, 1997), 185–224.

On the continuing importance of Pliny's claim that chameleons nourish themselves on air, in spite of Pierre Belon's claim to the contrary, see Le Bihan Olivier , “Bestiaire et imaginaire de l'air, du XVI^e au XVIII^e siècle: Le caméléon et l'oiseau de paradis”, in Brunon Hervé Mosser Monique Rabreau Daniel (eds), Les éléments et les métamorphoses de la nature: Imaginaire et symbolique des arts dans la culture européenne du XVI^e au XVIII^e siècle: Actes du colloque international de l'Opéra de Bordeaux (17–21 septembre 1997) (Bordeaux, 2004), 139–52, p. 142. For Belon's claim, see La nature & diversité des poissons, auec leurs pourtraicts, representez au plus pres du naturel (Paris, 1555), 49–50.

For this idea, see Flandrin Jean-Louis , “From dietetics to gastronomy: The liberation of the gourmet”, in Flandrin Jean-Louis Montanari Massimo (eds), Food: A culinary history (New York, 1999), 418–32, p. 419.

For example, Belon published in French, and Pliny was available in several French translations around the middle of the sixteenth century. The full translation by Antoine du Pinet appeared in 1562 and was reprinted in 1566, 1580–81, 1608, 1615 and 1625. The numerous editions imply that this was far from a rare work, and that a well-connected author like Scudéry could have easily consulted Pliny's work. See Nauert Charles G. Jr , “C. Plinius Secundus (Naturalis historia)”, in Cranz F. E. (ed.), Catalogus translationum et commentariorum (8 vols, Washington, 1980), iv, 297–422, p. 316. On other sources for descriptions of chameleons, see Grande (ref. 8), 91. Scudéry was fluent in Italian and Spanish, but did not read ancient languages; see DeJean , Tender geographies (ref. 19), 237. On the emergence of natural history in the sixteenth century, see Ogilvie Brian , The science of describing: Natural history in Renaissance Europe (Chicago, 2006).

For the difficulties of scientific publishing in the book market, see Nummedal Tara Findlen Paula , “Words of nature: Scientific books in the seventeenth century”, in Hunter Andrew (ed.), Thornton and Tully's scientific books, libraries, and collectors: A study of bibliography and the book trade in relation to the history of science, 4th edn (Brookfield, 2000), 164–215, pp. 176, 193–4 (on the Academy of Sciences). For the claim that the academy could publish illustrations thanks to royal funding, not available to other scholars, see Stroup , Company (ref. 6), 80. For an in-depth case study of the costs of publishing a work in natural history, see Margócsy DaAniel , “Image as capital: Ghostwriting Albertus Seba's Thesaurus” (forthcoming). For a brief discussion of zoological engravings as a visual genre, see Reynaud Denis , “Grammaire de la planche: L'illustration zoologique à l'âge classique”, Word & image, xi (1995), 1995–40.

Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des animaux (Paris, 1671), preface, not paginated.

Journal des s&çavans, 16 December, 1669, pp. 41–42. The comparison between Louis XIV and Alexander the great was common at the time, since Louis XIV identified himself with Alexander, and expected his subjects to do the same; see Peter Burke, The fabrication of Louis XIV (New Heaven, 1992), 28. The complex relations between Alexander and ancient philosophers were mentioned in classical sources; see, for example, Plutarch , Plutarch's Lives (11 vols, New York, 1914–26), vii, 243–5 [section VII].

While the Academy's Memoires for the natural history of animals were published in folio with 44 engravings by Le Clerc spread over its two volumes, Scudéry's Conversations were published in 12° and with only four engravings. For the number of engravings and technical details about them, see Jombert Charles-Antoine , Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre de Sébastian Le Clerc, chevalier romain, dessinateur et graveur du cabinet du Roi… (2 vols, Paris, 1774), i, lxxx—lxxxii (number of engravings); i, 150–63 (1671 edition of Memoires); i, 211–19 (1676 edition of Memoires; i, 276–7 (Scudéry's Conversations). Jombert was a descendent of a family of printers specializing in works on engineering, artillery, architecture and related mathematical topics, and he was a keen collector of works by Le Clerc, and can be considered a useful source for this question. See Bousquet-Bressolier Catherine , “Charles-Antoine Jombert (1712–84). Un libraire entre sciences et arts”, Bulletin du bibliophile, no. ii (1997), 299–333.

Appearances to the contrary, the scene of Louis XIV's visit to the Academy is as imaginary as the frontispiece to Scudéry's work –- the king visited the Academy of Sciences for the first time only in 1682. The frontispiece has received numerous analyses; for one, see Sutton , Science (ref. 8), 126–30.

Martin Henri Jean , La naissance du livre moderne (XIV^e–XVII^e siècles): Mise en page et mise en texte du livre fran&çais (Paris, 2000), 441–3. In general, the inclusion of engravings added to the marketability of the text, but also increased its price; for a rich discussion of the relations between engravings and texts, see Zanger Abby , “On the threshold of print and performance: How prints mattered to bodies of/at work in Molière's published corpus”, Word & image, xvii (2001), 2001–41, in which see note 17 (p. 39) for more examples.

Furetière Antoine , Le Roman bourgeois (Paris, 1981), 106 (originally published 1666).

See DeJean Joan , “Lafayette's ellipses: The privileges of anonymity”, PMLA, xcix (1984), 884–902. The academicians also published anonymously initially, stressing their collective identity and relation to the king, though this practice quickly changed. See Stroup , Company (ref. 6), 207–9 and passim, as well as Hahn, Anatomy (ref. 6), 24–29. On the strategies of female authors, see Myriam Maître, Les Précieuses: Naissance des femmes de lettres en France au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1999), 325–416, and for an earlier period, Leah Chang, Into print: The production of female authorship in early modern France (Newark, 2009).

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 542–4. In fact, the number of female authors who had to publish anonymously in this period is still not clear. See Harth , Cartesian women (ref. 8), 24–25 and 46–47 for the argument regarding the constraint to publish anonymous female authors faced.

“Grand Roy, délices de la France \ Protegez-moy dans vostre Cour. \ Si l'intérest, la médisance, \ Le libertinage & l'Amour \ Ne peuvent souffrir ma présence; \ S'ils font passer pour des chansons \ Mes plus importants le&çons: \ Je fus pourtant, GRAND RO Y, la fidelle compagne \ De Saint Loûis, de Charlemagne; \ Je fis le célébre destin \ Et d'Auguste, & de Constantin, \ Et par mille actions d'éternelle mémoire, \ Vostre gloire sera ma gloire.” Scudéry, Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), i, dedication, not paginated.

[ de Scudéry Madeleine ], Entretiens de morale (2 vols, Paris, 1692), ii, 296–333. See Aronson (ref. 8), 524–5 for the suggestion that Bétoulaud used a microscope in these observations.

See Niderst , Scudéry (ref. 19), 374–7, 455–67.

Leibniz G. W. , Lettres et opuscules inédits de Leibniz (Paris, 1854), 259.

Scudéry's eulogy in the Journal des s&çavans mentions that after writing her novels, Scudéry contented herself with writing conversations on morals, since her goal had always been to “present a portrait of the world, where the different characters she introduced could inspire virtue and politeness” and adds that Scudéry published ten such volumes. Journal des s&çavans (11 July 1701), 315–22, p. 318. For Nathalie Grande, Scudéry's science had to respect the “galant order”, as it was published in her collection of conversations. See Grande (ref. 8), 101–2.

Lister Martin , A journey to Paris in the year 1698, ed. by Stearns Raymond Phineas (Urbana, 1967), 96.

Quoted in Le Bihan , “Bestiaire” (ref. 28), 151, note 45.

On this trope, see Curtius Ernst , “The book of nature”, in European literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 2nd printing (Princeton, 1967), 319–26 and the critique in Paolo Rossi, “La nuova scienza e il simbolo del ‘libro’”, in La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano (Florence, 1961), 452–65.

The Journal des savants was not a privileged means for diffusing the Academy's work, and the Academy possibly concentrated on printed books and memoirs for two reasons (going even beyond the journal's troubled history, which stresses a quick “decline” in the second half of the seventeenth century). First, the academicians did not exercise a high degree of control over the journal and second, the Journal quickly became just one among many scholarly journals, and hence could not greatly contribute to the Academy's stature as a distinguished source of publications (which explains the creation of other series of publications by the academicians). See Vittu Jean-Pierre , “Du Journal des savants aux Mémoires pour l'histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts: L'esquisse d'un système européen des périodiques savants”, XVII^e siècle, lvii (2005), 527–45. The academicians' policy towards the journal decreed that discoveries could be published there, after the Academy's approval. See Tits-Dieuaide Marie-Jeanne , “Une Institution sans statuts: L'Académie royale des sciences de 1666 à 1699”, in Brian Éric Demeulenaere-Douyère Christine (eds), Histoire et mémoire de l'Académie des Sciences: Guide de recherches (Paris, 1996), 3–13, p. 8.

On the physical setting and the facilities at the king's library, see Meynell Guy , “The Académie des sciences at the rue Vivienne, 1666–1699”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xliv (1994), 22–37. In 1699 the Academy would move to the Louvre.

I see the Academy's relations to the literary world as strongly shaping it since its inception, in contrast with the attempts to argue for a new importance for the “public” in the work of the Academy in the late seventeenth century, which then led to greater role within the Academy to men of letters, most notably Fontenelle and the Abbé Bignon. See Shank , Newton wars (ref. 5), 61–65 and in greater detail, his “Before Voltaire: Newtonianism and the origins of the Enlightenment in France, 1687–1734” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2000), 56–76, 91–109, which stresses the concept of publicity rather than the actual publication programme of the Academy.

On these projects, see Mallon Adrian , “Science and government in France, 1661–1699: Changing patterns of scientific research and development” (PhD. diss., Queen's University Belfast, 1983), 82–84, 90–92.

While historians have explored the philosophical connections between the “new philosophy” and the early modern state, studies of the actual technological or practical contributions of the Academy to the French monarchy are less common. Most persuasively, Robin Briggs examined the relation of the Academy to society at large by studying the technological contributions the savants could make, and forcefully concluded that in light of the structures of the French economy and society, the Academy could not make a significant impact in these domains. See his “The Académie Royale des Sciences and the pursuit of utility”, Past & present, cxxxi (1991), 38–88. On natural philosophy and the early modern state, see Cook Harold J. , “Body and passions: Materialism and the early modern state”, Osiris, xvii, 2nd Series (2002), 25–48, and for the particular science of cameralism, Andre Wakefield, The disordered police state: German cameralism as science and practice (Chicago, 2009).

The Academy acquired formal regulations only in 1699. On Du Hamel's connections to Jean Chapelain and Colbert, see Sturdy , Science (ref. 6), 82–86. I treat elsewhere, in much greater detail, Claude Perrault's unique set of skills as well as the Perraults' country house. On Duclos's extensive work on “chymistry” and the scandal raised by its publication in Amsterdam, see Stroup Alice , “Censure ou querelles scientifiques: L'affaire Duclos (1675–1685)”, in Demeulenaere-Douyère Christiane Brian Éric (eds), Règlement, usages et science dans la France de l'absolutisme (Paris, 2002), 435–52. See also Boantza Victor D. , “Alkahest and fire: Debating matter, chymistry, and natural history at the early Parisian academy of sciences”, in Wolfe Charles T. Gal Ofer (eds), The body as object and instrument of knowledge (Heidelberg, 2010), 75–92. For a survey of the Academy's publications in this period, see Halleux Robert , Les publications de l'Académie royale des sciences de Paris (1666–1793) (2 vols, Turnhout, 2001), i, 11–54.

Loisel Gustave , Histoire des ménageries de l'antiquite à nos jours (3 vols, Paris, 1912), ii, 297.

On the place of exotic animals in French culture, see in general Robbins Louise , Elephant slaves and pampered parrots: Exotic animals in eighteenth-century Paris (Baltimore, 2002).

AAS PV, Vol. 4, 261v. Colbert had an employee in charge of bringing animals from the orient aboard French vessels, and his work is described by Nicholas Dew's forthcoming work on the Academy and the Versailles menagerie. The English Royal Society, which did not enjoy such supply, did not hesitate to publish reports regarding more common animals, such as ants or small insects; see the reports by King Edmond , “Observations concerning emmets or ants, their eggs, production, progress, coming to maturity, use, &c”, Philosophical transactions, ii (1666), 425–8 and “Observations on insects, lodging themselves in old willows, produced before the royal society by Dr. Edmund King, July 14. 1670”, Philosophical transactions, v (1670), 1670–9.

AAS, dossier J.G. Duverney.

The pochettes des séances for the years 1667–76, preserved in the Academy's archives, include notes on the dissections of ‘ordinary’ animals such as pigeons, dogs, or ducks.

Scudéry , Nouvelles conversations (ref. 20), ii, 499, 520.

AAS PV, vol. 4, 262r. This was actually a relatively developed discussion, as the academicians tried to understand what Pliny could have meant when he made such a seemingly egregious error. Most references to ancient authors lack even this modicum of elaboration. The use of ancient texts as source for “scientific facts” was quite common; see Grafton , “Kepler” (ref. 27), 197–8.

The anonymity was preserved until the 1676 edition, in which the introduction identified the academicians responsible for the publication, but it was still published as a collective endeavour.

Biagioli , “Social bricolage” (ref. 1), 28–30, and the works of Stroup and Hahn (ref. 6).

See Guerrini , “King's animals” (ref. 8), 385–6. On the Cabinet du Roi, see Grivel Marianne , “Le Cabinet du Roi”, Revue de la Bibliothèque nationale, xviii (1985), 36–57.

See Ashworth William B. , “Marcus Gheeraerts and the Aesopic connection in seventeenth-century scientific illustration”, Art journal, xliv (1984), 132–8. See also his ” The persistent beast: Recurring images in early zoological illustration”, in Ellenius Allain (ed.), The natural sciences and the arts: Aspects of interaction from the Renaissance to the 20th century (Stockholm, 1985), 46–66 and “Iconography of a new physics”, History and technology, iv (1987), 1987–97. I follow Ashworth's terms here.

Ashworth , “Marcus Gheeraerts” (ref. 64), 134.

For this genealogy and more images, see Ashworth , “Marcus Gheeraerts” (ref. 64), 134–6.

Of course, this type of background was a very common convention across a wide range of genres, but it was also possible to illustrate the chameleon without it. For example, the illustration in Besler's Continuatio rariorum (1622) did not include a background, but still placed the chameleon on a branch.

At least according to Jombert, Catalogue (ref. 34), i, 154–5, note 2.

The layout of the engraving was also unusual, especially in the use of the frame around the internal organs. This feature was a graphic element common to the printed works that were a part of the Cabinet du Roi project.

While the engravings in Belon and Gessner were accurate, by the end of the sixteenth century, the Gheeraerts model has become dominant, so deviations from it should be considered as meaningful, especially since later authors could rely on his images even while quoting the more accurate verbal descriptions found in Belon. See Ashworth , “Marcus Gheeraerts” (ref. 64), 135–6.

Heinich Nathalie , Du peintre à l'artiste: Artisans et académiciens à l'âge classique (Paris, 1993), 47–48. These conclusions about the break from guild structures seem to apply to sixteenth-century artisans, too, among them Bernard Palissy.

For these details, I am relying on Heinich, Du peintre (ref. 71), 149. In addition, see the recent catalogue, Join-Lambert Sophie Préaud Maxime (eds), Abraham Bosse: Savant graveur: Tours, vers 1604–1676, Paris (Paris, 2004).

For the data, see Guiffrey Jules (ed.), Comptes des bâtiments du roi sous le règne de Louis XIV (5 vols, Paris, 1881–1901), i, 285; i, 469; i, 543; i, 641. In 1670, Bosse received 1105 livres for the engraving of a “chameleon with skeleton” and 11 engravings of plants. I have arrived at the estimate for the sum he received for engraving the chameleon by deducing the average cost of each engraving of plants Bosse earned in other years. For the sake of comparison, the gratifications for most members of the Academy of Sciences were in the range of 1,500–2,000 livres per year. On the other hand, the market value for engravings was often under 1 livre, and paintings rarely cost more 20 livres.

For these publications in the context of other works published by artists, see Heinich , Du peintre (ref. 71), 275–6.

See Jombert , Catalogue (ref. 34), xxxvii–xxxix. I am currently working on a considerably broader study of Le Clerc and his ‘scientific’ writing. For the claim that “some artisans took up pens and began to write books”, see Long Pamela , Artisan/practitioners and the rise of the new sciences, 1400–1600 (Corvallis, 2011), 7 (in the scientific context), and more broadly, James Amelang, The flight of Icarus: Artisan autobiography in early modern Europe (Stanford, 1998).

This claim about analogous social processes does not imply that artists and natural philosophers could develop in an unproblematic manner on the representation of nature; on some of the successes as well as the pitfalls, see Madeleine Pinault Sørensen, “Les dessinateurs de l'Académie royale des sciences”, in Demeulenaere-Douyère Brian (eds), Règlement, usages et science (ref. 53), 147–67, and Daston Lorraine Galison Peter , Objectivity (New York, 2007), 84–104.

For entry points into the literature, see Abbott Andrew , The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor (Chicago, 1988).

For a pertinent discussion of sites of meaning-production in the sciences, see Jardine Nicholas , The scenes of inquiry: On the reality of questions in the sciences, 2nd edition (Oxford, 2000), ch. 14.

For a recent study of these problems in different cultural contexts, see Lloyd G. E. R. , Disciplines in the making: Cross-cultural perspectives on elites, learning, and innovation (Oxford, 2009).

The literature on science in the context of the medieval university is vast. For a couple of starting points, see Shank Michael H. , Unless you believe, you shall not understand: Logic, university, and society in late medieval Vienna (Princeton, 1988), and Kaye Joel , Economy and nature in the fourteenth century: Money, market exchange, and the emergence of scientific thought (Cambridge, 1998).

Of course, this process did not begin in the seventeenth century, and the influence of Humanism, of the writing of vernacular texts that deal with natural history or natural philosophy, and of currents such as Paracelsianism and of ‘court science’ had been of enormous importance for this process. This article focuses on one element of this process, namely, the emergence of ‘new’ institutions, such as the Parisian Academy of Sciences. Organizing all these changes and their relations to natural inquiry into a coherent frame is a notoriously difficult task, on which see Park Katharine Daston Lorraine , “Introduction: The age of the new”, in Early modern science (ref. 7), 1–17, esp. pp. 12–17.