Les enjeux du discours sur la girafe au dix-huitième siècle, des naturalistes et Buffon à François le Vaillant

Abstract

<p>In the eighteenth century, the illustrations of natural history treatises betray the complex evolution of the image of the giraffe, divergent, even contrary representations, of an animal which belongs as much to reality as to fantasy. We know it from texts whose contradictions only sharpen curiosity about this fabulous animal that no one had yet seen. The different editions of Buffon's Natural History attest to the author's relentlessness in resolving the difficult question of the animal's horns, but also show the itinerary of a knowledge that is still evolving. It is François Le Vaillant, explorer, naturalist, ornithologist, who has the honor of finally presenting the giraffe to the scholarly community. Conquest of knowledge for the glory of science, certainly, but also intimate possession through the death of the coveted object, his account of hunting offers an unprecedented glimpse of a conquest that turns out to be as literal as scientific, the seed of other conquests to come.</p>