The Queen’s Zebra has been stolen. But why?

At the threshold of the French Revolution, the Enlightenment has taken 18th century Paris by storm. The Palais Royal has become the hub of free thought and freer behaviour. A whirlwind of passionate debates unfolds in the city’s new cafés, with a flourishing of theatre, satire, and opera.

George Du Paon, still mourning his beloved twin sister, has a famous taxidermy workshop near the Seine. As his close friend Nicolas guides him through the libertarian and libertine revolution of the time, George becomes entrusted with the Queen of England’s favourite deceased zebra.

George and his young protégée, Jeanne, are delighted at the prospect of breathing life back into the unusual specimen while pondering how to capture the essence of its nature. Among the questions being debated at the Académie des Sciences is why both the horse and the ass can be tamed, but the zebra cannot. And so the discussion evolves: What parts of the zebra make it so unique? Is it more than the sum of its parts? Are men separate from women? Is a garden part of nature?

George is surrounded by a cast of figures, ranging from the formidable Mme de Staël, Ambassador Thomas Jefferson, the transvestite general Chevalier d’Éon, and the immensely popular womanizer Benjamin Franklin. As intriguing questions about the human spirit, reductionism, social class, injustice, and the gap between science and religion swirl and set the stage, fiction, history, and philosophy intermingle. Just as George's feelings for his assistant deepen, the zebra suddenly vanishes . . .

Roland Kupers is the author of several books on complex systems, a sculptor, and an advisor to the United Nations on climate policy.