RECONFIGURING ANIMAL SKINS51form.^35 This linguistic overlap became further entangled because both
practices, the stuffing of animal skins and upholstery, were performed in
the same workshops.
Conceiving of Dufresne’s first use of the term taxidermie as a state-
ment also allows us to see how it functioned as a threshold of emer-
gence—a point at which a new discursive formation begins to emerge.^36
As a point of interruption, in this case, the term taxidermie appeared
at the intersection of many localized practices of animal stuffing and
the international disciplinary rules, laws, and methods of natural
history.
In 1820, another book by Dufresne, titled Taxidermie, ou, l’Art de
Préparer et de Conserver la Dépouille de tous les Animaux, pour les Mu-
sées, les Cabinets d’Histoire Naturelle,^37 further inserted the statement
taxidermie into scientific discourses.^38 The international relevance of this
title was highlighted by an entry in the Monthly Review or Literary Jour-
nal published in London in the same year.^39 The entry (which also con-
tributed to the repetition and dissemination of the statement) spoke of
an English translation of the original French text and emphasized the
newness of the word taxidermie in the French language, explaining its
etymology but still referring to the practice of skin preservation and
arrangement as stuffing. The short text also acknowledged the institu-
tional need for this neologism.^40 The author noted that “since, however, a
new word had become necessary, expediency might have suggested the
adoption of one that was expressive of the ordonance of specimens of
natural objects in general.”^41 This passage directly refers to the shared
root taxis (arrangement) in the words taxidermy and taxonomy. The term
taxonomy quickly acquired popularity in scientific circles and was subse-
quently adopted in the classification of any groups of organisms.^42 Both
terms pertain to the discourses that have demarcated the Enlightenment
and share significant epistemological preoccupations with the crucial
scientific practice of arranging—which, as will be seen, played a defining
epistemic role in Victorian culture.^43
Therefore, the statement taxidermie separated the older practices of
stuffing animal skins, most of which had been related to hunting, from
the epistemic focus of scientific taxidermy mounts. Linguistically, within
the enunciative paradigm inhabited by the statement, this separation was
facilitated by the emergence of the verb to mount (monter). In the Nouveau