I only learned about the word NOW.
I always assumed that menagerie was just the English variation of manege, a place where animals are kept for all sorts of purposes, in effect it mostly boils down to being a riding school.
I learned about the word manege (french) when I was about 6 years old. In NL we don’t have our own word for it and use the french word instead. My sister was learning to ride a pony, but fell off and we never went back.