This is a slightly longer post than usual and I thought it would be a few paragraphs at most, but the more I researched, the more information I found. Between the different eyewitness accounts, descriptions of the beast, political interference, and amount of times it took to try and kill it, it became quite a bit longer than normal. However, it is most certainly a story worth the read.
The Beast of Gévaudan, La Bête du Gévaudan in French, is the historic name associated with a man-eating animal or animals that terrorised the former province of Gévaudan (consisting of the modern-day department of Lozère and part of Haute-Loire as well as the Auvergne and south Dordogne areas of France), in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767.
The killer was thought to be a huge animal, which came to be known simply as “the Beast”; but while the creature’s name remained simple, its reputation soon grew extremely complex. The attacks covered an area spanning 56 by 50 miles. Descriptions of the time vary, and reports may have been greatly exaggerated, owing to public hysteria, but the beast was generally described as a wolf-like canine with a tall, lean frame capable of taking great strides.
It was said to be the size of a calf, a cow, or, in some cases, a horse. It had an elongated head similar to that of a greyhound, with a flattened snout, pointed ears, and a wide mouth sitting atop a broad chest. The beast’s tail was also reported to have been notably longer than a wolf’s, with a prominent tuft at the end. The beast’s fur was described as tawny or russet in color but its back was streaked with black, and a white heart-shaped pattern was noted on its underbelly
Gévaudan was just as mysterious as its monster. “It had the reputation for being a remote, isolated backwater where the forces of nature had not been full tamed, where the forests were indeed enchanted,” says Jay M. Smith, a historian and the author of Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast. It was the perfect place for a Grimm-like fairy tale starring a possibly supernatural creature. But for villagers under attack, reality was more brutal than any book. This isolated region is made up of rocky landscapes and vast woods, its population living in an austere environment.
Witnesses described the Beast as an ambush hunter which stalked its prey and seized it by the throat. The wounds found on the bodies were typically to the head and limbs with the remains of 16 victims reportedly decapitated. The creature prowled in the evenings and in the mornings. The Kingdom of France used a considerable amount of wealth and manpower to hunt the animals responsible, including the resources of several nobles, soldiers, royal huntsmen, and civilians. The number of victims differs according to the source. A 1987 study estimated there had been 610 attacks, resulting in 500 deaths and 49 injuries; 98 of the victims killed were partly eaten. Other sources claim the animal or animals killed between 60 and 100 adults and children and injured more than 30.
Not only was the Beast of Gévaudan said to prefer attacking women and children (and above all small girls), according to firsthand accounts published in the press it often “removed the victim’s head and drank all her blood”, leaving nothing behind but a pile of bones.
Illustrators had a field day representing the Beast, whose appearance was reported to be so monstrous it beggared belief. One poster, printed in 1764, described it as follows: Reddish brown with dark ridged stripe down the back. Resembles wolf/hyena but big as a donkey. Long gaping jaw, six claws, pointy upright ears and supple furry tail — mobile like a cat’s and can knock you over. Cry: more like horse neighing than wolf howling.
The Beast of Gévaudan committed its first recorded attack in the early summer of 1764. A young woman named Marie Jeanne Valet, who was tending cattle in the Mercoire forest near the town of Langogne in the eastern part of Gévaudan, saw a beast “like a wolf, yet not a wolf” come at her. However, the bulls in the herd charged the beast, keeping it at bay. They then drove it off after it attacked a second time.
Shortly afterward The first recorded fatal attack of the Beast occurred on June 30, 1764 when a 14-year-old shepherdess, Jeanne Boulet, tended a flock of sheep. She was killed near the village of Les Hubacs near Langogne. Her death was reported in the parish registers of Saint-Etienne-de-Lugdarès in the Ardèche Department, and marked the first of a long list of people killed by the ferocious beast. The main records of these attacks were the parish registers, where births and deaths were recorded, sometimes specifying the cause of death. These registers mention a “Bête,” the French word for “beast.”
Throughout the remainder of 1764, more attacks were reported across the region. Very soon terror gripped the populace because the beast was repeatedly preying on lone men, women, and children as they tended livestock in the forests around Gévaudan. Most of the victims were illiterate peasants living in a harsh environment, far from the king and his court. People became afraid of going out of their homes or sending their children to the fields. No one dared to go out at night, and villagers added bars to their windows and locks to their doors in the hope of keeping the monster out.
For Gabriel-Florent de Choiseul-Beaupré, bishop of Mende, the most eminent religious authority in Gevaudan, God sent the beast to punish men for their sins. Choiseul-Beaupré published a pastoral letter explaining that the lack of religious education and loose morals, especially among girls and women, attracted God’s fury. He compared the Beast of Gevaudan with other vengeful animals in the Christian tradition, such as snakes or lions.
The bishop used the fear provoked by the beast to serve his own intentions to straighten the peasants up. He urged the population to pray for redemption. Choiseul-Beaupré enhanced the terror, which resulted in the resurrection of old beliefs among the population, such as tales of witches and werewolves.
By late December 1764, rumors had begun circulating that there might be a pair of animals behind the killings. This was because there had been such a high number of attacks in such a short space of time and because many of the attacks appeared to have occurred or were reported nearly simultaneously. Some contemporary accounts suggest the creature was seen with another such animal, while others report that the beast was accompanied by its young.
France was in a slump at the time, on the heels of the Seven Years’ War with Great Britain. The nation had lost battles to Prussia and the British and Louis XV had lost overseas colonies including Canada. First breaking in the Courrier of nearby Avignon, it was quickly taken up by the papers of Paris and from there spread abroad. La Gazette de France, the first weekly newspaper published in France, created under the reign of Louis XIII, was looking for new exciting stories to tell.
The Beast offered a perfect foil to rally around. La Gazette de France spread the news of a beast eating women and children, especially young girls, in Gevaudan and contributed to its growing fame across the kingdom. The story of the Beast, meanwhile, was spreading and covered in newspapers from Boston to Brussels, becoming one of history’s first international media sensations. Almost a hundred articles were published, contributing to the spread of the story of the Beast of Gevaudan.
A German print from September 1764 shows the Beast, looking more like a quadrupedal kangaroo than a wolf or hyena, attacking an improbably well-dressed man in a rather Teutonic-looking landscape.
Along with articles, engravers produced prints of what the beast supposedly looked like; a monstrous furry animal with sharp, deadly teeth. La Gazette and other journals circulated the beast’s image far beyond the country’s borders. Along with it came an unflattering portrait of Louis XV and the affair soon became political. The Beast of Gevaudan exemplified France’s weaknesses. From Great Britain to Boston in North America, people made fun of the French king and his armies, incapable of capturing or killing a single animal, evidence of France’s weakness. Louis XV had to respond. His first act was to reward a young boy’s bravery.
On January 12, 1765, 10-year-old Jacques Portefaix and seven friends ranging from ages eight to 12 were attacked by the beast who took one of them. After several attacks, Portefaix rallied the group and drove it away by staying grouped together and were able to rescue the young boy from the beast’s teeth. The children succeeded, and they all survived. The encounter eventually came to the attention of Louis XV, who awarded 300 livres to Portefaix and another 350 livres to be shared among his companions. The king also rewarded Portefaix with an education at the state’s expense. He then decreed that the French state would help find and kill the beast.
The king’s next action was to put a price on the beast’s head: there was now a 6,000-livre bounty, equal to a year’s salary for workingmen, on the creature’s head. Hunters came from all over the country and beyond to try to kill the beast and receive the prize. Wolf hunting was an important discipline at the time, as they represented a threat to the sheep and cattle. Professional wolf hunters followed a set of rules established since the 16th century. Dogs helped them in their work, and hunters had to bring back the wolf’s head to receive a prize. Against strong and speedy animals, only the best hunters succeeded.
As the headcount rose in 1764, local officials and aristocrats took action. Étienne Lafont, a regional government delegate, and Captain Jean Baptiste Duhamel, a leader of the Clermont Prince dragoons and his local infantry troops, organize the first concerted attack. At one point, the number of volunteers rose to 30,000 men. Duhamel organized the men along military models, left poisoned bait, and even had some soldiers dress as peasant women in hopes of attracting the beast. For men like Duhamel, the hunt was a way to redeem his honor after the war.
Although extremely zealous in his efforts, non-cooperation on the part of the local herders and farmers stalled Duhamel’s efforts. On several occasions he almost shot the beast, but was hampered by the incompetence of his guards. When the village of Le Malzieu was not present and ready as the beast crossed the Truyère River, Duhamel became frustrated.
“Hunters who are in pursuit have neither been able to stop it, because it is more agile than they,” a local French paper wrote at the end of 1764. “Nor lure it into their traps, because it surpasses them in cunning, nor engage in combat when it presents itself to them, because its terrifying appearance weakens their courage, disturbs their vision, sets their hands shaking, and neutralizes their skill.”
When Louis XV agreed to send two professional wolf hunters from Normandy, Jean Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d’Enneval and his son Jean-François, Captain Duhamel was forced to stand down and return to his headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand. Cooperating with d’Enneval was impossible as the two differed too much in their strategies; Duhamel organized wolf hunting parties while d’Enneval and his son believed the beast could only be shot using stealthy techniques.
Jean-Charles, the father, boasted he’d already killed 1,200 wolves, relevant information assuming the predator was, in fact, a wolf. But no one was sure of that. “It is much bigger than a wolf,” wrote Lafont in an early report. “It has a snout somewhat like a calf’s and very long hair, which would seem to indicate a hyena.” Other witnesses claimed the beast had supernatural abilities. “It could walk on its hind feet and its hide could repel bullets and it had fire in its eyes and it came back from the dead more than once and had amazing leaping ability,”
Father and son D’Enneval arrived in Clermont-Ferrand on February 17, 1765, bringing eight bloodhounds that had been trained in wolf hunting. Over the next four months the pair hunted for Eurasian wolves, believing that one or more of these animals was the beast. However, when the attacks continued, the D’Ennevals were replaced in June 1765 by François Antoine (sometimes wrongly identified with his son, Antoine de Beauterne), the king’s 71-year-old sole arquebus (gun) bearer and lieutenant of the Hunt, who arrived in Le Malzieu on June 22. Failing was not an option as the king’s reputation was involved.
Among the most notable tales of bravery was when 19- or 20-year-old Marie-Jeanne Valet was attacked by the Beast on August 11, 1765 while crossing the River Desges with her sister. Armed with a bayonet affixed to a pole, Valet impaled the Beast’s chest. The creature got away, but Valet became known as the “Amazon” and the “Maid of Gévaudan.” Today a statue stands in her honor in the village of Auvers in southern France.
Filou-France/Getty Images
On September 20 or 21, Antoine killed a colossal grey wolf measuring 5 ft 7 inches long and weighing 130 lb, immediately acknowledged as the Beast of Gevaudan. The wolf, which was named Le Loup de Chazes after the nearby Abbaye des Chazes, was said to have been quite large for a wolf. Antoine officially stated: “We declare by the present report signed from our hand, we never saw a big wolf that could be compared to this one. Hence, we believe this could be the fearsome beast that caused so much damage.” Even Marie-Jeanne and her sister recognized the animal as their attacker by the scars on its body inflicted by the victims defending themselves. François Antoine became the hero who killed the famous Beast of Gevaudan.
The wolf was enormous, but no human remains or bones were found in its stomach. Also, it was found in a region far away from previous attacks and villages. Despite these unanswered questions, the wolf of Chazes was immediately and irrevocably recognized as the Beast of Gevaudan. Its body was sent to Versailles to be stuffed and presented to the king. François Antoine, not sure if it was the beast, stayed the following weeks in Gevaudan, and no more attacks were reported.
Antoine stayed in the Auvergne woods to chase down the female partner of the beast and her two grown pups. Antoine succeeded in killing the female wolf and a pup, which seemed already larger than its mother. At the examination of the pup, it appeared to have a double set of dewclaws, a hereditary malformation found in the Bas-Rouge or Beauceron dog breed. The other pup was shot and hit and was believed to have died while retreating between the rocks. Antoine returned to Paris and received a large sum of money (over 9,000 livres) as well as fame, titles, and awards.
But attacks started again in December, according to an account in the 1898 volume of the Parisian Illustrated Review. On December 2nd two boys aged 6 and 12 were attacked, suggesting that the beast was still alive. The beast tried to capture the youngest, but it was successfully fought off by the older boy. Later that month successful attacks followed and a young shepherdess of 11 was found dead. Some of the shepherds witnessed that the beast showed no fear around cattle at all unlike previously. A dozen more deaths are reported to have followed attacks near La Besseyre-Saint-Mary.
Nevertheless, for Louis XV, the case was closed. The king had just lost his only son, Louis, Dauphin of France, and the attacks in Gevaudan were the least of his worries. The royal court chose to ignore these new attacks, insisting that Antoine had killed the creature and that they had other matters to attend to. Even the newspapers stopped recounting the attacks of the Beast of Gevaudan. Finally, a sudden outbreak of attacks in early June 1767 compelled a local nobleman, the Marquis d’Apcher, to organize a hunt.
Local farmer Jean Chastel had been involved in a previous hunt, but was thrown in prison by Antoine for leading his men into a bog. But his past crimes turned to bygones when he managed, at last, to bring the creature down with a bullet on June 19, 1767. The killing of the creature that eventually marked the end of the attacks is credited to Chastel, who shot it at the slopes of Mont Mouchet (now called la Sogne d’Auvers) during a hunt organized by a local nobleman, the Marquis d’Apchier, on June 19, 1767. In 1889, Abbot Pourcher told the edifying oral tradition which said that the pious hero Chastel shot the creature after reciting his prayers but the historical accounts do not report any such thing. The story about the large-caliber bullets, home-made with Virgin Mary’s medals, is a literary invention by the French writer Henri Pourrat.
The body was then brought to the castle of Marquis d’Apchier, where it was stuffed by Dr. Boulanger, a surgeon at Saugues. Dr. Boulanger’s post-mortem report was transcribed by notary Marin and is known as the “Marin Report” on the beast. Upon being opened, the animal’s stomach was shown to contain the remains of its last victim and the animal had non-wolf characteristics as described by witnesses. The attacks ended, but while it was assumed that the beast Chastel bagged was the Beast, doubts remained that it was indeed a wolf.
The Marin Report describes the creature as a wolf of unusually large proportions “This animal which seemed to us to be a wolf; But extraordinary and very different by its figure and its proportions of the wolves that we see in this country. This is what we have certified by more than three hundred people from all around who came to see him.”
the corpse of the beast was brought to Paris, in hot sunny weather. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, the naturalist and famous author of the Histoire Naturelle, barely examined the rotten corpse of the beast. It was finally buried in an unknown location, preventing scientists and future generations from studying and unveiling the mystery surrounding the beast of Gevaudan’s true nature.
The king never acknowledged Jean Chastel as the beast’s killer, yet history remembers him as the story’s true hero. The story of the Beast of Gevaudan fascinated people for centuries, and many of them came up with their own theories. Its true nature still perplexes historians and zoologists today.
If there was a real animal behind these sightings and reports, it is obscured by a great deal of folklore. Locals believed it was a werewolf, or, more specifically, a sorcerer who shapeshifted into a monstrous predator in order to feed on human flesh. It was supposed to be bulletproof as well, until the day that a hunter named Jean Chastel tried a silver bullet.
Descriptions of the Beast varied so much that most researchers believe there had to be at least two of the creatures, if indeed the panic wasn’t causing the populace to incorporate almost any large animal into these sightings. The color of the Beast’s fur was especially variable.
According to modern scholars, public hysteria at the time of the attacks contributed to widespread myths that supernatural beasts roamed Gévaudan, but deaths attributed to a beast were more likely the work of a number of wolves or packs of wolves. Attacks by wolves were a very serious problem during the era, not only in France but throughout Europe, with tens of thousands of deaths attributed to wolves in the 18th century alone.
The most prominent theory is that the beast was exactly what the first witness described — a Eurasian wolf. Or, more likely, the Beast of Gévaudan was a particularly aggressive pack of wolves. Gévaudan had a serious wolf infestation.
Wolves are native to the region and had attacked humans before—some statistics show that wolves attacked humans 9,000 times in France between the 17th and 19th centuries. In most cases these types of attacks were by rabid wolves.
There are some potential flaws to the wolf theory, including the frequency of the Beast’s deadly attacks, suggesting it was not a single rabid wolf. Also none of its victims seem to have contracted rabies, suggesting that their attacker also did not carry rabies.
Although there are strong voices arguing multiple theories about the identity of the Beast of Gévaudan, all admit that the truth will never be fully known. Without any genetic or forensic evidence, the Beast of Gévaudan is bound to forever remain a mystery.
Other theories have suggested that the beast was an escaped exotic animal, like a hyena or a lion. Most people in France would have never seen animals like this, so they would appear like mythical beasts.
Karl-Hans Taake, a biologist and author of The Gévaudan Tragedy: The Disastrous Campaign of a Deported ‘Beast,’ argues the Beast may have been an immature male lion. Like the hyena, it is possible that a lion escaped from captivity. The Beast reportedly was an ambush hunter that seized prey by the neck and could possibly decapitate a victim. A lion, Taake argues, could exhibit these predatory behaviors.
Lions have been known to prey upon humans as food sources, such as the famous case of the lions of Tsavo, in which a lion pair killed over 130 victims in under a year. Another supporting fact is that the territory of the Beast, at roughly 56 by 50 miles, aligns with a lion’s typical range.
Eyewitnesses in France at the time were likely not familiar with living lions and what they did know about them came from very stylized imagery. A sub-adult male does not have a fully developed mane and sometimes has a mohawk type of stripe running down its back. This matches descriptions of the beast by eyewitnesses, Taake argues. One hunter at the time, Captain Jean Baptiste Duhamel, wrote, “You will undoubtedly think, like I do, that this is a monster [hybrid], the father of which is a lion. What its mother was remains to be seen.”
There is, in fact, a type of animal that fits the core description of the Beast exactly, but it is extinct, and would hardly be expected to have survived in Europe of all places. This group of animals would be the mesonychids, a presumably extinct group of hoofed predators. The biggest mesonychid looked much like a hyena, and was the size of a horse. Some other reports that may describe mesonychids come from Armenia and Assyria about the year 800, and describe pig-like beasts that are vicious predators, but these have huge, floppy ears instead of the Beast’s tiny round ears. Another possible mesonychid is reported from a more plausible place, the Amazon rainforest of South America. This creature is called the tapire-iauara.
Even today, some believe they were the work of werewolves or meneurs de loups (magical “wolf whisperers”, or “leaders of wolves”, who can command wolves to do their bidding). But most historians now agree that the Gévaudan — a sparsely inhabited, extremely impoverished rural area — was infested with wolves. 250 years since the Beast of Gévaudan last stalked the forests and fields of southern France, its fairy-tale-like legacy looms large.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan, https://www.history.com/news/beast-gevaudan-france-theories, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/beast-gevaudan-terrorized-france-countryside-180963820/, Jay M. Smith’s Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast, https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-beast-of-gevaudan-1764-1767, https://allthatsinteresting.com/beast-of-gevaudan, https://www.thecollector.com/beast-of-gevaudan/
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