The Beast of Gevaudan

Auvergne, France, June 1764

The beast preferably attacked women and children. It was depicted as a monster on drawings and engravings during the 16th century.

In the early summer of 1764, during the reign of Louis XV, a monstrous creature appeared in Gevaudan, in Auvergne in the mid parts of France. It had been sighted a couple of months prior to this in not far away Vivarais, where it had started its ravages. Nobody knew where it came from before this, but apparently it settled down somewhere near Gevaudan, and for more than three years it would attack and maim or kill the people of Gevaudan and their animals and livestock.

Allegedly it killed more than one hundred humans and wounded at least thirty during these three years. The beast preferred to pray on the weak, and attacked in particular women and children in the woods, the fields or in the mountain passes. A few of the victims got away with their lives, but most of these went mad from shock.

Despite several big hunting expeditions nobody managed to kill the beast (even if it sometimes appeared to get wounded), and this soon turned it into a legend. There was a massive amount of drawings, engravings and written descriptions of it, and when the newspapers picked up the story it spread all over France.

Everyone was suddenly hunting the beast of Gevaudan - representatives of the authority's, noblemen (at first local, but they were soon joined by noblemen from all over the country), professional hunters and even foreigners turned up after having heard of the beast. During these hunting parties several big predators were killed but none of these were the real beast.

In September 1765 Antoine de Beauterne believed he had killed it at last. Antoine was a well known wolf hunter and a game warden for the king. The news that he had killed the beast was celebrated all over France, but some people were skeptical. The animal he had killed did not entirely fit the descriptions of those people of Gevaudan that had actually seen the beast. - And the attacks soon continued.

When reading the different statements from those who were attacked but lived to tell and the descriptions of the wounds the beast gave it's victims, it is easy to understand what a terror it must have been for the people of Gevaudan. - It was much larger than a wolf, almost as big as a cow, and with a huge head. Its nose was long and pointed, sort of reddish in color. It had short ears and very big teeth. The fur was short and light gray in color. The chest was white, and along its back was a black stripe. The big paws had razor-sharp claws, and the tail was as thick as that of a wolf. Furthermore it was very agile and extremely strong. It was sometimes sighted in locations very far apart on the same day. When hunting it crawled almost with its belly to the ground. One shepherd claimed it could stand up on its rear legs and was strong enough to lift a full-grown sheep with its arms. Dogs fled in terror from it as most other animals. The only animals strong and big enough to make a stand against it were bulls. It was also said that it was afraid of firearms. Maybe because it had been shoot a couple of times.

Things got only worse. The whole district around Gevaudan was paralyzed with fear. No one dared to go into the woods to get firewood and the shepherds didn't dare to take their herds out to graze. They tried to use wolf traps without any success at all. They left poisoned meat out in the fields and in the wood and lots of predators died from this, but not the one it was intended for.

Everyone who had seen the beast - hunters as well as victims, and also many scientists of the time had different theories on what the true identity of the monster could be. At first most people considered it a huge wolf which had come down from the Alps, Then it was a hyena, a bear, an ape, the bastard offspring of a lion and a tiger. Among the common people many seriously considered it to be a werewolf.

In June 1767, a local farmer, Jean Chastel, at last managed to kill the beast. Just as the animal killed by Antoine de Beauterne it actually looked remotely similar to a wolf, but it was very much bigger than any local wolves ever heard of.

Drawing of a werewolf from a 14th century Greek scripture.

The animal Jean Chastel had killed was embalmed and taken from town to town so people could have a look at it after paying a small amount of money. The king however wanted it to be exhibited at the royal palace, so Jean himself went to Versailles with the body. Unfortunately the embalming wasn't to good so at the time they reached the palace all that remained was a stinking corpse. The king got upset by the smell and ordered it buried at once.

One week after the killing of the creature, during a hunting party led by marquise Labesseyre-Saint-Mary, one of the hunters, Jean Terrisse killed a giant female wolf, and it was considered that this was the mate of the monster. After the killing of these two animals no more attacks were reported.

The legends of the beast of Gevaudan lived on however and many people still doubted that the animal that was killed was the real beast. Rumors spread that the killings were made by men. Some sort of secret cult blaming their criminal activity's on an animal. There were also rumors of a man in Gevaudan dressing up in wolf furs to scare people. But there are no more records of killings, so probably one or both animals killed really were responsible. And due to bad embalming we will probably never know what kind of animal this creature really was. In those days wolf and bear were very common all over Europe so I strongly doubt anyone would have paid to see a dead wolf or bear.