Beast of Gévaudan

In the years between 1764 and 1767 there was a string of some of the most bizarre animal attacks on farmers in history. In the French region of Gévaudan close to 300 people were reportedly killed by an unknown animal, who's species has never been identified.

Gévaudan was a remote, mountainous and heavily forested region in southern French, which is now part of Lozère. It was rugged and rural, the majority of people lived as shepherds and wood cutters. People didn't have access to the education and advancements of the enlightenment found in the more populous northern regions of France. For the average farmer life had changed little from the medieval era. The local noble ruler, the Marquis D'Apcher, spent most of his time in the royal court at Versailles, so actual leadership of the communities in Gévaudan was in the hands of the church and local elders. Rural people here lived a meagre life filled with hunger and hardship.

Further compounding the hardships for the people of Gévaudan was France's overall desperate state. France's once powerful economy was buckling under multiple expensive losses in various overseas wars, and an ever increasing disparity between rich an poor. And while King Louis XV had a long and successful rule, he was becoming ever more unpopular among the masses. People no longer trusted their government to protect them, which would eventually lead to the French revolution in 1789. But for now these issues weighed heavily on the lives of the people who lived in Gévaudan.

The people of Gévaudan were no strangers to wolf attacks, on both their livestock and people. It's been estimated that there were over 1000 wolf attacks on people per year at this time, most from the mountainous areas of France. There was even more on farm animals. So the mere presence of wolf attacks would not have made people in Gévaudan panic. Even a sudden increase in wolf attacks would probably be attributed to just a bad season. For people who lived in such a rugged environment to have been so panicked about animal attacks something truly extraordinary must have happened.

A somewhat conservative guess at the beast's appearance

Descriptions of the beast's appearance range wildly, to the point where people have question if there was actually multiple different animals causing these attacks. More conservative descriptions say the beast was overall wolf like but much larger, being at least the size of a donkey or young bull. It also had longer legs than a wolf, a greyhound like chest, and unusually long snout and a long panther like tail. More fanciful descriptions added things like boar tusks, hooves on the back legs, a lion's mane and even six claws on its paws. Some depictions go so far as to say the beast walked on its hind legs and give it a more kangaroo appearance. Some people even called it a werewolf.

The beast's coloration was also highly inconsistent between reports, varying from tan, tawny red, coffee brown and black. Stripes were also reported, either a single stripe down the back, stripes on the legs, or on the rump. It didn't help that news reporting at the time would often ignore victim's accounts for a more sensationalized depiction of the animal.

While the beast was most likely an unusual but conventional animal, the locals ascribed various supernatural abilities to it. Such abilities include shape shifting, talking, hypnotism, casting curses, summoning demons or being able to be summoned like a demon by witches. It was even hypothesized to be a witch's familiar or a demonic being.

Probably not what the beast looked like

Regardless of what the beast actually looked like the newspapers exaggerated descriptions of it, further confounding evidence. The news papers were eager to report on something other than France's dismal situation, and the events surrounding the beast provided the perfect distraction for people outside the situation. Reporting on events became a media circus, with news reaching all the way to America, long before there was any sort of fast travel across the Atlantic or any form of electronic communication. At this time newspapers had no regulations to report things with accuracy. While the king (and most likely other nobles) could stifle the media in any way he desired, he was more concerned with the news reporting on him positively. The news papers were otherwise allowed to sensationalize events without concern for truthfulness. Because of this, there's plenty of recounts of the events surrounding the beast, but much of it is of questionable quality.

Events

The first known victim of the beast was found on June 30^th, 1764. She was Jeanne Boulet, a local shepherd girl. Jeanne had been killed near Saint-Étienne-de-Lugdarès while attending to a flock of sheep. She was only 14 years old. The second victim appeared a month later when a young girl was killed near Puylaurent. Soon after a shepherd boy went missing near Laval, later his arm was recovered, but no more of his remains could be found. The number of victims began to steadily rise over the next months, to the point where there would be days in September with multiple victims.

The deaths were unusually gory and vicious, even compared to normal animal attacks. It was noted that as kills increased some victims appeared to have been torn apart, but not eaten, as if the beast was killing for fun. People became afraid to go into the forest. Supplies of wood dwindled in Gévaudan because of this. While a few local hunters were willing to test their courage against the beast most were too fearful to hunt it down. Instead, as news of attacks spread hunters from elsewhere in France, unconcerned by things like witchcraft and curses, descended onto the Gévaudan region to hunt the beast. They soon learned that the beast was unusually cunning. It was able to avoid traps and poisoned bait with almost supernatural awareness.

In October 8^th, only a few hours after another attack hunters spotted the beast stalking a shepherd. The beast was chased away into the nearby woods at Chateau de la Baume, saving the shepherd's life. Hunters then continued to pursue the beast until they had it cornered. Multiple hunters fired a volley on the beast with hunting muskets. Initially the beast fell to the ground as if it had been fatally injured. Yet before the beast actually died, it somehow recovered and got back up. The beast appeared completely uninjured by the shots the hunters had seen hit their mark. It then ran off into the thick of the forest. The hunters were so shocked by what they had seen they were unable to track the beast further.

On January 12^th, the beast charged at a group of seven children, ranging in age from 8 to 12. Lead by Jacques Portefaix, the children were able to fend off the beast's attack with simple wooden sticks alone. All seven survived with only minor injuries. The news of this event spread across France, reaching all the way to King Louis XV. Subsequently, he invited the children to Versailles, where they were awarded for their bravery. The king even went so far as to pay for their educations.

After the attack on the children it became obvious the situation with the beast wasn't going to resolve itself. Furthermore France was now receiving international attention for these attacks. In response the king sent a force of dragoons to rid Gévaudan of the beast. Because of the mistrust and disparity between the common folk and authorities the people of Gévaudan were angered by the dragoon's intervention rather than relieved by it. And just as the locals had expected the dragoons did more to get in the way and were ineffective at hunting the beast. They were after all military soldiers more used to fighting human combatants than stalking wild animals. Still, the locals cooperated with the dragoons, if for no other reason than they would be arrested for non-compliance. The dragoons were led by Jean Baptiste Duhamel. While he was an accomplished leader on the battlefield his efforts to hunt the beast left much to be desired. His first efforts to kill the beast were to use traps and poison, which locals pointed out had been done frequently already, to no success. His next efforts were to get hordes of locals to venture into the forests all at once and flush out the beast towards an ambush of dragoons waiting to kill it with volley fire. The local folk were willing to do this only because they went in large numbers, yet they made it known even on fear of arrest how much they didn't want to enter the woods. This tactic also didn't work, as all they had a hard time flushing out ordinary animals this way, much less the beast. Duhamel noticed that the majority of the beast's victims were women and children, so he took the rather unorthodox method of dressing up hunters in dresses, hoping the beast would mistake them for women. This was the last straw for the locals. With these demands the local church leaders wrote to King Louis to have Duhamel removed because of indecent orders, which King Louis relented to. With that, Duhamel and the other dragoons were recalled from Gévaudan.

On August 11^th, 1465, during Duhamel's efforts the beast attempted to blatantly attack a victim out in the open. While Marie Valet and her sister were crossing a bridge over the River Desges they were ambushed by the beast. Marie defended herself with a wooden pole sharpened into a spear, piercing the beast's chest. The beast yet again escaped what should have been a fatal injury and ran off into the forest. This incident further humiliated Duhamel, as a local woman was able to gain a victory against the beast when he couldn't even find it. Because of Marie's bravery she became known as the maid of Gévaudan.

After Duhamel left Gévaudan, King Louis wanted to end this situation with finality. He sent his personal gunman, Francois Antoine, who served as both King Louis's bodyguard and leader of his hunting entourage. The locals of Gévaudan were no more happy to have Antoine around then they were for the dragoons. At least Antoine kept to himself. Antoine and his nephew hunted for the beast for weeks, venturing out into the wilderness alone, even refusing a local guide. They eventually tracked down a den of unusually large wolves. They killed both the wolves, narrowly avoiding an ambush by the animals, and took their hides back to Versailles. With Antoine's success the beast of Gévaudan was declared dead. However the attacks in Gévaudan didn't stop.

This time neither the media or the King took any notice of the continuing attacks. As far as they were concerned, Antoine had been successful and they would hear no more of it. Over the next 4 months another 30 people would be killed by the beast. The Marquis D'Apcher, the local nobleman of Gévaudan, was not as convinced as the nobility in Versailles and organized another hunt.

During this hunt the beast was killed with finality on Mount Mouchet by Jean Chantel, a local woodsman. After this the deaths finally stopped. Chantel was a very pious man, who was absolutely convinced the beast was a werewolf sent by the devil himself. He was so adamant in this that he had spent a large portion of his meagre wealth and belongings to have silver tipped bullets specially made for the occasion. Chantel finally brought down the beast, where previous gun fire had done nothing. The carcass of the beast was taken to Chateau D'Apcher where it was put on display. None of the visiting nobles, doctors and other educated elite could identify the species, the only thing they were sure of was that it was not a wolf. The carcass was also cut open and human remains were found in the stomach.

With such a victory King Louis promised Chantel an audience and a hero's welcome in Versailles. The remains were stuffed, after which Chantel and the remains travelled to the royal court. However when he arrived the stuffed beast was thrown away and Chantel was not given audience with the king as he had been promised. The official reason was the carcass was too rotten and the nobles found it so disgusting and decomposed they couldn't identify anything of it. However D'Apcher's records state the beast had been properly taxidermied. After announcing that Antoine had killed the beast the king had reason to cover up Chantel's own accomplishments so not to look like he had been fooled by his gunman.

Theories

As one might expect there are many theories about what the beast of Gévaudan actually was. These theories range from the feasible to the bizarre.

Hysteria alone, or unusually violent wolf:

The simplest theory is that there were no unusual wolf attacks at all. Instead, people attributed excess anxiety to typical wolf attacks until the situation was stirred up into hysteria by the news papers. This theory I don't believe at all. The people of Gévaudan knew what a wolf attacks were like, they happened on a regular basis. They wouldn't become panicked en-mass over something so common. While the people of Gévaudan may not have been as educated as their countrymen in the north, they at least understood their land well and were knowledgeable about their herding lifestyles. Besides, so many people in Gévaudan at the time being illiterate, it's doubtful the news papers could have stirred them into a frenzy, or that they would have paid much attention to the news at all.  

The other conventional theory is that an unusually large and vicious wolf killed many people. This theory I find more reasonable, and am reminded of Tsavo lion attacks. That was a series of attacks by lions on railway workers in Kenya in 1898. The death toll from these lion attacks was originally estimated at over 100, yet modern studies believe it to be as low as 28. This is however only counting paid workers on the railway, the number of attacks on locals was never recorded. However during the Tsavo lion attacks everyone knew the attacking animals were lions, were as in Gévaudan locals were quite insistent that the beast was not a wolf. It's also unusual that the beast never killed any livestock and focused solely on humans. Predators who are injured, acclimatized to humans or otherwise unable to hunt normal prey usually attack livestock first before moving onto humans.

Serial killer dressed as a wolf:

This is a theory proposed because of some of the intelligent behaviour the beast showed, such as avoiding traps and poison. It even managed to avoid attempts by legions of hunters at flushing it out of the woods, which if this serial killer was still living among the locals and only occasionally dressing as the beast they would have heard about the plans before hand, possibly even participated in. In addition to this the beast specifically targeted shepherd women and children, which some people have interpreted as the kind of demographic profiling serial killers often demonstrate. Another factor is that locals would occasionally report that the beast could walk on its hind legs.

Escaped exotic animal:

Yet another explanation is that the beast was an exotic animal from elsewhere in the world. At this time in France it was common for the rich to have menageries, or private zoos of animals. There were no restrictions on what animals could be kept as pets. As such nobles would keep animals captured as trophies from the colonies, or just as curiosities. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that an animal could escape from one of these menageries, and displaced from its habitat would attack humans as prey. The people of Gévaudan would have little to any knowledge of animals from different continents, and few non-locals ever saw the beast up close.

The most common animals suggested for this are lions and hyenas. A lion may somewhat fit the description of the beast. I find hyena an odd choice as the beast had a long mussel, body and tail, where as a hyena is quite compact and boxy. My personal guess would be a tiger, and I'm surprised that tigers aren't suggested more often as the exotic animal the beast could be.

Prehistoric hyaenodon:

Another, more bizarre theory is that the beast was a prehistoric animal that had somehow survived in hibernation for ages and then woke up and started attacking people in its unknown environment. The most commonly suggested animal for this is the hyaenodon, no relation to modern hyenas. I find this outlandish, as no mammal could survive hibernation for that long. In addition it would be too warm for an animal to continuously hibernate for thousands of years and there was no climatic trigger to suddenly wake it up, if anything that decade was unusually cold rather than warm. Furthermore, hyaenodons went extinct before the ice age began. I do admit that the resemblance between hyaenodons and the beast is eerie.  

Hyaenodon from Wikipedia

Hybrid:

While this theory can be disregarded today, it was taken quite seriously at the time. The study of inherited traits was in its infancy and people, even the well educated, honestly believed that two unrelated species could be bred together to create viable offspring. In fact this was often the explanation of unusual species found far afield. While it sounds silly today, I just wanted to mention this theory because it was often the go to explanation for the beast at the time.

Supernatural explanations:

Finally we come to the various supernatural explanation. If you've read this blog long enough you know I'm actually somewhat sympathetic of these explanations, as bizarre as they can be. There is no end to weirdness in the field of Fortean and paranormal topics.

Possibly the most common supernatural explanation is that the beast was a werewolf. The effectiveness of Chantel's silver bullets certainly leads to this theory. However, even though silver is weaker than steal it's likely a silver bullet would still kill non-supernatural animals too. Also, the beast didn't really resemble a werewolf anymore than a regular wolf.

Another explanation was that the beast was a witch's familiar or a demon from hell. Although the nature of such beings is completely unknown to us, so no guesses as to how well this fits the beast can be made.

The only sure thing is that no explanation for the beast of Gévaudan truly fits all the evidence, and so it has remained an enduring mystery to today.