The Bête du Gévaudan, the beast of Gévaudan, was a fierce animal who killing his human victims wild and evaded the capture for three years. Between 1764 and 1767, the beast terrified the people of Le Gévaudan, an old province in what is now Lozère. The case became a Celèbre case. Even Louis XV was involved in attempts to fight when they have gelds from this creature.
The mysterious beast challenged attempts to kill him and sowed terror and panic in his path. To this day, nobody knows what the animal was, although many theories, which go from the plausible to the ridiculous, have revolved since then. I count what we know about the beast and I consider what the leg could really have.
One day, in June 1764, Jeanne Boulet, a young pasta, was protecting her flock on the slopes full of flowers. When he could not return at night, a search party found his horrible mutilated body.
At that time, everyone thought a wolf was responsible. The fear of lobos packages was common in France until the beginning of the 20th century, although its number had been reduced considerably by then. Thus, the attack was particularly wild.
Half boxes of similar murders quickly followed. The beast showed a predilection for women and children. The pasta are in groups to protect the herds, but this did not deter the creature. The probable beast killed about 100 people in the Gévauda about three years. Some estimates were much higher.
Fear and rumors
People said this was not a common wolf, and the rumors of a Wewolf spread. In the mountainous, wooded and without a track of the Gévaudan, even more isolated than today, the legends emerged and maintained easily. Mende’s bishop feared that the beast was a punishment of God and urged people to pray and penance.
Thanks to an impoverished journalist, François Morénas, the notoriety of the beast traveled far beyond Gévaudan. Morénas embellished his stories blatantly, attributing supernatural powers to the creature. Hey included stories of eyewitnesses of people who had survived an attack, no doubt prone to the issue of exaggeration. This included a group of children who said they had defended him with sticks.
Dodge
Attempts to track and kill the beast were unsuccessful. A hundred or less wolves were killed, but the attacks continued. The locally parked troops and the renowned Lobos hunters failed, despite the offer of a reward.
Louis XV has just sent his personal Equerry, François Antoine. In all, Antoine killed a great wolf designed as the beast, and the king was satisfied. However, duration of the next 18 months, another 30 people succumbed to the fierce beast. Terror seized Gévaudan. People were afraid of traveling alone. The markets emptied. But the national interest failed, as it usually does.
Finally, in June 1767, three years after the first attack, a local hunter, Jean Chaster, shot and killed a large animal. After that, the attacks stopped. People said his death looked like a wolf, except for his face and skin, which was red, white and gray.
Nature of the beast
So what was the Bête? Naturally, Wewolf’s theory persisted for some time. Superstitious people attributed strange events to supernatural causes. A subsequent theory suggested that the beast was a serial killer with a big and fierce dog.
Other hypothesis speculate that it was an animal without understanding, a hyena or a great cat, which had escaped. This would explain the unusual color of the skin, which several people commented.
François Fabre, public domain, through Wikimedia Commons
He has only proposed that Chaster, who killed the beast, owned a hyena, after a stay in Africa. This animal could have been the beast, with or without the knowledge of chastl. Why then he killed him is not clear; Perhaps out of remorse or to win a reward. In any case, this seems crazy. Surely people would have known if Chastel maintained such an exotic creature.
Modern historians now think that the Bête was a particularly large package of wolves or even several packages. The theory of a package is probably more credible than that of a single animal. The lonely wolves rarely attack humans, apparently, prefer to go for cattle or game, but a hungry pack could.
With more than 250 years of elimination, it is impossible to separate the facts of wild speculation. Something clearly caused a series of horrible deaths, but reality remains lost in the mists of time. The control of the story about the imagination does not decrease.
Useful information
If you are visiting the Lozère, an apartment that extends to Horcajadas in the Author A75 south of the Auvergne, you will find the following attractions related to the Bête:
Le Musée de la Bête de Gévaudan (website alone in French).
Le Parc Les Loups du Gévaudan-a reserve where the wolves live in semi-libertity. Scroll to the bottom of the home page to change English.
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