The beast from Gevaudan. Beast of Gevaudan
Among the many stories about maniacs and monsters, one stands out scary tale about the Beast from Gevaudan, whose ferocity, cruel mind and cynicism make historians, biologists and writers still scratch their heads, trying to understand from what depths of hell this monster could jump out.
The first mention of the Beast dates back to June 1, 1764, when he attacked a peasant woman from the city of Langon, grazing a herd of cows in the Merkuar forest. A creature resembling a wolf jumped out of the forest and rushed at her. The dogs didn’t even move, they just trembled and whined. The wounded and deathly frightened woman rushed to the bulls, who met the beast with their horns outstretched. Despite his dexterity, he was never able to reach it.
And the first victim of the Beast was fourteen-year-old Jeanne Boulet, killed on June 30, 1764 near the village of Ibak, not far from Langon. Her body was partially gnawed by the beast.
In August, he killed two more children - a girl and a boy. At first, peasants attributed these attacks to a pack of hungry or rabid wolves, but few eyewitnesses described huge beast black in color with cat-like habits. Dozens of hunting parties rushed into the forests, but they returned empty-handed and the number of victims continued to rise.
All attacks were carried out in the same way: the victim was knocked down with a swift throw. A wolf is a large animal, and its weight in flight, especially if its front paws hit the chest, is quite enough to knock even a tall person to the ground. The beast killed its victims with a bite to the face, which it then tore apart with razor-sharp teeth. If a person did not die immediately, shock and loss of blood soon took their toll.
In the fall, the wolf added an adult woman to the number of victims. At seven in the evening on September 6, 1764, the beast appeared in the middle of the village of Estre (near Arzans) and attacked a thirty-six-year-old peasant woman. The village silence was torn apart by heart-rending screams, the villagers jumped out of their houses with axes and pitchforks. Rushing to the garden, they discovered the beast tearing the still living victim into pieces. Noticing the armed people, he slowly retreated to the forest, as if showing that he was not at all afraid. In total, during September, the Beast claimed the lives of five more children, among whom was a young man - the son of a local aristocrat, the Marquis d'Apshe. Remember this name.
By the end of October, the number of victims reached eleven. The Beast attacked a girl from the village of Vivaris, three teenagers from Shaila-Leveque, and a girl from the town of Toris. The monster bit out the victims’ cheeks and tongues, drank the blood and scattered the entrails of the dead around.
The alarm was raised in the villages. Nothing like this had ever happened here before: wolves attacked sheep, but not people. This happened only in extremely rare cases - in winter, when cold and hunger drove them out of the forest.
At the end of October 1764, two hunters, accidentally stumbling upon a wolf at the edge of a forest, fired at it from a distance of no more than ten steps. The shot knocked the monster to the ground, but it immediately jumped to its paws; the second shot made him fall again, but the Beast managed to get up and run into the forest. The hunters followed his bloody trail, but all they managed to find was the torn body of the Beast's next victim - a 21-year-old guy killed earlier that day.
After this, the Beast disappeared for a month, but resumed its activities on November 25, killing seventy-year-old Katherine Valli.
On a dark November evening, Jean-Pierre Pourchet, a cattleman from Julliange, went to the barn to buy hay for his oxen when he saw a heavy black shadow creeping across the wasteland along the village. During that anxious time, Purchet always kept a weapon at hand - a heavy double-barreled blunderbuss. The farmer took aim and fired from the first barrel - the beast at first seemed to disappear into the night, and then suddenly appeared right in front of Purche and reared up, standing up like a man. Purchet fired a second time, the monster let out a terrible cry, and then... “We met our gazes,” Purchet later told the gendarme police officer, “and I was struck by the eyes of the beast: they were human!”
Rumors spread through the mountain valleys about the “lugaru” - a werewolf. The priests sprinkled holy water on the bullets that the peasants brought to the church. The local curé dubbed the beast the “Scourge of God” sent to the people for the sins of the king and the nobility. When the attacks of the Beast assumed frightening proportions, the military governor of Languedoc de Montcan sent a detachment of forty foot dragoons and seventeen horsemen stationed in Clermont-Ferrand under the command of Captain Jacques Duhamel to the scene. (Interestingly, it was in Clermont-Ferrand that some of the most strange and sinister manifestations of lycanthropy were recorded). The first raid, organized by a detachment of dragoons, did not bring success. The beast got away from under his nose and disappeared into the forests on the coast of the Margerid River. Soon the remains of five more victims of the mysterious predator were found there.
The authorities of Languedoc and the bishop of Mende also organized a group of hunters, who simultaneously with Duhamel’s detachment carried out one raid after another. Women and children were prohibited from leaving the house alone. Men were required to carry at least a stick with a knife tied to the end. By the end of 1764, hunters and dragoons in the vicinity of Gevaudan had killed about a hundred wolves. In December, when the dragoons finished their work, the residents were confident that the danger had been eliminated, but as soon as the detachment left the area, a huge wolf made a new attack on Christmas Eve.
Having begun a continuous series of attacks in December 1764 - sometimes 2-3 attacks per day, 4 attacks and two corpses in one day on December 27th - the Beast continued it in January 1765. At the beginning of January 1765, when reports of new victims were received , the church declared war on the beast, and the bishop held a prayer service for the safety of the inhabitants, but despite these spiritual measures, the wolf killed several more women and girls over the following days.
During January, the Beast attacked people 18 times, that is, every other day. Fortunately, not every attack resulted in the death of the victim. On January 12, 1765, a group of children - thirteen-year-old Jacques Portfey, with him four boys and two girls aged 9 to 13 years old - were attacked by the Beast of Gevaudan. A huge wolf rushed at a group of children playing on the outskirts of the village of Vilare and grabbed the youngest. Then three older guys, grabbing stones and sticks, attacked the beast, forcing it to abandon the victim and take flight. Although the wolf bit these little brave men, the life of the youngest child was saved. Later that day, the Beast finally found prey, killing his infant son. local resident de Greza.
The episode with the rescue of thirteen-year-old Jacques Portfey and his comrades from the Beast of Gevaudan attracted the attention of the King of France, Louis XV, who rewarded the young men by ordering them to be given 300 livres.
The wolf, which for some time was afraid of groups of people, soon bitten and partially ate a girl of twelve and a teenager of fourteen years old. These atrocities were given a special flavor by one strange feature of the beast from Gevaudan, namely, the choice of prey. The wolf could almost always kill a sheep or a cow, but he did not do this. He would lie in wait for a person and pounce on him, even if it was fraught with serious danger.
In late January, a wolf attacked three farm workers in broad daylight. The men had iron pitchforks, and they did not panic. The struggle lasted, as it seemed to the peasants, for several minutes, but in fact, apparently, it took about thirty seconds. People, screaming wildly, tried to pierce the beast with pitchforks, and he tried to get to their throat.
When the wolf ran away growling, the peasants hurried to the village. They told authorities that the wolf was a large adult animal with coarse reddish fur; attacked in a horizontal position, and then reared up like a horse and struck with its front paws. The luck of these people and the vengefulness of the Beast, who did not expect a rebuff, can be assessed by the fact that within a few days after his collision with the farm workers, the wolf killed two women and a child.
Local residents constantly organized raids on the mysterious and cruel monster. One of these raids involved about a thousand people, but although several large wolves were scared off and killed in the forest, to everyone's disappointment, not one of them resembled a cannibal. The fact that the efforts were in vain became clear in early February, when a young guy became the wolf’s next victim. He was severely wounded, but remained alive thanks to his dog, which, protecting its owner, with incredible courage attacked the wolf and forced the Beast to leave its prey. In February, the attacks continued with the same frequency, but the Beast was no longer so lucky - people more often managed to escape from him.
King Louis XV personally ordered professional hunters from Normandy - Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vaumesl Duneval and his son Jean-Francois Duneval to destroy the monster. Father Duneval was one of the most famous hunters in France; during his life he killed more than a thousand wolves.
Father and son arrived in Clermont-Ferrand on February 17, 1765, bringing with them a pack of eight hounds trained in wolf hunting. Over the course of several months, they managed to track down and kill about twenty wolves, but the elusive Beast avoided all traps, did not eat poisoned bait, and did not show itself. Growing more and more impudent, as if from the realization of his invulnerability, the wolf once even attacked a horseman riding along the road to the local village of Amorn. The beast jumped from the thicket onto the rider and knocked him out of the saddle. But the man still managed to fight back, jump on his horse again and gallop away.
Throughout the spring of 1765, the Beast attacked at the same pace - every other day. On April 5, he attacked a group of four children and killed them all - these children were not as lucky as Jacques Portfay and his friends.
The Dunevali staged several mass raids, the largest of which, on May 1, 1765, involved 117 soldiers and 600 local residents. The wolf was surrounded, and the hunters put three bullets into it, which were blessed in the church. But the Beast broke through the barrier of dogs and beaters and disappeared. "Everything is over! The monster has been destroyed!" - Duneval wrote in his report to Versailles, and two days later the wolf killed two more people in different parts of the Auvergne.
In early June, near Amornya, a wolf killed a girl. Another girl escaped by climbing onto a cliff overlooking the road. The parents found her only three days later, when, unfortunately, the child had already lost his mind.
In June 1765, Dunevaley, by order of the king, was replaced by François Antoine de Boterre, bearer of the royal arquebus and Lieutenant of the Hunt. Once this famous warrior was the best arquebus shooter in the kingdom, but now he is already over seventy. However, the Chevalier de Boterre retained, despite his gray hair, his bearing, his sharp eye, and his steady hand. He began by asking the nobles for their best hunting dogs. Having recruited a pack, the lieutenant arrived at Le Malzieu with magnificent hounds and a detachment of beaters on June 22nd and began methodically combing the forests.
During a three-month hunt, 1,200 wolves were exterminated, but, as if expressing his contempt for the new enemy, a huge wolf walked straight into one of the houses and killed old woman sitting at the spinning wheel. Her torn body was discovered by a child, whose cries disturbed the wolf and forced it to leave. Over the next few weeks, the Beast killed five more children and a young woman, attacking her just as she was feeding the best hunting dogs brought from Paris. The frightened hounds did not even try to save the unfortunate woman.
On August 11, 1765, the Beast attacked a girl named Marie-Jeanne Valais. It seems incredible, but, showing incredible courage and the will to live, Marie-Jeanne managed to fight off the Beast. Nowadays, near the village of Polak in Lozere there is a sculpture dedicated to this event.
During that period, the Beast carried out 134 attacks and claimed the lives of 55 people, mostly children and women. The last of these victims was killed on September 12, 1765, and on September 20, de Boter and his hunters (forty volunteers, 12 dogs) decided to organize an ambush at the abbey in Chaz.
A few hours later, after the hunters had been placed in place, the dogs drove the monster straight towards de Boter, who was standing at the tripod of his arquebus. He loaded the gun with a lead bullet and at the same time thirty-five buckshot. De Boter made the sign of the cross and pulled the trigger, a large shot pierced the wolf's chest. The Tenacious Beast tried to flee when another hunter's shot hit him in the head, piercing his right eye and skull. The beast collapsed, but, as incredible as it may seem, while the hunters were reloading their guns, it jumped to its feet again and rushed at de Boter. "Shoot!" - the Chevalier commanded. A volley rang out, and the monster froze with its paws bent under itself.
It was an animal of incredible size, a wolf with an unusual, strange coloring, weighing 60 kilograms, almost twice as much as usual. It was 80 cm high at the withers, and its length from the tip of its blunt nose to the end of its extremely long shaggy tail was 1.7 meters. Each of its fangs was up to four centimeters long.
Eight surviving victims of the cannibal were called to the village of Sozh, where de Boter set up headquarters, and they all identified the killer. A local barber opened the belly of the beast and found human bones and several strips of red material.
The killed beast was called the “wolf of Shaz” after the Shaz Abbey located nearby. De Boter sent a report to the king in which he wrote: “In this report, certified by our signatures, we declare that we have never seen a wolf that could be compared with this one. That's why we believe this is the one scary beast who caused such damage to the kingdom."
The Chevalier sent the prey to Clermont, where healers processed the predator's skin and made a stuffed animal out of it for the king. The shooter was awarded the Order of St. Louis, a thousand livres of boarding money and was allowed to have a wolf's head in the family coat of arms from now on.
Z Believe returned on December 2, 1765, like an anti-ghost - clawed and fanged flesh, soulless, but full of wild retribution. He attacked two children, 14 and 7 years old, near Besser-Sainte-Marie, on December 10, he seriously wounded two women near Lachamps, on December 14, near the village of Polak, a young man miraculously escaped from him, and on December 21, 1765, in In the vicinity of Mount Mouchet, villagers found the body of 12-year-old Agnes. The girl's head was torn off, her insides were gutted, and her tongue was bitten off by a cruel monster.
The wolf became so insolent that he approached houses in search of defenseless victims. At the end of March, he dragged away an eight-year-old boy who was playing in the yard, and the father, who went in search of the child, found his torn remains one and a half kilometers from the house. The next victim was an old man, and although he was severely wounded, he was lucky because the intervention of a passerby saved his life. Then there was a lull for some time, and at the height of summer the attacks resumed. The beast killed two more children who were herding sheep, and the sad list of nightmarish attacks was replenished until November 1, when, having killed 12-year-old Jean-Pierre Ollier near the village of Suchet, the Gevaudan Beast suddenly disappeared into nowhere again - all the more unexpected since there was a great hunt for There were no hunts at this time and, unlike the previous year, hunters did not kill large wolves. In total, at the end of 1765 and all of 1766, the Beast made 41 attacks.
The beast did not appear for 122 days, that is, until spring, and the Zhevodan villagers sighed calmly, but it was too early to rejoice. On March 2, 1767, the Beast killed a boy near the village of Pontajou, resuming his bloody harvest with a vengeance. He carried out 8 attacks during April, and 19 during May (for a total of 36).
Residents took desperate measures to destroy the terrible creation of the gloomy forests of Gevaudan. They laid out poisoned food, but the Beast ignored simple baits, preferring human flesh. The peasants set traps and traps, but they remained empty, and even the few skeptics who believed that they were dealing with an ordinary non-supernatural animal wavered in their conviction.
The Gevaudan beast ruled over the forests of this region for more than two years, showing contemptuous indifference to all attempts to catch and kill it, but the Marquis d'Apche, not losing hope of destroying the monster and avenging the death of his son, tirelessly carried out one raid after another in the mountains. Finally, on June 19, 1767, the largest of these roundups - with the participation of more than 300 hunters - was crowned with success: one of them managed to shoot the monster.
Jean Chastel, being an extremely religious man, loaded his gun with blessed silver bullets and took the Bible with him. During a halt, Chastel opened the Bible and began to read a prayer when a giant wolf jumped out of the thicket. He stopped in front of Chastel and looked at him, and then Chastel fired at point-blank range, then reloaded the gun and fired again.
Two silver bullets reached their target - the wolf was killed on the spot. The weight of the killed animal was 63 kg. It is known that the weight of a wolf can reach 70-80 kg, but usually adult males weigh no more than 40-50 kg. His fur had a distinct reddish tint, which matched the description of the wolf that had killed so many people. And when the animal was opened, fragments of the humerus bones of a girl who had died the day before were found in its stomach.
The carcass of the wolf was carried throughout Gevaudan from city to city to convince the villagers of the death of the Beast; then, again stuffing it, it was delivered to the king. Unfortunately, this time the effigy was made ineptly and began to decompose; Louis, laughing at Chastel and his statements, ordered the remains to be buried.
The grateful residents of Gevaudan themselves paid tribute to Chastel: they collected a prize of 72 livres (quite a significant amount) and gave it to the man who saved Gevaudan from a misfortune that had tormented him for more than two years.
Official documents from the time show 230 attacks, including 51 injuries and 123 deaths. Thanks to the accuracy and safety of the parish registers, this figure can be considered final. Other sources increase the number of attacks to 306.
Considering the episode with de Boter, Gevaudan had the right to wait for the fourth coming of the Beast, but the Gevaudan Beast never returned. He was killed once and for all.
"It's an old French legend that, believe it or not, is connected to your family," as Kate Alison says. A little later, in the dining room, Alison reads a brief version of this very legend to Lydia.
Here we recall a real episode of French history, and a rather dark episode. From 1764 to 1767, in the French province of Gevaudan, an unknown beast is believed to have killed more than 80 people. As Alison later reads to Lydia, King Louis XV of France really sent his best hunters to kill the beast. At first these were two professional wolf hunters, and in the summer of 1765 they were replaced by the lieutenant of the royal hunting service, Francois Antoine, whose activities in Gevaudan can be called a real genocide of wolves. On September 20, 1765, he managed to kill a huge wolf more than one and a half meters long and weighing more than 60 kilograms. Due to the outstanding characteristics of the beast, it was he who was recognized as the “Beast of Gevaudan”, and his stuffed animal was solemnly sent to Paris. The attacks did stop temporarily, but in December 1765 they began again.
The period before September 1765 is much better covered in the sources. Louis XV himself was interested in this matter; Parisian newspapers published news on the topic of the “Beast of Gevaudan” almost every day. After killing the unusual wolf and stopping the attacks, the Beast was forgotten. And they didn’t want to remember when it turned out that the attacks were continuing. Therefore, the final acts of this story are poorly covered and are much more mythologized.
Alison tells Lydia that the beast was killed by a hunter, who claimed that his wife and four children were the beast's first victims and his name was Argent. In fact, his name was Jean Chastel and neither his wife nor his nine children became victims of the Zhevodan beast. The name, however, was changed deliberately in the series. We'll talk about the purpose of these changes later. But on June 19, 1677, Jean Chastel actually killed a rather unusual wolf, after which the attacks stopped. You can find reports of wolf attacks on people in this area two years later, but they were no longer associated, apparently, with the Beast of Gevaudan. The beast killed by Chastel stopped the hysteria. The very identity of Jean Chastel is still very ambiguous, as is his connection with these attacks. There were even accusations that Chastel and one of his sons were murderers who only disguised their atrocities as animal attacks, that they bred some kind of cross between a wolf and a dog, which they taught to attack people, and that in reality not all murders are in the nature of an animal attack. In "Teen Wolf" they decided to trace the Argent family from an interesting and famous legend, but a rather dubious personality.
There are a million modern theories about who the Beast of Gevaudan was. From the most trivial to the strangest. On the one hand, two wolves were presented to the public. After the first murder, the killings stopped temporarily, and then resumed, but not with such force. After killing the second beast, the attacks stopped altogether. It is logical to assume that these wolves were the same Gevaudan monsters. One of the most common theories states exactly this. That the Zhevaudan beast is two or three wolves, which due to some circumstances became cannibals. Sometimes the strange behavior of wolves is explained by the fact that it could be a cross between a dog and a wolf. Both animals were examined by a doctor and a detailed description of the size of the animal and its teeth of the second was discovered only in 1958. The description of the teeth leaves no doubt that it was an animal from the canine family. But is it really a wolf? Much has been written on this topic and it is not here to expand on it. In the 18th century, peasants naturally sometimes believed that people were killed by a werewolf or a sorcerer who commanded wolves to attack.
Almost two and a half centuries have passed, but it is still unknown what kind of monster kept the entire Gevaudan (a region in central France) in fear for three years. Not a hair, not even a reliable sketch, has survived from him - nevertheless, his reality is beyond doubt: the trace he left in historical documents is deep and indelible. His “cultural projection” is the same: many books have been written about the monster from Gevaudan, a number of films have been shot (the most notable and most recent of them is the bestseller “Brotherhood of the Wolf”: a very spectacular spectacle, but absolutely terrible in terms of the scale of distortion of facts). But everything else remains a mystery. Was it an animal unknown to science (in which case it is among the objects that cryptozoology deals with: the science of “unfound” or “unrecognized” animals)? Wolf? Dog? Maniac? Werewolf? Modern researchers are ready to accept almost all of these versions at once - except, of course, the last one. For the inhabitants of Gevaudan it is latest version seemed the only possible one. However, they superstitiously avoided such formulations, calling this creature simply “The Beast.” That's right - with a capital letter!
One of the most realistic drawings of the Beast, made, however, not from life (there are simply no such things: for some reason they haven’t even made them from a stuffed animal in 44 years!), but “according to eyewitness accounts.” As you can see, he resembles a wolf very conditionally!
It all started in the spring of 1764 near the town of Langoni. A local peasant woman drove the bulls out to pasture - and suddenly, out of nowhere, a terrible beast attacked her. The shepherd dogs didn’t even move when they saw him—they just trembled and whined. The frightened shepherdess rushed to the bulls, trying to hide behind them. Fortunately, the bulls turned out to be bolder than the wolfhounds: they met the predator with their horns outstretched, but he deftly avoided the blows and rushed at the shepherdess over and over again. It seems that he chose her as his sacrifice.
That time the bull herd managed to drive away the predator. But in early July, a predatory beast devoured a fourteen-year-old girl, Jeanne Boulet. This was the first victim of the invulnerable monster. Or rather, it was the first time that the name of the victim became known: ten people were already listed as missing...
On September 6, at seven o'clock in the evening, the Beast appeared right in the middle of the village of Estre, not far from the town of Arzenk. At this time, a thirty-six-year-old peasant woman was digging in the garden near her house. The beast (he was no longer at all afraid of crowded places and began to attack even adults) threw the unfortunate woman to the ground, sank his fangs into her throat and began to greedily suck out the blood...
The silence of the village was broken by a heart-rending scream: “Beast!..” Then all the residents jumped out of their houses - some with pitchforks, some with an ax. They rushed to the garden, from where frantic screams were heard, and saw a terrible picture: The beast, bending over the victim, was tearing it into pieces with huge fangs. Noticing the people and realizing that he could not defeat them all, he shook his huge head and slowly trotted away, as if showing that he was not at all afraid.
After this tragedy, the number of victims of the Beast grew at an alarming rate
In total, according to general estimates, in three years, not counting the missing, he ruined over a hundred lives (according to other estimates - ninety-six). Seventy-five of them are children and teenagers, almost all the rest are women (and one old man). An adult man was apparently never killed by the Beast - although he attacked such men, even armed ones (!), walking in a group (!!). And there were at least three times more wounded and mutilated after his attacks than those killed...
There were not enough guns in the then Gevaudan, so the peasants, going outside the village, armed themselves with homemade pikes. In addition, less than three of us now did not even risk going to the neighboring village for firewood or to the fair. But the Beast attacked even such detachments. Having closed ranks and thrust out their spears, people usually managed to fight back (sometimes receiving wounds). Repeatedly they managed to wound their mysterious enemy, but this did not affect either his combat effectiveness or his ability to move quickly: the very next day he would sow death in another part of Gevaudan, tens of kilometers away!
The easiest way, of course, is to assume that there were several Beasts (in the end this was confirmed: at least two). But the appearance of the monster was so characteristic that local residents had no doubt: it was one and the same creature. So what did he look like?
“...This creature is much larger than a wolf; his paws are clawed; wool - borax; the head is huge and elongated; the muzzle is like that of a greyhound dog; the ears are small, straight and pointed upward, like horns; chest - wide and grayish; back - with black stripes; the mouth is huge and dotted with razor-sharp fangs, capable of tearing off the head from the body in an instant. Its movements are leisurely, although, if necessary, it can move in giant leaps - unusually dexterously and quickly - and in a matter of moments cover a distance of two or three leagues without much difficulty. It stands on its hind legs, rushes at the victim in one leap and grabs it by the neck - either from behind or from the side.”
The last characteristic, as we will soon see, is not entirely correct: it was the neck that the Beast rarely grabbed. But the descriptions of appearance, in general, coincide among different witnesses. Moreover, many (that is, in reality, a few: those who saw the Beast up close and remained alive) emphasize the same features: clawed paws, small, by wolf standards, ears (sometimes they report that the eyes are also small), sharply narrowed a muzzle (here “dog” comparisons predominate: “like a greyhound”), a cat’s tail rather than a wolf’s, and not at all wolf fangs, because of which the mouth acquired strange shapes!
“The vile creature was little smaller than a donkey, with a broad chest, a huge head and a thick scruff; the ears resembled those of a wolf, only a little longer, and the muzzle was like a boar’s snout.”
Here, as we see, the ears, on the contrary, are larger than those of a wolf. True, “fear has big eyes”: many observers get confused in the details, their main attention is riveted - and this is quite understandable! - fanged mouth.
And here is the testimony of another eyewitness: “The Beast’s body is elongated, it clings to the ground; The coat is reddish, with black stripes on the back. Very long tail. The claws are incredibly large."
“He is much larger than even the tallest guard dog; His fur is brown and very thick, and on his belly it is more yellow. The head is huge, as are the two front fangs protruding from the mouth on both sides; ears are short and straight; the tail is quite hard, because when the Beast runs, it hardly waves it.”
There is no talk of fear here: this description was compiled by two horsemen who first fired a couple of successful (alas, not fatal) shots at the Beast, and then pursued him on horseback for a long time, trying in vain to finish him off. But even in their story there is a “tiger” (?) and seemingly inflexible tail - although other eyewitnesses observed how, rushing to attack, the Beast lashed itself on the sides with its tail.
In general, it turns out something between a wolf and... a hyena? There is some confusion about the protruding fangs: some observers do not notice them. Perhaps, with the mouth closed, they protruded only slightly; True, this is not typical for a “normal” wolf. In addition, it is unknown whether these were upper fangs (like... saber tooth tiger?) or lower (like a bulldog or other dogs of “fighting” breeds). We'll come back to this later...
The description of the large claws is very interesting. When attacking armed detachments, the Beast did not behave like a wolf: it reared up and hit with its front paws (though there seems to be no information about lacerations) - on the shoulders, on the shafts of the pike... Once, while chasing a rider, it jumped onto the horse’s croup and knocked him over along with the man (the latter, however, was good with weapons and was already able to fight back on the ground). In combination with the “cat” tail, these details give rise to serious thoughts.
So, unknown species? But this is where the factors that distinguish cryptozoology from the haphazard and unscientific collection of “mystery cases” come into play.
It is almost impossible to imagine a viable population that, living in relatively accessible and densely populated areas, would not have “manifested” either before or after the fateful period of 1764-1767. Gevaudan itself, however, in the 18th century and even now, the area, by European standards, is extremely inaccessible: low but steep mountains, almost impenetrable thickets, many ravines... But this is still not an African jungle. The size of the region, in principle, allows a “residual” population of relict animals (even active predators!) to hide on its territory, which will be large enough to avoid degeneration. But then such an explosive and one-time “contact” with a person is all the more unthinkable. The whole history of crypto-species tells a different story: an animal unknown to scientists is always known to the local population. Sometimes it’s bad if it’s a really rare or extremely cautious animal; but in any case, a certain complex of information, often legendary and mythical, develops around it. The main tragedy of Gevaudan was that the Beast turned out to be completely unknown to the local residents. Their only version turned out to be the pan-European legends about the “loup-garo” (the French analogue of the “werewolf”) - but this is already beyond the scope of cryptozoological research.
Of course, we can also deal with a “stray guest”. But in this case, the problem from local becomes pan-European: somewhere, after all, the ancestors of the Beast must have lived, fed, raised their cubs... Even if they did not show a tendency towards cannibalism, it is still difficult to understand how they managed to remain completely unnoticed in European forests . Especially considering how noticeable the Beast of Gevaudan was!
In British periodicals St. Games's Chronicle (the first foreign mention of the Beast) in early 1765, a message appeared about terrorizing one of the French provinces of "an animal of a new species, which is something between a wolf, a tiger and a hyena." The phrase " the new kind” sounds quite “pocryptozoological”; people started talking about the tiger precisely because of the combination of stories about stripes and large claws.
But the Beast still inflicted the main wounds with his teeth. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to be very good at killing: when attacking, he very rarely grabbed “like a wolf” by the throat, mostly aiming for the face. Most of the dead died from painful shock...
So, sometimes rabid wolves bite into your face. But an animal that was rampant from the spring of 1764 to the summer of 1767 cannot be rabid; besides, none of the wounded fell ill with rabies...
True, as at first it seemed, the bloody path of the Gevaudan Beast was cut short in September 1765. The fact is that after the first murders this story became a problem of national importance - and the Parisian authorities repeatedly dispatched entire hunting expeditions to Gevaudan (once - a real army from two professional hunters, seventeen dragoons and four dozen soldiers); however, contrary to the “Brotherhood of the Wolf”, there were no Indian karatekas or enlightened academic karatekas there. They all returned unsuccessfully: that is, they killed some wolves, but the attacks did not stop. But the main hunter of France (without exaggeration: it was the head of the royal hunting service, Señor Francois Antoine de Botern) seemed to be lucky. He shot a real monster, which eyewitnesses recognized as the Beast. And the remains of human flesh were found in his stomach...
They did not think of making a detailed description of the beast: so great was the general confidence that this was the Beast. In no detailed description features a color known to all of Gevaudan and an unusually massive physique, so that the weight was almost 60 kg (in Siberia and Canada there are also larger specimens of wolves, but in France they rarely reach even 30 kg!), and the length was only slightly less than 2 m. In general phrases, without specifying specific sizes, they speak of a very long tail and a large head. The shape of the muzzle, the shape of the ears, the shape and size of the fangs and claws - all this remained “behind the scenes”. However, a stuffed animal was made from the skin of the Beast, but it has not survived to this day: in 1819 it burned down in a fire.
Señor François, a man with enormous hunting experience, considered his prey a “freak of the wolf tribe”: he specifically tracked down and shot a very large she-wolf, with whom, in his opinion, the Beast was “playing tricks”, and then her only offspring, also very large , but without any other deviations. Was he right in his suspicions? Who knows... The court hunter still had no experience in comparative anatomy, so, having an excellent understanding of wolves, he could unwittingly “adjust” the parameters of an unknown animal to the wolf standard, especially if it really looked like a wolf! Maybe the wolves, without participating in attacks on people, “eaten up” the remains of the victims after the Beast? After all, they also eat up animals of other species (for example, a bear) ...
De Botern received a well-deserved award (9,400 livres - a fortune!) and, so to speak, an “extraordinary title of nobility.” The Royal Council considered the case closed. And when two weeks later news came from Gevaudan that the epidemic of murders was continuing, there was no reaction to this.
The last period in the history of the Beast of Gevaudan is the most bitter. Left without help, local residents organized either religious processions or raids; they slaughtered livestock, not daring to send them to pasture; went bankrupt because it became too dangerous to transport food to the market - and, despite all these precautions, they continued to die...
During one of these raids on July 19, 1767, a wolf-like monster fell under the bullet of local hunter Jean Chatel - an almost exact double of the one that was killed almost two years earlier. And only since then the attacks have stopped.
In Paris, Chatel was not paid the bonus: after all, “the issue is closed!” The grateful residents of Gevaudan, however, collected a certain amount for him: as much as... 72 livres. I couldn’t highlight the devastated, exhausted region anymore.
Chatel's trophy was described in great detail: this time, so that there was no doubt about the death of the Beast, the signatures of 28 respected eyewitnesses were collected. There is still no indication in the protocol of “saber teeth” and “tiger” claws or tail, but in general the appearance of the animal is exactly as reported by surviving witnesses of the attacks.
French researcher Alain Decaux, author of the “Great Mysteries” series, several years ago, analyzing the descriptions of the shot Beasts, said this: “From the smallest details it was clear that this was not a wolf. However, today zoologists, having no less carefully studied the same details, have established that it is still a wolf...”
Let us beg to differ with our French colleague. The idea that “modern scientists have analyzed all the details and finally figured it all out” goes back to one single scientific conference 1960s, at which it was suggested that the description of the Beast's teeth did not go beyond variations of the "wolf standard". Regarding all other oddities, including behavior mysteries, no clear conclusions were drawn.
French scientists of the 18th century, including the great Buffon (who ignored the stuffed animal of the first Beast and briefly examined the second), simply brushed aside the problem: of course, this is just an unusually large ferocious wolf, and only dense superstitions can suggest anything else! This was the scientific approach of the Age of Enlightenment... Modern biologists, even hypnotized by the conclusions of their predecessors, are not so categorical: each of the described characteristics INDIVIDUALLY can relate to a wolf, albeit “on the verge” of what is acceptable, but all of them together... and even strange habits ...
The stuffed animal of the second Beast, made hastily, within a few days emitted such a stench that high society, which was nevertheless interested in this trophy, immediately considered it “unsuitable for consideration.” Further fate The exhibit is unknown - but it clearly could not have been preserved.
Oddly enough, neither in the first nor in the second case was there an attempt to preserve the skeleton. There was no mention of scars or traces of healed wounds. But the Beast, whether he had one or two “persons,” received wounds from bladed weapons many times (at least once he was pierced so seriously that for some time, until the next attack, it seemed to everyone that this blow should be fatal). Twice, even before de Boterna’s shot, he came under rifle fire (again, at least one wound, according to the general belief, should have been fatal, although it did not prevent the Beast from leaving). Could it be that in both 1765 and 1767 the wrong animals were killed that took part in the attacks? Or did it simply not occur to eyewitnesses to pay attention to the healed scars?
No sketches were made from life. At the moment, many drawings of the Beast of Gevaudan are known, but all of these are analogues of the “photo identikit”, compiled from stories. As a result, they resemble one another rather poorly, and one can only guess about the similarity to the original. We present the most “werewolf” of these drawings. Oddly enough, it is he who records signs recognizable from a biological point of view. But they make us remember not the wolf, but the hyena.
Wooden relief of the 18th century in one of the churches of Gevaudan: The beast carries away its prey, breaking the spears of the defenders, not paying attention to the wounds or to the cross hanging from the victim’s neck... An unknown artist tried to capture a werewolf, a “demonic wolf” - but, unexpectedly for himself, he portrayed something like a hyena!
Again the hyena... By the way, not all experts agreed to consider the Beast a wolf. For example, the English biologist D. Menatori, not being convinced by the conclusion international conference, defended precisely this option.
The hyena, of course, for hunters accustomed to the European fauna, is an animal, firstly, difficult to recognize, and secondly, similar to a wolf. But the behavioral characteristics, and even the ultra-high combat capability of the Beast, are absolutely inapplicable to known types of hyena! Besides, how could a brood of hyenas get to Gevaudan?
In general, the Beast of Gevaudan is a very unpleasant incident for official biology: its existence cannot be denied (there is too much evidence), but attributed to known species It is possible only “forcibly”.
It was also suggested that the maniac was operating with trained dogs. According to Dr. Hugh Trotty, a researcher on the problem of lycanthropy (a set of legends about werewolves), this is supported by references to a long tail (in a wolf, its “log” is not very noticeable). This type of tail is much more likely to be found in a domestic dog!
True, in none of the attacks was there a “trainer” even close. But the assumption is not without meaning! After all, today's fighting dogs tend to bite into a person's face. And they have a “boar face”: look at the bull terrier or, if you like, at such a purely French breed as the Dogue de Bordeaux! And the fangs (lower) sometimes stick out...
And during the times of hound hunting, many owners of packs experimented: they crossed dogs of different breeds, sometimes even hybridized them with wolves!
It is interesting that two years before the appearance of the Beast, in one of the neighboring districts, a “family firm” was arrested and convicted, accused of setting... tame wolves (possibly wolf-dog hybrids?) on lonely travelers, and then robbing the remains of those torn to pieces. The main accused was executed, the rest went to hard labor. What happened to their “murder weapons”? Perhaps a couple of animals from the pack were left unattended? Then they could well continue the “business” to which they were accustomed, or even entice their offspring to do so (during the Gevaudan tragedy, not only de Botern, but also other hunters sometimes discovered unusually large wolf cubs and even adult wolves with “transitional characteristics” in those parts signs": it seems like an ordinary beast, but is somewhat similar to the Beast...). In addition, the situation with fatal wounds is explained (unless, of course, their “mortality” was initially overestimated): since there are more than two predators, one of them could have died unnoticed.
(By the way, at that time special armor was still used in dog hunts, protecting selected dogs when baiting dangerous animals: bear, wild boar... If you cover such armor with fur to match the “natural” skin, it will be both unnoticeable and capable of protecting from cold weapons!)
The armor is also present in the famous film “Brotherhood of the Wolf”. True, the director actually brought together absolutely ALL versions expressed over two centuries, and even added his own - so he ended up with an absolutely monstrous vinaigrette!
Yes, there was apparently some kind of “Jack the Ripper” in Gevaudan. But perhaps he did not “collaborate” with the real Beast, but simply disguised his actions as it. After all, some of the victims, especially young girls, were “butchered” in the style not of a predator, but of a maniac! Then this was considered additional evidence of the werewolf essence of the Beast, but then...
It was this version that formed the basis of one of the episodes of the novel about Till Eulenspiegel (remember: the killer maniac “disguises” himself as a werewolf!). And Arthur Conan Doyle, when creating his “Hound of the Baskervilles,” did not forget about it. So, in fact, we all know about the monster from Gevaudan since childhood. Another thing is that we don’t always “recognize” him!
Returning to the version of the maniac, let's say: for a long time, the greatest suspicion in this sense has been... the Chatel clan. Perhaps not Jean himself, but one of his adult sons, Antoine Chatel. At one time he traveled a lot in the Muslim regions of the Mediterranean, was captured in Algeria, was, according to rumors, castrated - and returned home as an embittered loser for the whole world.
Yes, this is, perhaps, exactly the material from which serial killers are formed. In addition, according to some reports, Chatel Jr., while in captivity, for some time was the caretaker of the Sultan’s menagerie (!), where very exotic creatures could be kept. ...
Some time ago, the famous researcher of the “Gevaudan Problem” G. Purratt, in a fictional form, told the world the story of how the angry misanthrope Antoine Chatel returns from captivity with a tame hyena, how he trains it to rush at people and uses it as a killing partner, how, with the support of his family clan, remains above suspicion for a long time - and in the end, when the situation becomes too dangerous, he brings the trained beast under the gun of his father. (According to this version, the first Beast was still a wolf - but if a litter of hyenas had been brought, all this could have been done in 1764.) Yes, this is more literature than science - but the book’s consultant was Gerald Menatori, already known to us !
To be honest, as a “maniac’s accomplice,” the hyena fits into the Gevaudan story worse than a wolfhound dog or a hybrid wolf. However, in the summer of 1997, another scientific discussion dedicated to the Beast of Gevaudan took place in Paris. Its participants did not expect any special news (after all, more than two hundred years had passed!) - but one of the reports had the effect of a bomb exploding.
This report was made by France Julien, not a cryptozoologist, but an “official” biologist, leading taxidermist of the Paris national museum natural history. He collected all the data about the stuffed animal of the first Beast, which was kept in the museum collection from 1766 to 1819, when it was destroyed by fire. And it turned out that, although Buffon’s colleagues really turned their noses up at first, during this period the unique exhibit was examined by several quite qualified naturalists. They all gave it a clear definition: this skin was taken from a striped hyena.
Perhaps the clarity and unambiguity of the formulation is evidence of the excessive “self-confidence” of the science of those times. Determining the type of hyena only by its skin, without a skeleton or even a skull, is still not an easy task: the appearance and color of these predators is very variable. But with family accuracy, a confident conclusion can indeed be drawn. And if Julien’s data is accurate, apparently, an animal of the hyena family, not a dog, was rampant in Gevaudan!
If in the version with the proto-bull terrier Antoine Chatel is not an ideal candidate for a maniac (rather, this role is suitable for one of the local nobles, owners of hunting packs), then the “genius version” with his personality, given his stay in Algeria, is easier to connect. Lives in those parts striped hyena(actually, this is more of an Asian animal, its range extends to the Caucasus), and the habitats of the spotted one (this is already exclusively African) are just a stone’s throw away. But can the species of hyenas known to us, even after special training - and they respond to it much worse than dogs - look and behave like the Beast of Gevaudan?
Even if almost all descriptions are considered exaggerated, no, this is impossible. Suppose eyewitnesses got confused with the shape of the muzzle and ears (especially since there really are disagreements); but there are still a few left characteristic features. A long tail, powerful claws (combined with extraordinary jumping ability and the manner of fighting with the front paws), enlarged fangs, a massively squat physique. With hyenas, it’s more likely the opposite: they are tall-legged and have short tails - so, while being noticeably heavier than a wolf (60 kg is a fairly average weight for them), they do not exceed it in length. They jump poorly, their front legs are relatively weak (especially the striped one), and their claws are less developed than those of a wolf or dog. The dental apparatus is unusually strong, much stronger than a wolf's - but... not due to the fangs!
And the basic characteristics of behavior can be changed by training no more than appearance, that is, not at all. It is completely impossible for a hyena to single-handedly rush over and over again at a bull herd bristling with horns, or, especially, an armed detachment, without retreating even after several wounds!
But all of the above applies to species of hyenas KNOWN TO SCIENCE (in fact, there are two more species in the family, but they are even less suitable for the role of the Beast). Who can guarantee that in the Algerian menagerie of the 18th century. there was no creature that fell out of the statistics of official science?
Monument to the Beast of Gevaudan, located near the village of Sauget in Avignon
During the Ice Age (and perhaps a little later) in Europe, the so-called “cave hyena” lived. Her life was not really connected with the caves - just a number of finds of bones of this animal were made there. Of course, nothing can be said about color and habits; the skeleton as a whole corresponded to the spotted hyena - perhaps it was a very large subspecies of it. But, of course, it had time and even the need to evolve noticeably: the European fauna has changed very seriously compared to the Ice Age.
Apparently, there was also a certain crypto-species of hyena in northern Africa (perhaps a descendant of the cave hyena?). There is no data about Algeria, but on ancient Egyptian frescoes there are images of these strange creatures, similar to their spotted counterparts, but exceeding them in height and slightly different in physique.
And again, the main question: is it possible that the cave hyena, even as a small endangered species, stayed in Europe or Algeria for such a long time (if not until the present day, then at least until the 18th century) without being noticed?
During one of the Caucasian scientific expeditions in 1991, a striped hyena was discovered on the territory of Kabarda: by the way, the official zoological reference books say that the last entry of this animal into the territory of the Caucasus was noted in pre-war times! However, although any specialist (including an experienced hunter) will at first glance identify its sharp and undeniable difference from a wolf or a feral stray dog, for an ignorant person, including ordinary hunters, these differences are practically invisible. Consequently, a small population can remain “invisible” for a long time - all observations are automatically transferred to its very distant “doubles”...
What is true for the modern Caucasus apparently also applies to old Europe (not to mention the fact that in this case the import of a pair of “puppies” from North Africa did not turn the problem of the Beast into biological nonsense). It is interesting to note that the legends about werewolves, although they “mean” transformation into a wolf, in fact contain some details that make us remember hyenas. Thus, a werewolf tears open fresh graves and eats corpses; This behavior is not alien to wolves, but it is more “becoming” for hyenas. And he himself, as a rule, is distinguishable from an ordinary wolf: he is not only more aggressive, but also larger, dressed with longer hair, sometimes forming a mane... The legendary nature of this information in itself does not refute anything (after all, legends about werewolves do not make the wolf a mythical beast !) - but perhaps the very appearance of such legends is to some extent connected with “non-standard” wolves, which could very well turn out to be animals of the hyena tribe! Especially if you remember the “laughing” or “crying” cries of hyenas, terrible for human hearing - which is why in Africa they themselves appear as werewolf animals...
Perhaps this version is the least controversial. But it's hard to say whether we will ever know the whole truth!
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With small pointed ears and large fangs protruding from the mouth. The Beast's fur was, according to most eyewitnesses, yellowish-red, but along the ridge on its back it had an unusual strip of dark fur. Sometimes it was about large dark spots on the back and sides.
The Beast’s tactics were atypical for a predator: he primarily aimed at the head, tearing the face, and did not try, like ordinary predators, to gnaw off the throat or limbs. Usually he knocked the victim to the ground with a swift throw, but later he mastered a different tactic - approaching in a horizontal position, he reared up in front of the victim and struck with his front paws. He often left his victims beheaded. If the Beast was forced to run, he left with an easy, even jog.
The Beast clearly preferred people as prey to livestock - in those cases when the victim found himself close to a herd of cows, goats or sheep, the Beast attacked the shepherd, not paying attention to the animals. The Beast's usual victims were women or children - working alone or even in twos and not carrying weapons. Men, who, as a rule, worked in the field in large groups and were able to fight off the predator with scythes and pitchforks, practically did not become its victims.
The number of attacks made many people think that they were dealing not with one Beast, but with a whole pack. Some witnesses noted that the Beast's companion was an animal similar to it - adult or young. In some sources one can find a reference to the fact that a person was seen once or twice next to the Beast, which led some to assume that the Beast was trained by a certain villain to attack people - although the latter already belongs to the area of myths associated with the Beast.
The animal never fell into traps and snares, ignored the poisoned baits scattered in abundance in the forest, and for three years successfully evaded the raids that were being carried out on him - all this indicated that the Beast of Gevaudan was not at all a mad predator, he was distinguished by an intelligence exceptional for a wolf, which instilled in the ignorant peasants the confidence that they were dealing with a werewolf (fr. loup-garou) - a person who can turn into a wolf. As evidenced by the episode with a nearly successful attempt to shoot the Beast in October 1764, he had rare vitality, which only confirmed these superstitions (a werewolf can only be killed with a silver bullet). Oddly enough, it was with a silver bullet that the Beast - if we count the man-eating wolf destroyed by it in 1767 - was killed.
Attacks by year
1764
The first mention of the Beast dates back to June 1, 1764, when he attempted to attack a peasant woman from the city of Langone, grazing a herd of cows in the Merkuar forest ( Mercoire). A creature resembling a wolf jumped out of the forest and rushed at her, but was driven away by the bulls from the herd.
The first victim of the Beast was fourteen-year-old Jeanne Boulet ( Jeanne Boulet), killed on June 30, 1764 near the village of Ibak ( Hubacs), near Langon. In August, he killed two more children - a girl and a boy; during September, the Beast claimed the lives of 5 more children, among whom was a young man - the son of a local aristocrat, Count d'Apshe ( d'Apcher). By the end of October, the number of victims reached eleven. Then the Beast disappeared for a month, which was due to his serious injury by two hunters, and on November 25 he resumed his activities, killing seventy-year-old Katherine Valli ( Catherine Vally). In total, 27 people were injured in 1764.
1765
Having started an almost continuous series of attacks in December 1764 - sometimes 2-3 attacks per day, 4 attacks and two corpses in one day on December 27 - the Beast continued it in January 1765. During January, the Beast attacked people 18 times, that is, after day. Fortunately, not every attack resulted in the death of the victim. On January 12, 1765, a group of children - thirteen-year-old Jacques Portfay ( Jacques Portefaix), with him four boys and two girls from 9 to 13 years old were attacked by the Beast of Gevaudan, but managed to fight it off by throwing sticks and stones at it (however, the Beast killed the young son of a local resident de Grez on the same day). In February, the attacks continued with the same frequency, but the Beast was no longer lucky - people managed to get away from him more often. However, throughout the spring of 1765, the Beast attacked at the same pace - every other day. On April 5, he managed to attack a group of four children and kill them all - they were not as lucky as Jacques Portfay and his friends. In total, until September 12, when the last murder was committed, the Beast had claimed the lives of 55 people, mostly children and women, and committed 134 attacks. After this, the Beast suddenly fell silent - this was probably due to the killing of the man-eating wolf by Lieutenant de Boter on September 20. Whether the killed wolf was a Beast or not, the killings stopped.
1766
1767
The beast did not appear for 122 days, that is, until spring, and the villagers of Gevaudan sighed calmly. It was too early to rejoice. On March 2, 1767, the Beast killed a boy near the village of Pontaju ( Pontajou) and resumed his bloody harvest, and with double energy, making 8 attacks during one April, and 19 during one May (a total of 36) and, apparently, would have broken his own records of 1765, but on June 19, 1767 he was finally killed by Jean Chastel. Considering the episode with de Boter, Gevaudan had the right to wait for the fourth coming of the Beast, but the Gevaudan Beast never returned. He was killed once and for all.
Thus, official documents from that time indicate 230 attacks, including 51 cases of injury and 123 deaths. Thanks to the accuracy and safety of the parish registers, this figure can be considered final. A list of victims by name can be found. Other sources increase the number of attacks to 306.
Hunt the Beast
First attempts
The Beast of Gevaudan eats the corpses of its victims
The episode with the rescue of thirteen-year-old Jacques Portfey and his comrades from the Beast of Gevaudan on January 12, 1765 attracted the attention of the King of France, Louis XV, who rewarded the young men by ordering them to be given 300 livres. At the same time, the king ordered professional hunters from Normandy - Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vaumesl Duneval ( d'Enneval) and his son Jean-François Duneval to destroy the monster. Father Duneval was one of the most famous hunters in France; during his life he personally killed more than a thousand wolves.
On September 20, 1765, de Botern and his hunters (forty local well-wishers, 12 dogs) discovered an unusually large wolf, which was considered the Beast of Gevaudan - it was raised by dogs from the bushes. De Beautern's shot hit him in the shoulder; The animal tried to escape, but a shot from one of the hunters hit it in the head, piercing its right eye and skull. The animal fell, but while the hunters were reloading their guns, the Beast jumped to its feet and rushed at de Boterna. The second volley drove the wolf back, and this time the wolf was killed.
The wolf killed by de Botern and his hunters was 80 cm at the withers, 1.7 m long and weighed 60 kg, that is, it was almost twice as large as usual. The killed animal was called the “wolf from Shaze” ( Le Loup de Chazes) according to the Chazay Abbey located nearby. De Botern sent a report to the king, which stated: “In this report, certified by our signatures, we declare that we have never seen a wolf that could be compared with this one. That is why we believe that this is the terrible beast that caused such damage to the kingdom.” Moreover, several strips of red matter were found in the wolf's stomach - this indicated that the wolf from Shaze was a cannibal.
The stuffed wolf was taken to Versailles and presented to the king, de Botern received a significant reward and was glorified as a hero. However, it soon became obvious that the wolf from Chazay was not the Beast of Gevaudan.
Jean Chastel
Stele depicting Jean Chastel in Besserre-Sainte-Marie, Lozère
The carcass of the wolf was carried throughout Gevaudan from city to city to convince the villagers of the death of the Beast; then, again stuffing it, it was delivered to the king. Unfortunately, this time the effigy was made very poorly and began to decompose; Louis XV, warped by the unbearable stench, ordered the effigy to be thrown into a landfill.
One way or another, from that moment on, the Beast's attacks stopped.
Beast Identification
Like the wolf killed by de Botern, the beast killed by Jean Chastel was enormous in size and looked very unusual for a wolf. The royal notary, bailiff of the royal abbey of Chazay Roche-Etienne Marin, with the help of doctors Antoine Boulanger and Cour-Damien Boulanger, as well as Dr. Jean-Baptiste Aigullon de Lamothe from Sauget, measured the body of the beast and compiled its description. The animal killed by Chastel was smaller than the one killed by de Botern - only 99 cm from the top of the head to the base of the tail (which, however, is much more sizes ordinary wolf); however, it had a disproportionately large head with a highly elongated snout and long fangs, and very long front legs. The attention of those examining the body was attracted by a very unusual structure of the eye, namely the presence of a third eyelid - a thin membrane that could cover the eyeball. The animal was covered with very thick gray-reddish fur with several black stripes. As can be seen from the totality of signs, the beast, most likely, was not a wolf at all.
After an autopsy, in the stomach of the beast they found the remains of the forearm of a little girl who had died the day before - therefore, the beast was a cannibal. A number of eyewitnesses who had seen the Beast of Gevaudan earlier identified it as the monster killed by Chastel. On the animal’s body they found many scars from wounds of various ages; the notary discovered a shotgun wound at the bottom of the right hip joint and felt under knee joint three pellets - this wound was inflicted on the Beast by horseman de Lavedrine back in 1765, shooting him with a gun.
Thus, we can assume with a fair degree of confidence that the animal killed by Jean Chastel was the same Beast of Gevaudan.
Versions
Until the Beast was killed, various assumptions were made about its nature: for example, that we are talking about greatly exaggerated attacks of various wolves, that it loup-garou(werewolf) that this is a demon caused by a certain sorcerer or punishment from the Almighty, sent for sins. Modern cryptozoologists give it different interpretations, up to the relict saber-toothed tiger or extinct during the late Eocene period (that is, more than 40 million years ago) ancient predator Andrewsarcha. However, cryptozoological explanations seem extremely far-fetched, since there is no reliable evidence of the appearance of similar animals in Gevaudan and the surrounding area before or after 1764-1767.
Wolf
Wolves extremely rarely attack people and generally avoid meeting people, but they hunt livestock. Usually large predators become cannibals due to injury when they are unable to hunt their usual game. The Beast of Gevaudan, however, attacked people even if there were domestic animals nearby - even such seemingly easy prey compared to humans as goats or sheep. No signs of injury were noticed on it; it was an unusually strong and fast animal, especially for a wolf. There is a well-founded opinion that wolves in the past were much larger than they are now, but as they were exterminated, they were crushed. It is very likely that the attacks of the Beast were carried out by different cannibal wolves, and not by one monster, and the imagination of the peasants, greatly exaggerating them, attributed them to a single beast, significantly distorting its appearance. There could be three such wolves: the first, the most bloodthirsty, was killed by de Boter, the second died in the fall of 1766 for an unknown reason, perhaps he fell into one of the traps set in the forest, and the third was shot by Chastel in 1767.
Hyena
Some theories draw attention to the appearance of the Beast, which is extremely unusual for a wolf, and suggest that we are talking about a representative of another species - for example, the hyena, which is extremely exotic for Europe. Two species of hyenas, although very rarely, attack people: the striped hyena, found in Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan, and the larger African spotted hyena, the latter measuring up to 1.3 m in length and up to 80 cm at the withers . When attacking people, hyenas actually prefer to bite the victim in the face, like the Beast of Gevaudan; however, hyenas do not jump well, and they do not have that easy, even trot when running that was attributed to the Beast.
Hybrid of wolf and dog
It is possible that the Beast was a particularly large wolf-dog hybrid; Such creatures are often born from matings between wild wolves and domestic (feral) dogs. Hybrids, unlike the wolf parent, are not afraid of people and may well attack a person. This version is supported by the French naturalist Michel Louis in his book "The Beast of Gevaudan: The Innocence of Wolves" (La bête du Gévaudan: L'innocence des loups ), she is also reproduced in the American series "Animal-X".
Antoine Chastel and the Beast of Gevaudan
In the context of the myths associated with the Beast of Gevaudan, special attention is drawn to the figure of Antoine Chastel ( Antoine Chastel), youngest son Jean Chastel. Antoine Chastel was a very unusual person for the French wilderness - he traveled a lot, was captured by Algerian pirates, spent many years in Africa among the Berber natives and adopted their habits. Antoine lived separately from his relatives, in a house built in a deserted place on Mount Mont Mouchet, and kept many dogs - friends noted that he had a great talent for training animals.
When Lieutenant de Boterne was combing the forests in search of the Beast of Gevaudan in the late summer and early autumn of 1765, he encountered Jean Chastel and his two sons, Pierre and Antoine. They, like many other local hunters, also hoped to destroy the Beast. An ugly quarrel arose between the younger Shastels, which turned into a fight. Irritated, de Botern ordered the arrest of all three Chastels, including Jean himself; they were sent to prison in Sozhe and spent several months there. Strangely, the Beast's attacks stopped soon after this; de Beautern himself, of course, connected this with the murder of the wolf from Chazay. However, after the Chastels, liberated in the second half of November 1765, returned from Sauget to their native village of Bessere-Sainte-Marie, the Beast also resumed his attacks, attacking two children near the same Bessere-Sainte-Marie on December 2, 1765. Some time after the murder of the Beast by Jean Chastel in 1767, his son Antoine Chastel disappeared and was never seen again in the vicinity of Gevaudan.
Although the above is clearly not enough to connect Antoine Chastel with the attacks of the Beast of Gevaudan, many historians and writers have paid special attention to this character. It is often assumed that Antoine Chastel brought some kind of predatory animal from Africa, like a hyena or a leopard, trained it and accustomed it to hunting people, and it was he who was seen by eyewitnesses once or twice along with the Beast.
The Beast of Gevaudan in art and popular culture
- Robert Louis Stevenson in his book "Journey with a Donkey to the Cevennes"() talks about the Beast in this manner:
This was the land of the unforgettable BEAST, this Napoleon Bonaparte among the wolves. Oh, what a career he had! He lived ten months in freedom between Gevaudan and Vivaret; he ate women, children and “shepherdesses in all their glory”; he chased armed horsemen; they saw him in broad daylight chasing a stagecoach with a horseman along the royal highway, and the carriage and horseman ran away from him in horror, at a gallop. They put up posters of him everywhere as if he were a political criminal, and ten thousand francs were promised for his head. And finally, when he was shot and brought to Versailles, behold! an ordinary wolf, and even a small one.
Original text(English)
For this was the land of the ever-memorable BEAST, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. What a career was his! He lived ten months at free quarters in Gévaudan and Vivarais; he ate women and children and ‘shepherdesses celebrated for their beauty’; he pursued armed horsemen; he has been seen at broad noonday chasing a post-chaise and outrider along the king’s high-road, and chase and outrider fleeing before him at the gallop. He was placarded like a political offender, and ten thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and even small for that.
The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La Bête du Gévaudan) is a mysterious wolf-like creature, a cannibalistic beast that terrorized the French province of Gévaudan (now the department of Lozère), namely villages in the Margeride Mountains in the south of France (on the border of the historical regions of Auvergne and Languedoc) from 1764 to 1767 About 230 people became the Beast of Gevaudan, of whom 123 were killed and eaten by the Beast. Its destruction was announced several times, but the debate about the nature of the Beast of Gevaudan did not end even with the cessation of attacks. The legend of the Beast of Gevaudan is considered one of the most mysterious in history.
The Beast of Gevaudan was described by eyewitnesses as a predator like a wolf, but the size of a cow, with a very wide chest, a long flexible tail with a tassel at the end, like a lion, an elongated muzzle, like a greyhound, with small pointed ears and large fangs protruding from the mouth. The Beast's fur was, according to most eyewitnesses, yellowish-red, but along the ridge on its back it had an unusual strip of dark fur. Sometimes it was about large dark spots on the back and sides. It is worth noting that this description almost completely corresponds to the description of the hyena predator, with the exception of its size.
The Beast’s tactics were atypical for a predator: he primarily aimed at the head, tearing the face, and did not try, like ordinary predators, to gnaw off the throat or limbs. Usually he knocked him to the ground with a swift throw, but later he mastered a different tactic - approaching in a horizontal position, he reared up in front and struck with his front paws. He often left his own beheaded. If the Beast was forced to run, he left with an easy, even jog.
The Beast clearly preferred people to livestock as prey - in those cases when it found itself close to a herd of cows, goats or sheep, the Beast attacked the shepherd, not paying attention to the animals. The usual Beasts were women or children - working alone or even in twos and not carrying weapons. Men, who, as a rule, worked in the field in large groups and were able to fight off the predator with scythes and pitchforks, practically did not become it.
The number of attacks made many people think that they were dealing not with one Beast, but with a whole pack. Some witnesses noted that the Beast's companion was an animal similar to it - adult or young. In some sources one can find a mention that a person was seen once or twice next to the Beast, which led some to assume that the Beast was trained by a certain villain to attack people - although the latter already belongs to the area associated with the Beast.
