When the Beast arrived in G\u00e9vaudan, the region was in the cold clutches of the Little Ice Age. The Seven Year\u2019s War had ended in 1763, leaving France defeated and in economic peril. G\u00e9vaudan, a historical region in southern France that today is part of Loz\u00e8re, was especially vulnerable. The population consisted primarily of impoverished and virtually defenseless peasants. Children and women were in charge of herding sheep and cattle. Wolves were common; they often preyed on livestock and sometimes, though rarely<\/a>, the herders themselves.<\/p>\n The Beast\u2019s first documented kill occurred on June 30, 1764, when a mostly eaten 14-year-old shepherdess was discovered in the woods. Whatever killed her had preferred human flesh to the lambs she\u2019d been herding. A string of similar grisly deaths followed. All consisted of women and children, the majority of whom were girls.<\/p>\n The Beast terrorized G\u00e9vaudan for three years, leaving more than 100 dead and many more maimed. Survivors were unsure of what sort of creature had attacked them. They most often reported the Beast as \u201clike a wolf, but not a wolf.\u201d The peasants were superstitious and believed in creatures like witches and werewolves. It wasn\u2019t long before stories began to circulate that G\u00e9vaudan was under attack from something far more sinister than an ordinary wolf.<\/p>\n Witness descriptions of the Beast of G\u00e9vaudan varied widely. It was commonly reported to be hairy, with a black stripe running along the fur of its backbone. It had similarities to a giant wolf but was something altogether different. During the first year of attacks, it was often referred to as a \u201chyena\u201d in newspapers. Over time it was also said to be a panther, or a tiger, or a lion, or a monkey, or a hybrid, or a mad man dressed in a wolf suit.<\/p>\n Others speculated the Beast was an unknown species left over from ancient times. Some guessed it had been brought from Africa as part of a menagerie, but that it had escaped or been released. Another common belief was that the Beast was an armored mastiff whose handler was turning it loose on victims.<\/p>\n Smith and many historians believe the Beast was a wolf, or, more likely, a number of wolves. There\u2019s a decent probability that at least one of the Beasts of G\u00e9vaudan was a wolf-dog hybrid. This would explain many witnesses\u2019 reports of the Beast being, \u201clike a wolf but not a wolf.\u201d Wolfdogs, known to lack fear of humans, have been responsible for numerous attacks on people.<\/p>\n The peasants of G\u00e9vaudan, however, were rooted in their conviction that the Beast was a werewolf or some other monster. The bishop of Mende, the most powerful feudal lord in the region, added to the mass hysteria by proclaiming the Beast to be a product of God\u2019s wrath and that it had been sent to punish G\u00e9vaudan.<\/p>\n Of all the legends of man-eaters, none have generated more mystery or press than the Beast of G\u00e9vaudan. Books, articles, and movies inspired by the story such as the 2001 French blockbuster, \u201cBrotherhood of the Wolf<\/a>,\u201d or the 2021 werewolf flick, \u201cThe Cursed<\/a>,\u201d are still\u00a0 being released and published.<\/p>\n During the Beast\u2019s time, the press took full advantage of the story. The number of newspapers and journals had grown exponentially during the Seven Years\u2019 War. But now, with no war stories to report, subscriptions plummeted. The sensational story of the Beast was a godsend for publishers.<\/p>\n In his 2011 book, \u201cMonsters of G\u00e9vaudan: The Making of a Beast,\u201d<\/a> author Jay M. Smith lays the groundwork for how the Beast acted as a reprieve to Seven Years\u2019 War and a way for France redeem and resolidify its national identity. France and Europe, led by journalists that didn\u2019t always let the truth get in the way of a good story, became obsessed with the Beast and hunting it down.<\/p>\n The authors of the 2002 paper, \u201cThe Fear of Wolves: A review of wolf attacks on humans\u201c,<\/em><\/a> point out how rare wolf attacks are even in a deep historical context. Far more people are attacked and killed by everything from tigers to dogs. That said, attacks by both rabid and predatory wolves in France, as well as other places across Europe and Russia, were not that uncommon until the early 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n At the close of the 18th<\/sup> century in France, historian Jean-Marc Moriceau<\/a> estimates the country\u2019s wolf population at between 10 and 15,000 animals. Moriceau doesn\u2019t see what happened in G\u00e9vaudan as that unusual. He points out that, \u201cstatistically, the G\u00e9vaudan affair was no worse than the clusters of attacks that occurred around 1750, with predatory wolves taking 151 victims from 1746 to 1750, followed by 138 [more people] from 1751 to 1755.\u201d<\/p>\n After 1767, France still had wolf attacks but nothing of the same magnitude. By the early 20th<\/sup> century\u2014mostly through systematic poisoning encouraged by bounties\u2014wolves were extirpated from France. In the early 1990s, wolves dispersing from Italy recolonized France<\/a>, where they are now a protected.<\/p>\n The attacks that once happened in G\u00e9vaudan bear a similarity to wolf attacks that occur sporadically in India today. There\u2019s an almost universal belief that when a wolf kills someone it\u2019s not an animal acting but, rather, a monster or evil spirit. Some believe this a testament to how \u201cunnatural\u201d wolf attacks are. There are plenty of other wild animals in India that attack significantly more people each year. Sloth bears maul and kill considerably more people, often leaving survivors with their faces ripped off. Yet sloth bears and other man-killers don\u2019t inspire the hysteria that wolf attacks do.<\/p>\n An example of this occurred In 1996 in India, during a series of wolf attacks in a region of Uttar Pradesh<\/a> that left numerous young children dead and partially eaten. Locals blamed were-wolves or even a Pakistan serial killers dressed up as wolves. Like the peasants of G\u00e9vaudan, villagers in the region of Utter Pradesh lived in harsh poverty. In a New York Times article published at the time, journalist John F. Burns wrote that the wolf attacks prompted civil unrest. He wrote: \u201cVillagers have turned against strangers, and sometimes against one another, in lynchings that have killed at least 20 people and prompted the authorities to arrest 150 people.\u201d<\/p>\n There were four main hunters who pursued the Beast of G\u00e9vaudan.<\/p>\n The first was a dragoon captain named Jean-Baptiste Duhamel, under orders from King Louis XV to find and kill the Beast. Duhamel expected a quick victory, but the rugged country, terrible weather, and the Beast\u2019s cunning quickly proved him wrong. Duhamel organized a series of hunts, some consisting of 20,000 or more men beating the brush and trying to flush and corral the Beast. As winter wore on, Duhamel became increasingly desperate. He ordered hunters to dress up as women and use children as live bait, on the grounds that the Beast only preyed on children and women.<\/p>\n The reward for the Beast\u2019s head was up to 10,000 livres (the equivalent of well over $500,000 today) by early February. The bounty attracted adventurers from far and wide to try their hand in the hunt. There were a handful of sightings. The Beast appeared to have been shot on several occasions, but each time it escaped.<\/p>\n By late winter, Duhamel was bitter and broken. Jean-Charles d\u2019Enneval and his son, famous wolfers from Normandy, were brought in to replace him. d\u2019Enneval was said to have killed thousands of wolves during his career. He was given a hero\u2019s welcome upon his arrival; the newspapers called him Hercules, but the hype quickly wore off.<\/p>\n The Beast continued its rampage as months wore on. The Norman wolf slayer was at a loss. He even tried lacing the bodies of the Beast\u2019s victim with strychnine but that too failed to work. When d\u2019Enneval was dismissed in late June, he was in tears. He left G\u00e9vaudan claiming that the Beast was no ordinary creature.<\/p>\n The d\u2019Ennevals were replaced by Francois Antoine, a 70-year-old gunbearer and Lieutenant of the Hunt for the King. Antoine believed the fanciful stories were a product of mass hysteria. He was convinced the Beast to be an exceptionally large wolf and that there was a likelihood there were other predatory wolves in the area.<\/p>\n On Sept. 20, Antoine learned of wolves near the Abbey of Chazes. He and his men quickly stationed themselves in the nearby forest. Antoine reported that he was searching for tracks when he looked up at what he thought was a donkey coming toward him. A moment later, he realized it was a massive wolf.<\/p>\n He lifted his canardi\u00e8re (punt gun) loaded with something like 20 grams of powder and 35 pieces of varying sized buckshot. He blasted the wolf through the right eye and side. The wolf crumpled, then regained its feet and came for the hunter. Antoine was preparing to use his gun as a club, when his nephew shot the wolf dead.<\/p>\n The wolf was an exceptionally large male for the region, measuring 67 inches long, standing 32 inches at the shoulder, and weighing 130 pounds. The surgeon who examined it stated that nothing indicated it had been consuming human flesh. It was skinned, mounted, and put on display in the antechamber of the queen. Most who saw it were underwhelmed at the notion that the monster of G\u00e9vaudan was an ordinary wolf. Nonetheless, France celebrated it as the death of the Beast. Antoine stayed in G\u00e9vaudan long enough to kill what he reported to be the rest of the wolf\u2019s pack.<\/p>\n Two months passed before newspapers reported that the Beast was still very much alive and continuing its attacks. Smith wrote, \u201cAfter some deliberation, Versailles dispensed with talk of \u2018the beast,\u2019 and opted to treat the phenomenon of animal attacks on the peasantry as an ordinary and generalized problem requiring serious but not frenzied attention.\u201d<\/p>\n Poison was widely used with much success killing wolves, but the Beast\u2019s butchery continued.<\/p>\nA Menagerie of Monsters<\/h2>\n
A Legend Is Born<\/h2>\n
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The Hunters and the Hunt for the Beast<\/h2>\n
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The Beast\u2019s Final Resting Place<\/h2>\n
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