Beast of Gévaudan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Beast of Gévaudan | |
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| Artist's conception of the Beast of Gevaudan, 18th-century engraving by A.F. of Alençon |
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| Creature | |
| Name: | Beast of Gévaudan |
| AKA: | La bête du Gévaudan (French language) |
| Classification | |
| Grouping: | Unknown carnivore |
| Data | |
| First reported: | 1764 |
| Last sighted: | 1767 |
| Country: | France |
| Region: | Gévaudan (Modern day Lozère) |
The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La bête du Gévaudan) was a man-eating wolf-like animal that terrorised the former province of Gévaudan (modern day département of Lozère), in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767. Many attacks took place – between 60 and 123 humans were killed – and debate continues as to the Beast's true identity. [1] The story is a popular subject for cryptozoologists and conspiracy theorists.
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[edit] Attacks
The first attack that provided a description of the creature took place on 1st June of 1764. A woman from Langogne saw a large, lupine animal emerge from the trees and charge directly toward her, but it was driven away by the farm's bulls.
On the 30th of June the first official victim of the Beast was Jeanne Boulet, killed near the village of Les Hubacs, not far from Langogne.
The creature's reported method of killing was unusual for a predator, often targeting the head, and ignoring the usual areas targeted by predators, including the legs and throat. Often the head was crushed or removed. It also seemed to target people over farm animals, reportedly having an aversion to cattle; many times it would attack someone while cattle were in the same field.
There were some reports that the beast was seen with another such animal, or with young. No recorded testimony implies the presence of a male nearby.
Though it is difficult to establish an exact number of victims, an estimate based on official documents gives over 198 attacks, including 36 wounded and 88 dead. Other sources could expand these results to over 306 attacks, including 51 wounded and 123 dead. The Beast's preference towards women and children is perhaps due to their working the country-side farms in pairs or even alone, making themselves easier targets, whereas men tended to have objects that could be used as weapons, such as sickles and scythes, and often worked the fields in large groups.
[edit] The hunt for the beast
On January 12, 1765, Jacques Portefaix and six friends were attacked by the Beast; they drove it away by staying grouped together. Their fight caught the attention of King Louis XV, who awarded 300 livres to the boys. The King then directed professional wolf-hunters, Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and his son Jean-François, to kill the beast. He had taken a personal interest in the attacks.
They arrived in Clermont-Ferrand on February 17, 1765, bringing with them eight bloodhounds which had been trained in wolf-hunting. They spent several months hunting wolves, believing them to be the beast. However the attacks continued, and by June 1765 they were replaced by François Antoine (also wrongly titled Antoine de Beauterne), the king's harquebus bearer and Lieutenant of the Hunt. He arrived in le Malzieu on June 22.
On September 21, 1765, Antoine killed a large gray wolf measuring 80 cm high, 1.7 m long, and weighing 60 kg. The wolf was called 'Le Loup de Chazes,' after the nearby Abbaye des Chazes. It was agreed locally that this was quite large for a wolf. Antoine officially stated: "We declare by the present report signed from our hand, we never saw a big wolf that could be compared to this one. Which is why we estimate this could be the fearsome beast that caused so much damage."
The wolf was stuffed and sent to Versailles where Antoine was received as a hero, receiving a large sum of money as well as titles and awards.
However, on December 2, 1765, the Beast attacked again in la Besseyre Saint Mary, severely injuring two children. Dozens more deaths are reported to have followed.
[edit] Jean Chastel
According to legend, the killing of the creature that eventually marked the end of the attacks is credited to a local hunter, Jean Chastel, at the Sogne d'Auvers on June 19, 1767.
Controversy surrounds Chastel's account of his success. Family tradition claimed that, when part of a large hunting party, he sat down to read the Bible and pray. During one of the prayers the creature came into sight, staring at Chastel, who finished his prayer before shooting the beast. This would have been aberrant behavior for the beast, as it would usually attack on sight. Some believe this is proof Chastel participated with the beast, or that even he had trained it. However, the story of the prayer may simply have been invented out of religious or romantic motives.[citation needed]
[edit] Explanations
Various explanations were offered at the time of the attacks. They ranged from exaggerated accounts of wolf attacks, to a loup-garou,[1] all the way to the beast being a punishment from God.
[edit] Wolf
Richard H. Thompson, author of Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV: The Beast of the Gévaudan, contended that there can be satisfactory explanations based on large wolves for all the Beast's depredations.[2] Though wolves in the wild usually avoid contact with humans, they will attack livestock when their natural prey runs out. Conversely, the Beast itself was said to have taken exclusively human victims, ignoring the livestock present in the area. Some experts, however, state that wolves at the time may have been more aggressive than their modern-day counterparts, saying that today's generation of shy wolves is the result of natural selection favouring animals which were less prone to attacking humans with firearms.[3] In areas of the modern world where wolf attacks are still a common occurrence, the afflicted communities are usually poverty-stricken with a general lack of predator control technology[4], mirroring the situation of the Gévaudanais of the 18th century. A Fennoscandian study on wolf attacks occurring in the 18th-19th centuries indicated that until the 20th century, wolf predation on humans was an occasional, but widespread feature of life in Europe. The study further showed that similarly to the Beast of Gévaudan, victims of wolf attacks were almost entirely children, and in the few cases when an adult was killed, it was almost always a woman.[5]
[edit] Wolfdog
Another explanation is that the beast was some form of domestic dog or hybrid. This theory has found support from naturalist Michel Louis, author of the book La bête du Gévaudan: L'innocence des loups (The Beast of Gévaudan: The innocence of wolves) and Animal X. Wolf-dog hybrids were usually noted as not sharing their wolf parent's fear of man. In many cases the resulting adult wolfdog may be larger than either of its parents due to the genetic phenomenon of heterosis.[6] Observations on wild wolf hybrids in the former Soviet Union indicate that wolf hybrids in a wild state may form larger packs than pure wolves, and have greater endurance when chasing prey.[7]
[edit] Gallery
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 Monument to the Beast in Auvers |
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 A house in Luc featuring a wall-illustration of the Beast of Gévaudan |
 Monument to the Beast in Marvejols |
[edit] In the arts and popular culture
[edit] Literature
Robert Louis Stevenson travelled through the region in 1878 and described the incident in his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, in which he claims that that the creature was a wolf:
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 chaise 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.
[edit] Film
The attacks spawned two film adaptations; Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) directed by Christophe Gans and La bête du Gévaudan (2003) by Patrick Volson. The former, while based on the records of the creature, also took several creative liberties in order to make the story more entertaining. The movie portrays the creature as a lioness equipped with armor to make it seem more threatening.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Clark, Jerome (1993). Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. ISBN 0810394367.
- ^ Thompson, Richard H. (1991). Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV: The Beast of the Gévaudan, pp.367. ISBN 0889467463.
- ^ Wolf Trust - Wolves Killing People - Explaining Wolf Attacks
- ^ Wolf Attacks on Humans. T. R. Mader. Retrieved on 2007-05-31.
- ^ Is the fear of wolves justified? A Fennoscandian perspective.. Acta Zoologica Lituanica, 2003, Volumen 13, Numerus 1. Retrieved on 2008-05-09.
- ^ The Wolf-Dog Hybrid: An Overview of a Controversial Animal. Animal Welfare Information Center Newsletter (2000). Retrieved on 2008-05-17.
- ^ Graves, Will (2007). Wolves in Russia: Anxiety throughout the ages, pp.222. ISBN 1550593323.
[edit] See also
- Wolf of Soissons
- Wolves of Périgord
- Wolf of Sarlat
- Wolves of Paris
- Wolf of Ansbach
- Wolf attacks on humans
- Wolf hunting
[edit] External links
