«On the first of July 1764, Jeanne Boulet was buried, without sacraments, after being killed by a ferocious beast in the presence of Joseph Vigier and Jean Reboul». So read the brief record entered in her parish book by the priest of Les Hubacs, a small village in the county of Gévaudan. The corpse of that first documented victim, a 14-year-old girl, appeared with her throat cut and partially eaten. The first attack had occurred a few days before, against a cowgirl whose name has not been released and that she miraculously saved her life after protecting herself from her with her oxen.
It is true that the residents of this wooded region located in the south of France were used to attacks by wolves in the mid-18th century, but they had never seen before, nor since, such virulence. Concern quickly spread through the region because of the damage caused to the girl’s body, by a “beast” that seemed more savage and dangerous than a simple wolf, no matter how big it was. Soon there was talk of a werewolf.
A month later, on August 8, another girl appeared with her throat cut, her body naked and dismembered. The news quickly spread from Gévaudan to the rest of the country. The alarm and the first speculations gave way to terror, especially when, at the beginning of September, six more victims were counted in the vicinity of the Mercoire forest. All were minors and had significant bite marks on their thorax and extremities. The pattern was repeated, and in the search for the person responsible, an infernal beast was targeted, an unknown creature that ate children as if it were chickens.
The mysterious carnage did not stop there. Between 1764 and 1767, more than a hundred people, mostly children, died in the south of France from attacks by an animal of exceptional ferocity that was impossible to hunt. The area where he acted was covered with thick forests, had a cold and humid climate and suffered from frequent fogs and six-month winters, which added to the story a certain air of mystery that attracted the comments of such disparate luminaries as Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, King Frederick II the Great and the English novelist Horace Walpole. That poor and forgotten region suddenly became the center of attention for the whole of Europe because of an animal that was named the ‘Gevaudan Beast’.
20,000 men
The Spanish press told his story for centuries. ABC remembered her, in 1974, in an article entitled ‘The werewolf: literary legend and judicial file’. A century earlier, in 1881, ‘The Venator Enlightenment’ published another report about his hunting that began like this: «The region was severely punished by a wolf that spread panic throughout the province and which was known by the name of ‘The bete of Gevaudan‘. No shepherd dared to go out into the field and communications were materially interrupted. The Bishop of Mende ordered public ceremonies to be held in churches to protect parishioners from him. More than fifty drives were carried out without satisfactory results. The beast seemed invulnerable. It already had 83 people dead and 50 seriously injured. The French government had already spent £29,314 to kill the beast, and yet it continued to make new victims daily.
The Bishop of Mende assured that it was a divine punishment for the sins of men, while within the French Church the animal was baptized as “the plague of God.” Social pressure led King Louis XV to grant a prize of 6,000 pounds to the brave man who managed to finish him off, and he even sent the most famous wolf hunter in Normandy with an army of 20,000 men who carried out raids to an extent never seen before. «In one of them the beast came out of a thicket and was slightly injured by a priest, but it knew how to free itself by swimming across a mighty river. All those who knew how to handle weapons in the neighboring province prepared to go out in pursuit, but the beast increased its daring and began to attack women and children in broad daylight,” added the same newspaper.
Half of France claimed that it was a werewolf, and the other a wolf of gigantic dimensions, but with small ears and red hair, whose jaws were incredibly disproportionate. What they all agreed on was the terror they had developed towards that animal that they kept killing and that they couldn’t hunt. The families of the victims were enraged and their members, completely alienated, went out to confront that predator, even though they knew for sure that only death awaited them. That was the case of a father and his eight and 16-year-old children, who were dismembered by the jaws of the animal.
Vintage illustration offering 2,700 francs for the killing of the beast
seven children
The state of hysteria was such that the children were forced to stay in their homes and the rest of the family members were only forced to leave if they went in a group and armed. Meanwhile, other nationally renowned hunters such as Captain Duhamelin charge of the cavalry of the French army, and martin denneval they entered the scene, but failed just the same. It is said that even a group of seven children between the ages of eight and 12 met the beast by chance on January 23, 1765 and confronted it. However, she seized one of them by the arm of hers and hastened to lead him away, but the others surrounded him with sticks and forced him to let go. Louis XV himself praised this act of bravery… although the animal was still on the loose and claiming victims.
In April of that year, the story of the beast spread throughout Europe. ‘Le Courrier d’Avignon’ reported that British journalists mocked the fact that the French were not capable of killing a single animal and the King had no choice but to dismiss them and send his royal arquebusier, François Antoine de Beauterne, who took over the hunt. He was accompanied by his youngest son, eight captains of the Royal Guard, six game wardens, a servant and two detectives. This is how it was told in Spain by ‘La Ilustración Venatoria’ in 1881:
«The knight of Beauterne arrived at the field of operations on August 7, 1765. During the space of six weeks of meticulous search, the trail of the terrible wolf was not confirmed. Finally, on September 20, they succeeded in besieging him in the forest of the Abbey of Chazes. The entire edge of the forest was surrounded by dogs, in the midst of which highly accredited marksmen were posted. The best of them stood at the point where he believed the beast had forced its way. The scouting began and, indeed, the monster went to the post that the Chevalier de Beauterne had chosen at the foot of a ravine. Seeing him, he fired his gun and the wolf rolled to the ground. However, he got up and attacked the hunter, who received him with the hunting knife to defend himself until the huntsman Reinhart came and finished him off with a shot from his carbine ».
The celebration
The celebration was immense, but shortly after they discovered that the beast, weighing 60 kilos, was not the one they were looking for. A month later, new victims appeared, specifically a 12-year-old girl. Louis XV was no longer paying attention, as he wanted France to believe that the problem was over and even had the fake stuffed beast brought to Versailles. In June 1767, another famous hunter in the region, Jean Chastel, assured that he had killed the murderous wolf, which was just as big as the previous one. This was also sent to the royal palace, but the region did not trust it.
In the ill-fated hunt, between 1764 and 1767, more than 120 wolves were killed. It was never known exactly which of them was the true ‘Beast of Gevaudan’. Some were larger and others smaller. According to the latest studies of newspapers and documents in the area, the victims of the ‘werewolf’ or whatever amounted to 215, of which 113 were found dead, 13 suffered some type of amputation and 98 were wounded to a different degree. Theories were extended to a man disguised as an animal, a serial killer in a rhinoceros suit or a mythological beast… but the enigma was never solved.
