The Beast of Gevaudan was a large cryptid (undiscovered animal) that was said to have been responsible for hundreds of attacks and killings of the people living in the rural regions of France during the 17th century. It is one of the few cryptids that has made a massive impact in the history of the world and especially in France. The history of these attacks started with the Seven Years War that was fought in 1764. It was fought between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of France before it ended in February of 1763. The citizens of the countryside in France were free from having to deal with the large taxes imposed by the government during wartime. Life seemed to return to normal after the war, but for the people of Gevaudan, a region located in the southern province of Languedoc, and nearby regions of France, something horrific will occur for the next three years.
It began on June 30th, 1764, when a 14-year-old shepherdess named Jeanne Boulet, was tending to a flock of sheep, when she was later mysteriously found dead just outside her home near the forest in Gevaudan. Villagers who found her body saw that her chest was badly slashed, with her heart being eaten by a mysterious predator. A few days later, another 16-year-old girl was found with severe injuries. Before she died from blood loss, she described her attacker as simply a “beast”. Soon, more and more animal attacks, many of which even involved slightly eaten bodies, started sprouting up all over the countryside of France. Even though during this period, human deaths were commonly caused by wolves, with the maximum number of cases being 100, they had not occurred in such a rapid period. The survivors described a wolf-like creature the size of a calf, with sharp teeth and reddish-brown colored fur, along with a black stripe along its back.
It was reported to make a laugh-like cry. The victims were mainly women and children tending to their livestock or traveling alone at night before the animal would aim for the throat before tearing them apart. The deaths and injuries continued, and the situation became so serious that it became a concern for the French government. King Louis XV declared that the Beast should be hunted down and killed. He hired Jean Baptiste Domal to find the creature, but he returned unsuccessfully. He was then replaced by a wolf hunter named General, and his eight bloodhounds, to kill the Beast of Gevaudan, but he had also failed. Finally, the King hired his 71-year-old personal gunbearer, Franchione Antione from Paris. On the 20th of September in 1765, Antione and his nephew shot a large Gray wolf near an abbey in Chases. Weighing 60 kilograms, this wolf, nicknamed the “Wolf of Chazes”, was sent to be stuffed and displayed at the Parish Museum of Natural History in the King’s court, whilst Antione stayed behind to hunt down its partner and offspring. One of the cubs possessed a double set of dewclaws.
Assuming that the animal was the Beast, the gunbearer was awarded a payment of 9,000 livres, which is around 150,000 dollars in US money, as well as fame. However, the attacks and deaths continued despite the event. They then seemed to stop on the 19th of June in 1767, when a local hunter named Jean Chastel, shot the cryptid on the slopes of Mt Mouchet, a mountain later renamed as Sogne drivers, along with the organized help of a nobleman named the Marquis d’Apchier. He killed it with a silver bullet, which contributed to the idea that the animal was a werewolf or supernatural demon. An autopsy was then performed on the Beast before the specimen mysteriously disappeared or was lost. A scientific notary made by the king’s men was later found in 1958, where it said that the creature was “Like a wolf, yet not a wolf”. The Beast possessed 36 teeth instead of the amount a normal wolf has.
To this day, scientists and experts are still unsure of what the Beast of Gevaudan was. Some say it was an abnormally large wolf or a pack of wolves, and others believed it was highly trained or rabid dogs and even disguised serial killers. Even though the fear of this creature faded over time, it’s had an enormous influence on our popular culture, and particularly that of werewolves. It was a part of French history that still manages to both fascinate and terrify us to this very day. There is a major highway in the South of France that cuts right through the site of the Beast’s attacks in what is now known as the Department of Lozere, a former county that replaced Gevaudan after the French Revolution, and there is even a museum dedicated to the historical account of this perplexing cryptid that is still open.