Although wolf attacks are extremely rare today, that wasn't always the case, especially in
France, where 7,600 fatal wolf attacks were recorded from the 13th century to the early
20th century.
Needless to say, people who called the country home lived in perpetual fear of attack but
no animal struck more fear into their hearts than the infamous Beast of Gévaudan.
From 1764 to 1767, the beast was said to have claimed the lives of 113 people in the historical
region of Gévaudan, located in southern France.
While historians generally agree that attacks did occur, there's still some debate as to
what kind of animal the beast actually was.
Was it a large wolf, a wolfdog, a pack of wolves or something else?
Today on Atlas.
The first recorded attack occurred in the Summer of 1764.
A young woman was tending cattle near a forest in the eastern part of Gevaudan when she spotted
the beast coming toward her.
Lucky for her, the bulls in the herd managed to scare the wolf away and she survived unscathed.
Shortly after that, the beast killed its first victim: 14 year old Janne Boulet who was attacked
while watching livestock in June of 1764.
A couple of months later a 15 year old girl was killed and a couple of weeks after that
a 16 year old boy also died in the jaws of the beast.
In the September, the beast claimed the lives of a 36 year old woman and 3 young people.
The deaths were violent and gory, the beast seemed to favor targeting the heads and necks
of its victims, sometimes going as far as decapitating them.
After the September attacks, it was apparent that the province of Gevaudan had a serious
problem on its hands.
People were afraid to wander outside on their own and rumors that the beast was more than
just a wolf were running rampant after survivors claimed that the beast was much bigger than
an average wolf.
Some people felt that the attacks were being carried out by a pair of wolves and others
went as far as to suggest that the culprit was a werewolf.
In October of 1764, two hunters spotted and shot the beast but their bullets seemed to
have little effect on it, as it managed to escape even after being shot several times.
Shortly after this, search parties were formed by peasants and soldiers but they were unable
to capture the animal.
They even went as far as to dress up as women to try and lure the creature to attack but
this didn't work either.
The beast kept on killing.
One woman was decapitated and her head was found miles away from her body.
No one who came in contact with the creature escaped without serious injuries.
Other search parties formed, the largest was made up of 20,000 people but they were unable
to find the animal.
It was obvious that expert help was needed to capture the beast, which is when King Louis
XV(15th) stepped in.
In February of 1765, the king sent a hunter named Denneval and his men to Geveudan to
kill the beast.
Unfortunately, Denneval seemed to anger some of the residents with his overconfidence and
demands.
They also weren't very effective in capturing the beast, in fact 14 people were killed by
the beast in the first two months after Denneval's arrival.
The hunter's incompetence eventually caught up to him and he left the area with his tail
between his legs.
By this time, the king had had enough.
Hundreds of wolves had been killed but the vicious attacks hadn't stopped.
The king sent his own personal gun bearer Francois Antoine to kill the beast.
Antoine used dogs to try and track the creature.
He worked through the summer of 1765 and on September 20th, he shot a huge wolf that he
had at first mistaken for a donkey.
The shot stunned the beast but didn't kill it.
The large animal rushed toward Antoine but was shot by one of Antoine's officers before
it could strike.
They put the wolf's body on display and brought in people who had survived some of the attacks
to identify the creature.
Everyone seemed to be in agreement that it was in fact the wolf that was responsible
for the deaths.
Upon examination, the wolf was said to be measure over 5' 7” and weigh around 143
pounds.
It had a large head and fangs over an inch long.
It's body was displayed at the court of Louis XV, but most people who saw it were disappointed.
So much lore had been built up around the beast that people were expecting to see something
really spectacular and unusual, but most people who saw it agreed that it was simply a large
wolf.
Antoine continued hunting for wolves until October 17th.
He was hoping to kill any remaining offspring the beast may have had and at first it seemed
like he had been successful, as no attacks were reported for more months and Gevaudan
seemed to finally be at peace.
Unfortunately, that peace didn't last long as the beast seemed to spring back to life
when wolf attacks started again on December 17th, 1765 and continued for more than a year.
The killing of the creature that eventually marked the end of the attacks is credited
to a hunter named Jean Chastel on June 19, 1767.
According to lore, Chastel used a silver bullet to shoot and kill the beast.
Like the first wolf that was shot, Chastel's wolf was unusually large.
So here's where the story gets weird.
Two surgeons who dissected the beast that Francois Antoine had shot claimed that the
animal more closely resembled a striped hyena, although modern analysis of the surgeon's
reports seem to agree that the animal's teeth were much more wolf like.
The number of teeth is also more consistent with a wolf than a hyena.
There's even some theories that Chastel himself had trained hyenas to attack people and there
are rumors that Chastel's family had a pet hyena.
Some accounts of the beast included the sighting of a man along with the animal.
I have to admit that looking at some of the depictions and drawings of the beast, it seems
like a good match.
However, you have to remember that hyenas were known at the time and if it was a hyena,
I think people would have recognized it as such.
There's other theories that the beast was a young lion not only because of its appearance
but because of the method that it used to kill its victims.
Lions are well known for biting their prey on the neck to quickly cut off their air supply.
But like the hyena theory, I feel like people would have also recognized a lion.
Others have speculated that the beast was some kind of hybrid and some of the more fringe
theories even go as far as to suggest that it was perhaps an amphicyon
which is an extinct genus of carnivorous mammals commonly known as bear-dogs that went extinct
towards the end of the Pleistocene.
There aren't any remains left from either of the beasts so it's impossible to know for
sure what they actually were.
The stories and accounts of what happened offer some clues but there's so much conflicting
information that it's hard to say anything definitive.
What is certain is that there was something very real terrifying the residents of Gevaudan
and today the story is remembered across France.
There's a even a monument to the wolf-slayer Jean Chastel and a statue which depicts a
young woman named Marie-Jeanne Valet who was said to have driven a spear into the chest
of the beast.
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