The Beast of Gévaudan
Between 1764 and 1767, a single wolf reportedly attacked 210 people, killing 113, in southern France. The beast was said to be the size of a calf, with huge teeth, prick-ears, and fur russet-red in color with black streaks. Though its identity was maintained by both local peasants and learned men of the court alike to be a wolf, there are numerous other suggestions as to its true identity from modern scholars. What we do know is that its reign of terror was unusual for a pack of wolves, let alone an individual.
The beast’s bloody career began in June 1764, when a young woman tending cattle near Langogne was charged by an enormous wolf. Fortunately, her own cattle scared the beast away with merely a scrap of her gown in its prodigious jaws. This near-miss clearly encouraged the beast, however, as on the 3rd of July a fourteen-year-old girl was also attacked, and this time partially eaten, with further deaths swiftly following. The early victims of 1764 were children, despite often traveling in pairs for protection, but on the 6th of September that year, it progressed to an adult woman.
The beast’s mode of attack was the same in each instance: it would attack from the front, knocking its quarry down with the forepaws, before savagely biting the face to despatch the death blow and eating the victim if left unmolested. Although wolf attacks were not wholly unknown in the region, the remains of the beast’s victims were mangled so hideously that terror gripped the Gévaudan. News of the peasants’ plight reached the French court, perhaps less out of sympathy than the fact that many simply refused to work and fled the region, much to the chagrin of local aristocrats.
Despite the largest wolf-hunt in French history being organized, and the slaying of a huge wolf weighing 130lb and measuring 80cm in length with clothing in its belly by François Antoine, the Lieutenant of the Hunt, in September 1765, the killings continued. The beast’s overwhelming confidence was indicated by its willingness to attack even groups of adults in broad daylight. As time passed, it started killing on an almost daily basis, often decapitating its victims. The church’s response to claims of its being a werewolf or even Satan himself was to offer public prayers. Unsurprisingly, this failed spectacularly.
The beast’s reign of terror finally ended after a wolf was killed by Jean Chastel, a local hunter, on June 19th 1767. The wolf had a great muzzle, reddish-brown fur, and its stomach contained human remains. Although the specimen was sent to be stuffed for Louis XV, it decayed on its way to Paris and was discarded. Various suggestions have been made for the beast’s true identity: most sensibly as a coincidence of wolf attacks by several animals, an escaped lion, a fugitive hyena and, less plausibly by The History Channel, a serial killer disguised as a wolf.