The Wolves of Paris
By one estimate, France is the country with the most instances of wolves killing people. The country’s place on continental Europe meant that, unlike the British Isles, no matter how many wolves were exterminated, countless others were waiting to cross the border from the East. Exceptional in its horror even by French standards, however, is the pack that invaded Paris in winter 1450. These wolves entered the City of Love to devour those human inhabitants foolish enough to be going about their daily business. All in all, they are reputed to have killed several hundred Parisians that winter.
Before you imagine wolves promenading down the Champs-Élysées, it is important to consider the state of Paris in the mid-fifteenth century. France’s predominantly agricultural economy meant that urban centres were surrounded by open countryside and dense forests, where hungry beasts dwelt. Sheep, a frequent target for wolves, were grazed right up to the city walls of Paris amongst the woods harbouring their lupine foe. In 1450 France was at war with England, in a vicious conflict known as the Hundred Years’ War, and the land had suffered dearly. Wild animals were hunted to depletion, and agricultural stock was increasingly scarce.
That winter was also especially severe (part of the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ in Europe), and so with neither livestock nor wild animals on which to prey, the wolves turned their attention to the dead and dying left in the wake of battle. Wolves are known for scavenging, happily digging up fresh graves in search of sustenance. With the plague also raging through France at the same time as a bloody war with England, there were great numbers of corpses waiting around to be scoffed. Having acquired a taste for human flesh, the wolves simply adapted their diet.
And where better to find a free-range meal than Paris? The densely-populated city, close to the wolves’ natural territory, was encircled by a thirteenth-century defensive wall which had fallen into disrepair during the conflict, and not been rectified. Thus as the wolves searched desperately for food through the countryside, they found no barrier to entering the French capital. Along the way, they surprised the odd traveler and dragged hapless shepherds from their huts, but their depredations only become noteworthy when they breached the ruined defenses of Paris.
The twenty-strong pack were led by a wolf known as Courtaud, meaning ‘bob-tail’, whose color was intriguingly reddish-brown, like The Beast of Gévaudan. In the first month of occupation alone, the wolves killed forty people, surprising and then overwhelming them with numbers. Their scourge only came to an end when a group of brave citizens enticed them into the Ile de la Cité, surrounded them, and a mob stoned and speared the pack to death outside Notre Dame. Wolves, by the way, are now a protected species and are once again seen around the outskirts of Paris…