The Beast of Gevaudan
jennifer
(originally published in The Cryptozoology Review 1:2, Fall 1996)
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For the residents of the tiny district of Gévaudan, nestled high in the
Margeride Mountains of south-central France, the terror began one day in
June of 1764. On that day, a young peasant from the village of Langogne
was out tending her family's herd of cattle in the Forêt de Mercoire.
Suddenly, a tremendous wolf-like animal loped out of the forest, heading
towards the girl. Her dogs turned tail and ran at the sight of this
terrifying apparition; the cattle charged at the monster. Seemingly
undeterred by the cattle, the creature continued to make its way towards
the young shepherdess. The cattle charged it once more, this time
driving it back into the forest from whence it came (1).
This young woman was much luckier than many later victims of la Bête
Anthropophage du Gévaudan (the man-eating beast of Gévaudan), for very
few survived an attack by the monster. Descriptions varied widely, but
most agreed that it was wolf-like, though nearly the size of a cow. Its
chest was wide, its tail long and thin with a lion-like tuft of fur at
its end. Its snout was like that of a greyhound, and large fangs
protruded from its formidable jaws. The beast was believed to be
incredibly agile - it was credited with taking leaps of up to 30 feet
(2). The Paris Gazette, carrying a story about the monster, commented
that it was reddish in colour, that its chest was wide and grey, and
that the hind legs were longer than the fore legs. Another account of
the beast, published in the English Saint James' Chronicle, stated that
the beast was probably a member of "a new species". Here we have what is
quite possibly the first mention of the beast in a cryptozoological
light (3).
Although the story of the Beast of Gévaudan is doubtless embellished
greatly in terms of its size and other features, the facts remain: some
sort of large creature was ravaging the district, killing people more
often than livestock. The beast seems to have had a definite preference
for attacking victims around the head, oftentimes crushing the skull and
eating the entrails. Wounds of this type were also displayed by victims
of a similar creature which prowled Limerick, Ireland, more than a
century later.
After three long years of terror in the region and the shooting of
"wolves" supposed to be the beast (by Antoine de Beauterne, King Louis
XV's chief huntsman), the monster was finally killed at the Sogne
d'Aubert by a hermit named Jean Chastel.
So who, or what, was the beast? Popular opinion at the time held it to
be punishment from God, a Loup-Garou (werewolf), or some sort of demon
summoned by a sorcerer. (In fact, some claimed to have seen the beast in
the company of a man (4).) Many more believed that it was a wolf or some
other natural creature, citing a number of instances in which two or
more beasts, presumably a mated pair with cubs, had been seen together
(5). Other explanations offered by the learned folk of the day held that
the beast was a bear, a wolverine, or even a baboon. Some modern
researchers believe it to have been a serial killer who took advantage
of a wolf in the area (6). Another popular theory is that the beast was
a wolf-dog hybrid (7).
A well-known Celtic sculpture commonly known as the "Tarasque" of Noves,
found at the base of the Pyrenees in France, depicts a large wolf-like
animal similar to the Beast of Gévaudan. Each of its front paws rests on
a human head, and a human arm is under its large jaw (8). A similar
sculpture found at Linsdorf, in Alsace, France, may perhaps have been
used to hold a human skull (9). These animals have been thought to be
lions, wolves, bears, or imaginary monsters (10).
A similar creature was referred to as the arenotelicon in medieval
bestiaries. The arenotelicon, which was thought to dwell in wild
forests, was widely believed to be a European relative of the hyena or
tiger. The creature had a serrated ridge down its spine, feet armed with
prodigious claws, a maned neck (a feature which appears on some
depictions of the Beast of Gévaudan), and was either hairless or covered
in short hair (11). A creature similar to the arenotelicon was
supposedly captured around 1530. According to some sources this happened
in the Hauberg Forest, Saxony, Germany (12), while others say it
occurred in the Fannsberg Forest, Salzburg, Austria (13). It was
"yellowish-carnation" in colour (14).
There have also been creatures reported in more recent times that are
similar to the Beast of Gévaudan. One could perhaps refer to these
mysterious creatures, which are often reported to kill sheep, as
"maulers." The following list details some of these modern reports.
No. 1. June 1764-June 1767; Gévaudan (now Lozére), France. A series of
sightings and killings occurred which was described above.
No. 2. May-September 1810; Ennerdale Water, Cumbria, England. A creature
killed sheep and tore open the throat and sucked the blood rather than
devouring them (15).
No. 3. January-April 1874; County Cavan, Ireland. An unknown animal
killed at least 42 sheep. It tore open the throat, sucking the blood and
eating a tiny piece of meat (or no meat at all). The creature left
footprints resembling a cat's, but with claws (16).
No. 4. 17 April 1874; Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland. A wolf-like
animal killed sheep. Several persons, all of whom had been attacked by
the creature, were sent to Ennis Insane Asylum after developing a
peculiar type of insanity (17).
No. 5. July 1893; Orel Oblast, Russia. A beast similar to that of
Gévaudan terrorized the village of Trosna. It attacked 10 women and
children between the 6th and the 24th, killing 3; it was described as
long, with a blunt snout and smooth tail (18).
No. 6. November 1905; Badminton, Gloucestershire, England. An animal
attacked and killed a number of sheep, sucking their blood and leaving
"the flesh almost untouched" (19).
No. 7. 19 March 1906; Guilford, Kent, England. An unknown animal ravaged
area farms, killing 51 sheep in one night (20).
No. 8. April-December 1993; Plovdiv, Bulgaria. A mysterious
blood-sucking, cat-like creature which had glowing eyes had killed 16
people, including one Scottiz Karpulsky (21).
These maulers are a strange lot indeed, skirting the line between the
natural and supernatural as do so many cryptids. Although the specifics
of each mauler case vary greatly, some points are common to all. The
typical mauler seems to be long and dark- coloured, sometimes with a
lighter patch on the chest, and often with small ears and short legs.
They seem equally comfortable on two legs or four. They are sometimes
almost supernaturally fast, taking enormous leaps of 20 feet or more.
They also seem to have a great preference for attacking a victim,
whether human or animal, around the head or neck; a great many are
credited with sucking the blood of the victim rather than devouring the
victim itself. A serrated back is mentioned occasionally, but this is a
rare (and probably invented) detail, and many are credited with leaving
tracks that appear to be a cat's but which show extended claws.
No previously proposed identification entirely fits the evidence. Wolves
and wolf-dog hybrids do not account satisfactorily for the blood loss in
the victims, or the peculiar cat- like tracks the maulers leave.
But members of the carnivoran family Mustelidae, the mustelids (such as
the weasel, otter and wolverine), share many characteristics with
maulers. They are typified as "small, long-bodied, short-legged animals,
with thick, silky fur, and ... a fetid odour" (22). This odour is given
off during situations where the animal feels threatened, being secreted
from anal glands. Nowhere is this odour more apparent than in one of the
family's representatives, the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis).
Another mustelid, the wolverine, is sometimes referred to as the
"glutton," for its depredations can indeed be great. Mustelids are
fearless animals, attacking nearly anything they feel they have even a
chance of bringing down. The wolverine and many other members of the
family have a preference for either lying in ambush in a tree and
jumping upon a victim's head, or leaping at the victim's throat.
One species in particular, the pine marten (Martes martes), fits many
characteristics of maulers almost perfectly. The pine marten is a small,
weasel-like animal (barely bigger than an average house cat) that preys
on rodents and birds, occasionally eating eggs or fruit. The pine marten
is unusually agile, living most of its life in trees. It has a dark
brown, almost black, colour and a cream-coloured patch around the
throat. Most reports of maulers are from areas within the pine marten's
range, and it would leave "clawed-cat"-type tracks. (One difference,
however, is that martens are nocturnal while most maulers seem to be
diurnal; however, this detail is a relatively minor one.)
I am not proposing that maulers are pine martens in the strictest
sense; pine martens are far too unimpressive. There may be a
subspecies, however, that co-exists with its substantially smaller
conspecifics, which would account for sightings of maulers and accounts
of their depredations. Maulers seem to kill mainly sheep; a marten of
normal size regularly feeds off of large rabbits and other animals
larger than itself. Sheep are not large animals--it wouldn't take a
very large creature to kill a sheep, or to leave the size tracks
maulers often leave.
Many of the supernatural-seeming attributes can be explained plausibly
by a mustelid identification, such as the insanity caused by the bite of
some of these creatures, which could be explained as a concussion caused
by the dropping of the animal onto the skull; to a shard of bone
penetrating the brain and causing infection; or trauma from the attack.
The seeming ineffectiveness of weapons against maulers (particularly the
Beast of Gévaudan) can be attributed to something as obvious as the
speed of these creatures.
In conclusion, I propose that the mauler is a new subspecies of the pine
marten. We may typify the appearance of the mauler as 2 feet in height,
8 feet in length, black in colour, with a cream-coloured or white patch
on the chest. The animal has somewhat cat-like feet, and has a rather
elongated body and is exceptionally agile.
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(1) Pons, Gregory. 1992. "The Ravening Beast" in The Unexplained:
Mysteries of Mind Space & Time, Volume 3. (Westport, CT: H.S.
Stuttman), p. 286.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Clark, Jerome. 1993. Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible
Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena. (Detroit: Visible
Ink), p. 20.
(4) Brockis, Derek. The Auvergne Ogre. France (Winter 1995), p. 48.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Heuvelmans, Bernard. Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown
Animals With Which Cryptozoology is Concerned. Cryptozoology 5
(1986), p. 12.
(7) Clarke. C. H. D. The Beast of Gévaudan. Natural History (April
1971), pp. 70-72. Trotti, Hugh H., Jr. A Dog in Wolf's Clothing?
Cryptozoology 7 (1988), pp. 119-120. Buffetaut, Eric. Mad Dogs and
Frenchmen. Cryptozoology 7 (1988), pp. 120-121.
(8) Megaw, J. V. S. 1976. Art of the European Iron Age (New York:
Harper and Row), p. 78.
(9) Stead, Ian. 1985. The Linsdorf Monster. Antiquity 59, pp. 40-42.
(10) Megaw, op. cit. Stead, op. cit. Green, Miranda. Animals in Celtic
Life and Myth (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 150.
(11) Physiologus, medieval bestiary.
(12) Thompson, C. J. S. 1930. The Mysteries and Lore of Monsters.
(London: Williams and Norgat), p. 103.
(13) Ashton, John. 1890 (repr. 1968). Curious Creatures in Zoology.
(Detroit: Singing Tree), p. 61.
(14) Topsell, Edward. 1658 (repr. 1967). The History of Four-footed
Beasts. (New York: DaCapo Press), p. 13.
(15) Fort, Charles. 1931. Lo! (repr. as pp. 539-839 in Fort,
Charles.1971. The Complete Books of Charles Fort [New York:
Dover]), pp. 643-644.
(16) Fort, op. cit., pp. 644-645.
(17) Fort, op. cit, p. 645.
(18) Fort, op. cit, pp. 647-648.
(19) Fort, op. cit, pp. 645-646.
(20) Fort, op. cit, p. 646.
(21) Shades of the Sucker. Fortean Times 90 (October 1996), p. 16.
(22) Bertin, Léon (ed.). 1981. The New Larousse Encyclopedia of Animal
Life. (New York: Bonanza), p. 559.
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jennifer
THE BEAST OF GEVAUDAN
A GREAT ENIGMA OF HISTORY
Introduction.
La Bête du Gévaudan was a real wolf-like monster that prowled the
Auvergne and South Dordogne areas of France during the years 1764 to
1767, killing about 100 people, often in bizarre circumstances. Every
effort to stop her failed and she became nationally infamous. The King -
Louis XV - took a personal interest, partly because she caused unrest in
an area of tension and potential revolution. Many explanations - mutant,
prehistoric beast etc. - were put forward at the time and during the two
centuries since but none has ever been generally accepted. The important
firm fact is that sufficient evidence remains to prove La Bête really
did exist and was not just a myth. Among all the popular monster
mysteries she was unique - she left behind one hundred bodies proving
herself real and guilty beyond doubt. This article gives a balanced view
on La Bête, about whom surprisingly little has been written outside
France, where she remains a household name to respect or ridicule,
according to choice. We always laugh at what we secretly fear.
A PROWL WITH LA BETE
or: ‘When twigs crack don’t whistle’
The true tale of La Bête du Gévaudan is like a Shakespeare play, loving
a plain woman or being a member of parliament - the more you put in the
more there is to take away. A greater depth of information than has
previously been available in English on her career is therefore offered
- all based on recorded facts and including no fiction. The French
rightly claim their wine and this mystery as the world's best. You can
drink more deeply of either at a price. For wine the price is only money
and a headache but the price for La Bête's is never again to feel quite
safe walking alone in a sunny country lane. In France she is quoted as
'The Greatest Enigma of History'. Prowl on but do look over that left
shoulder occasionally.
And little maids all in a row
On at least 5 occasions beasts rumored to have been La Bête ranging from
large wolves to a baboon-like animal were killed but in all cases except
the last, a not very formidable deformed wolf-like creature killed in
June 1767, she recommenced killing shortly afterwards. For example, on
16th September 1764 a wolf known as Le Loup de Pradels was killed and
assumed to be La Bête. She took only until the 26th to kill a girl at
Thorts and prove the assumption wrong. Following the death of a little
girl on an unlucky 13th - only her bonnet and clogs were ever found - La
Bête was reported shot in an abbey estate by a M. Antoine as Le Loup de
Chazes on 21st September 1765 but was seen at Marsillac on 26th, 27th
and 28th of that month. She started a new two year killing career on
21st December, the shortest day of the year and a long Silent Night for
little Agnes Mourges. The winter wind hid a very sharp bite indeed, and
that Christmas cost Agnes more than the usual arm and a leg:-
'insufficient remains for burial' - not enough to fill even a small
stocking. La Bête had herself a merry little Christmas and stopped the
carol singers from making their usual killing because nobody dared open
doors barricaded against her. Snowy New Year 1765 yielded, for example,
the head of little Marie Jeanne Rousset of Milienettes, recognizable
only by her staring eyes, everything else being cleanly gnawed away. One
poor woman, over 60 years old, nick-named La Sarabande, after the
triple-tempo Spanish dance, could find no grass for her cow - her only
possession - because of the deep snow. She led it to a marshy area,
where sometimes a little greenery penetrated through. La Sarabande’s
body was ambushed for three days but La crafty Bête did not return. She
liked marshy areas because her agility and relatively light weight
enabled easy escape from mounted pursuers, whom she often deliberately
led into mires and left floundering. Even the local men liked playing
this trick on the arrogant and gaudily dressed dragoons they regarded as
a costly nuisance and useless for pursuing La Bête. One father and son -
Antoine and Jean Chastel, everyday countryfolk - were in fact imprisoned
for it, possibly in the cellar, still to be seen, of an old school, in
Sauges en route to the dungeons in Mende. They misled some hunters,
proudly led by a Royal Huntsman wearing King’s uniform. Guess who ended
up sitting on his horse stuck in the mud? The Chastels might have got
away with it had they not threatened him with a gun when he complained.
Another attack with an agricultural theme was that on a farmer, who rose
early and started scything his wheat harvest by moonlight. He saw a
movement coming towards him but the animal itself was hidden by the tall
wheat stalks. His first thought could well have been it was one of the
farm dogs coming for a fuss but it proved to be La Bête coming for his
blood. He managed to fight her off with his scythe but on arriving home
was unable to speak for four hours, being paralysed with terror. One
typical attack occurred at dusk - locally called 'the hour between dog
and wolf' - on 6th September 1764 at Estrets. A woman was tending her
humble cottage garden when La Bête seized her by the throat, beginning
with her usual apéritif of blood - sucked, not stirred - and did not
cease until neighbors armed with axes, sickles and forks arrived. The
woman died but La Bête, having enjoyed her liquid refreshment, lived on.
Another woman - a servant - going to mass at Escures on 29th April 1765
saw La Bête and tried to delay her because men were approaching fast.
She paid for her bravery by losing face, throat and life. There was the
mysterious case of the three women of Pompeyrac, going to church near
the wood of Favart, when a dark man offered to escort them through the
wood. They refused and before leaving he touched one of them with a
fur-covered hand. Dragoons arriving on the scene warned the terrified
women not to go into the wood, because La Bête had just been seen there.
Two women of Escures also on the way to church had a similar experience
in an area where, unknown to them, she had just been seen by several
people. This time they saw that the man accosting them was covered in
fur only when his shirt blew open in the wind. It was said at the time
that La Bête, instrument of the Devil, was trying to stop them from
going to Mass. As with all good monster murder mysteries, there has to
be the wicked aristocrat solution. In this case he was supposed to have
hidden among the nuns of the abbey of Mercoire, the abbess of which was
known to take contributions from fugitives. This solution to the La Bête
mystery is ridiculed by serious students of the subject but perhaps he
did exist. There are other instances where appearances or attacks by La
Bête were associated with human presence, including a famous witnessed
sighting from a cottage window by a stream in the moonlight. There were
also the two bodies found roughly reclothed after death. Fact or
imagination? The relationship of these occurrences to Robert Louis
Stevenson and Brothers Grimm is referred to later.
Scarlet billows start to spread.
Too many horrors, another being what happened to Madame Merle. She had
her eyes scratched out and La Bête spat a stream of her blood over
approaching rescuers. No 'toujours la politesse' that time. On 21st June
1765 - the witches Sabbath, when the weather was warm enough for the
naughtier country folk to dance naked round bonfires, she killed two
people and savaged a third. Was this yet more evidence of her apparent
sensitivity to Gothic atmosphere - she was often reported in places with
supernatural associations - or did she just fancy a hot takeaway with no
French dressing? Either way, she came back for seconds and thirds to go.
Also in 1765 - her busiest year - the case occurred at Javols where a
father, a tenant farmer of good reputation, was bound and imprisoned by
the fiery Captain Duhamel for failing immediately to report an attack to
the authorities. He had delayed doing this only to attend to his child,
whose larynx had been bloodily torn open - a specialty of La Bête - and
to nurse his seriously ill mother. Many attacks remained unreported for
fear of becoming involved with ponderous and ineffective bureaucracies,
rather like on housing estates today. Six year old Marguerite Lèbre was
killed in front of six firm witnesses, all testifying to Curate Gibergue
at la Pauze, Lorcières, who also recorded reports of a smaller boar-like
Bête seen 3 days later. These records of sturdy porcine or feline beasts
in addition to our rakish, wickedly graceful wolf-like lady are too
frequent to ignore and add another dimension to the mystery. Either way,
as was affirmed by Denneval, the King’s Chief Wolfcatcher, the greatest
expert on wolf hunting in France, La Bête was definitely no wolf.
Another odd fact is that some measurements of distances between her
footprints showed she could make leaps of over 28 feet on level ground.
If true, this weighs in favor of the athletic build rather than the
stocky one. Reserve judgment on this point. Perhaps the bravest struggle
of the three most famous ones against La Bête (Portefaix, the schoolboy,
Valet (La Pucelle) and La Femme Jouve) was that by the puny Madame
Jeanne Jouve on 9th March 1765 at Fau de Brion, where she fought to
protect 3 of her 6 children with only bare hands and rocks snatched up
from the ground. One child died and Madame Jouve herself was injured -
the King gave her a reward of 300 livres. The incident was vividly
described thus; "The skin of his skull was falling to the right, his
cheek was torn, his lip and nose torn away to the root, he died within 3
days." The same evening La Bête devoured a boy at Chanaleilles and was
seen again the next day at Estival. These events caused great
consternation throughout Gévaudan and Auvergne. The floor of one meeting
hall collapsed from the sheer weight of people crowding in, trying to
organize a hunt for her. There was the case of the girl, her little
brother having been snatched from her, who bravely rushed into the wood
after him and found him peacefully lying there on his back, apparently
intact but in fact lacking liver, entrails and blood. The girl who cried
to warn her sister, "There's a big wolf behind you", turned and ran,
only to see her sister's head bowling along the ground. The little boy
who, on 21st July 1765 went to fetch the family cows from their walled
meadow near the village of Auvert and simply never returned. At the time
La Bête was being sought locally by the wily aristocrat M. Antoine, the
King's Gunbearer, who posted his hunters in pairs on paths all over the
district. There has always been a question mark over his policy. Why did
he post guards mainly at night, when La Bête usually attacked in the
daytime? The first thing the searchers found was the boy's shoes
standing in the road, then all his clothes lying almost untorn in the
meadow. Of the boy himself nothing was ever found. Beast or human
criminal that time? Enclosed meadows were particularly dangerous because
the drystone walls - similar to those of the Lake District - with their
mossy covering camouflaged her perfectly before she pounced. Jumping
down from the top of walls and rocky outcrops was one of her favored
methods of attack, especially dangerous to those tending flocks who had
built their fires up against them for a little more shelter from the
Margeride mountain winds. At least they died warm. It was said La Bête
would plough straight through a flock of sheep, scattering them like
leaves to get at the shepherdess. However, she was much more wary of
cows, which were sometimes found spattered with the blood she had spat
at them. Her lack of fear of fire, dogs and people, especially women and
children, but fear of cattle are strange but consistent features. That
so much detailed information still exists is thanks to 'le
procès-verbal' or P.V., an old and sensible French legal procedure often
mentioned in Maigret style detective films, where evidence is formally
noted by officials in front of witnesses. There are volumes of them,
often confirmed in church records of burial ceremonies, giving in detail
La Bête as the cause of death and signed by witnesses, priests and other
respected persons. One struggle against her is particularly clearly
recorded by the Curate of Besseyre. Another curate - Ollier of Lorcières
got even closer to the action by bandaging a girl's wounds and making a
measured sketch of a footprint which was similar to but larger than
those previously recorded. Suspicious isn't it how so many churchmen
occupied themselves with La Bête both before and after her reign, or is
it simply they were the only intellectual, literate and socially
responsible people present in every sizable village? This point merits
careful thought by the conspiracy theorists. Her consumption of clerics
was limited to one convent novice near Grèzes in 1766; no priests,
although she ate the cheek of a relative of Abbé Pourcher, her most
famous chronicler, whose house, by the way, with its strange Bête-like
carving on the door lintel, still stands. She liked her victims in
skirts but obviously knew la Différence. The preference of La Bête for
women and children might have been simply because they were more readily
available. They were the ones tending the lonely mountainside flocks in
ones or twos, whereas the men did the heavier work in the farm fields,
often in groups and armed with spades, scythes etc. All parties were
experienced wolf-repellers and had only contempt for these cowardly
nuisances; a few stones usually sent them packing, unless they were
rabid and, if they were, their messy bites were nothing like the elegant
surgical work of La Bête. In March to June 1766 there were 14 attacks by
her within 6 miles of Paulhac. Not bad for a reportedly dead Bête.
Incidentally, the old village concluded its history tragically, being
burned by the German army in 1944. It is perhaps now haunted by even
sadder spirits than those of La Bête’s victims, who were killed by a
hungry animal for food and not for the politics of greed.
First catch your Bête
Many ‘Wanted’ posters appeared, for example this one in August 1764
(only slightly parodied) made a lot of profit for the printers:- "Reward
12,000 livres if dead. Known as 'La Bête' but kills under three aliases.
Reddish brown with dark ridged stripe down the back. Resembles
wolf/hyena but big as a donkey. Long gaping jaw, 6 claws, pointy upright
ears and supple furry tail - mobile like a cat's and can knock you over.
Cry: more like horse neighing than wolf howling. Last seen by people
mostly now dead. If she approaches you please leave behind a signed copy
of this poster." Many pictures were circulated, some very elegant ones
from leading Paris art houses such as Basset, Corbié, Le Bel, Maillet
and Mondhare, even some from Germany; prints are still available From
August 1764 on the King's orders the world's greatest ever hunting
aristocracy was ranged against La Bête with all its resources of
châteaux, thoroughbred horses from royal stables for the leading
huntsmen and, for others, hacks from humbler stables, wearing darned
Agincourt jackets and often rode to their deaths. There were specialist
wolf, boar and bear hounds plus as many echelons of trackers, hunters
and master-hunters as NHS management grades but wasting less money,
having no computers. She didn't stand a chance, or did she? Note that no
suspicious human footprints - sensibly shoed or otherwise - were ever
found near a kill, although La Bête's own easily identifiable long,
clawed prints were there too many times, including all over the
riverside mud of her famous fight with La Pucelle (the servant girl who
successfully fought her off with a spear made from a spindle). These
footprints, recognized on the spot by 3 leaders of different hunting
parties, bloodstains and supporting evidence from a 16 year old girl
witness were all recorded in the procès-verbal, helping to confirm the
incident as genuine. Contemporary pictures of the fight still exist,
some simple, some stylized, as one would expect. One fresh body was
found lying out in snow with no tracks or footprints round it at all.
Impossible, of course but typical of the strange happenings high in the
Margeride mountains, a harsh region which the locals describe as 'nine
months of winter and three months of hell'. Regarding stories
surrounding La Bête, it is unlikely she founded the 'Plump Partners'
dating agency but against the fiction or hoaxes (some admitted) there
are 100 horrors, mostly with witnesses, graves, names, parishes and
dates as evidence. Grim facts and bloodless human body parts prove her
existence, even if the more lurid tales are suspect. One indisputable
fact is that La Bête did succeed, aided by bad weather and econmic
problems with the cloth industry, in dragging the region down to a state
of poverty and famine. Women and children were too terrified to tend
their sheep and cattle out on the lonely pastures and the men were
constantly called away from field work to hunt La Bête. The resulting
neglect was sufficient to tip the scales of such a fragile economy into
a decline. Louis XV and his court took her very seriously. She prowled a
region where Huguenot/Jesuit tensions were acute and the King feared
she, plus the arms massing there, would ignite the revolution whose
tumbrels were perhaps just beginning to rumble in the distance.
Remember, the Gévaudan was part of the ‘Independent States’, whose
recognition of the French Crown’s sovereignty was not at the time fully
ratified. Problems arising from the Antipopes in Avignon and the Great
Schism of 1378 to 1417 still echoed and the city was not annexed to
France until 1791. Although dissolute, Louis XV was not a king who
killed more people than he had to - his nickname was 'Le Bien-Aimé', but
whether this meant he was well liked or he got a lot of loving is subtly
and Frenchly left unclear. Being King in those pre-Revolutionary years
must have been one hell of a job without 'The Beast Who Is Eating
Everybody' making life even more difficult - Larousse, the main French
encyclopedia, even in its recent editions still states: 'the whole of
France concerned itself about her for some time'. The most dangerous
animal in the world is the intelligent French female and poor Louis XV
had at least three to contend with - Madame Pompadour, Madame la
Comtesse du Barry, who dined at five, copying the King, a politically
significant fact (according to Dumas - ‘The Queen’s Necklace’) and La
Bête, who also dined in the daytime but less formally. One Madame lost
her head but La Bête kept hers while crunching many others. Unlike the
curvy courtesans she never embraced the fleshy King, who died from
smallpox - a million little bites instead of one big one. His successor
died of the biggest bite of all - la Guillotine, so perhaps Louis XV did
not handle French affairs, including La Bête, too badly after all, even
if he did, aided of course by Madame Pompadour, bankrupt the state. The
importance of La Bête in French history is virtually unknown outside
France. Like BSE, they couldn't get rid so each blamed everybody else.
There is no lack of conspiracy theories, especially relating to the
King's anti-Jesuit policies, which peaked in 1761, two to three years
before she appeared. Certainly people exploited her for political
purposes but equally certainly there was a real dreadful entity
conveniently there to exploit. La Bête's total effect on history was,
perhaps, beneficial. If she took only 100 potentially revolting
peasant’s children’s lives but stopped war between Huguenots and
Jesuits, later saving from la Guillotine the aristos who were recognized
as having helped starving peasants fight her, she leaves a moral credit
balance. You never know, she might be canonized one day. Often two or
three versions are recorded of stories about her life and presumed
deaths. There are, for example, two versions of the La Pucelle (the
spindle packing heroine) story when she was called upon by Antoine to
identify the body of the Loup de Chazes at the Château of Besset. One
says she firmly refused to identify it as La Bête, the other that she
did but only doubtfully, from a wound on its shoulder possibly made by
her spear. There is more than one version of the Loup de Chazes story
itself. One states it as genuine, another as fraudulent. Incidentally,
the skin of this wolf - Antoine’s kill - is said to have been destroyed
by the National Museum in Paris only early this century, it having lost
all its hair. Why would they destroy one of the most famous relics in
all France unless it was, as many suspected, a fake or, X File style,
something people were not to know about, like the hieroglyphics on
wooden tablets discovered in 1722 at the bases of the 593 giant statues
on Easter Island? Controversy and mystery still follow La Bête today as
persistently as she stalked her terrified victims 200 years ago. Goaded
by the wrath of a King lumbered with a naked wooden rocking horse in his
Versailles garden, awaiting her never-to-arrive skin, the desperate
nobles were reduced to the argument that La Bête could not exist because
it was impossible she had escaped their mighty searches. She did not
know this so carried on killing. Can you be completely impossible and
yet exist? Certainement, if you are French. Chastel's deformed wolf-like
creature, shot at Sogne d’Auvers on about 20th June 1767, must remain as
one but only one of the possible answers to the puzzle. Diagrams of its
deformities, for example of the jaws, still exist. If it was the
solution it was almost certainly contrived and not the whole story, the
remainder of which is said to involve human elements and various
collusions. It is unlikely the popular Marquis d'Apcher - the leader of
the hunt - cheated. It was not his elegant style and cost him the best
excuse ever to miss church on Sundays. Which would you rather do as a
handsome 19 year old marquis - go to church or gallop round rescuing
grateful mademoiselles from the very jaws of La Bête? Suspicion falls on
others. This involved tale has already created a semi-fictional novel
and more arguments than Liverpool Council. It is for smoky camp fires on
long nights. Keep an open mind. Incidentally, the gun which shot this
creature was bought by Abbé Pierre Pourcher at St. Julien in 1888 and he
writes about hearing of its whereabouts from a woman on a train. He met
her by chance, having entered her carriage because he feared she might
be molested by two unruly soldiers. In the Gévaudan district wolves were
often caught in deep pit-traps, dug and concealed so the wolves fell in.
Bait was sometimes scattered round the traps. Because people thought La
Bête could jump out of normal pits, very deep ones were dug, sometimes
of complex structure, for example octagonal in shape and interconnected
by tunnels; the purpose of these is not clear. The bait was often
unburied carcasses, or parts, of her victims, left out in spite of
protests from priests wanting early and decent burials. She never fell
for it. One desperate measure adopted against La Bête was the extensive
use of poison, sometimes applied across whole mountainsides. The King's
Wolfcatcher, Monsieur Denneval, the surly Norman squire, who had 1274
(1200 previous ones and a share of 74 while hunting La Bête) wolves to
his credit, was an early advocate of poisoning. This was after his
hounds, the best in France and excellent trackers but more suited to the
flat, open countryside of Normandie than the rugged, wooded Gévaudan,
had failed to catch her. Another supporter of poisoning, at least for a
time, was M. Lafont, the Syndic, a very important local official,
possibly the cleverest of all those hunting La Bête. The chief poisoner
was a M. Mercier. With his assistant he was particularly busy during
April and May 1767, buying live dogs, then poisoning them with very big
doses to provide ready-poisoned carcasses. The regional Governor, St.
Priest, finally ordered operations to cease because so many innocent
domestic and other animals were dying, including the dogs providing the
poisoned carcasses that killed even more dogs. A serious matter for the
mountain shepherds to whom loss of their partners could mean starvation.
Specialist poisons supposed to kill only wolves were formulated but they
didn't work, killing either all or nothing. Elaborate traps, decoys and
ambushes proved equally ineffective. It is hard to imagine our gourmet
Bête, rarely an animal eater, preferring a hard, cold, dead dog to a
soft, warm, live milkmaid. Who would? The attacks did, however, taper
off and finally cease at the height of the poisoning program. Like so
many things connected with La Bête, or Bêtes, it is impossible to say
what was effect and what coincidence. By this time things had got so bad
that there is even record of dogs eating human bodies left by La Bête,
although the possibility was quickly ruled out that the basic mystery
could be explained either by the activities of packs of wild dogs or by
wolves acquiring cravings for human flesh. The local French called the
wolves that ate human flesh ‘Carnivorous’, although the ordinary
sheep-eating ones could hardly be called ‘Vegetarian’.
Who stole my heart away?
Whoever she was, she was no maiden to choose for a goodnight kiss unless
your have unusual tastes or your new Tax Return is late. With her, the
Last Waltz meant just that. She killed through sheer speed and surprise,
not brute strength and boldness, evidencing a careful professional
judgment of risk against profit. The index-linked civil servants tried
to prevent her from working, like they always feel compelled to do with
entrepreneurs but she survived and kept them in jobs too. The church
also was ostensibly against this working girl making an honest living
but she proved to be prayer-proof. For example, several churches were
the rendezvous for processions of supplicants on 18/19 August 1765 and
other dates. Besseyre, Nôtre Dame de Beaulieu, Venteuges, Pébrac and
Paulhac (old church probably destroyed in war) were some of them. There
was ceremonial movement of icons of the Madonna between various churches
and some of them can still be seen in the places to which they were
delivered by the processions two hundred years ago. Study of frequency
and location of attacks using computers and backs of envelopes supports
the contention that more than one beast prowled but locals then and now
reject the idea of several, although many reports exist of smaller
animals seen both alone and with their mother. To the French, La Bête is
an Edith Piaf and will remain so. Both were unique stars with neighing
voices and no regrets. On the other hand, who ever heard of a French
lady lacking boy friends, Joan of Arc possibly excepted.? Perhaps the
Wulver - that burly but unaggressive Scottish werewolf, allegedly seen
in the Shetlands this century - should have been introduced to our fiery
madame to cool her temper. By now those farmers could be assailed by
wicked Lady Macbête plus bairns playing bagpipes. Only French farmers
deserve such suffering. It is best to laugh at dark corners. Another
overseas candidate as La Bête, in addition to the legendary Nandi bear
from Africa, who also had a penchant for rapid head removal, is the
famous, mythical and dangerous Canadian beast called the Wendigo -
elusive, frequents lonely forests and loves children. A French Canadian
Bête would, after all, be appropriate. The thylacine marsupial wolf of
Tasmania, alive as recently as 1934 and still occasionally reported, for
which a cooking recipe exists (no, not vin-de-loup) is easily dismissed
as too puny for the job. However, tails strong enough to knock people
over were possessed by larger prehistoric carnivorous marsupials like
the Thylacoleo. Such an unusual tail often appears in La Bête
descriptions, as do other kangaroo-like features. Another Australian
contender, although an unlikely one, being relatively small, is an
animal still occasionally reported but which probably became extinct in
the 19th or early 20th century. This is the Tasmanian or Queensland
tiger, the subject of a TV program, which was marsupial and rather like
a wolf with claws, probably resembling the extinct tiger-dog of Japan,
which is another possible but uninvestigated candidate. One report of La
Bête describes a strange animal killed and buried in the Pinols region
in July 1766. There had been deaths there since 1765. It was recorded by
curate Bergier, whose description resembles that of a very large baboon
but unfortunately only limited information is available and the killings
did not cease with the death of this beast. Crude drawings remain.
Romulus and Remus were allegedly suckled by a wolf, so perhaps a human
returned the compliment to an animal, which might explain where she
obtained support, if any was needed. There are other accounts of humans
being brought up by animals. Part of the Gévaudan area was renamed
Aveyron shortly after the French Revolution in 1789. Books titled The
Wild Boy of Aveyron, who was allegedly a wolf-child, were published in
1962 and 1976. Not previously recorded in the La Bête saga, registered
here almost certainly for the first time in this context, is the fact
that a strange and haunting drawing originated in Italy in 1495 of a
woman/monster with claws and horse-like head, washed up from the River
Tiber. This is yet another unexplained beast story that had an effect on
the Catholic church. The idea that La Bête was a human/animal hybrid
rears its particularly revolting head in some books. Such are reputed to
have existed, almost all degenerate and shambling creatures. For example
there is even an obscure story that a man/beast monster was brought back
by the Royal Navy and kept in secret on a small rocky islet off the
South Coast, being led around on a leash. Obviously not her, or it would
have been ''Hello sailorburger''. Such an aristocrat of killing as La
Bête deserves to keep her thoroughbred reputation, not that of a monster
from a horror comic. On 29th January 1997 the first edition of a Fortean
TV series on the 'Unexplained' was broadcast by Channel 4. The program
reported on a strange vampire-like beast: 'The Goat Sucker of Puerto
Rico', nicknamed El Chupacabras. This creature has killed 150 goats in
the Canavoras region by sucking their blood and liver through neat
incisions in the neck. Other animals - cattle, rabbits and chickens -
have also been killed but, so far, no humans. The army has been called
to investigate. Drawings from eye-witness reports show it to resemble no
known animal, being kangaroo-like, fast, strong and able to stand on 2
feet. Footprints of 3 clawed toes have been found at killing sites. The
drawings and TV representations bear a resemblance to La Bête, who also
was usually reported as first licking or sucking blood from victims,
devouring them only afterwards. Reports have been received from US and
elsewhere of attacks on animals by similar beasts. On 19th November 1997
a program based on El Chupacabras, referred to as a weird creature in
Mexican folklore, was broadcast in the X Files series but strayed from
the original vampire-like monster legend. So far evidence is sketchy.
The animal as reported shows similarities to La Bête but there are big
differences. Its incisions are neat, whereas hers could be untidy - you
can’t call tearing-off heads neat. It has been reported as having three
clawed toes; she was not often reported with three but hers were also
sometimes said to be clawed. If El Chupacabras ever graduates almost
exclusively to humans, operates mainly in the daytime and adopts less
tidy eating habits, we can perhaps say, "La Bête has returned".
According to the TV program, explanations considered include an alien or
the outcome of genetic experiments at an American military base. These
trains of thought mirror those which have taken place - so far
unsuccessfully - over the last 230 years to explain La Bête, for example
the possibility that La Bête was an alien or caused by alien experiments
has recently been studied in France and views published. Closing scenes
of the film 'Species' show a female alien who, although furless,
uncomfortably resembles La Bête in speed, style and murderous
intentions. Before dismissing the alien concept remember that for over
two centuries clever people have unsuccessfully sought a solution to the
Bête mystery. Under these circumstances the apparently impossible must
be admitted as a possibility. No, that is not quite what Sherlock Holmes
said, although his comment is more perceptive and but not so relevant
The classic black and white film 'The Night of the Demon' has a large
unforgettable clawed monster, one of the best ever. La Bête can
reasonably be described in appearance and behavior as a faster moving
mini-version of this and also resembles other traditional demons. Funny
how our concept of wolf-like monsters has changed so little over the
centuries and is consistent world-wide. The Hindus believe in a terrible
blood-drinking feminine spirit called Kali, dedicated to destroying life
to allow for recreation. She is sometimes represented as clawed, hideous
woman and has been worshipped by Thugees for more thousands of years
than Christians have centuries. Victims are left with broken necks,
mutilated, in shallow graves. To quote her fellow-worker Shiva, 'Now I
am become death, the destroyer of worlds'. In a hot Bengal night the
life re-cycling concept of Kali does not seem as unlikely as it does by
a de Quincey style Lake District fireside in November. Some writings
about La Bête refer to mysterious caves, prehistoric bones, sometimes
collected for fertilizer, and suspiciously knowledgeable individuals but
one question apparently never researched is whether any of the famous
cave drawings and paintings in the area show an animal - of known or
unknown species - that might have been La Bête's ancestor? The recent
discovery of important caves containing 20,000 year-old drawings of
animals ranging from rhinos to mammoths in the neighboring Vallon
Pont-d'Arc region ( to the South East - the direction from which she was
first reported) gives food for thought. A famous Cro-Magnon cave
painting of an odd, upright creature called 'The Sorcerer' exists at Les
Trois Frères. At nearby Le Moustier there is a cave containing the
world's earliest known ceremonial burial, that of a Neanderthal
nicknamed 'Nandy'. There is a museum at Chilhac showing remains of
animals going back 2.5 million years. Prehistoric people drew and fought
animals which have become extinct (or have they?) only since the council
erected the new play area at Stonehenge. Like our own House of Lords,
the Gévaudan district contains some of the world's best preserved and
most numerous remnants of early intelligent human activity.
Incidentally, she was last witnessed in September 1767 strolling
peacefully along in Sarlat, also a prehistoric cave area. In
establishing the identity of La Bête one apparently neglected
information source is old family records. The use of surnames,
especially those with titles, is particularly well controlled and
documented in France so the descendants of most people involved are
traceable. Unpublished information hides for centuries in old drawers
and teenage daughters' bedrooms. Pity the French never ask you home.
Truth may sparkle one day to someone with long bar bill and pickled
liver who, Western hero style, strides into local brasseries and asks
questions, finally expiring as La Bête's last victim - Number 96 or 100,
according to which statistics you accept. Liver (raw no onions) was
always her favorite entrée following a warm blood consommé - free lunch
for the aristocrat of killing who dined royally in daylight. Plump
leather tomes, written in comfortable Auvergne sunshine, expansively
affirm she was not hyena, wolf or human but none tells what she damn
well was. Entries on a postcard please. No prizes, not after the blind
dinner date.
Ceci tuera cela (This will kill that) (Victor Hugo)
She last definitely killed on 18th June 1767 at Dèsges. Fittingly her
final victim is the unknown warrior - an unidentified little girl. Sadly
we can never know her name or if she was meant to bear four pretty
children. All right, a paradox but so is everything about La Bête.
Although there were outbreaks of killings by very similar beasts in the
17th and 19th centuries, after this last one La Bête, as La Bête,
vanishes from the world scene, although some husbands might reasonably
claim to have married her. A meticulous and outstandingly elegant French
hunting weapons book by Dominique Venner, a man, by the way, published
1984 refers briefly but carefully to her on Pages 113/114. English
comments made at the time consist mainly of newspaper articles,
indignantly recorded by Abbé Pourcher in his famous book, which
scathingly report that a French army of 12,000 had been routed by a
beast. Some beast! It is surprising so little has been written on La
Bête outside France when you consider her splendid achievements as a
serial killer. Jack the Ripper officially killed only 5 victims, all
women, over a period of 10 autumn weeks (not as foggy as films depict),
whereas she often had a mixed bag of 4 or 5 within a single week, for
example during a snowy 1st to 7th January 1765 and another 95 over 3
years, once killing 2 and maiming 1 on a mid-summer's solstice. As
usual, the French do it better and she elegantly beat Jack’s score by
nearly a century not-out, no doubt would have killed JR too, given une
demi-chance. One of the few considered English comments appears in
'Walking through France' by Neillands on Pages 142/155. The dates he
mentions are confusing and apparently incorrect, suggesting Bête
activity as far back as 1745, which is earlier than elsewhere recorded.
He describes St-Juéry, where he stayed, as being ravaged by both La Bête
in 1764 and, in 1944, by the Waffen-SS from the Das Reich Division. Even
in 1988 Neillands admits he was glad to be sleeping within the friendly
claw-proof walls of the Hotel du Bès and not outside under thin canvas.
Incidentally, a Monsieur Bès of Bessière wrote a manuscript on a
sighting and chase of 23rd December 1764 by a young subaltern called
Dulaurier. He had just drawn his saber to strike La Bête when she jumped
over a wall and ran across a marsh where his horse could not follow. A
1992 expensive Canadian book 'Wolf hunting in France in the reign of
Louis XV' by R. H. Thompson deals extensively with La Bête, contending
that there can be satisfactory explanations based on large wolves for
all her depredations. On the other hand, Denneval, a Norman squire known
for his surly directness, recognized as the greatest wolf expert in 18th
century France and having the advantage (?) of actually being in charge
on the spot, firmly and officially asserted that there was indeed
something very strange going on in Gévaudan and that "La Bête is no
wolf". Perhaps that was just because he couldn’t catch it. Which one do
we believe? Another recent article writer, C.H.D. Clarke, is an expert
in North American wolves. Firstly, he reprimands those who refer to La
Bête as a legend, strongly pointing out that she was definitely no
legend but was hard fact and really existed. His second important
observation is: ‘The certainty that no rabies was involved meant that
there was something going on that was without precedent.’ Rabid wolf
attacks are clumsy compared with La Bête's elegant handbaggings. He
considers that one explanation of La Bête is there was more than one and
they resulted from a natural cross breeding between large dog, possibly
of an Italian hunting breed, and wild wolf. His explanation for the Bête
phenomenon is supported by reports published elsewhere of vigorous
hybrids between wolf and large dog, for example the wolf of Argenton,
killed in 1884. Another candidate for cross-breeding with wolf might be
the Lycaon - a carniverous wild hunting dog still active, and feared, in
Africa. It is perhaps a little small but is very savage and cunning. A
cross with a wolf would be a formidable animal and a litter of them
loose in a district could well be taken as an abnormal phenomenon. The
presence of African animals in the Gévaudan is recorded in cave drawings
over thousands of years and even today there are attempts to
re-establish them in large game parks. Clarke has noticed the
connections between the works of Grimm, Stevenson and La Bête. Grimm,
apparently, was a friend of Rousseau; a poem was written on the famous
fight between Portefaix, protecting his six child companions, and La
Bête on 12th January 1765 at Vileret d'Apcher. Robert Louis Stevenson
possibly based his "beautiful shepherdess" stories on a girl from
Paulhac who was killed by her. Clarke quotes 21 references in his study.
What coincidental patterns she weaves. For example, Stevenson carefully
includes her in his famous 'Travels with a donkey in the Cévennes',
written 1879, in particular admiring her bravery in attacking in
daylight a party of couriers armed with pistols and swords. His
summation is incomparable: 'if all wolves had been as this wolf they
would have changed the history of man.’ Then by 1886 he writes 'Jekyll
and Hyde'. We will never know if his werewolf -like theme - changing,
hairy hands etc. - was based on La Bête but it is reasonable to conclude
that she played a part. The book opened as a play in London in 1888 just
as Jack the Ripper simultaneously started his, compared with La Bête,
meager series of 5 murders. In the war German troops destroyed two
villages where La Bête prowled and a chance German bomb on Bournemouth
hit the house in which Stevenson had died . Some further examples of
what we call coincidences: The old oak table on which this article has
been written was made by Filmer & Sons, Berner Street for the home of
Dr. Langdon Down, who described Down's Syndrome in 1866. His Kingston
upon Thames mansion - Normansfield, - became and still is a hospital.
Some say the Ripper was a medical man. An alley off Berner Street is
where Elizabeth Stride died of a severed windpipe and Berner Street
itself was a centre of Ripper activity. Incidentally, 'berner' is an old
French verb for to mock or make fun of. Some do say the Ripper - usually
described as about 5 feet 7 inches tall - was a woman; there was talk of
Jill the Ripper at the time and who had more motive for killing those
sad, loose ladies than someone whose husband or son had been ruined by
them? Confusing, but can we admit the concept of infinite situations
created to allow all possible connections? A long way from our simple
Bête, or is it? Only a god could create such a complicated and extensive
system so perhaps Gabriel Florent, wordy bishop of Mende, was not wrong
after all when he, like Abbé Pourcher, referred to her in his famous
mandate as 'The Scourge of God' and attributed supernatural, indeed
heavenly, powers to her. Another author apparently influenced by La Bête
was Jakob Ludwig Grimm of Brothers Grimm fame who published Red Riding
Hood as 'Rotkäppchen' in approx. 1812, a work recognized as having deep
significance. He had been librarian to Jerome Bonaparte, being expert in
antiquities and mythology - not that La Bête was a myth, her 'All the
better to eat you with' was backed-up by real teeth. Incidentally, the
first clearly recorded Red Riding Hood fairy story is attributed to a
Frenchman, Charles Perrault, a great classical historian. It appeared in
his book ‘Stories of Times Past’ in 1697. The famous Nostradamus, in
spite of his Latinised pen-name, was a Frenchman named Michel de
Nostradame, born 1503 in Provence, who spent most of his life studying,
working in and traveling between places later associated with La Bête,
such as Avignon ( La Bête was widely reported in the Avignon Gazette)
and Montpellier, the city from which the military hunt for La Bête was
directed by the Count of Moncan, a cautious but capable organizer, who
handled very delicately an official request that the local population be
armed against La Bête with weapons from his arsenals.
One of Nostradamus’ prophecies for mid-18th century France states:
'Mars threatens us with the belligerent force. Blood will be made to
spread out 70 times. The church will grow, suffer harm and more to those
who would listen to nothing of them.'
Not too far out, was he, especially as there is nothing else obviously
relevant to this particular prophecy?
Allow him another one:
'The lost thing, hidden for so many centuries is discovered. Pasteur
will be honored almost as a demi-god. Dishonour shall come by other
winds when the moon finishes her great cycle '.
Be careful with that cloning!
In the Place des Cordeliers, Marvejols there is, by the sculptor
Auricoste, a contemporary style statue bringing out her cunning
brutality but La Bête was never seen there so why they have a statue is
another mystery. Perhaps they are jealous of the towns and villages she
really did haunt. "Mon Dieu, they have Une Bête and we do not!" Shades
of Clochemerle. The inscription claims the statue to be her but in fact
it is of only the deformed animal killed by Jean Chastel, so perhaps it
is just a cunning spoiling act. They even held a Bête exhibition in the
Mairie - the Town Hall - at Marvejols in 1958. Those French! The church
at St Alban-sur-Limagnole has La Bête as its weathercock - in memoriam
as in life she remains inaccessible and knows just which way the wind is
blowing. Most parts of the world take particular stories or legends to
heart - hero or beast, distilling them out from all the rest to reflect
exactly the character of the country. In England we have King Arthur and
Robin Hood. In America they have Mickey Mouse and Davey Crockett. In
France La Bête is still alive because she represents the tough Auvergne
landscape and its independent people who often have had to fight
occupying troops and oppressive bureaucracy. Maybe its not too late for
her to take an evening stroll round the streets of expense account
restaurants in Brussels. Bon appétit, Bête.
Well, what do YOU think she was?
The question Bête students fear. It always feels undignified and rude
simply to answer, "I don't know." Some modern experts in wolves who
never hunted her think she must have been a wolf but hunters on the spot
at the time held very different opinions, as did the cripples suffering
in squalor and poverty from her blurringly fast wide-ranging attacks.
Any article on La Bête would be incomplete unless it clearly stated the
opinion of Abbé Pierre Pourcher, the meticulous author of by far the
greatest, and longest, book on the subject. Pourcher’s interpretation of
the mystery is entirely religiously based, sober and critical. His
concept is La Bête was probably just the deformed wolf-like animal
killed by Jean Chastel in 1767 but that it had been aided by God as a
Scourge to correct human wickedness, being brought on specifically by
bad behaviour and unacceptable changes in church ritual. This heavenly
aid, not her being a monster, explained to Pourcher her power and
invulnerability. He repeats, several times, that she was something very
abnormal: "Her cunning, skill and mobility, even her very existence,
were completely beyond human understanding." There are many different
views on what she was - about twenty books have been written - and most
of the other authors do not agree with Pourcher, although the highly
respected - Gabriel Florent - Bishop of Mende at the time of La Bête
did. There are also differing opinions among authors on La Bête as to
the character of the Chastels - father and son. Pourcher records Jean
Chastel as being a man of very good character whereas, for example,
Chevalley, in his semi-fictional novel, regards him with suspicion, even
to the extent of surmising he might have been involved in some deception
or cross-breeeding involving a hyena. It is alleged he had been a
prisoner and tortured in the Middle East. Incidentally, the hyena
species, which hunts as much as it scavenges, is genetically more
similar to cat than dog, being of the feline family Feloidea, which
certainly opens up the possibility of a terribly formidable cross-breed,
such as hyena and big cat. In any event, the Chastel name is closely
associated with the La Bête mystery but whether for good or evil has
never become clear. To answer a difficult question like the identity of
La Bête try shooting sighting-shots at the two extremes and hope your
third shot lands, German navy style, correctly in the middle. At one
extreme let us say she never existed, being only rumor arising from
attacks by a few large wolves, which may have been cross-bred or
deformed, and a rise in cases of rabies. The Jesuits may have invented
her to shepherd members of their flock back into loyalty to the church,
which was under political pressure from 1761 onwards. Some Huguenots,
terribly persecuted and almost wiped out by the Jesuits in the past,
welcomed her as an excuse to be armed. Hotheads of all types used her -
ultimately successfully - to foment revolution. Even Louis XV might have
taken advantage of the opportunity to send his troops to an increasingly
unruly district. All these possibilities have been repeatedly analysed
in literature on La Bête. On the other hand, we have graves and 100
corpses - a lot compared with the modest scores of most serial killers.
We have hundreds, maybe thousands, of individual and collective eye
witnessings, sometimes by whole dioceses en masse - intelligent French
people of all ranks reporting to every type of state and religious
bodies. We have a vast quantity of manuscripts, diagrams and other
records authenticated by the highest possible religious, military and
state bodies and by respected individuals, such as ministers, dukes and
generals. Conspirators probably could not have murdered 100 people over
four years and fabricated all the evidence without being suspected at
least once. The more likely situation is that all the parties took what
advantage they could of the existence of a real beast rather than
inventing one when there was no need to. At the other extreme, we could
accept that she was something unique in recorded human experience:- an
alien, mutant or surviving prehistoric monster. Only such explanations
fully satisfy the records of her speed, elusiveness and cunning. You
can, of course, choose to dismiss La Bête as merely a large wolf but you
will find those two very uncomfortable words ‘and yet’ keep coming to
mind. It is for the reader to decide from the unbiased information
honestly presented here, and any obtainable from other sources, where
between the two extremes the truth lies.
Nur nicht den Teufel an die Wand malen! (Talk of the Devil and he
will appear)
Whatever it, or she, was, something strong, fast and clever painted the
French countryside red two centuries ago without being caught. A warning
perhaps against genetically creating intelligent beings who regard
humans as free lunches, not lords of creation. To the explanation for
this particular naughty lady of shady lanes the only limitation is your
imagination. After 200 years just a faint echo remains of the terrible
shadow La Bête cast in the 18th century so should she still be feared?
Walk thoughtfully alone in a darkening wood or on misty Bodmin moor and
find the answer. When twigs crack, don't whistle.
Bibliography (mainly major publications):
‘Histoire de La Bête du Gévaudan’ by Abbé Pierre Pourcher 1889; 1040
small pages, translated for the first time into English as ‘The Beast of
Gevaudan’ (ISBN No. O 9532879 0 4) by the author of this article.
The following are all in French:
Histoire des Armes - Dominique Venner 1984. Weapons. Brief 2 page
comment only. Histoire Fidèle de La Bête. Henri Pourrat. 1946.
Atmospheric local author. La Bête du Gévaudan in Auvergne. Fabre, Abbé
François. Saint Flour. 1901 and Paris 1930. Historical. Hunting. Magné
de Marolles 1781. Wolf-hunting expert La Bête du Gévaudan. Abel
Chevalley. Paris 1936. Semi-fictional. La Bête du Gévaudan. Felix
Buffière. 1994. Very comprehensive. Illustrated. La Bête du Gévaudan.
Gérard Menatory. 1984. Analytical. La Bête du Gévaudan. M.
Moreau-Bellecroix. Paris. 1945. La Bête qui mangeait le monde. Abbé
Xavier Pic. Mende 1968 and Paris 1971. Historical. La Bête du Gévaudan
unmasked by computers. Jean-Jacques Barloy. 1980.
Derek Brockis de...@brockis.freeserve.co.uk
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