Beast of Gévaudan

The Beast of Gévaudan emerged in the mountainous Margeride region of southern France during the summer of 1764. The first documented attack occurred on June 30 of that year, when Jeanne Boulet, a 14-year-old shepherdess, was devoured near Langogne. This event unleashed panic in the area, where the beast began stalking shepherds, children, and women, killing with unusual ferocity. Local chronicles and official reports sent to the court of Louis XV describe how the creature did not behave like a common wolf, but as a cunning and massive predator. It is estimated that between 1764 and 1767 it caused around 100 confirmed deaths, with hundreds of attacks. The absence of natural prey in the rocky steppes may have driven the beast toward livestock and humans. Contemporary sources, such as the reports of syndic Étienne Lafont and dragoon captain Duhamel, recount the terror that paralyzed the villages, forcing the population not to go out alone and to organize initial failed hunting parties.

The beast was described as an animal of enormous size, larger than a wolf, with a robust body similar to a mastiff or hyena, reddish coarse fur, long and thick tail like a wild boar, broad muzzle with prominent teeth and small straight ears. Eyewitnesses, questioned by royal commissions, stated that it could run at high speed, jump high fences and resist bullets. Its method of attack was ambushing from behind, decapitating or tearing the throat, leaving mutilated corpses. It did not fear dogs or armed men at first, fueling legends of supernatural origin, although local hunters suspected a rabid wolf strain or crossbred with other animals. The attacks continued in rural areas, preferring female and child victims alone in the fields, leading to media campaigns in Parisian newspapers and the spread of rumors about mythical monsters. Several testimonies add that only horned cattle stood up to it: more than once oxen and cows drove it off with their horns.

The first local drives and the dragoons of Captain Duhamel failed for months, as did the Normans d'Enneval, father and son, famous wolf hunters. In September 1765, François Antoine, the king's gun-bearer, shot near the abbey of Chazes an enormous wolf that was stuffed and presented at Versailles as the defeated beast. The court declared the case closed, but the attacks resumed in December and went on for two more years, now without royal help. The end came on June 19, 1767, during a drive organized by the Marquis d'Apcher: Jean Chastel, a local farmer, brought down a large canid with a single shot at the Sogne d'Auvers, on the slopes of Mont Mouchet. The report of the notary Marin recorded human remains in its stomach, and with that death the attacks ceased. Later tradition told that Chastel had loaded his gun with blessed bullets, cast according to some versions from a medal of the Virgin; from that legend, reworked in the 19th and 20th centuries, springs the modern trope of the silver bullet against the werewolf. The case inspired novels, films and theories of every kind (one wolf, several wolves, a wolf-dog hybrid, an escaped hyena, even a human hand using the animal), and today the museum of Saugues preserves its memory, between documented fact and myth.