Have you ever seen or heard something that you couldn’t explain? Most people will agree that the legends that haunt history such as vampires and werewolves don’t exist, and never did. But then, how do you explain the fact that these myths appear in multiple different cultures in different countries? If you were to ask the small town of Gévaudan, France in the late 1700’s the answer would be simple.

From 1764 until 1767, over one hundred women and children were killed gruesomely and about 300 more were injured. Those who survived had fantastical stories of a creature with a vague resemblance to a wolf. As the attacks continued, the stories got more and more amazing. The most amazing and unbelievable, was of course, that of werewolves.

The beast would regularly attack large groups and adults, neither party of which a regular wolf would normally attack unless threatened. This, combined with descriptions of the beast led many to believe that the beast was supernatural. The first victim of the beast who lived to tell the tale was believed to have been attacked by a wolf, the trauma of the memory making the beast of her story more fantastical. This was believed until several weeks later, when a 14 year old girl was devoured, and then a 15 year old boy after that.

The attacks were never more than two weeks apart, and for awhile the beast appeared near every day–sometimes twice in the same day. The increasing amount of attacks led to an article in a newspaper of a surrounding town, and the beasts infamy spread throughout France, causing many to come to Gévaudan to try their hand at killing the beast. The number of hunters increased once the king heard word of the attacks and offered a reward for the beasts head. This was likely to give the country something to rally around after a recent political blunder. When this took too long, he sent some of his own best hunters to Gévaudan in 1764.

There were dozens of wolves killed in at attempt to slay the beast and to get the reward that King Louis XV had offered up in return. There were numerous ways that the soldiers tried to kill the beast, and while the most popular way was to search the beast out, they also often left bait, in hopes that the beast would come to them instead. Although most of the bait was merely poisoned meat, or sponges soaked in fresh blood, there was also reports of soldiers dressing up as peasant women in hopes of attracting the beast with its favored victim.

Despite the large amount of hunters who claimed to kill the beast, and the even larger number who attempted too, the hunting parties had very little luck. This led to even more rumors of the supernatural, spread by the hunters themselves. There were claims of the creature walking on its hind feet, talking, jumping great distances and repelling bullets. Many claimed to have shot the beast, only for it to climb back to its feet shortly after. If that wasn’t enough for the whispers of a werewolf to spread, then the descriptions of the beasts physical features were.

Government delegate Etienne Lafont described the creature as thus “It is much bigger than a wolf. It has a snout somewhat like a calf’s and very long hair, which would seem to indicate a hyena.” There is, however, a problem with the theory of a hyena. There were no hyenas in France at that time, all of the hyenas that had once been in Europe having gone extinct long before.

In a slightly more extreme example, a man named Captain Duhamel, who was the leader of the local infantry, described the beast that was stalking the village as “a monster [hybrid], the father of which is a lion. What its mother was remains to be seen.” This theory is expounded upon by National Geographic, who released an article claiming that the beast was a subadult male lion, meaning it was young enough to have not yet grown in a mane. The article put forth the argument that most people of that time period would not have known what a lion looks like, and thus wouldn’t have known how to identify one. It goes on to explain that menageries with exotic animals were getting popular at that time, and a lion could have escaped.

Another popular theory was that there was no beast at all, but instead many wolves around the area who were running out of meals. However this theory would require either an entire town and hundreds of hunters either lying or hallucinating. While the supernatural aspects were likely exaggerated, and the size may have been exaggerated as well, it is believable that the animal was larger than normal for the entire town to insist that it was as large as it was. The lion is also unlikely, as nearly the whole of France heard about le Bete du Gevaudan, and if a menagerie was missing a lion, then it would have been known about by at least a couple people who could have put two and two together.

No matter what the creature may it have been, the beasts reign of terror came to an end in 1767. Most sources claim that a local man by the name of Jean Chastel shot the beast and finally brought it down, although others claim that the beast disappeared after the use of poisoned meat became more widespread. Either way, it’s still unknown what exactly the beast was, and its unlikely that we’ll ever know for sure.

More Info
https://allthatsinteresting.com/beast-of-gevaudan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/beast-gevaudan-terrorized-france-countryside-180963820/
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2016/09/27/solving-the-mystery-of-the-18th-century-killer-beast-of-gevaudan/
http://www.labetedugevaudan.eu/en/index_en.html