What Was the Beast of Gevaudan? conclusion
by Derek Brockis
 Who
stole my heart away?
Whoever she was, she was no maiden to choose for a goodnight kiss unless
your have an unusual taste or your new Tax Return is late. With her,
the Last Waltz meant just that. She killed through cunning, surprise
and speed, not rash boldness and strength, 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 anti-Bête 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 her bairns. 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.
If it is acceptable to consider La Bête might have been a surviving
prehistoric animal, the one that most closely resembles her appearance
is the Mesonychid. This was a wolf-like mammal, an early ancestor of
the dolphin, with wide jaw, spots, mobile tail etc.
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, when wounded or during the long
periods - sometimes months - which could elapse between killings. 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 a significant 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 three-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, moves
faster, 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
intent. 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.
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 fast 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 re-creation. She is
sometimes represented as clawed, hideous woman and has been worshipped
by Thugees for more thousands of years than Christianity has 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, once 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 Vivarais
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. For
example there are still members of the ‘Barthe’ family in
the district, one of whose ancestors, a nobleman, was among the first
and best witnesses of La Bête. 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 101, 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 by daylight.
Plump tomes, written in sunny Auvergne wineshine, 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 La Bête 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 her.
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. Clarke quotes
21 references in his study. 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 - hyenas etc. - 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.
There are connections between the works of Grimm, Rousseau, Stevenson
and La Bête. Grimm, apparently, was a friend of Rousseau by whom
a poem was written on the famous fight between Portefaix, protecting
his six child companions, against 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.
What coincidental patterns she weaves. For example, Stevenson carefully
includes her in his famous 'Travels with a donkey in the Cévennes',
written 1879, particularly 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 travelling 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 can take the credit for ordering Captain
Duhamel into the fray but handled very delicately an official request
that the local population be armed against La Bête with firearms
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. However,
La Bête was never seen in Marvejols, 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.
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 unbelievably
wide-ranging attacks.
No article on La Bête is complete unless it clearly states the
opinion of Abbé Pierre Pourcher, the meticulous author of by
far the greatest and longest (1040 small pages) book on the subject,
which was personally approved by Pope Léon XIII. Pourcher’s
interpretation of the mystery is entirely religiously based, sober and
critical. His concept is La Bête was 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 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." The highly respected - Gabriel Florent
- Bishop of Mende at the time of La Bête agreed with Pourcher.
There are many different views on what she was - about twenty books
have been written - and almost all the other authors do not agree with
Pourcher. They are fairly equally divided between conventional explanations
- large wolves, cross-breeds, tricks with hyenas etc. and the abnormal
- alien, mutant, prehistoric etc. 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 the family with suspicion, even to the extent of surmising
there might have been some deception or cross-breeding involving a hyena.
It is alleged his son, Antoine, had been a prisoner, castrated 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 justifiably and, if so, 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 the third shot
lands, 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
or exaggerated 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 body. 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 some 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.
Mal
bloss den Teufel nicht an die Wand!
(Talk of the Devil and he will appear)
Whatever it, or she, was, something strong, fast and clever painted
the green French countryside red for three years 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):
The main book on the subject: ‘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. General.
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.
±© Word count: 9,530.
Related Links
The Beast of Gevaudan
official web site (in French mostly)
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