The Monster that Terrorized 18th-Century France: The Beast of Gévaudan
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ต.ค. 2019
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A monstrous beast, a furious king, and terrorized peasants- there’s something mythical about this episode in history. The facts of the case are that between 1764-1767, something killed over a hundred people in the rural French province of Gévaudan. The French simply referred to it as La Bête, the Beast. Here, we cover the gruesome attacks, attempts to hunt the Beast, and competing theories regarding its identity. It's one of those periods in history that has left footprints all across popular culture, from Witcher story lines to werewolf lore.
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Video credits:
Videezy.com
Elian Granier
/ @deltalien
Fueled by Time
/ @fueledbytime.
Music:
Scott Buckley
/ musicbyscottb
Kai Engel
freemusicarchive.org/music/Ka...
Sources:
Boissoneault, Lorraine. “When the Beast of Gévaudan Terrorized France.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 26 June 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/histor....
“The Fear of Wolves: A Review of Wolf Attacks on Humans.” Norsk Institutt for Naturforskning, 9 Dec. 2008, p. 19. Internet Archive, web.archive.org/web/200812090....
Smith, Jay M. Monsters of the Gévaudan: the Making of a Beast. Harvard Univ. Press, 2011.
Taake, Karl-Hans. “Solving the Mystery of the 18th-Century Killer ‘Beast of Gévaudan.’” National Geographic Society Newsroom, 27 Sept. 2016, blog.nationalgeographic.org/2....
Walton, Geri. “The 18th Century Beast of Gévaudan.” Geri Walton, 17 June 2016, www.geriwalton.com/the-beast-....
Happy to see some more attention on an older video. My apologies on some of the pronunciations-I’ve put a much more concerted effort into pronunciations since this episode.
IT WAS *MANBEARPIG!* 😁😁
First off, I really really enjoy your content, keep it up. Second, I would be so over the moon if you made a video on the champawat tigress. she holds the claim of the deadliest maneater of all time, with an estimated 436 kills. I think that video would turn out really good. if you don't want to make a video about that animal in particular than plz consider making a video on some other iconic maneater/maneaters.
@@samuhakoto Yeah I would also love a video on Champawat Tigress
This would make a good movie
Most eerie & disturbing to me:
approximately 30 years later...humans would be ruthlessly beheading the French -
and
Today
la France still awaits her promised Great Monarch to restore all that was lost...
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have been a villager back then. I get spooked just looking out the kitchen window at night, let alone knowing theres some bloodthirsty beast going around killing dozens of people.
Thats living in a 3rd world country
@@theballadofkobirae7431 France was one of the most advanced countries at the time, rivaled perhaps only by Great Britain.
Even now, France is a significant European country, by no means a third world country.
Sad that most Americans think “iF iTs NoT AmErIcA, iTs ThIrD wOrLd”.
@@Pastamist sorry sir ( i actually mean this trully) i made my statement without considering the way it might sound.
My statement is ment to reflect what its like to live in a third world country in the 21st century. I say this from experience living for 23 years in a small 3rd world country called zimbabwe. I was fortunate to live in the cities most of the time but 3 months a year i had to spend in the village paying my dues and providing labour.
In the villages where 70% of our population live there are elephants eating crop, lions stalking cattle , baboons stealing corn, leopards snatching kids etc.
It reflects a scenario not to diffrent from the (maybe more prevelent and intense) one presented in the video, where the towns people are in constant danger from predation.
I apologise if you saw this comment on as a diminutive comment on the status of france as a world power and developed nation during that time period.
is there anything you might want me to clear out?
@@theballadofkobirae7431 oh my bad. No no, you don’t need to clarify anything else.
You make perfect sense.
Oh and you don’t have electricity or flashlights
I lean towards the lion theory. People of the region knew wolves, no matter how big. It is large cats that tend to become man-eaters. A maneless Tsavo lion? Who knows. It's fun to speculate.
They literally cut it open and found the human bones and clothes of it's victims inside + it was confirmned by the eyewitnesses of the attacks that the killed animal was in fact the beast. a canid. 100% No lion. There is evidence from the autopsy, skull and teeth as well. Probably a dog Wolf Hybrid
@@BlackCroLongyeah no, a wolf-dog is big but not as big as how they described it, im pretty sure it was a previously "extinct" creature or something.
@@atanki5682 it was a hybrid "LARGE" dogue and also very very massive large "wolf" it was a female wolf who bred with a very very large DOGUE
@@BlackCroLong sources? (I'm actually not disputing your take at all, I just want to read the autopsy report!)
The quote Duhammel gave suggests the French knew what a lion looked like, not to mention menageries existed at the time as well. I would mention the autopsy, but someone had already mentioned.
As for the hyena theory, they were also supposedly in menageries. The number of teeth of the Beast shot by Chastel, according to reports, matched more to the number of a wolf’s than a hyena’s, yet the jaws of the Beast were broader than a wolf’s, according to an image comparing the skulls of the two.
Plus there were reports that the Beast could stand on its hind legs- a very unusual behavior for a lupine-type creature. However, there were also reports claiming it had hooves or that it was impervious to bullets, so this might be best taken with a grain of salt, as hysteria likely manipulated many reports of the Beast.
This story is terrifyingly amazing because even though we know that the beast is just an animal, albeit a particularly large one, it's not a supernatural being but the death, suffering and destruction it caused really made it something close to a horror story monster.
how do you know?
@@bjork5178 what are you asking
Yes, shockingly terrifying...almost a prelude
to the greater terror of the Freemasonic revolution that would devastate Catholic France less than 40 years later...
The scariest part to me is that a lot of the accounts of the beast mentioned a laugh-like cry. Imagine just tending to your sheep and then suddenly you hear something laughing at you, and you see some beast coming out of the trees
Yeah hyenas are freaky
Even lions won’t mess with them
Wait, how would a Hyena get to France in the first place? Some dumbass noble that thought it made a good pet?
There are claims that it was hayena
@@fiberpoet6250 bro male lion's are known for killing hyenas for sport. You find many video just type lion vs hyena in searchbar
It was a hyena or mad man.
“Hey man, why are you wearing a wig and an old skirt?”
“I, uh...I’m hunting”
"In Walmart???"
"Shut up, you transphobe!"
@@unterdessen8822 IT IS MA'AM, IT'S MA'AM !
@@gigachad6885 Excuse me, I'm on my way to Ma'amhattan. I have no time this now.
All evidence points to the distinct possibility that the Beast was, in fact, the Spanish Inquisition, which clearly no one expected.
I did not expect this comment.
Stop that. It's very silly.
Or so the Germans would have us believe.
quite plausible, since they both share similar atrocities.
Spanish Inquisition it wasn't that cruel or bad like is depicted in relates and movies. Did you knew prisoners in that time prefer to be in inquisition prisons instead of common prisons?, they even did something blasphemous to be transfered to inquition prison cause these rison treat them better, have better food, and have at least a bed in contrast to the common dungeons of the governments in that time.
I'm french, and I remember watching a documentary on this a long time ago. The story I heard was quite different. It was said that when one of the hunters finally found the beast (which actually kinda did match the description), it wasn't aggressive towards him at all, and even behaved a bit like a dog would. When he shot at it, it behaved as if it was confused, and the hunter and his men had to shoot it many times before it finally fell. Eventually (I don't remember the evidence for this), it was hypothesized that the hunter had actually tamed the wolf and trained it to become a "monster", so he could kill it himself and be praised for it.
Yes, Jean Chastel said, it came to him and waited to be shot. He was later accused of being its handler. People thought, he had brought it to France from abroad (he had actually been in North Africa and the Middle East).
His report about killing it with a silver bullet made of a religious amulet is the only supernatural element of the whole story.
By all means, people SHOULD have called it a werewolf back then. They did believe in supernatural creatures and lacked the education to see the difference between monsters and real animals. But nobody claimed, that it was anything else but a wolf. I was a little surprised to read this, tbh.
@@unterdessen8822 wow! Considering I probably watched that documentary when i was like 10 (11 years ago) I'm surprised I still remembered correctly! 😅
@@unterdessen8822 nahhhh thats them trying to cover it up homie no reason yo spread terror when they killed whatever it was. If it was a wolf they would've propped it up and shown the villages that this was the beast. Instead what happened? It was swept under the rug.
@@iseley I see, that's interesting!
@Bogan WHY ARE YOU YELLING?
According to the thumbnail it's my dog Jasmine sorry y'all
And I agree
😂😂😂😂😂
Damnit Jasmine
One of my all time favorite movies!
Grab a leash next time. Prick.
This is largely what the 2001 French film "Brotherhood of the Wolf" was largely based on. One theory that would actually be not be too out there was that the unprepared and inefficient response to the Beast of Gervaudan helped antagonize the French peasants toward the Aristocracy and Ancien Regime, to the point they would eventually violently overthrow them in 1789...
Hadn't heard that theory before, but the debacle in Gevaudan definitely did foment local peasant dissatisfaction with Versailles. It was a little chilling researching royal officials who helped hire out hunters to kill the beast, and then learning their ultimate fate was the guillotine.
Hmm, this theory seems self-destructive and illogical if the conspirators were in fact from the Aristocracy themselves. If the conspiracy was intended to overthrow the Monarchy, would not the goal be to insert another bloodline into the royal line? Merovingians perhaps?
Came to the comments to mention that movie and story!
Such an awesome movie. I remember seeing it the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, KY back in 2001. Also held some inspiration with the Playstation game Bloodborne (kind of like combining Brotherhood of the Wolf with some Lovecraft novels.
Freaking love that movie. Still have on DVD.
The wolf-dog hybrid seems plausible, due to what is known as “hybrid vigor”, where the young grow to be larger than either parent. Something like a mastiff bred with a wolf could possibly fit the bill.
Sounds like a hyaena.
But wolf and dogs are technically the same species, whereas what you describe happens between animals of different species right?
@@Elias_98 Hybrid vigor? (aka heterosis) It is something that is definitely observed in dog-wolf hybrids. Species and sub-species are definitely a continuum. While wolves and dogs are in many respects the same species they are still very, very distantly related, and many breeds of dogs, when mixed with wolves have fertility issues. Heterosis is most commonly seen within species. Different species have considerably difficulty breeding altogether, unless they are pretty closely related.
@@gossumx Except for size. Wolf dog hybrid will be considerably larger than a hyena and far more likely to be roaming that area.
@@jamesfetherston1190 could it be a Pit Dog and Wolf Hybrid?
From the description, I’d say the creature sounds like a striped hyena. Hyenas are not native to France, but one could have been brought there through the exotic animal trade, and then escaped from captivity. Hyenas are more known for attacking livestock than people, but there are records of hyena attacks on humans, so it’s plausible that one might have made a habit of preying on peasants.
Sure thing, Captain Kant.
I was thinking it could have been a Hyena also. A lot of the attacks were on children or young adults. Hyena's are well known opportunistic predators, and will often choose smaller/weaker prey over larger, stronger adults. If it were anything like a wolf or large cat, they would have no issue with choosing larger prey at random, and people would have been able to define it's identification easier. Hyena's are hulking muscular beasts, but choose their fights wisely and mostly roam in packs for confidence in numbers, and also would be colloquially lesser known to populous than wolves and large cats of the era with it being such an exotic animal so far north. If it was an escaped captive specimen, it would be prone to attacking humans in the hunger/survival sense being without a pack. It would lead it to being more confident with no other apex threats in it's locale, with the exception of armed Humans. My guess is a Hyena also.
I say it was a penguin
@@theoriginalrudeboy2916 Or an anteater.
@@Neur0nauT Hyena's would have left less behind, buried the remains and came back to eat the rotten corpse. They also tend to bite more and claw less, attacking from behind.
DAMN this was compelling. What a wonderfully well made mini-doc. I swear history youtubers are making content leagues above anything on the History channel.
Agree, but it’s not really hard these days given how bad History channel has become
the history channell is a joke they might as well call themselves the ufo channel now
They most certainly are putting out better content than the History Channel.
Low bar you set there
@@HoneybeeHollowGardens
It's the nature of *_Democrats_* fixed it for you.
The historical fiction movie brotherhood of the Wolf was one of my favorite foreign language films. Had plenty of modern day action trope stuff that was clearly just added for flare. But actually did a decent job tying this story into it's own narrative. the fact that it brought in some modern choreography fight scenes and essentially martial arts didn't really detract from what was a very fun story. it also treated the beast as basically a large lion although it was being used by a strange cult to exact some sort of scheme
Thanks for the recommendation 👌🏿
I mean I literally called it a historical fiction movie. Not entirely sure how you would expect it to be historically accurate in any way lol
00 ki
Never heard of anyone else watching that gem of a movie
I watched that movie many times mostly because of Monica Bellucci.😍
I've watched a long documentary on this years back.. the theory that made the most sense to me was the beast being a Hyena, that was raised by the man who ended up killing the beast with a silver bullet.
One major issue with that though is that hyenas aren't solitary hunters, and they generally prefer to scavenge when they can. In the wild they hunt in large plans, using organized tactics. A lion seems much more likely, given that they hunt on their own as a matter of course.
@@maggiethedruid9010 the taxidermy could be a hyena and not necessarily what was originally killed. Hell, the hunter could have just taxidermied a hyena and said "case closed" without hunting anything.
@Bill Jobes typically a person can scare away a hyena just by yelling. I've been reading about the Hyenas eating the homeless in Africa. Hyenas usually eat the whole person and leave nothing behind. They'll even eat shoes and wallets. When they don't finish a kill, they tend to bury it nearby and dig it up a day later. A hyena would be a grave robber first before a man killer when possible. They usually don't claw their victims much but a nip is an amputation because of their bite force. They tend to crush skulls and eat the heads first. These bodies were mostly asphyxiated, clawed, and ripped apart. Sometimes it appeared the skin was partially ripped off. Big cats lick skin off prey animals. Dead bodies were also strewn about and abandoned after the internal organs were eaten, which is also typical of a big cat.
"he was the man who liberated Normandy of thousands of wolves"
What a hero
At the time he was cause humans were prey then
Wolves almost never attacked humans tough. But the wolves were still a problem cause they slaughtered sheeps
@@oldboy_warped3906 it stems from an irrational fear that was once rational
Unless you raised livestock and one wolf attack was the difference between eating well the winter or barely makinf it
@@BOB-wx3fq of course the treat was vastly ovverrated, kind like sharks in modern era.
@@oldboy_warped3906 it's something like 100,000,000 sharks are killed for every 6 people
Should have sent the Witcher after it.
Nah should have sent the boogey man himself JOHN WICK only heaeshots
Toss a coin to the Witcher...
The internet has found a better job for him.
Voldemort: Who are you?!
The Witcher: That boy with the glasses gave me some coins.
Voldemort: 😱
@@itsfade4212 but it's a dog
Winchesters will work too
The lion theory holds some weight. Lions tend to go for the throat as they prefer to asphyxiate prey while holding it down to prevent a struggle. The body description lines up, any peasant would have said “it’s clearly a wolf” instead of things morphing into “an unknown wolf-like creature,” and I don’t think they ever killed it.
I don’t know if there were ever any unsubstantiated reports of attacks post Chantel’s kill, but it seems likely that the animal was just poorly suited for the climate/circumstances of Gevaudan and succumbed naturally or of infection from being wounded in hunts and failed attacks.
If the lion theory is true, then two wolves of exceptional size were killed and everyone involved agreed to claim they were La Bete in order to quash the continuing embarrassment and fear of the peasantry.
Meanwhile, the yearling+ lion is carrying on as many man eaters do; they associate humans with food from training or previous relationships, like a zoo animal would. Maybe born in captivity to caged lions, taken to be sold, and lost or escaped in transit. Alone, hungry, and still associating humans with being fed, it does the only logical thing and starts hunting humans it can catch alone and unawares.
@Samuel Deighan Very true. However, the decapitations are far more plausible coming from a predator with a significantly larger bite radius than an average canid.
As far as I know lions don't asphyxiate they're prey, they rip the throats open, as to kill the animal as quickly as possible as to not take unnecessary damage from the animal, like how House cat will put claws around something and then kick with its back legs, it's to stop the shuffle as fast as possible. While bears will just hold you down and start eating your entrails
Disagree. Pretty sure a lion would die in France during the winter. They don't hibernate and aren't built for extreme cold. It was almost certainly just random wolf attacks with some run of the mill murder mixed in. Plus, as he said, the lion exhibits were common in France so it would have been most likely recognized by at least somebody.
People were not so ignorant as to not know what a lion is like. Its most likely a wolf-dog hybrid that was unusually large and had lost all fear of humans. Wolfs do prey on humans- particularly children and women since they are smaller.
@@nikninja2233 lions do asphyxiate. If you watch videos of lions taking down prey, one lioness will usually grab onto the throat and hold firmly to suffocate the animal until it collapses. If it’s lucky, she’ll hold on until it’s actually dead, not just incapacitated, so it doesn’t have to endure the agony of being eaten alive (which does happen). Most animals lions prey on are too big and strong to rip out the throat. Humans have fragile little throats, so it would be pretty easy on us.
I saw a documentary on this...it was a huge white rabbit, living in a cave in Caerbannog. It had nasty, big pointy teeth. Killed a lot of crusaders too if I remember correctly. They finally got rid of it with explosives.
Recently discovered your chanel and absolutely love it! This is my fav so far and honestly feel like you should do more of these as everyone else who does historical cryptids always comes at it from a monster hunter angle while you discuss it like a true historian
The French film “Brotherhood of the Wolf” posited that it was a lion trained to attack people and clad in armour to protect it and obscure its identity.
Its an entertaining film and although fiction it does leave you wondering if La Bête was indeed an escaped lion as Duhamel had suggested.
This is not to discount wolf attacks, of which there were many at the time, but this very fact would made it unlikely that locals would mistake them for the work of something far larger and unfamiliar.
People are saying it was a hyena based on DNA testing
Well, the film makes up a lot of stuff: Gregoire de Fronsac and his Native American companion Mani are completely fictional, so most of the story (= the part which is based on their actions) has nothing to do with the historical events. There was no cabal of aristocrats colluding with the church to shame and ultimately overthrow the French government by having peasants eaten by a monster.
The whole setup doesn't make any sense.
In real life, it was very clear, that the King of France had no qualms whatsoever to fake a successful hunt and present a fake monster to the court to shut up those farmers. He didn't care that they were slaughtered - when he wanted it to be over, it was over, because he was able to silence the press and present a cadaver.
I do like the film (mainly because of the great actors), but I'm aware that it makes some big mistakes.
For example, the beast never entered buildings. This is crucial, when you believe, that it had a handler: Imagine you train a wild animal to kill humans. This is not a dog; it probably won't obey every time you tell it to eff off, and could attack you at some point. As the handler, you would have to follow it and stay close to it, so you would always be at a risk of getting mauled, if that things has a bad day and turns on you. You need to anticipate that.
To me it sounds plausible, that the handler explicitly trained the animal never to enter buildings. Not only because it could be trapped in there and caught, which might expose him, but also because he needed a safe place to hide from it, in case it went nuts. If he knew, that it wouldn't come after him, not even when the door was open, he only had to enter a random building to avoid being killed by his own monster. You don't really want to sit in a tree for days, when shit hits the fan - you take precautions and make sure, that the beast leaves you alone in a comfortable place, that is common enough in your area.
Therefore, there should never have been a scene in the film, in which it broke into a house.
In conclusion, don't rely on the film for information. It's 90% bs and only uses the beast as an antagonist in a story, that largely ignores the real events and only keeps a certain outline. Its plot has as much to do with the real beast as Marvel's Thor comics have to do with the actual Norse god.
I was absolutely enthralled by this story. Masterfully narrated and shared.
Really well done and the channel is now added. This has been time well spent.
Maybe it was the type of prehistoric wolf that was still around in the countryside of France. I love wolves this was very fascinating to me.
There was a history Channel special back in 2009 "The Real Wolfman". Where the team went to the Natural History museum vault and examined the taxidermist remains of the Beast of Gevaudan. And the data came back it was a Hyena.
That's strange, because the hide and skull, that were kept in Paris, vanished without trace before the year 1900. There were no remains left a hundred years ago. Their disappearance is a bit suspicious - allegedly the preserved hide was thrown out, because it had started to decay due to mold, because it had been kept in a wet basement room. What exactly did they examine?
I'd really be interested in seeing that documentary.
@@unterdessen8822 can you cite your source in regards to the claims made about the hide disappearing? Having trouble finding it aside from weird occult/theoretical websites.
Definitely was a wolf though, most likely more than one considering they killed a bunch of wolves during that time (canids are the only thing to have been hunted in that area of France to this day, couple that with the fact that the wolves in that area were known for ‘cyclical attacks’). They eventually took out a massive one (which was not the Beast that was sent to Versailles) and the attacks stopped but by then they had also wiped a solid portion of the pack(s) out and they don’t reproduce like coyotes lol
@@Phogramo Derek Brockis mentioned this, but as far as I know he has put up a paywall.
The original French source seems to be Bernard Soulier: "Précisions historiques: On en sait un peu plus sur la fin de la dépouille de la bête de Chastel." In "Gazette de la bête", Nr. 11, December 2010, page 1-4.
I'll give you a summary, that I've translated to English: "Chastel brought the badly conserved cadaver to Versailles in August [1767]." The beast had been shot on the 19th of June 1767. "But the king ordered him to bury the decomposing cadaver immediately. According to a report from the archive in Mende [one of the larger towns in the Gevaudan region], that was found and published in 1809, Chastel did not go himself. A domestic servant of the Marquis d'Apcher was sent and encountered the Comte de Buffon [the most accomplished researcher in the field of natural science at that time in France], when he tried to drop off the cadaver. On royal orders, Buffon examined it thoroughly. The body was hairless and infested with maggots due to decomposition. Buffon concluded, that "it was just the body of a very large wolf".
Original quote: "Après un examen sérieux, jugea que ce n'était qu'un gros loup."
After the examination, Gibert [the servant] was ordered to bury the cadaver by the river Seine.
My source actually claims, that the skull and the hide were never kept in any sort of museum - they were just buried in Paris. Which means, that I was wrong, when I claimed they were kept somewhere in a wet basement. I read that somewhere, but can't reconstruct where exactly, so I looked into it today and found the Comte de Buffon's account. My bad.
Anyway, there was nothing left of the beast after August 1767, that anyone could have examined. So the question remains: Where did these guys in the documentary find the DNA, that is supposedly that of a hyena?
The witness testimonies collected between 1763-1767, that Abbé Pierre Pourcher published in his book "La Bête du Gévaudan" in 1889, contradict the assumption, that it could have been a hyena or wolf as well: Those people knew what both animals looked like (at that precise time in the 1760s, a circus with a hyena had just come through the region) and described features, that neither fit a hyena nor a wolf.
@@unterdessen8822 that’s weird, it’s widely accepted that Francois Antoine shot and killed the beast in September of 1765 and there’s local accounts of it being on display in Paris 🧐
@@Phogramo Antoine's beast was the official cadaver, that was preserved immediately and presented to the court. The king wanted no more news about gruesome killings in the Gevaudan, so he stopped them. It didn't matter which animal Antoine brought back, it just had to be a big, scary wolf. They coloured it a little and stuffed it with more straw than necessary, so it would look monstruous, and then they showed it off.
But nothing had been resolved in the Gevaudan. People were still getting killed. Conservative estimates (as published at the time of the attacks) will tell you, that about 100 people died. More modern estimates, backed by research, will tell you, that we're possibly looking at 600 attacks, 500 of which may have been successful. Between 90-100 people were (partially) eaten.
The larger number of victims draws into account, that in a wider area around the centre of the problem there was an unusual number of people, who simply went missing and were never seen again. They could have moved to Paris or a different European country or to some French colony... but they vanished without trace, for no reason, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Young children, too, who probably didn't run off to Louisiana. Many of the relatives suspected murder or other foul play. Those are the possible additional victims, who may have died alone: Nobody to witness their death or disappearance, no bodies or remains found.
But that's speculation.
At the moment we have ~100 confirmed victims due to witnesses, in the years between 1763-1767. Officially, the killing spree lasted from 1764-1765, but witness testimonies make it clear, that the beast first showed up and killed in 1763 and the attacks only ended after Jean Chastel had shot his beast in the summer of 1767.
Maybe check the wikipedia article... and if the English language version doesn't contain all the information, you can still run the French version through Google Translate 🤷♀️
If I want to find details about something, that didn't happen in my own country, I usually look up their wikipedia entries. It happened there, they have all the documents, understand the language... so they should know best.
A part of the French people thinks it was a Noble French man who was a "serial killer" who committed all the killings, but never got caught because of his high rank. Great video by the way (just you have to prononce Fransssoi and not Frankoi 😉)
I was wondering if it could have been a serial killer too. Women aren't necessarily that much smaller, and therefore more appealing than men, to a wild animal, but human serial killers certainly see them that way. : (
@@MoonBratStudio oh, animals can tell men from women! Monkeys that steal food from humans tend to target women and children because they’re less dangerous if they fight back. Human males are quite intimidating, even then usually being in excess of 150 lbs with a lot of muscle. Men’s body language would be different back then, too. Women and girls back then had to constantly watch their backs because of predatory men. Prey-like behavior triggers the instincts in predatory animals. So does the bouncy gait of a young animal, including human children.
It occurred to me that at least some of the deaths could have been murders, too, especially the teen girls and young women. After the first few deaths, legends would spread that there was a monster in the area. A killer could wait for an opportunity, seize his prey, and then kill her and tear her body up and leave it for scavengers. If that was the case, though, someone might have escaped the killer by screaming and drawing attention. All it would take is one witness to start a rumor it was a were-beast.
somebody has probably said this already, but the silver bullet thing was added retroactively, after werewolves started to hit the mainstream.
Just came across this channel. I like your content. Thank you.
It was most likely a escaped lion that was in bad condition (also because of bad weather in France at that time?). So it was unable to hunt e.g. deer and killed women and children. The same happens today when ill Tigers in India become "man eaters".
I find this theory really intriguing. I still think wolves is the "safe" explanation, but it's not hard to believe an escaped lion helped kickstart the legend of the Beast
@@HistoryDose Thank you very much. I live in an Lower Saxony were there are several packs of wolves. They are so fearfull - you never see them, but they kill a lot of sheep, calves etc.
Without being infected by rabies or fed by humans esp. when they are young wolves are not dangerous to humans (at least much less than wild boar).
Wild dogs and hybrides with wolves are dangerous and that could be also an explanation for the Beast of Gevaudan.
What is the escaped lion mated with a wolf?😅😂
@@msh4826 😂A wolion or liolf? Ligers exist.
@@fizoblong9506 maybe..
What an amazing content I've found here! History has never been so interesting!
This video is still
sooooooo goooood.
Especially since I love cryptids and the history of them.
The animations and choice of old paintings is splendid.
Excellent video. Thank you!
great video, thank you
I read a story Chastel was involved and that he was breeding half-wolf half dog and trained one to kill on command, another story says Chastel son brought back from Africa a Hyena and the Chastel trained it to kill
That's what I was thinking. He would use it to hunt.
Hyenas don't need to be trained to kill, it's in their DNA to hunt and kill.
The thought of a trained hyena is pretty scary. You'd have to be one bmf to be able to pull that off.
From the 1920s on, three different types of wolfdogs were systematically bred in Europe - so, no random mating, but scientifically observed hybridisation in a controlled environment. These experiments resulted in wolfdog breeds, and it quickly turned out, that these animals are not very good at hunting.
They're all hybrids between wolves and German Shepherds, so there isn't a hound breed involved to begin with, and German Shepherds are herding dogs, that are only good for policework, because they have a strong protective instinct and are intelligent and therefore very well trainable. But when it comes to hunting, they can't keep up with hound breeds.
Leendert Saarloos started it in the Netherlands with his Saarloos Wolfdog project in the 20s. At that time, some European scholars were thinking about reviving the prehistoric fauna of Europe. This meant, that Saarloos was recreating the original "primordial dog", that was still very close to its wolf ancestors.
The Brothers Heck (one of them a zoo director) would recreate aurochs and tarpans (= European wildhorses) in Munich in the 1930s. These animals are now known as Heck cattle and Heck horses.
After WWII the Czechoslovakian Wolfhound and the Italian Wolfhound were created. The Italian Wolfhound isn't recognised by the FCI and its breeders claim, that it originates from a different European subspecies of wolf. Instead of the much more widespread Eurasian grey wolf, they used Italian wolves.
Out of those three breeds, the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog is the only one, that is used as an attack dog, because it was specifically bred for the military, and you can tell, that it's much more doglike than the Saarloos and the Italian.
The Saarloos, which has a higher amount of wolf blood, proved in WWII, that it's not suited as a military service dog: German troops raided Saarloos' laboratory and confiscated the dogs, when they took the Netherlands. They had planned to use them as attack dogs, but the dogs got so scared when someone fired a gun, that they all tore through their leashes and ran off, never to be seen again.
Saarloos actually make good pets - but they're shy and territorial: Meaning, they hide under the sofa, when somebody visits, who they don't know very well, and they hate the mailman even more than your average dog.
What I'm saying is, that it's a bloody stupid idea to breed a wolfdog for hunting purposes. Even if you use hound breeds, the wolf part is chaotic and you end up with an animal, that doesn't follow orders very well and will go and mind its own business, as soon as it's off the leash. The attacks went on for roughly 4 years, so at some point early on the Chastels would have realised, that they should probably just get a hound instead.
@@shaggyrumplenutz1610 This theory has been explored by some people, but they always came to the conclusion, that it would have been suicidal to keep such an animal. Wild hyenas are dangerous enough, but tamed hyenas are worse. They have no fear of humans, and they know that they're stronger than us.
The hyena men of Nigeria, who keep hyenas on a chain (in the same fashions as American thugs keep their pitbulls), always make sure that their "pets" have a steel muzzle on and are heavily tranquilised. They're for showing off, not for hunting or assassinating people, because you can't do that with a hyena.
Even zookeepers, who work with hyenas and have bonded with theirs since birth, would never trust them enough to enter the compound. You must have a death wish to do that - and remember, that they'll start eating you while you're alive.
Very beautiful and interesting video, well done. Interestingly enough I haven't heard about this legend nor have I got this video recommended to me by TH-cam until I watched season 2 of Vanitas no Carte, an anime, where this legend was depicted in a different way.
Even to this day, we get strange beasts popping up on our land in south west France. Only a year or two ago, I looked out from my bedroom, over the balcony to the hedgeline on my lower land to see (what I thought) my old black dog, laying in the undergrowth. It was only when I realised that my dog was laying next to me, that I realised it was something else, something much larger, with a very long thick tail. With that, the beast rose and with its massive frame jumped over the hedge line and disappeared leaving only its long black tail lingering above the hedge for a brief moment. Thirty minutes later, the village guarde champet drove past announcing over a loudspeaker, for us all to stay indoors and especially to keep our pets secure. We later found out that two large puma's had migrated up from the Pyrenees and into our area. People had been seriously hurt and much livestock killed. I don't know what happened to the beasts but I suspect the hunters got them. We also see a lot of very large wild bore.
Pumas do not live here in Europe. So what are you talking about? (And they do not have black fur as a side note.)
@@Diodoron they escaped from a Spanish zoo apparent and for some reason decided to holiday in france
It was probably just a barn owl
Oskar Söderberg wrong channel
it was remus lupins great grandfather
WHO would've thought hehe
Woman said she saw a ghost and and I saw a white owl how can they confuse a owl for something large with a head like a pig maybe a wild boar could be though.
It was a womble
This is such a good story. I wish they could make a period piece based on this story like they did with the Ghost and the Darkness.
Absolutely !
There's a French movie called "Brotherhood of the Wolf" that is based on this.
@@josephtardio1086 That is a great movie. Watch it in French not dubbed... The French voices sound amazing and the dubbed ones sound like they are from Sesame street.
Given the physical description and accounts the beast could perform long leaps and tear victims apart with its foreclaws. I believe it to have been an escaped lion or lions. The big cat (or cats) could have escaped from a wealthy person's menagerie. This story brought to my mind that of the true story of a lion which killed a group of men during the construction of the trans-African railway during the late Victorian era. The aforementioned lion was said to have been endowed with supernatural abilities, making it difficult to track and kill. The film, "The Ghost and The Darkness" was based on that true story.
I'm just here due to Vanitas No Carte's Beast of Gevaudan Arc, Love the Video.
I like the Lion theory oddly enough.
The claws could be misconstrued as talons.
My guess would be a Tasvo African Lion. Males have no main, they are taller and more sleek than other African Lions. It was uncommon for French nobility and wealthy perons to have exotic animals, thus the term "menagerie". One or more lions could have escaped and the owner certainly didn't want to be held liable. The lion(s) could have been recaptured or possible killed by the owner or died.
I second this theory. The Tasvo African Lion is also known as a man-eater.
but to counter that, if said lions were so rare in menageries, wouldn't that be a well known fact said animal had escaped, even in those times? Also the winters seem pretty damn cold for african lions to survive in those mountains even though they can tolerate some cold those lions aren't suited for snowy hills and cold long winters. I mean if it were true it survived at least several winters there.
Please expound upon the “Tsavo lion” theory. Is that a subspecies that was known & proven to exist in the 1700s or are you reaching desperately tying the real Tsavo maneaters back to this story?
It could have been a lion. Could have been a spotted hyena. Though I don’t know of lions decapitating it’s prey.
Odd.
There are hundreds is tsavo lions. Literally two in history were maneaters
SOME Tsavo male lions have no mane. And the only reason those two lions resorted to hunting people is because they’d been previously injured by poachers guns, and couldn’t hunt their usual prey
This has always been one of my favorite bedtime stories.
I've heard this story before. But I didn't know about the were-wolf thing...how interesting :)
François as Franssoi not Frankoi, and Gévaudan not Dgévaudann’. Thanks for enlightening me on a tale my grandmother used to tell me.
Sorry buddy. The region in France is indeed pronounced Zhévaudã.
Your grandma told some good tales.
François is definitely pronounced with an "S" sound. The ç makes an "S" sound in English.
Wah le mec chiant
@@theophrastusbombastus1359 Nope
“And maybe, the story is better that way.”
Damn it. you’re right.
So many clues point to a lion, or maybe two. The story is amazing and terrifying,
Excelent video, congratulations
enjoyed. thank you
I agree with the lion theory of the animal that Chastel killed (probably owned by a noble man, having escaped from him), but some of the killings might have just been commited by regular wolfs and mistakenly attributed to the Beast.
It appears this phenomenon is not limited. Mass attacks by unidentified animals/"beasts" were not that uncommon in Europe at the time - I myself found some accounts about it in my country of origin, and made a video about it, 2 of them also being in the 18th century.
im going with a striped hyena
Wilves
It's rare that a regular wolf attacks a human. They are mostly shy and want a gap between us (nowadays they can be very trusting because some people in Europe feeding wolf's like dogs).We humans hunt them to save our sheep's not our lives. When a wolf attacks a human, he must be very hungry or for self defence when the human came to close and he can't escape. But a wolf would hunt other animals before he hunt a human. Predator mostly attack weaker animals.
There is a French movie called "Brotherhood of the Wolf", that is based loosely on this incident. You SHOULD watch it.
Love this flick
Hi, loved your video! Karl-Hans Taake asserts in "The Gevaudan Tragedy" that, based on The Beast's behavior & descriptions of it, that it was likely a young male lion, as it clawed onto horses & licked its victims' skulls clean (which wolves/dogs cannot do), leaped great distances (over culverts, over walls, etc.), & traveled great distances for meals (as did the lions of Tsavo). His narration is quite impressive, & says it was never caught & likely died alone atop a plateau away from its arid homeland. He says it originated in an area known for its traveling caravans of menageries & likely escaped from one, as did 20+ others that got little to no press but which still devoured the locals. An interesting, thoughtful analysis nonetheless. Thanks so much for summarizing it all in your very excellent video! :-)
I've been fascinated by this story for at least 30 years, and have read many different versions of it. The differences between versions were always minor in details. However, your version is considerably different than any I've encountered before. For one, there are a lot more victims in your version.
I grew up there and I always heard that the beast was most likely a serial killer or herding dogs (probably a combination of both). In the past, it was very common that farmers had herding dogs that were quite aggressive, so people would blame wolves when their dogs attacked children or other people to avoid being in trouble. But it's true that the myth of the beast is really part of our history and still very deep in the mind of the people.
Actually, wolves were slowly totally eradicated from the area (and almost the entire country) in the last centuries. Now they are protected and according to the latest estimations, there might only be around 5 or 6 lone wolves living in the entire territory of Gévaudan which is absolutely nothing compared to the vastness of the area (btw, the area is no longer called Gévaudan nowadays). But people and especially farmers are still extremely afraid of wolves here and despite being protected, it is the only area of France where people are allowed to hunt them.
Anyway, great video :)
cool that you grew up there and that they still talk/think about this...
That's very cool that the legend lives on. Thanks again for the footage!
May i know how this region is called nowadays?
@@rollothewalker5535 It's called Lozère
I made a drone video of the area, feel free to watch it if you're interested :) th-cam.com/video/L9_oAFRjZgE/w-d-xo.html
@@FueledByTime. Thanks!
Me while watching this video: "Boy, this would make a great movie script. I wish someone would make a movie about this!"
And then I read the comments and it turns out a movie had already been made! I started watching it right after this video. It's actually pretty good. Thank you TH-cam community !!!
The Cursed that just came out this year was a fun movie tied to this historical event. Fun movie!
Never heard of this beast before thanks very interesting.
Honestly, I thought from the beginning that it was a lion from it's behavior they described and the features they described as well. The fact that it drags it's victim's parts away seems very much like what a lion does already I don't think wolves really do that.
Of course they do, they also bury them
It was actually a Hyena. There's even a documentary called The Real Wolfman, where the team examined taxidermy remains of the Beast. And it came back as a Hyena.
Also it going for the neck. Uniquely big cat
@@gatorcroc7212 the remains were destroyed because they smelled bad. Nice try tho
Mountain lions will drag corpses away and hide them so birds don’t find them and they can return to it a couple times to eat
Happy Halloween 💀
Let us know in a separate comment what you think the Beast was. A wolf? Wolves? Adolescent lion? Hyena?
"Severing heads and eating throats", red pelt, and the pig-like snout really do remind me of a erythristic hyena. If you look at hyena attacks, the head and throat as well as the extremities are what are usually destroyed, if the beastie does not eat the rest. See the Malawi terror beast for a serial hyena attack and note the similarities.
EDIT: I have changed my stance to back the idea of a subadult male lion, based on the evidence at hand presented for that case.
What happened to them in French
🤔 maybe 🦁 lion
I myself think it was a hyena that had been trained to kill people and then let loose .
Just a bunch of wolves driven to attack humans due to starvation.
I researched this case heavily a few years ago, this is a great breakdown of this in a 10 min video. I'd say multiple large wolves and the possibility of an escaped lion in poor condition (animals not exactly treated well back then... mange, lack of fur and physical abuse very common) might explain the descriptions given. Nice tight video.
Great video!
I'm from Ireland. Last wolf was meant to be killed in mountain leinster. But I know what it was like a hybrid down in kerry was killed at the gap of dunloe 5 miles from killarney 1742. My grandparents heard it straight .
I definitely go with the lion theory. I think the poor would have little to no knowledge of lions and therefore it would be easy to attribute an unknown animal to being a monster.
except it laughed
I think about a berber lion. They could survive winters and have sometimes a partially dark fur.
Very well done.
This story deserves to be series 🤠🤠
yoooooooooooooo this is INSANE......
It is interesting how paranoia and desperation can twist the truth and trick yourself
Certainly a probable conclusion. Some peasants clearly had exaggerated their accounts. I believe one claimed the Beast swatted a dog 20 feet through the air, and another claimed it jumped 30 feet.
@@HistoryDose If it did that, then I think it wasn't a wolf, but a kangaroo.
I heard that lions can jump up to 36 feet, so if it was a lion, it's possible. It seemed unbelievable to the poor villagers for sure.
Kinda like biden
We need a movie of these beast .
Everytime when you were go school trip camping as a child. This story was the legend that the guides always tell about during the day and before sleeping. Like a running joke
That was a good retelling of the story. You are a great narrator. There was show on a few years ago where they pretty much concluded it was a hyena that escaped from some nobleman's menagerie. Seemed to be a pretty good arguement for the case. Hyenas also lile to eat people's heads. I read a story where a dude was camping somewhere in Africa within the last decade or so. Everyone woke up the next morning except for the one fellow. When his friends checked on him he was laying in his tent. However something had tore through the back and ate his entire head, bones and all. I think they identified it as a hyena from tracks found. No one heard anything.
I remember reading in "outdoor Life" when I was a kid about some people on safari and a hyina ate a guys nose while he was sleeping before they were able to scare it away.
@@sethpawlik That's crazy. I don't think I could sleep in a tent in that area of the world.
I don’t buy an unusual wolf, or a bunch of different wolves. These people lived in terrain with loads of wolves and and protected their livestock from wolf attacks as a matter of course. If it had been a really big wolf they’d have said so. Instead all eyewitness accounts insist that it is an unfamiliar animal that is kinda like a wolf but larger, and with different color and some weird parts. This video doesn’t underline that in addition to the inordinate death count, the local accounts also included loads of people who were attacked and survived.
I like the escapee from a menagerie theory.That is a good way to create a semi domesticated predator that doesn’t fear humans and also suck at hunting wild prey. And rich nobles in that time and that region did have those, so it’s plausible.
I prefer spotted hyena to lion though. Lions look like giant cats, not like weird giant wolves. But for someone who’s never seen one ”basically wolf shaped but bigger, yellowish with some black, weird tail, snout that is flatter than a dogs’ kinda almost piglike ” sounds like a pretty good description. Google it. Hyenas are powerful predators, but on their own they can’t take something big like a cow. At least not the historical free range cattle that were pretty tough. There were a few survivors of beast attacks who claimed that it turned cautious and retreated when facing cattle.
So. Unsuccessfully domesticated spotted hyena. Escaped from or let loose by some schmuck. That’s my best guess.
@Cody Last Name nope never was any mountain lion in France. However there are (or were since they are rare now) bobcats, but obviously smaller and only attacking small deers
I think it would have been one of them hybrids of a lion and tiger, the guy saying 'his father must be a lion, it stays open what his mother is.' just proved it.
This will make a great campfire story
When I was little I saw this little red riding hood movie. It left me scarred for life, terrified of werewolves. I always get hungry at night, and I go to the kitchen to get a snack, we have these huge large windows in our kitchen, and if I look outside into the darkness, ill die of fright, sometimes ill see my own reflection staring back at me, sometimes I think it's a werewolf.
No reason to be afraid...unless it's a full moon ;)
Actually,I think in the original story,it was a werewolf and may have actually eaten Little Red Riding.It was ,I think a changed ending ,not to upset children.I think the movie was The Company of Wolves.
@@jameskilrain38 the oldest known version, by Charles Perrault, ends with her being eaten - but it is meant as a parabole against premarital sex.
@@bierwolf8360 Thank you.I did not known it wax meant to be a parabole against extramarital sex.
I would love to hear how Little Red Riding Hood is a parable about premarital sex.
A lion makes more sense since the locals should know the basics about wolf characteristics. I had personal experience with wolves when I was a kid. The neighbors owned a few and allowed them to roam our neighborhood in Shenandoah Farms. I was friends with the owners children. My house was just on the next ridge over from their. I was walking home one night from their house. It was probably 12 am very dark but I was never really scared. I could hear the rustling of leaves like animals were around me. But me being a dumb kid I just assumed it was my dogs that followed me to the house. A few days after I was walking home from the bus stop. I had walked maybe half way which was probably close to a mile in total. Suddenly I heard my dad riding up behind me on his motorcycle. When I turned around I noticed a wolf between us, then another across the street, then suddenly another closer to me coming out of the brush. Thankfully nothing happened and we made it home. Really creeped me out when I thought about that dark night walking home. How it could've been the wolves making the noise and not my dogs. Personally I think they are amazing creatures that deserve respect and their own place in the world. Not to be kept as some exotic pet left to their own devices. Anyways thats my two cents hope you enjoyed my trip into memory lane.
2001 film Brotherhood of the Wolf seems to use this story as a basis for a great horror action movie w David Dacascos (martial arts actor plays Mani a Mohawk warrior w historical tattoos) Vincent Cassell, Monica Belluci & Samuel Le Bihan.
That pitchfork mob scene hunting down the beast made me think of the beauty and the beast scene
From the facts, I was convinced that it was a lion.
i thought it was a lion but when they described the beast "trotting" into the woods my mind changed to a large hyena.
I agree hyena are large and lion Symbolism was common
investigate the Pachycrocuta, in my opinion thats what it was, a reddish, striped, oversized hyena that had remains found in le puy in 1845, and was known to inhabit europe. The effectiveness with killing humans described by historians and archaeologists, matches up with the over exaggerated ferociousness, and the unique factor is covered by if they were still around there would only be a very small amount of them surviving somewhere in europe.
"Brotherhood of the Wolf" is a fanciful recounting of the Gevaudan story but sticks fairly close to the historical facts. I fancy the hybrid lion theory myself. Yes, I think the hubris of the nobility brought on their own demise and planted the seeds of the revolution.
Wow great vid
Considering all the strange and mysterious things that sometimes happen in national parks in the U.S. I'm inclined to belive it was a freakishly large wolf, but that's only becuse that's more interesting/terrifying.
Seems like a quick observation of the tracks created by the animal would confirm it’s identity.
It appears that some of the attacks occurred in winter so getting an identifiable track would be easy in the snow. Lion tracks and wolf tracks are easily distinguishable, even in 1765. I would also add that the behavior is more like a Lion than a wolf.
Thought the same thing when I watched the movie years ago, those were some real crappy Hunters the king sent in.
Amazed to see people still obsessed with tabloid news series from hundreds years ago.
Guess we never change much
The deaths of dozens of people is tabloid news?
Sounds like a Rhodesian Ridgeback to me. I have a White Lab mix and his Red-streaked back ridge contrasts upon his snowy white coat, standing high when he hears a noise or becomes territorial. He’s a sweetheart though.
Great movie on the subject: Les Pacte des Loup (Brotherhood of the Wolf) c. 2001
It was a hyena. They thought it was a werewolf because it would "laugh". There is a really good documentary on this, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it
I may have seen the same documentary. I mentioned it above, or maybe it's below I can never find my comments
The documentary about evil hyenas is called “The Lion King.”
@@InigoMontoya- that's hilarious!
It’s a history channel documentary called the real werewolf. Look it up.
@@bryanitza-chulopez1658 thank you
nice video. By the description sounds a lot like Thylacine(Tasmanian wolf), Australia was already a thing by that time :) presumably it stank when agitated, had a tiger-like claws, black stripes on its' back and could open its' mouth with 46 teeth to 120 degree. The size could rule it out, largest known specimen was 290 cm long from head to tail
One thing that sold me on the idea of the beast being a lion, or some other big cat, was that it often went for the throat or head. Right for the kill.
Really cool story. I remember finding a severed dear head near to where I live. It was certainly a wolf, as they are spotted every now and then. I remember how terrified I was, as if I’d stepped into a horror movie. It sounds more like a lion in this doc though.
As a former zookeeper I can't see all those people being killed and eaten by wolves, so I'd go with the escaped lion theory.
I understand you have worked with lions. I have too and was certain this must have been a lion. But then I considered the mighty roar of a lion. From a mile away, it is intimidating. From close up, it's nerve wracking. I'm confused why none of these accounts ever mention this beast's roar. Ever? So was it a lion?
@@airmanfirstclass3535 The lion's roar certainly carries a long way, as you say, but wolf howls are pretty impressive too.
The gruesome scattered remains and the way the victims were carried off reminds me of the big cat maneaters that Jim Corbett wrote about
There's a movie about this called "Brotherhood of the Wolf", also a decent documentary about it somewhere here on TH-cam.
this story reminds me of the Sankebetsu brown bear incident in the early 1900's. A very disturbing attack in northern Japan.
Europe used to be home to monstrous animals, with many only disappearing in the past few thousand years, such as cave lions, cave bears, multiple species of wolf, tigers in Turkey and Romania, lions in Greece and Turkey etc. Wolves possibly grew to a much larger size than recent times due to competition, rising to the top in the wilderness, with many possibly reaching sizes that exceed Mackenzie Valley wolves in Canada. So yeah wolves probably were a much greater threat. To be honest, wolves pushed out most other megafaunal predators such as lions and tigers, even the great Cave Bears were all predated on by wolves. Now, the size of wolves has shrunk due to habitat loss, lack of prey and a lack of genetic diversity, due to isolated populations. So yeah it was probably a big wolf as a lion would not survive long in a landscape with wolves in it. Contrary to what most people believe, lions have low stamina, are poor climbers and swimmers, with a surprisingly weak biteforce, which is why Europeans and their dogs in Africa found it very easy to hunt them unfortunately. Wolves are far more powerful than any dog so yeah the lion theory is a dud. It was a big-f%*k off wolf!
edit:
I know that big cats are more likely to predate on humans as wolves have a natural fear of men, but this may not have deterred a wolf who was injured or had left the pack. However, lone wolves still manage to hunt effectively by themselves, some she-wolves have been known in the Alps to raise litters by themselves if anything happens to their mate etc. Seriously wolves are tough it must have been a really damaged ecosystem for a wolf to kill a human i.e. a prey shortage, rabies, human encroachment etc . However, I believe it would have only been one wolf to be responsible as a wolf pack would avoid predating humans.
Edit again*
Thanks for all of the positive comments you don't usually get this debating on TH-cam. I've come to the conclusion that perhaps it wasn't a typical grey wolf but perhaps a remenent of a now extinct megafaunal wolf population that had managed to hold on in this remote part of France? Hell we know aurochs in Europe were still in Eastern Europe till the 20th century and there are still sightings of them! Perhaps this could have been the last of its kind and was possibly elderly which would explain why it was preying on humans? Big cats such as tigers often do this when they begin to lose their canine teeth so perhaps the wolf had no means of bringing down larger prey? Worth a thought I suppose.
✌
I disagree with the natural fear of humans. Some Inuit men actually explained decades ago, that wolves don't care whether their prey wears trousers. They said, that before they had firearms, wolves would often snatch away lone wanderers. But wolves are smart enough to learn what a firearm can do and recognise the smell of gunpowder, so those attacks ceased when the Inuit got a hold of better weapons.
If you want to see the beast... There's a cave named Chauvet south of the Gevaudan. It's also known as the Cave of Beasts or Cave of Predators, because unlike other caves with prehistoric art, the animals depicted on its walls are almost exclusively carnivores. It was discovered in the 1994 and seems to have been inhabited by humans about 30.000-40.000 years ago.
Apparently, bears had also used it to hibernate together for thousands of years. There are large amounts of bear bones and "nests", i.e. round depressions in the cave floor, where a bear used to curl up for some months, similar to the flat holes huskies dig into the snow to use as beds.
Other caves like the famous Lascaux show horses, aurochs, different types of deer, mammoths etc., but Chauvet is full of lions, bears, hyenas, leopards and other predators. It's speculated, that it could have been a cave, where shamanistic rituals took place: The outlines of the paintings are carved into the stone, so that it causes a 3D effect, when you look at them in torchlight. They seem to creep out of the walls. Maybe that was intended: Some stone age shaman went there, tripped on mushrooms and thought he had conjured up those beasts.
But, why? To send them after the enemies of his tribe?
That's still a mystery.
One of the depicted predators is a giant, unidentified creature, that could be a hyena or a wolf. Many have wondered whether that thing was the same species as La Bête.
You can find it by searching for "Chauvet hyena", but its face is clearly too doglike and its overall shape doesn't match other depictions of cave hyenas... so I'd say we have something different here.
It's drawn with dark orange lines, facing to the right, the front part is spotted, it has very small ears, a dark line of hair between its head and withers and a long snout. In front of its front leg(s), there's a leopard facing to the left. It's significantly smaller than the creature.
Maybe the last of a species of dire wolves? They were said to die out some 9,000 years ago but is it possible?
@@Nick-kw9oz I would go even further back, tbh.
When you read Pierre Pourcher's compilation of witness accounts, there are very precise descriptions of the beast:
- Size: "As big as a 1 year old calf or a donkey" = about the size of a larger pony
- Colour: "reddish brown/orange with a lighter belly and throat, and black marks on the body, specifically a dark stripe on the back"
- Fur: "dense, but not overly long, would blur the animal's shape when it moved fast"
- Wolflike: "the overall body and face resembled a wolf, but it was far larger", "was usually described as a big wolf"
- Not wolflike: "it had a very long tail, with which it could swoop people off their feet", "instead of claws it had 5 little hooves on its front paws", "it was mostly seen alone, without a pack, but in 1766/67 someone reported an adult beast with a cub"
- Diet: "it ate its victims", "no other kills (like deer etc.) were found", "it preferred softer parts like organ meat, cheeks and bellies and left behind bony parts like hands and feet", "it explicitly NEVER attacked sheep or goats", "it didn't attack livestock or dogs, except for in one case (when it killed a pig, but didn't eat it; this was seen as a revenge killing), but it roared at cattle and spit blood at them", "it didn't eat the dead, poisoned dogs, that were used as bait"
- Hunting method: "it was seen by day and night", "it would typically ambush its victims and rip off their heads", "it preferred children, but would also go after women", "less than 10 men (of ~100 victims) were killed", "it avoided people with firearms, but would attack farmers with scythes and little girls with shepherd staffs and spears", "it was able to climb on stone walls and rocks, but not on trees", "it never entered a building", "it would come very close to buildings, but never tried to open the doors or windows; it followed people into farm yards between buildings in broad daylight"
- Voice: "when it prowled villages at night, people heard it laughing and talking to itself in an unknown language, and also whinny like a horse" = the horse sounds could have been caused by its handler; the beast was very fast, and if there was a handler, he had to follow on horseback. But the "talking" was not a conversation between two voices or a voice and animals sounds - it sounded like an animal, that imitates human language
- Invincibility: "it was hit by musketballs and bled, but never slowed down or seemed seriously injured", "it ran faster than a horse", "hunters couldn't find a lair", "dogs didn't want to go near it; hounds were reluctant to attack", "in between hunts, it did vanish for weeks, but always came back", "it usually lost its hunters in the mountains, forests and swamps and made a show of going where they couldn't follow" = it's possible, that a handler patched it up and nursed it back to health... but the average musketball rips a 4 inch hole into flesh, and soldiers hit by them would typically bleed out quickly. Of course, it's possible, that it just wasn't hit properly - but that would be strange, because it was a really big target. Maybe it just moved too fast for the hunters to aim well, and even under ideal circumstances, those old-fashioned firearms were not made for precision shots. You basically aimed in a direction and hoped you'd hit, but even with a tripod, muskets could only vaguely aim and the balls would fly in all directions. Concerning the hounds, that didn't want to attack it: Maybe they weren't afraid; it's possible, that the beast smelled wrong - like an animal, that they had been trained not to attack, which would confuse them.
There's more. I copied a summary in 2008, so I have a pretty good idea of how those peasants described it.
Now, imagine me as a dog: When I read about the hooves, my ears perked up.
This may seem too weird to be true, but there was in fact a type of wolflike, carnivorous animal with hooves, that ticks all the relevant boxes: Mesonychids lived between 65-23 million years ago. Their only living relatives today are sheep and goats. They were quite literally carnivorous sheep, that looked like wolves.
The BBC showed a giant one in its documentary "Walking with Beasts": Andrewsarchus mongoliensis. That thing was the size of a rhino. Its remains were found in Mongolia, but because it belonged to a very successful and diverse taxon, its relatives' fossils are not exactly rare. They spread from East Asia to Europe and North America, so there WERE definitely mesonychids in France at one point in history. Maybe not rhino-sized, though.
If I could get you interested in some pee-staining nightmares... Instead of a dire wolf (that lived in North America and East Asia), imagine this, when you think of the beast: th-cam.com/video/9ZZKs3YHVdE/w-d-xo.html
Compare to the list above. Imho, the BBC took some inspiration from the French witness accounts. They must have recognised the hooves as well, so I bet, that the colouring is a reference to La Bête. And they could have made the Andrewsarchus less wolflike - in fact, some mesonychids more closely resembled pigs... but they went with the full Gevaudan design.
@@unterdessen8822 That description of the beast actually reminds me of the super natural wolf like creature that was said to be hunting cows on skin walker ranch. They described it as a giant wolf that even close range rifle shots would not take down.
@@Nick-kw9oz The wolf, that showed up on their first day and let them pet it, but then tried to pull a calf through the fence by its head?
Definitely scary, and if it happened like they said, I would agree, that there's something supernatural going on.
But again: Hooves.
That really sets the beast apart from everything else.
I mean, if a bunch of people had mentioned this in the 20th century, you could argue, that they had read about mesonychids and were making up a monster sighting with some palaeontological data. But those witnesses were 18th century peasants from the back of beyond. If they had heard about fossils at all, they would have believed in the Promethean theory, that came up in ancient Greece and was picked up by the church: Fossilised sealife, for example, was seen as a case of "God practised to create life, but these pieces were too weird and He discarded them."
They did not know, that mesonychids had existed - or that the Earth was older than 6000 years, and there had in fact been many species, that went extinct.
That French peasants of the pre-industrial era have accurately described a carnivorous wolf with hooves and it turned out, that such animals did exist, means to me, that they could have seen an actual prehistoric animal. I don't know how it got there... but apparently, stone age shamans had tried to conjure up giant murderous beasts in a cave near the Gevaudan region.
Who am I to say, that there isn't some sort of portal?
People forget how big wolves can get and back then people are shorter too but the lion theory is a good one.
1:46 The Majestic and Honorable Monster
I think it's a lion. People who've made a livelihood in academia tend to wildly underestimate the intellect and reasoning of uneducated people. Those peasants described a lion. And I doubt they had the money to go to a menagerie and see one first hand. So yeah, the description makes a lot of sense for it to be a lion.
I think about a berber lion. They are known to survive winters and have sometimes a partially dark fur.
After the documented account of the two lions in Kenya, the movie "Ghost and the Darkness" was based on, I would not rule out the possibility that this was one creature doing the terrorizing. I always find it amusing how when something does not fit into someone's beliefs or understand they SIMPLY rule it out as impossible or misunderstood by "ignorant" people. People of the past may have not had all the technological advancements we have today but in many ways they were MUCH more knowledgeable than we are today.
Agree. There's so much hubris among "educated" people. I'm educated, and I don't assume I know anything - and that's been a part of everything I've ever won.
Also I read that book, and I thought of that as very strong evidence that this was, in fact, a lion.
GREAT ANIMATIONS.
I read the book, No Beast so Fierce, about the Champawat Tiger, it killed something like 400+ people. When they killed the tiger they found that it had broken canines and an injured paw. The injuries made it to difficult and dangerous to continue hunting the standard prey, so it switched to hunting people.
Anyways all that said, I do think it could have been a singular animal, especially is the attacks stopped post the killing of the beast.