Into The Belly of the Beast
The year was 1764, a hard year for France. It had just lost the Seven Years War, which ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, the King was deep in debt, and a horrific monster stalked the countryside of Southern France.
The first attack will be in the summer of 1764 when a young woman by the name of Marie Jeanne Valet ran into town claiming she was attacked by a massive creature. The only thing saving her were the cattle she was herding. The bulls in the herd attacked the beast, defending the herd, not once but twice. Marie claimed that it was a large creature, perhaps a wolf, larger than she had ever seen, and fierce enough to want to attack large cattle more than once. The Beast of Gevaudan was born.
Wolf attacks are uncommon now, but back then they were common and very deadly. Naturalists and biologists agree that almost all wolf attacks today are the result of an injured or starved animal, drifting from its instincts to attack a human that it perceives as weak. And wolves are pack animals, a solitary wolf on the hunt is extremely rare and a lone wolf is dangerous, because it has been cast out of the pack. As Rudyard Kipling noted in his novel, The Jungle Book, “The strength of the pack is the wolf, the strength of the wolf is the pack”. A solitary wolf is far from natural. To have one running around the countryside struck fear in the 18th Century farmers of Gevaudan.
The first victim though to be killed will be a 14-year-old Jeanne Boulet, who was attacked while tending to sheep under her care. Her death will be the first of many for the remainder of 1764. The remains of the victims were ghastly. The throat was always ripped out, sometimes completely decapitating the victim. Bodies ripped to pieces. The amount of people killed was staggering. The prey of this elusive and savage creature were always women or children attending their crops or animals. As I mentioned earlier, wolf attacks during this time was not uncommon but not this many, in an area which was only about 55 square miles. The description of the creature varied from the survivors, from the color of its fur, described as dark in color with a red strip, an unusual tail ending in a tuft and a white heart shape marking on its chest. The large shape and unusual coloring of the creature led many in the area to believe the creature was supernatural, a Loup-garou, or werewolf. Though horrific, it would have been ignored by the Royals of France, if it wasn’t for the press.
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