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Was There Really A Monster Terrorizing 18th Century Rural France?

Kaz Rowe

386,156 views

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In the 18th century, a mysterious beast began killing French peasants of the Gévaudan region. A ton of peasants, in fact. The beast evaded all attempts to kill it and seemed to be not only visually monstrous but demonic in nature. Was it really a monster... or something else? Come learn with me!

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Sources:
Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast by Jay M. Smith

Biology of the “Beast of Gévaudan”: Morphology, Habitat Use, and
Hunting Behaviour of an 18th Century Man-Eating Carnivore by Karl-Hans Taake

Beast: Werewolves, Serial Killers, and Man-Eaters: The Mystery of the Monsters of the Gévaudan by S. R. Schwalb, Gustavo Sánchez Romero

The Beast of Gévaudan as a history of the changing perceptions of fatal human–wolf interaction by Meret Fehlmann for Managing the Return of the Wild, 2020

Carnivore Attacks on Humans in Historic France and Germany:
To Which Species Did the Attackers Belong? By Karl-Hans Taake

La Bête du Gévaudan by Crispin Andrews for History Today, vol 63 no 7, 2013 https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

The Beast of the Forest by Tom Griffiths for RCC Perspectives, no 1, The Edges of Environmental History, 2014

Factual Origins of Myths by Swasti Dubey for the International Journal of Social Science And Human Research

Wonder, horror and the hunt for La Bête in mid-18th century France by Deborah P. Dixon for Geoforum, Aug 2013

20 Comments

@KazRowe Creator 13 days ago Pinned

@The_Robbing_Narrator 13 days ago

That was me my bad yall

@katebowers8107 13 days ago

I feel ike the Scooby gang would have gotten to the bottom of this very quickly.

@morenn420 13 days ago (edited)

Great work Kaz ! I actually worked as a wildlife expert in the area that was Gévaudan (now mostly the département of Lozère), the mountains while not very tall are still very steep and covered with thick pine and chestnut forests, fertile ground for legends of monstrous creatures. I just would like to add that the clergy's reaction to blame the alleged sins of the peasants could probably be put on some anti protestant propaganda: the region had and still has a big part of its inhabitants who are protestants and at the time the memory of war against the huguenots was still strong. And one can also add that it was one the poorest part of the country (still kind of is), so it is easy for nobles to blame the poorest for being sinners and deserving every horrible thing happening to them.

@redbayly 13 days ago

I feel like the Beast of Gevaudan story would lend itself well to a psychological horror film disguised as paranormal horror. It would be a parable about mass hysteria and the dangers of hubris. As each of the hunters tries to become the hero, they start to believe the very lies they crafted and see the beast differently based on their confirmation biases so that it becomes something of an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation where they refuse to accept the truth because it means admitting they were wrong and not as glorious as they imagine themselves to be. These differing perspectives of the beast could be used to make the audience believe the beast is a shapeshifter, right up until the end when the beast is revealed at Versailles and all the nobles, previously holding their breaths in excitement, suddenly look disappointed as the beast is actually just a wolf, all while the man who killed it continues to see it as a monster. Also, throughout the movie, there could be little hints about the truth, such as doctors saying the victims' injuries are consistent with wolf attacks, only to be shouted down by terrified villagers or proud hunters, or scenes of the hunters leading the villagers to give them details that just support the confirmation bias. The true horror is not the wolves, but the madness men create in their own minds when either consumed by fear or blinded by their own arrogance.

@greghenrikson952 13 days ago

I love this genre of 18th century cryptid kung fu action flicks.

@raymondwright5996 13 days ago

The beast was a spoiled prince who refused to accept a rose from an old woman…

@kaelang12 13 days ago

i swear, The Brotherhood of the Wolf def inspired the clothing in Bloodborne

@ValerieEnriquez 13 days ago

Brotherhood of the Wolf is one of my favorite "What the hell did I just watch?" movies.

@DREVinator3000 13 days ago

this reminds me of the child killings in finland in the 1880s. in 1880-1881 wolves killed over 20 children in southwestern finland, and there were similar hunts for the culprits as in this video, many people trying to get the glory of killing the wolves. in that case though, the wolf was felled, and the killings stopped.

it turned out it was most likely one wolfpack, so one pair of mated wolves and their offspring, that had gotten into the habit of adding humans into their diet. it was a really big thing in the papers, and is still referred to this day when the discourse about if wolves should be protected or hunted is stoked again.

apparently a big thing in starting those attacks was the lack of wolves' natural prey! there were next to no moose/elks in that part of finland then, they'd been hunted into near extinction, as had deer (and white tailed deer had not yet been brought here from north america), and thus the wolves only had small prey to hunt, which drove them closer to human habitation, that was also constantly growing and spreading, in search of domesticated prey. then one day the wolves happened upon a child a bit too far from home, and, well. there has also been speculation that the alpha female might have been a wolfdog, and that's why the pack dared to come that close to human dwellings, but the pelt made from said wolf has been lost. we'll never know.

i wonder what the state of big game like moose/elks and the like was in the gevaudan area at the time? or if it really was rabid wolves? or maybe it could've been wolfdogs as well? either way, a very interesting case and video. powerwolf has a good song about the beast of gevaudan, highly recommend :)

@ignorereasons 13 days ago

Surprised you didn't mention how it is believed that Henri Pourrat's 1946 retelling of this story might be what popularized the idea that supernatural creatures are vulnerable to silver bullets.

@haileybalmer9722 12 days ago

I used to think it was an escaped menagerie animal or something. Because surely these people knew what a wolf looked like, right? Then I learned that "monster" attacks were pretty common in France at that time. There was something like 14 French monster panics in 30 years. In every single other "monster" case, it was just wolves. Also, I saw footage of a wolf and it took me nearly a minute of staring at this thing out in the open and not moving around to figure out it was a wolf. Somehow it's markings were making it look like a lamb, but really tall and wrong. Sometimes a wolf just doesn't look like a wolf.

@Edensoul_ 13 days ago

The fact that this movie did not bring more French folklore inspired ones is a huge loss

@MarigoldMidinette 13 days ago

Omg the dog beast in Over the Garden Wall is definitely based on the picture at 7:29

@Redem10 13 days ago

Brotherhood of the wolf is pretty much a "Let's cram every idea we have in the screenplay" movie

@MultitudesofFishes 13 days ago

I heard a theory one time that the beast of Gevaudan could have been tiger. They attack humans far more often than wolves (though I'm not familiar with their behavioural patterns or how they may differ from wolves), and they are actually red/orange with black stripes, and their eyes do glow sometimes the way cat eyes do. They're also bigger than wolves. I have found this theory to be pretty convincing, but, just like those poor terrorized peasants, I probably want it to be something more interesting than a wolf

@TheForbidding 12 days ago (edited)

It was probably a lion that escaped from one of the wealthy elites menageries. Most working class people at the time would not have seen one in person before. It would also explain the attack patterns. Wolves like to bite the legs and hindquarters, while cats go for the face and throat. Several lions, such as the Tsavo Man-Eaters are also known to have developed a taste for human flesh and were extremely hard to catch.

@TheIncredibleKangaroo 13 days ago

I can't remember where I first learned about Beast of Gévaudan, it was either a History Channel docudrama or a book from my elementary school, but I was convinced it was a lion or a hyena.

@dthebwyrm 13 days ago

I had a hyperfixation on this creature. I found a book about conspirancy theories or smth at my grandparents' place and there was a chapter about this beast. And i was reading and rereading it for several summers straight... this video has awakened something in me, thank you!!!

@AllHailDiskordia 13 days ago

Back then, we had "Moritatensänger", people who travelled from place to place and telling somewhat local murder tales or news of bloody disasters, kind of like human tabloids