The Beast of Gevaudan
The Beast of Gevaudan was a creature that terrorised the general area of the former province of Gevaudan, in today's Lozere departement, in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France, in the general timeframe of 1764 to 1767.
The first attack that provided a description of the creature took place in June of 1764. A girl from Langogne was working a farm in the Forêt de Mercoire when she saw a large, wolflike animal charge from the trees in a straight line toward her. The farm's dogs retreated as the beast drew closer, until the bulls from the farm's herd of cattle menaced the creature enough to drive it back into the forest.
For the next three years attacks by the same beast occurred. It was described as being a wolflike creature the size of a cow with a wide chest, a long sinuous tail with a lionlike tuft of fur on the end, and a greyhoundlike head with large, protruding fangs. It was also noted making huge leaps approaching thirty feet.
The attacks prompted Antoine de Beauterne, chief huntsman of King Louis XV, to visit the area, where he spent the next three years hunting wolves, believing them to be the real beast. The wolf killings lasted as long as the creature's attacks, over the general span of three years, and had no effect on reports of the beast or its killing.
Of note is the fact that the creature had a strange method of killing, often ignoring the usual areas targeted by predators (legs and throat to incapacitate and kill, respectively) and going for the head, crushing it before feeding. It also seemed to have a taste for humans, as even when cattle and other farm animals were more easily attainable it often passed them completely to attack the person tending them. There were differing reports on the beast itself, which was sometimes reportedly seen with a man and was several times reported to be with another beast, and with young.
Various explanations were offered at the time of the attacks. They ranged from exaggerated accounts of wolf attacks, to a loup-garou (werewolf), all the way to the beast being a punishment from God, to being an unholy creature summoned by a sorcerer. Current opinions offer up the interesting theory that the attacks were actually a serial killer, or group of serial killers, using wolf attacks to cover their own murders. Despite the presence of Antoine de Beauterne, the killing of the creature that marked the end of the attacks is credited to a hermit, Jean Chastel, at the Sogne d'Aubert.
The legend surrounding the attacks spawned a movie starring Mark Dacascos, Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) released in 2001, which while based on the records of the creature also took the usual liberties to turn it into an entertaining story. Despite generating positive reviews and record business (the movie that is credited with being the highest-grossing French), it is not an accurate account of the occurrences in Gevaudan.
A more accurate version of the historic events was shown in the TV-film La bete du Gevaudan, France 2003, first aired by the station ARTE in 2005, directed by Patrick Volson with Sagamore Stevenin (Pierre Rampal), Lea Bosco (Francounette), Jean-Francois Stevenin (Jean Chastel), Guillaume Gallienne (Abbe Pourcher), Vincent Winterhalter (Comte de Morangie) and Louise Szpindel (Judith).
Some suspect that the Beast may have been a wolf (there were many in France then), a dire wolf (a slightly larger extinct wolf species), a lion (has the same tail), or a hyena. Another popular theory is that it was a specially bred wolf-dog hybrid (such as those bred by the Spanish in the 16th Century), which may have escaped from its owners into the countryside and caused the predictable results.