La Bete du Gevaudan

[Tempus omnia revelat]

Not sure if anyone has started a thread on this before, but I was just wondering if anyone was interested in discussing probably that most famous of French mysteries, La Bete. I find this mystery fascinating. What do people think she was?

A Hybrid? If so, what kind?

A paranormal creature? Again...If so, what kind?

Also, was the beast killed by Chastel the real La bete? Especially when you consider that there were sightings after the creature was killed.


Kind regards,


Tempus

[kensei]

There was a whole lengthy thread about this maybe a couple of years ago (?) but now I can't seem to locate it. Happy to take it on again, though, as I find it fascinating.

I've made myself known here as one who is willing to believe in supernatural or paranormal things, and the Gevaudan case has of course been associated with the legend of the werewolf. By far, most who express an opinion on it are of the belief that the beast was some natural animal, the two most popular suspects being a wolf or a hyaena. An examination of eyewitness accounts shows that people who saw the beast and lived to tell of it described it in many different ways. (And I'm doing this from memory now, without any of the documentation in front of me.) Some described something that could have been a large wolf, but there was at least one who said it was actually the size of a donkey, and one young boy who swore that it walked on two legs (though most said it walked on all fours). Does this indicate the usual contradictory accounts of hysterical witnesses, or descriptions of an actual shape-changing beast? I recall one account of a young brother and sister who encountered the beast. I think it was the girl who turned to run, only to have her brother's suddenly severed head come rolling past her. A wolf absolutely could not strike a blow like that. It would take something with the strength of a tiger or a grizzly bear, if that. The beast was well known to prey on shepherds, especially women and children, while completely ignoring the sheep they were tending. Most un-wolflike.

In the official story, when the king sent soldiers to hunt the beast down they supposedly encountered it and a whole regiment opened up on it with black powder rifles, yet it ran away unhurt. That many men could not have failed to make a hit. Yet later, when a professional hunter came to join in the fray and hired locals to assist him including Jean Chastel, Chastel is said to have been among the superstitious and so was using silver bullets. And when he encountered the beast, he dropped it in its tracks with two shots.

A show called "The Real Wolfman" on the History Channel not long ago studied the case and concluded that the beast was a trained hyaena and that Chastel was controlling it, directing it to kill, and then finally shot it to make himself the hero. I was rather appalled at this character assassination of someone I think really was a hero. They found a record of a stuffed hyaena being on display at the time that they implied was the beast, but it was not proven. They did a ballistics test with silver bullets and revealed that silver doesn't fly very straight, indicating that Chastel must have been much closer to the beast when he shot it than he claimed. Furthermore, the show mentioned something I had not heard before, that some of the beast's victims were not only killed and mutilated but sexually assaulted. An animal that commits rape?!!!

What does all this tell us?

Here is my most unpopular belief- The Beast of Gevaudan was an actual werewolf, i.e. a human that transformed into a beast by supernatural means. Each time he changed he could look a little different. He had both murderous and sexually predatory tendencies, killing over a hundred people in three years. He was impervious to most weapons, but not to silver. (And if you research folklore, you'll find that that part is NOT just an invention of Hollywood.) If ballistics shows that silver bullets won't fly straight, there are two things to consider. One, Chastel's shots still could have struck the beast through pure blind luck. And two, the story states that he had the bullets blessed by a priest before going on the hunt. If we actually dare to consider the supernatural, then surely we must allow for such a blessing being something real that bestows actual good fortune of a kind that would have made the poorly balanced silver bullets fly straight and true anyway. Many stories in folklore presented as being true feature the werewolf changing back to human form when they die, but perhaps that is only when they die a slow death. The beast of Gevaudan was dropped in its tracks and died instantly. Perhaps that trapped it in animal form in death. And that's my own speculation, but there you go.

Had not heard of sightings of the beast after its death, Tempus. Care to elaborate?

[Tempus omnia revelat]

There was a whole lengthy thread about this maybe a couple of years ago (?) but now I can't seem to locate it. Happy to take it on again, though, as I find it fascinating.

Hi Kensei!

I had a feeling someone would have started a thread on this before. Still, it is such a - as you say - 'fascinating' topic that I think it deserves to be brought up again.

I've made myself known here as one who is willing to believe in supernatural or paranormal things, and the Gevaudan case has of course been associated with the legend of the werewolf. By far, most who express an opinion on it are of the belief that the beast was some natural animal, the two most popular suspects being a wolf or a hyaena. An examination of eyewitness accounts shows that people who saw the beast and lived to tell of it described it in many different ways. (And I'm doing this from memory now, without any of the documentation in front of me.) Some described something that could have been a large wolf, but there was at least one who said it was actually the size of a donkey, and one young boy who swore that it walked on two legs (though most said it walked on all fours). Does this indicate the usual contradictory accounts of hysterical witnesses, or descriptions of an actual shape-changing beast? I recall one account of a young brother and sister who encountered the beast. I think it was the girl who turned to run, only to have her brother's suddenly severed head come rolling past her. A wolf absolutely could not strike a blow like that. It would take something with the strength of a tiger or a grizzly bear, if that. The beast was well known to prey on shepherds, especially women and children, while completely ignoring the sheep they were tending. Most un-wolflike.

I have a pretty open mind, Kensei, so your belief that it could have been a werewolf does in way make me want to run for the hills screaming. I think anything is possible. The thought that the creature could be a werewolf, or something sent by God, was certainly a popular view of the time. My own personal view is that the beast killed by Chastel most closely fits the description of the beast.

There are many different eyewitness accounts of the beast, but, apart from the odd few, most of them seem to run to a similar pattern:

She was said to range in size from 'larger than a wolf' to the size of a 'one year old calf' to the the size of a donkey.

Her coat is described as being reddish-brown or grey with dark vertical stripes on the neck and a large black stripe running don her back. She also had a large white white patch on the front of her chest.

Her tail was long and bushy with a white tip. Her back legs were long and like that of a wolf's - although much thinner - but her front legs were much shorter.

Her muzzle was often describe as being very blunt and like that of a pig or a cat. Her Jaw was almost always gaping, which is interesting, because if you read the report on Chastel's beast by Roch stephen Marin, we see that it had a gape of seven inches. Very large indeed. In fact, if you add to that the report on Chastel's beast made by the Natural History Museum of France, which states that the 'zygomatic arch' of the beast was much larger than that of a wolf, it means the beast that Chastel shot also had an incredibly powerful bite.


In the official story, when the king sent soldiers to hunt the beast down they supposedly encountered it and a whole regiment opened up on it with black powder rifles, yet it ran away unhurt. That many men could not have failed to make a hit. Yet later, when a professional hunter came to join in the fray and hired locals to assist him including Jean Chastel, Chastel is said to have been among the superstitious and so was using silver bullets. And when he encountered the beast, he dropped it in its tracks with two shots.

Without knowing the full details of the chase it is difficult to know exactly what went on. La Bete was often said to be very stealthy and she apparently moved at pace, so shooting an animal at that speed - especially with the not entirely accurate guns of the time - wouldn't have been as easy as it may sound.

There is some suspicion that Chastel was actually behind the breeding of this animal - therefore the beast actually knew him. That is why he was able to shoot him at such a close distance.

A show called "The Real Wolfman" on the History Channel not long ago studied the case and concluded that the beast was a trained hyaena and that Chastel was controlling it, directing it to kill, and then finally shot it to make himself the hero. I was rather appalled at this character assassination of someone I think really was a hero. They found a record of a stuffed hyaena being on display at the time that they implied was the beast, but it was not proven. They did a ballistics test with silver bullets and revealed that silver doesn't fly very straight, indicating that Chastel must have been much closer to the beast when he shot it than he claimed. Furthermore, the show mentioned something I had not heard before, that some of the beast's victims were not only killed and mutilated but sexually assaulted. An animal that commits rape?!!!

In my opinion, there is no way the beast of Gevaudan was a Hyena. For a start there is no way that an Hyena could have survived the harsh winters that prevailed over that region of France at the time. Secondly, Many of the feature do not concur with the general appearence of a hyena. That's not to say there couldn't have been other animals on the lose at the time - including an hyena - but I do not believe La Bete was one. I believe she was a hybrid.

The question a rape is an interesting one but it becomes a bit muddied when applied to the beast. Mainly because there would have been many people of the time - including rapists - who wished to commit atrocities and simply used the killings of La Bete as a cover.

What does all this tell us?

Here is my most unpopular belief- The Beast of Gevaudan was an actual werewolf, i.e. a human that transformed into a beast by supernatural means. Each time he changed he could look a little different. He had both murderous and sexually predatory tendencies, killing over a hundred people in three years. He was impervious to most weapons, but not to silver. (And if you research folklore, you'll find that that part is NOT just an invention of Hollywood.) If ballistics shows that silver bullets won't fly straight, there are two things to consider. One, Chastel's shots still could have struck the beast through pure blind luck. And two, the story states that he had the bullets blessed by a priest before going on the hunt. If we actually dare to consider the supernatural, then surely we must allow for such a blessing being something real that bestows actual good fortune of a kind that would have made the poorly balanced silver bullets fly straight and true anyway. Many stories in folklore presented as being true feature the werewolf changing back to human form when they die, but perhaps that is only when they die a slow death. The beast of Gevaudan was dropped in its tracks and died instantly. Perhaps that trapped it in animal form in death. And that's my own speculation, but there you go.

As I have said, Kensei, I believe La Bete was a hybrid of some kind. However, it is always a possibility that there could be another explanation, including your hypothesis that it was a werewolf. Could that mean that the werewolf was a 'she' and not a 'he' then?

Had not heard of sightings of the beast after its death, Tempus. Care to elaborate?

There were several sightings of La Bete after the killings in or around the prehistoric cave systems of Sarlat. The last of these being on the 4th of August 1767. It should be remembered, however, that there were also killings by beasts of a similar nature to La Bete before and after the period now asociated with the terror. For example, A century earlier, at Bernais in 1693, there were over a one hundred people (mostly women and children) killed by a beast that exactly matched the description we have of La Bete. Couple this with the fact that forty years after the slayings in Gevaudan there were attacks by a beast in Vivarais, where roughly thirty or so children were killed, and you have a mystery that is far more complex then people would imagine. Indeed, reports of attacks by La Bete like creatures have carried on until modern times.


Kind regards,


Tempus

[Tempus omnia revelat]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a whole lengthy thread about this maybe a couple of years ago (?) but now I can't seem to locate it. Happy to take it on again, though, as I find it fascinating.


Hi Kensei!

I had a feeling someone would have started a thread on this before. Still, it is such a - as you say - 'fascinating' topic that I think it deserves to be brought up again.


I've made myself known here as one who is willing to believe in supernatural or paranormal things, and the Gevaudan case has of course been associated with the legend of the werewolf. By far, most who express an opinion on it are of the belief that the beast was some natural animal, the two most popular suspects being a wolf or a hyaena. An examination of eyewitness accounts shows that people who saw the beast and lived to tell of it described it in many different ways. (And I'm doing this from memory now, without any of the documentation in front of me.) Some described something that could have been a large wolf, but there was at least one who said it was actually the size of a donkey, and one young boy who swore that it walked on two legs (though most said it walked on all fours). Does this indicate the usual contradictory accounts of hysterical witnesses, or descriptions of an actual shape-changing beast? I recall one account of a young brother and sister who encountered the beast. I think it was the girl who turned to run, only to have her brother's suddenly severed head come rolling past her. A wolf absolutely could not strike a blow like that. It would take something with the strength of a tiger or a grizzly bear, if that. The beast was well known to prey on shepherds, especially women and children, while completely ignoring the sheep they were tending. Most un-wolflike.


I have a pretty open mind, Kensei, so your belief that it could have been a werewolf doesn't in any way make me want to run for the hills screaming. I think anything is possible. The thought that the creature could be a werewolf, or something sent by God, was certainly a popular view of the time. My own personal view is that the beast killed by Chastel most closely fits the description of the beast.

There are many different eyewitness accounts of the beast, but, apart from the odd few, most of them seem to run to a similar pattern:

She was said to range in size from 'larger than a wolf' to the size of a 'one year old calf' to the the size of a donkey.

Her coat is described as being reddish-brown or grey with dark vertical stripes on the neck and a large black stripe running down her back. She also had a large white white patch on the front of her chest.

Her tail was long and bushy with a white tip. Her back legs were long and like that of a wolf's - although much thinner - but her front legs were much shorter.

Her muzzle was often describe as being very blunt and like that of a pig or a cat. Her Jaw was almost always gaping, which is interesting, because if you read the report on Chastel's beast by Roch stephen Marin, we see that it had a gape of seven inches. Very large indeed. In fact, if you add to that the report on Chastel's beast made by the Natural History Museum of France, which states that the 'zygomatic arch' of the beast was much larger than that of a wolf, it means the beast that Chastel shot also had an incredibly powerful bite.


In the official story, when the king sent soldiers to hunt the beast down they supposedly encountered it and a whole regiment opened up on it with black powder rifles, yet it ran away unhurt. That many men could not have failed to make a hit. Yet later, when a professional hunter came to join in the fray and hired locals to assist him including Jean Chastel, Chastel is said to have been among the superstitious and so was using silver bullets. And when he encountered the beast, he dropped it in its tracks with two shots.

Without knowing the full details of the chase it is difficult to know exactly what went on. La Bete was often said to be very stealthy and she apparently moved at pace, so shooting an animal at that speed - especially with the not entirely accurate guns of the time - wouldn't have been as easy as it may sound.

There is some suspicion that Chastel was actually behind the breeding of this animal - therefore the beast actually knew him. That is why he was able to shoot him at such a close distance.




A show called "The Real Wolfman" on the History Channel not long ago studied the case and concluded that the beast was a trained hyaena and that Chastel was controlling it, directing it to kill, and then finally shot it to make himself the hero. I was rather appalled at this character assassination of someone I think really was a hero. They found a record of a stuffed hyaena being on display at the time that they implied was the beast, but it was not proven. They did a ballistics test with silver bullets and revealed that silver doesn't fly very straight, indicating that Chastel must have been much closer to the beast when he shot it than he claimed. Furthermore, the show mentioned something I had not heard before, that some of the beast's victims were not only killed and mutilated but sexually assaulted. An animal that commits rape?!!!

What does all this tell us?

In my opinion, there is no way the beast of Gevaudan was a Hyena. For a start there is no way that an Hyena could have survived the harsh winters that prevailed over that region of France at the time. Secondly, Many of the feature do not concur with the general appearence of a hyena. That's not to say there couldn't have been other animals on the lose at the time - including an hyena - but I do not believe La Bete was one. I believe she was a hybrid.

The question a rape is an interesting one but it becomes a bit muddied when applied to the beast. Mainly because there would have been many people of the time - including rapists - who wished to commit atrocities and simply used the killings of La Bete as a cover.


Here is my most unpopular belief- The Beast of Gevaudan was an actual werewolf, i.e. a human that transformed into a beast by supernatural means. Each time he changed he could look a little different. He had both murderous and sexually predatory tendencies, killing over a hundred people in three years. He was impervious to most weapons, but not to silver. (And if you research folklore, you'll find that that part is NOT just an invention of Hollywood.) If ballistics shows that silver bullets won't fly straight, there are two things to consider. One, Chastel's shots still could have struck the beast through pure blind luck. And two, the story states that he had the bullets blessed by a priest before going on the hunt. If we actually dare to consider the supernatural, then surely we must allow for such a blessing being something real that bestows actual good fortune of a kind that would have made the poorly balanced silver bullets fly straight and true anyway. Many stories in folklore presented as being true feature the werewolf changing back to human form when they die, but perhaps that is only when they die a slow death. The beast of Gevaudan was dropped in its tracks and died instantly. Perhaps that trapped it in animal form in death. And that's my own speculation, but there you go.

As I have said, Kensei, I believe La Bete was a hybrid of some kind. However, it is always a possibility that there could be another explanation, including your hypothesis that it was a werewolf. Could that mean that the werewolf was a 'she' and not a 'he' then?


Had not heard of sightings of the beast after its death, Tempus. Care to elaborate?


There were several sightings of La Bete after the killings in or around the prehistoric cave systems of Sarlat. The last of these being on the 4th of August 1767. It should be remembered, however, that there were also killings by beasts of a similar nature to La Bete before and after the period now asociated with the terror. For example, A century earlier, at Bernais in 1693, there were over one hundred people (mostly women and children) killed by a beast that exactly matched the description we have of La Bete. Couple this with the fact that forty years after the slayings in Gevaudan there were attacks by a beast in Vivarais, where roughly thirty or so children were killed, and you have a mystery that is far more complex then people would imagine. Indeed, reports of attacks by La Bete like creatures have carried on until modern times.


Kind regards,


Tempus

[Ally]

The search feature guys. An invaluable tool.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=5250&highlight=Gevaudan

[Tempus omnia revelat]

The search feature guys. An invaluable tool.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread...light=Gevaudan

Thanks, Ally.


Still think that La Bete is such a great topic that two threads are quite acceptable, though.


Kind regards,


Tempus

[kensei]

Tempus, you raise many interesting points. You say you believe the beast was a hybrid. May I ask- a hybrid of what and what? You correctly point out that a hyaena (and by extension, any animal from a warmer climate) couldn't have withstood the French winters, but for arguments' sake that wouldn't be a factor if the beast was kept semi-domesticated indoors somewhere and only let loose to make its attacks during warm weather. You also mention the "suspicion" that Chastel was involved in breeding and training the animal, as the show "The Real Wolfman" stated. But it seems to be only suspicion, pure speculation, no real facts to back up this theory that tarnishes the reputation of a man who was hailed as a hero. In fact it makes him into one of the most prolific serial killers of all time, with the beast as his weapon. Seems like the kind of thought process that has been used on many Jack the Ripper suspects- it could have been this way, so it probably was this way.

Any theory of the beast being a hybrid of two natural species has to take into account the incident I mentioned of the decapitated child. It recounts how a brother and sister met with the beast and turned to run. The girl was faster, and suddenly saw her brother's head roll past her as she ran. Hyaenas are well known for their ability to chew through bone but that act was not done with teeth. It was a blow struck by a forepaw with immense strength, the kind of strength not shown by any predators native to Europe that could have been paired to create a hybrid. I really can't think of anything in the natural world besides a tiger or the largest bears that could manage it. Something with supernatural strength, though...

By the way, have you seen the movie "Brotherhood of the Wolf" that fictionalizes the Gevaudan case? It's a weird and wild mixture of history, intrigue, romance, and- believe it or not- martial arts. In it, the beast turns out to be some ill-defined species of African big cat that's been horribly abused to turn it into a killing machine, practically turned into a cyborg with spiky armor infused into its body, and when it finally dies you find yourself not feeling so much "Hey, the beast is dead!" but more like "Thank god that poor animal's suffering is over."

Afterthought: I'm puzzled at why there is this propensity to think of the Gevaudan beast as having been female. Is there any particular reason for that? Personally, I'd be very interested to learn whether there was anyone in the region- man or woman- who was simply listed as missing in the aftermath of the case, perhaps considered to be a victim of the beast but with their body never found.