The Zhevodan beast. History of terrible attacks

Among the many stories about maniacs and monsters, there is one terrible story about the Beast from Gevaudan, whose ferocity, cruel mind and cynicism make historians, biologists and writers still rack their brains, trying to understand from what depths of hell this monster could jump out.

The first mention of the Beast refers to June 1, 1764, when he attacked a peasant woman from the city of Langong, who was tending a herd of cows in the forest of Merkuar. Some kind of wolf-like creature jumped out of the forest and rushed at her. The dogs didn't even move, they just trembled and whined. Wounded and terrified to death, the woman rushed to the bulls, who met the beast with their horns outstretched. Despite his dexterity, he was never able to get it.

And the first victim of the Beast was fourteen-year-old Jeanne Boulet, who was killed on June 30, 1764 near the village of Ibak, not far from Langone. Her body was partially gnawed by the beast.

In August, he killed two more children - a girl and a boy. At first, the peasants attributed these attacks to a pack of hungry or rabid wolves, but few eyewitnesses described a huge black beast with feline habits. Dozens of hunting parties rushed into the forests, but they returned with nothing, and the number of victims continued to grow.

All attacks were made in the same way: the victim was knocked down by a swift throw. The wolf is a large animal, and its weight in flight, especially if the front paws hit the chest, is quite enough to knock even a tall man to the ground. The beast killed its victims with a bite to the face, which it then tore apart with razor-sharp teeth. If the person did not die immediately, shock and blood loss soon took their toll.

In autumn, the wolf added an adult woman to the number of victims. At seven in the evening on September 6, 1764, the beast appeared in the middle of the village of Estre (near Arzance) and attacked a thirty-six-year-old peasant woman. Heart-rending screams broke the silence of the village, the villagers jumped out of their houses with axes and pitchforks. Rushing to the garden, they found a beast tearing to pieces a still living victim. Noticing the armed people, he slowly retreated to the forest, as if showing that he was not at all afraid. In total, during September, the Beast claimed the lives of five more children, among whom was a young man - the son of a local aristocrat, the Marquis d'Apshe. Remember this name.

By the end of October, the number of victims reached eleven, the Beast attacked a girl from the village of Vivaris, three teenagers from Shaila Leveque, a girl from the town of Toris. The monster bit the cheeks and tongues of the victims, drank the blood and scattered the insides of the dead around.

The villages were in alarm. Nothing like this had happened here before: the wolves attacked the sheep, but not the people. This happened only in extremely rare cases - in winter, when cold and hunger drove them out of the forest.

At the end of October 1764, two hunters, having accidentally stumbled upon a wolf at the edge of the forest, fired at him from a distance of no more than ten steps. The shot threw the monster to the ground, but it immediately jumped to its paws; the second shot caused him to fall again, however, the Beast managed to get up and run into the forest. The hunters followed him in bloody tracks, but all they managed to find was the torn body of the Beast's latest victim, a 21-year-old boy killed earlier that day.

After that, the Beast disappeared for a month, but on November 25 he resumed his activities, killing the seventy-year-old Katerina Valli.

On a dark November evening, Jean-Pierre Pourchet, a rancher from Julliange, was going to the barn to get hay for bulls when he saw a heavy black shadow creeping across the wasteland along the village. In that troubled time, Purshe always kept a weapon at hand - a heavy double-barreled blunderbuss. The farmer took aim and fired from the first barrel - the beast at first seemed to dissolve into the night, and then suddenly appeared right in front of Purshe and reared up, standing up like a man. Purshe fired a second time, the monster let out a terrible cry, and then ... “We met eyes,” Purshe later told the gendarmerie bailiff, “and I was struck by the eyes of the beast: they were human!”

Rumors about a "lugaru" - a werewolf - spread through the mountain valleys. The priests sprinkled bullets with holy water, which were brought to the church by the peasants. The local curate dubbed the beast the "Scourge of God" sent to the people for the sins of the king and the nobility. When the attacks of the Beast reached frightening proportions, the military governor of Languedoc de Montcan sent a detachment of forty foot dragoons and seventeen horsemen stationed in Clermont-Ferrand under the command of Captain Jacques Duhamel to the scene. (Interestingly, it was in Clermont-Ferrand that some of the more bizarre and sinister manifestations of lycanthropy were recorded.) The first raid, arranged by a detachment of dragoons, did not bring success. The beast escaped from under his nose and hid in the forests on the banks of the Margerid River. Soon the remains of five more victims of the mysterious predator were found there.

The authorities of Languedoc and the bishop of the city of Mend also organized a group of hunters, who, simultaneously with the Duhamel detachment, carried out one raid after another. Women and children were forbidden to leave the house alone. Men were required to carry at least a stick with a knife tied to the end. By the end of 1764, hunters and dragoons in the vicinity of Gevaudan had killed about a hundred wolves. In December, when the dragoons finished their work, the inhabitants were sure that the danger had been eliminated, but as soon as the detachment left the district, the huge wolf made a new attack on Christmas Eve.

Having begun in December 1764 an incessant series of attacks - sometimes 2-3 attacks in a day, 4 attacks and two corpses in one day on December 27 - the Beast continued it in January 1765. In early January 1765, when reports of new victims were received , the church declared war on the beast, and the bishop held a prayer service for the safety of the inhabitants, but, despite these spiritual measures, the wolf killed several more women and girls over the next days.

During January, the Beast attacked people 18 times, that is, every other day. Fortunately, not every attack ended in the death of the victim. On January 12, 1765, a group of children - thirteen-year-old Jacques Portfet, with him four boys and two girls from 9 to 13 years old, were attacked by the Zhevaudan Beast. A huge wolf rushed at a group of children playing on the outskirts of the village of Vilare, and grabbed the youngest. Then three older guys, grabbing stones and sticks, pounced on the beast, forced him to abandon the victim and take flight. Although the wolf bit these little brave men, the life of the youngest child was spared. Later that day, the Beast still found prey, killing the infant son of a local resident de Greze.

The episode with the rescue of thirteen-year-old Jacques Portfet and his comrades from the Gévaudan Beast attracted the attention of the King of France - Louis XV, who rewarded the young men, commanding them to give them 300 livres.

The wolf, which for some time was afraid of groups of people, soon bit and partially ate a girl of twelve and a teenager of fourteen years old. One strange feature of the beast from Gevaudan, namely, the choice of prey, gave a special shade to these atrocities. A wolf could almost always kill a sheep or a cow, but he didn't. He lay in wait for a person and attacked him, even if it was fraught with serious danger.

In late January, a wolf attacked three farm workers in broad daylight. The men had iron pitchforks and did not panic. The struggle lasted, as it seemed to the peasants, for several minutes, but in fact, apparently, it took about thirty seconds. People, screaming wildly, tried to pierce the beast with a pitchfork, and he tried to get to their throats.

When the wolf ran away roaring, the peasants hurried to the village. They informed the authorities that the wolf was a large adult animal with a coarse reddish coat; attacked in a horizontal position, and then reared up like a horse and beat with his front paws. The luck of these people and the vindictiveness of the Beast, who did not expect a rebuff, can be estimated from the fact that within a few days after his encounter with the farm workers, the wolf killed two women and a child.

Local residents constantly organized raids on a mysterious and cruel monster. In one of these raids, about a thousand people participated, but although several large wolves were scared off and killed in the forest, to everyone's disappointment, not one of them looked like a cannibal. The fact that the efforts were in vain became clear in early February, when a young guy became another victim of the wolf. He was severely wounded, but survived thanks to his dog, which, protecting the owner, attacked the wolf with incredible courage and forced the Beast to leave the prey. In February, the attacks continued with the same frequency, but the Beast was no longer so lucky - people more often managed to get away from him.

King Louis XV personally ordered the professional hunters from Normandy - Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vomesl Duneval and his son Jean-Francois Duneval to destroy the monster. Duneval father was one of the most famous hunters in France, during his life he killed more than a thousand wolves.

Father and son arrived in Clermont-Ferrand on February 17, 1765, bringing with them a pack of eight hounds trained in hunting wolves. In a few months they managed to track down and kill about twenty wolves, but the elusive Beast avoided all traps, did not eat poisoned baits and did not show his eyes. More and more impudent, as if from the realization of his invulnerability, the wolf once even attacked a horse riding on the road to the local village of Amorne. The beast jumped out of the thicket at the rider and knocked him out of the saddle. But the man still managed to fight back, jump on the horse again and gallop away.

Throughout the spring of 1765, the Beast attacked at the same pace - every other day. On April 5, he attacked a group of four children and killed them all - these children were not as lucky as Jacques Portfet and his friends.

The Dunevals staged several mass raids, the largest of which, on May 1, 1765, involved 117 soldiers and 600 local residents. The wolf was surrounded, and the hunters put three bullets into him, consecrated in the church. But the Beast broke through the barrier of dogs and beaters and disappeared. "Its end! The monster has been destroyed!" - Duneval wrote in his report to Versailles, and two days later the wolf killed two more people in different parts of the Auvergne.

In early June, a girl was killed by a wolf near Amorni. Another girl escaped by climbing up a cliff overlooking the road. Parents found her only three days later, when, unfortunately, the child had already lost his mind.

In June 1765, Dunevale was replaced by François Antoine de Boterre, bearer of the royal arquebus and Lieutenant of the Hunt, by order of the king. This illustrious warrior was once the best arquebus shooter in the kingdom, but now he is over seventy. However, despite his gray hair, the Chevalier de Boter retained his bearing, his sharp eye, and his steady hand. He began by asking the nobles for their best hunting dogs. Having collected a pack, the lieutenant arrived in le Malzieu with magnificent hounds and a detachment of beaters on June 22, and began methodically combing the forests.

During a three-month hunt, 1,200 wolves were exterminated, but, as if expressing his contempt for a new enemy, a huge wolf went straight into one of the houses and killed an old woman who was sitting at a spinning wheel. Her torn body was discovered by a child whose cries disturbed the wolf and forced him to leave. Over the next few weeks, the Beast killed five more children and a young woman, attacking her just as she was feeding the best hunting dogs brought from Paris. The frightened hounds did not even try to save the unfortunate woman.

On August 11, 1765, the Beast attacked a girl named Marie-Jeanne Valais. It seems incredible, but, having shown incredible courage and the will to live, Marie-Jeanne managed to fight off the Beast. Today, near the village of Polak in Loser, there is a sculpture dedicated to this event.

During that period, the Beast made 134 attacks and claimed the lives of 55 people, mostly children and women. The last of these victims was killed on September 12, 1765, and on September 20, de Boter and his hunters (forty volunteers, 12 dogs) decided to ambush the abbey at Shaze.

A few hours later, after the hunters were placed in their places, the dogs drove the monster right at de Boter, who was standing at the tripod of his arquebus. He loaded the gun with a lead bullet and thirty-five buckshot at the same time. De Boter made the sign of the cross and pulled the trigger, a large shot pierced the wolf's chest. The Tenacious Beast tried to flee when another hunter's shot hit him in the head, piercing his right eye and skull. The beast collapsed, but, improbable as it seemed, while the hunters were reloading their guns, he jumped up again and rushed at de Boter. "Shoot!" - commanded the chevalier. There was a volley, and the monster froze with its paws bent under itself.

It was an animal of incredible size, a wolf of unusual, strange coloring, weighing 60 kilograms, almost twice as much as usual. Height 80 cm at the withers, and its length from the tip of a blunt nose to the end of an extremely long shaggy tail was 1.7 meters. Each of its fangs was up to four centimeters long.

The eight surviving victims of the cannibal were called to the village of Sauge, where de Boter set up headquarters, and they all identified the killer. The local barber opened the belly of the beast and found human bones and several strips of red matter there.

The slain beast was named "the wolf of Shaz" after Shaz Abbey, which was nearby. De Boter sent a report to the king in which he wrote: “In this report, certified by our signatures, we declare that we have never seen a wolf that could be compared with this. That is why we believe that this is the same fearsome beast that caused such damage to the kingdom.”

Chevalier sent the prey to Clermont, where the healers processed the skin of a predator and made an effigy out of it for the king. The arrow was awarded the Order of St. Louis, a thousand livres of the boarding house and was now allowed to have a wolf's head in the family coat of arms.

W believe returned on December 2, 1765, like an anti-ghost - clawed and fanged flesh, soulless, but full of wild retribution. He attacked two children, 14 and 7 years old, near Besser-Saint-Marie, on December 10 he seriously wounded two women near Lachamp, on December 14 near the village of Polak a young man miraculously escaped from him, and on December 21, 1765 in villagers found the body of 12-year-old Agnes in the vicinity of Mount Mouche. The girl's head was torn off, the insides were gutted, and her tongue was bitten off by a cruel monster.

The wolf became so insolent that he approached the houses in search of defenseless victims. At the end of March, he dragged away an eight-year-old boy who was playing in the yard, and the father, who went in search of the child, found his torn remains one and a half kilometers from the house. The next victim was an old man, and although he was severely wounded, he was lucky, because the intervention of a passerby saved his life. Then there was a lull for some time, and at the very height of summer the attacks resumed. The Beast killed two more children grazing sheep, and the mournful list of nightmarish attacks was replenished until November 1, when, having killed 12-year-old Jean-Pierre Olier near the village of Suchet, the Zhevodansky Beast suddenly disappeared into nowhere again - all the more unexpected because of the big hunt for it was not conducted at that time and large wolves, unlike the previous year, were not killed by hunters. In total, for the end of 1765 and the whole of 1766, the Beast made 41 attacks.

The beast did not appear for 122 days, that is, until spring, and the Zhevodan villagers sighed calmly, but it was too early to rejoice. On March 2, 1767, the Beast killed a boy near the village of Pontagou, resuming his bloody harvest with a vengeance. He made 8 attacks during April and 19 during May (36 in total).

The inhabitants took desperate measures to destroy the terrible creature of the gloomy forests of Gevaudan. They laid out poisoned food, but the Beast ignored the simple bait, preferring human flesh. The peasants set snares and traps, but they remained empty, and even the few skeptics who believed they were dealing with an ordinary non-supernatural animal wavered in their conviction.

The beast of Gévaudan ruled over the forests of this area for more than two years, showing contemptuous indifference to all attempts to catch and kill him, but the Marquis d'Apchet, not losing hope of destroying the monster and avenging the death of his son, tirelessly conducted one raid after another in the mountains. Finally, on June 19, 1767, the largest of these raids - with the participation of more than 300 hunters - was crowned with success: one of them managed to shoot the monster.

Jean Chastel, being an extremely religious man, loaded his gun with precisely consecrated silver bullets and took the Bible with him. During a halt, Chastel opened the Bible and began to read a prayer when a giant wolf jumped out of the thicket. He stopped in front of Chastel and looked at him, and then Chastel fired point blank, then reloaded his gun and fired again.

Two silver bullets reached the target - the wolf was killed on the spot. The weight of the killed animal was 63 kg. It is known that the weight of a wolf can reach 70-80 kg, but usually adult males weigh no more than 40-50 kg. Its fur had a distinct reddish tint, which coincided with the description of the wolf that killed so many people. And when the animal was opened, fragments of the humerus bones of a girl who died the day before were found in his stomach.

The carcass of the wolf was taken throughout Zhevodan from city to city to convince the villagers of the death of the Beast; then, again stuffed from her stuffed, delivered to the king. Unfortunately, this time the effigy was poorly made and began to decompose; Louis, laughing at Chastel and his statements, ordered the remains to be buried.

The grateful Gevaudans themselves paid tribute to Chastel: they collected a prize of 72 livres (a fairly significant amount) and handed them over to the person who saved Gevaudan from the misfortune that tormented him for more than two years.

Official documents of the time show 230 attacks, including 51 mutilations and 123 deaths. Due to the accuracy and safety of parish books, this figure can be considered final. Other sources increase the number of attacks to 306.

Given the episode with de Boter, Zhevodan was right to wait for the fourth coming of the Beast, but Zhevodan never returned. He was killed once and for all.

The Beast of Gévaudan (fr. La Bête du Gévaudan) is a mysterious wolf-like creature, a man-eating beast that terrorized the French province of Gévaudan (now the Loser department), namely the villages in the Margerides mountains in southern France (on the border of the historical regions of Auvergne and Languedoc) from 1764 to 1767. About 230 people became the Zhevodansky Beast, of which 123 were killed and eaten by the Beast. Its destruction was announced several times, but the debate about the nature of the Beast of Gevaudan did not end even with the cessation of the attacks. The legend of the Zhevaudan Beast is considered one of the most mysterious in history.

The Zhevodansky Beast was described by eyewitnesses as a predator like a wolf, but the size of a cow, with a very wide chest, a long flexible tail with a brush at the end, like a lion, an elongated muzzle like a greyhound, with small pointed ears and large fangs protruding from the mouth. The coat of the Beast was, according to most eyewitnesses, yellowish-red, but along the ridge on his back he had an unusual strip of dark wool. Sometimes it was about large dark spots on the back and sides. It is worth noting that such a description almost completely corresponds to the description of a hyena predator, with the exception of its size.

The tactics of the Beast were atypical for a predator: he first of all aimed at the head, tearing apart the face, and did not try, like ordinary predators, to gnaw through the throat or limbs. Usually he knocked down to the ground with a swift throw, but later he mastered a different tactic - approaching in a horizontal position, he rose in front of him on his hind legs and struck with his front paws. He often left his own headless. If the Beast was forced to run, he left with an easy, even run.

The Beast clearly preferred people to livestock as prey - in those cases when it was next to a herd of cows, goats or sheep, the Beast attacked the shepherd, not paying attention to the animals. Ordinary Beasts were women or children - working alone or even in pairs and not carrying weapons. Men, as a rule, who worked in the field in large groups and were able to fight off a predator with scythes and pitchforks, practically did not become it.

The number of attacks made many people think that they were not dealing with one Beast, but with a whole pack. Some witnesses noted that the companion of the Beast was an animal similar to him - an adult or a young one. In some sources, you can find a mention that a person was seen next to the Beast once or twice, which led some to assume that a certain villain trained the Beast to attack people - although the latter already belongs to the area associated with the Beast.

In the spring of 1764, in the mountainous province of Gévaudan, in the south of France, a bloodthirsty beast appeared, killing people. Those few who survived after his attack described the beast as follows: larger than a wolf, with clawed paws, a muzzle resembling a dog, very dexterous, teeth as sharp as a razor. He instantly caught up with any victim with huge jumps. The dogs trembled and whined at his appearance.

In three months, the beast of Zhevodan killed more than ten people, including a fourteen-year-old girl. Soon the beast killed five more children, among whom was the son of a local aristocrat, Count d'Apshe. The beast killed with sinister cruelty - tore off the heads, gnawed off the cheeks and tongues of the victims, scattered the insides around. On the evening of September 6, 1764, the beast showed up right in the middle of the village and attacked a peasant woman. At her cry, residents jumped up with axes and pitchforks. They saw a huge beast that was tearing to pieces a still living victim. Noticing the armed people, the beast slowly retired into the forest.

There was also an eyewitness, a cattle breeder, who ran into an animal in a wasteland near his village and shot him twice with a musket. Bullets did not cause visible harm to the beast, but stopped it. Later, the cattle breeder said: “I was struck by the eyes of the beast: they were human!”

This convinced everyone that a werewolf was operating in the vicinity of Gevaudan, who could not be killed with a simple bullet - only silver and consecrated.

The king announced the "Great Raid", promising 6,000 livres for the corpse of the beast. In December 1765, hundreds of hunters of all ranks and classes came to Gevaudan for the largest hunt in French history. This hunt was led by the main hunter of the kingdom - Francois-Antoine de Botern.

The beaters drove the gigantic-sized wolf right at him. De Botern crossed himself and put a lead bullet into the beast's right eye. The wolf, however, rushed forward. The assistants of the hunter put several more bullets into the beast and the wolf collapsed at the very feet of de Botern. The hunters cautiously approached him and found that the predator was dead. The dead wolf turned out to be twice as large as usual: 80 centimeters at the withers and 1.7 meters long.

However, shortly thereafter, the Beast of Gévaudan reappeared and continued its bloody hunt. The number of his victims exceeded a hundred people. Meanwhile, the trackers discovered that in some places, next to the tracks of the beast, human tracks stretch. There was an impression that the beast has a master who controls its actions. Suspicion fell on the unsociable forester Antoine Chastel.

Meanwhile, Comte d'Apshe, wanting to take revenge on the monster for his murdered son, organized a new raid on the Zhevaudan beast. On June 19, 1767, more than three hundred hunters set off with the count, among whom was the father of the forester Antoine, Jean Chastel. Jean loaded his gun with consecrated silver bullets and took a Bible with him. During the halt, Chastel opened the Bible and began to read a prayer, and at that moment a giant wolf jumped out of the thicket. Chastel fired at close range, then reloaded his gun and fired again. Two silver bullets reached the target - the wolf was killed on the spot. Please enable JavaScript to vote

It is said that when Arthur Conan Doyle heard the story of the Beast of Gévaudan, he immediately sat down at his desk and wrote his Hound of the Baskervilles. True, in order not to delve into mysticism, he made an ordinary Italian mastiff a trained monster. Whereas the story of the monster from Zhevodan is not at all so unambiguous and is still incomprehensible.

Scientists have made a lot of assumptions about what kind of animal it was, reaching quite unusual in controversy - the prehistoric Andrewsarch, whose relatives died out tens of millions of years ago. Mystics, on the other hand, claim that the Zhevodansky Beast was none other than a real werewolf. Both of them may be right, because there are many accompanying facts to both. Only one thing can be said with certainty - the filmmakers in their "Brotherhood of the Wolf" definitely went against the truth ...

The whole history of the Gevaudan Beast, if we consider it from the point of view of science and logic, is one big misunderstanding. He entered the "warpath" in the summer of 1764 and terrified the surrounding population for three whole years. The beast, which is atypical, preyed exclusively on people, point-blank ignoring animals. But even if we take into account that an animal that has once tasted human flesh will prefer to eat it, it is not at all a fact that it will begin to disdain other meat. The Zhevodan monster behaved against all the laws of nature.

His first victim was the fourteen-year-old shepherdess Jeanne Boulet. It would seem - eat a lamb and disappear, but no. In one summer of that year, the Beast killed five children. Well, children - of course, with them, with a successful set of circumstances, a feral dog will also cope. But further - more. The beast began to attack first the old women, and then even women in the prime of life. And he did it not like an ordinary predator, clinging his fangs to his legs, arms, or at least his neck. Not! He had a very strange tactic - quickly rushing at a person, he threw him on his back, after which he bit off his face. Yes, in the literal sense of the word. He ate his cheeks, drank the blood from his throat, and only then tore his stomach, scattering uninteresting insides around.

That summer, only one peasant woman managed to escape - a thirty-year-old woman was protected by her own bulls. Pointing their horns at the monster, they drove the Beast away. Do you think it stopped him? By no means! In September, the Beast showed up right in the middle of the village of Estre and again attacked the peasant woman. To her heart-rending cries, people with axes and pitchforks jumped out of the houses, but all they managed to see was some kind of animal slowly eating its prey in the garden under an apple tree. Glancing at the villagers, it reluctantly broke away from dinner and set off (did not run away!) In the direction of the forest. It was then that it was first described by eyewitnesses.

According to them, the monster looked like a wolf, but the size of a calf. Brown in color with a dark stripe on the back, a long muzzle with razor teeth, a broad fawn chest, a tail ending in a tassel like a lion's, and leisurely, one might even say elegant, movements.

And in November, he tried to attack adult strong men. Jean-Pierre Pourchet, walking around his cattle pens at night, came face to face with the Beast. And even shot him a couple of times from a successfully turned up musket. Did you think normal people in the villages go out into the street in the middle of the night without a Berdanka? The shots did not damage the beast (although they hit the target), but they stopped, which gave the peasant time to successfully retreat. The next day, the livestock breeder told the gendarmerie bailiff (his story was recorded and preserved) that: “meeting the eyes of the monster, I was struck by the eyes of the beast: they were human!”

This convinced the public that they were not dealing with a wolf, but a werewolf. The local priest, don't be a fool, in the next sermon dubbed the beast the "Scourge of God", sent to the unfortunate peasant heads for the sins of the king and the nobility. To stop the undermining of the authority of Louis XV and power in general, the local government agency of Languedoc sent 56 dragoons led by Jacques Duhamel to capture the beast. They shot down a hundred wolves in the surrounding forests. But the animal was never caught. True, they came face to face with him when he was eating up an unknown peasant boy. They shot at him several times, and even seemed to hit. At least, according to eyewitnesses, the beast first fell, and then got up and, limping, departed towards the forest.

On the other hand, the murders stopped for a couple of weeks, but as soon as the public relaxed, the monster resumed its activities with renewed vigor. Now he attacked every day, or even two or three times a day, not paying much attention to whether it was night in the yard, or day. Accurately after Christmas, on December 27, the monster attacked the fourth, two of whom killed and ate. Whatever you say, it never looks like the behavior of an ordinary, even a very hungry animal.

In early January 1765, the Christian Church declared war on the Beast. Well, as announced. By virtue of his sacred abilities, the Bishop of the city of Mend held a prayer service for the safety of the inhabitants of Gevaudan and the surrounding area. After that, the Beast, who already seemed to have received the final status of the Werewolf, immediately killed a dozen more people.

Zhevodan has become a branch of Transylvania described by Bram Stoker. People left the house in groups of at least three people, at night they locked the doors and shutters with heavy bolts, and during the day they organized regular raids on wolves, one of which involved a thousand peasants.

All to no avail. The monster was elusive and unkillable. They shot at him so regularly that anyone would have turned into a sieve long ago. It seemed that nothing took him, and arrogance and aggressiveness had already crossed all reasonable limits. Once he tried to eat twenty-year-old Marie-Jeanne Vale right on the bridge over the river in front of the whole village. The girl turned out not to miss and stuck a pitchfork into the beast, with which, apparently, just in case, she did not part. The beast silently fell into the water... only to reappear the very next day.

Rumors of the Gevaudan trouble had reached Paris, and now Louis XV himself ordered drastic measures to be taken, promising 6,000 livres (a gigantic sum, equal to about 100,000 today's euros) for the corpse of the beast. In September, thousands of hunters of all ranks and classes arrived in the Tenizer Forest to begin the biggest hunt in the history of mankind. It was headed by the main royal trapper - Francois Antoine de Botern, a man of advanced years, but with a firm hand and a sharp eye. Combing the forest far and wide, the beaters really stumbled upon a large wolf with red tan marks on the skin and drove him to Botern. He, without thinking twice, put a bullet into the wolf's right eye. This did not make much of an impression on the beast, but it gave the soldiers time to fire an aimed volley at the animal. It collapsed at the very feet of Bothern. The wolf was examined, gutted, several strips of red cloth were found in his stomach, recognized as the “Gevaudan Beast”, stuffed from him and happily taken to Paris, where Botern received his award. For almost three months, nothing was heard about the monster, and a big celebration was planned in Versailles to get rid of the bloodthirsty monster. But suddenly bad news came again from Languedoc.

The famous hunter and tracker Danneval, sent by the king on the first big raid to the south of his possessions, discovered that in some places human tracks appear next to the trail of the beast. A complete illusion was created that the monster has an owner who controls its actions. Suspicion fell on the forester Antoine Chastel.

The personality of Antoine is in itself extremely unusual for such a wooded wilderness as Gevaudan. He knew how to read and write, in his youth he managed to visit a sailor, was captured by Algerian pirates and spent many years in the desert among the Berber natives. Returning home in an incredible way, he settled in a hut on Mount Mushe and got dogs, for training which, they say, he had a special talent. He not only avoided people, but tried once again not to intersect with them.

Although, it must be admitted, Antoine, together with his father Jean and brother Pierre, took part in a big raid. There was an ugly quarrel with the participation of Chastel, which forced Bothern, as the organizer of the event, to send all three to the county jail in order to cool the hot heads. Surprisingly, just at this time, the killings stopped, which gave hope that Bothern had shot the “right” animal. However, as soon as the family returned to their native village, the Beast of Zhevaudan also returned after them. Danneval was not an idiot, he knew how to compare facts ...

Meanwhile, the local aristocrat, the Marquis d'Apshe, did not leave the thought of cracking down on the monster devouring his subjects, and, given the failed royal operation, with the assistance of his son, organized his own hunt. Not so numerous, but much more successful.

On June 19, 1767, three hundred hunters, among whom was Jean Chastel, the father of our forester, went out to round up. And it was Jean who managed to shoot the Beast. Jean either knew something, or was simply a very religious person, prone to mysticism, but he took a bible with him for hunting, and loaded a gun with silver bullets. Yes, yes, the only ones that can kill a werewolf. As soon as he, having settled down on the lawn, opened the Holy Scripture and began to read it, the Beast came out of the forest. He didn't attack, he just watched. For which he received two silver bullets that killed him on the spot. Really, it's weird?

The wolf killed by Chastel was smaller than expected, but a part of a human shoulder blade was found in his stomach, which finally convinced everyone that the Beast of Gévaudan was finally dead. Grateful locals collected Chastel a reward of 72 livres. And from the corpse of a wolf, they also made a stuffed animal and sent it to Paris. But the peasants were not great experts in taxidermy, so the effigy began to decompose along the way, emitting an unbearable stench. It didn't even make it to Versailles. The king ordered his personal physician, Buffon, to examine the effigy and immediately bury it. The home of d'Apchet's distant relatives, La Rofchouco, in whose courtyard the remains of the Beast were buried, was razed to the ground in 1825, taking the monster's secret with it.

For history, this was a big mistake, because scientists still have not understood who the monster from Zhevaudan really was - a crazy wolf, a hybrid of a dog and a wolf, a hyena brought from distant wanderings by Antoine Chastel, or in general a prehistoric monster, a miracle hatched in the middle of the Cévennes.

The number of murders (according to some sources, from 83 to 170, and more than 200 crippled) made us think that the wolf was not alone, but a whole pack. Others noted that the wolf was alone, but behaved too reasonably for a brainless animal - he never fell into traps, traps and wolf pits, ignored poisoned baits and successfully evaded raids arranged for him for three years. That is, he was distinguished by an exceptional intelligence for a wolf. And besides, he was easily killed by a silver bullet. And given that before that he had been shot more than once, and he had a rare vitality, this led to bad thoughts that the southerners were not dealing with an animal, but with a person, or loup-garou - a werewolf.

But the most amazing thing is something else. Forester Antoine Chastel has not been seen since then ...

Almost two and a half centuries have passed, but it is still unknown what kind of monster kept the whole Zhevodan (region in central France) in fear for three years. Not a hair has survived from him, not even a reliable sketch - nevertheless, his reality is beyond doubt: the trace left by him in historical documents is deep and indelible. His “cultural projection” is also: many books have been written about the monster from Gevaudan, a certain number of films have been shot (the most notable and most recent of them is the bestseller “The Brotherhood of the Wolf”: a spectacle very effective, but absolutely terrible in terms of the scale of distortion of facts). But everything else remains a mystery. Was it an animal unknown to science (in this case, it is among the objects that cryptozoology deals with: the science of "unfound" or "unrecognized" animals)? Wolf? Dog? Maniac? Werewolf? Modern researchers are ready to recognize almost all of these versions at once - except, of course, the last one. For the inhabitants of Gévaudan, it was the latest version that seemed the only possible one. However, they superstitiously avoided such formulations, calling this creature simply "The Beast". That's right - with a capital letter!

One of the most realistic drawings of the Beast, made, however, not from nature (there are simply no such ones: for some reason they have not even been made from a stuffed animal in 44 years!), But “according to eyewitnesses”. As you can see, he looks like a wolf very conditionally!

It all started in the spring of 1764 near the town of Langoni. The local peasant woman drove the bulls out to pasture - and suddenly a terrible beast attacked her from nowhere. The shepherd dogs did not even move at the sight of him - they only trembled and whined. The shepherdess, terrified to death, rushed to the bulls, trying to hide behind them. Fortunately, the bulls turned out to be bolder than the wolfhounds: they met the predator with exposed horns, but he deftly avoided blows and rushed at the shepherd over and over again. It looks like he chose her as a victim.

At that time, the bull herd managed to drive away the predator. But in early July, a predatory beast ate a fourteen-year-old girl, Jeanne Boulet. That was the first victim of an invulnerable monster. Or rather, the first case when the name of the victim became known: already ten people were listed as missing ...

September 6, at seven o'clock in the evening, the Beast showed up right in the middle of the village of Estre, not far from the town of Arzenk. At this time, a thirty-six-year-old peasant woman was digging in the garden near her house. The beast (he was no longer afraid of crowded places and began to attack even adults) knocked the unfortunate ground, plunged his fangs into her throat and began to eagerly suck out blood ...

The silence of the village was broken by a heart-rending cry: "The Beast! .." After that, all the inhabitants jumped out of the houses - some with pitchforks, some with an ax. They rushed to the garden, from where they heard frenzied screams - and saw a terrible picture: the Beast, bending over the victim, tore it to pieces with huge fangs. Noticing the people and realizing that he could not defeat them all, he shook his huge head and slowly trotted away, as if showing that he was not at all afraid.

After this tragedy, the number of victims of the Beast grew at an alarming rate.

In total, according to general estimates, in three years he ruined, not counting the missing, over a hundred lives (according to other estimates - ninety-six). Seventy-five of them are children and teenagers, almost all of the rest are women (and one old man). Apparently, an adult man was never killed by the Beast - although he also attacked such men, even armed (!), Walking in a group (!!). And the wounded, mutilated after his attacks were at least three times more than those killed ...

There were not enough guns in the then Zhevodan, so the peasants, going beyond the village, armed themselves with home-made peaks. In addition, less than three of them now did not even dare to go to the neighboring village for firewood or to the fair. But the Beast attacked even such detachments. Closing in and putting up spears, people usually managed to fight back (sometimes getting wounded). Repeatedly they managed to injure their mysterious enemy, but this did not affect either his combat effectiveness or his ability to move quickly: the very next day he used to sow death in another part of Zhevodan, tens of kilometers away!

The easiest way, of course, is to assume that there were several Beasts (in the end, this was confirmed: at least two). But the appearance of the monster was so characteristic that the locals had no doubt: it was one and the same creature. So what did he look like?

“... This creature is much larger than a wolf; his paws are clawed; wool - borax; the head is huge and elongated; muzzle - just like a greyhound dog; ears - small, straight and pointed upwards, like horns; the chest is broad and greyish; back - in black stripes; the mouth is huge and dotted with razor-sharp fangs, capable of biting off the head from the body in an instant. Its movements are unhurried, although, if necessary, it can move in gigantic leaps - with unusual dexterity and speed - and in a matter of moments without much difficulty cover a distance of two or three leagues. It stands on its hind legs, rushes at the victim with one jump and grabs it by the neck - either from behind or from the side.

The last characterization, as we will soon see, is not entirely correct: it was precisely by the neck that the Beast rarely grabbed. But the descriptions of appearance, in general, coincide with different witnesses. Moreover, many (i.e., really, few: those who saw the Beast up close and remained alive) emphasize the same features: clawed paws, small, by wolf standards, ears (sometimes they report that the eyes are also small), sharply narrowed muzzle (here "dog" comparisons prevail: "like a greyhound"), rather a cat's than a wolf's tail and not at all wolf's fangs, because of which the mouth acquired strange shapes!

“The vile creature was a little smaller than a donkey, with a wide chest, a huge head and a thick scruff; the ears were like a wolf's, only a little longer, and the muzzle was like a boar's snout.

Here, as we see, the ears, on the contrary, are larger than those of a wolf. True, “fear has big eyes”: many observers get confused in details, their main attention is riveted - and this is quite understandable! - fanged mouth.

And here is the testimony of another eyewitness: “The body of the Beast is elongated, he presses him to the ground; the coat is reddish, with black stripes on the back. Very long tail. The claws are of incredible size.

“He is much larger than even the tallest watchdog; his hair is brown and very thick, and on his belly it is more yellow. The head is huge, as are the two front fangs sticking out of the mouth on both sides; ears are short and straight; the tail is rather stiff, because the Beast, when running, hardly waves it.”

There is no question of fear here: this description was made by two horsemen who first fired a couple of successful (alas, not fatal) shots at the Beast, and then pursued him on horseback for a long time, trying in vain to finish him off. But even in their story there is a “tiger” (?) and seemingly inflexible tail - although other eyewitnesses observed how, rushing to attack, the Beast whips its tail on the sides.

In general, it turns out something in between a wolf and ... a hyena? There is some ambiguity with the fangs sticking out: some observers do not notice them. Perhaps, when the mouth was closed, they protruded only slightly; however, for a "normal" wolf, this is not typical. In addition, it is not known whether these were upper fangs (like a ... saber-toothed tiger?) or lower ones (like a bulldog or other dogs of "fighting" breeds). We will come back to this...

The description of large claws is very curious. When attacking armed detachments, the Beast did not behave like a wolf: he reared up and beat with his front paws (although there seems to be no evidence of lacerated wounds) - on the shoulders, on the pike shafts ... Once, pursuing a rider, he jumped onto the horse's croup and overturned him along with a man (the latter, however, was well versed in weapons and managed to fight back on the ground). In combination with the "cat" tail, these details are suggestive of serious thought.

So, an unknown species? But this is where the factors that distinguish cryptozoology from the unsystematic and unscientific collection of "mysterious cases" come into play.

It is almost impossible to imagine a viable population that, living in relatively accessible and densely populated areas, would not "manifest" either before or after the fateful period of 1764-1767. Zhevaudan itself, however, in the 18th century and even now, the area, by European standards, is extremely difficult to access: low but steep mountains, almost impenetrable thickets, many ravines ... But this is still not an African jungle. The size of the region, in principle, allows hiding on its territory a “residual” population of relic animals (even active predators!), which will be large enough to avoid degeneration. But then all the more unthinkable is such an explosive and one-time "contact" with a person. The whole history of cryptospecies tells a different story: an animal unknown to scientists is always known to the local population. Sometimes it’s bad if it’s really a rare or extremely cautious animal; but in any case, a certain complex of information, often legendary and mythical, develops around it. The main tragedy of Zhevaudan was that the Beast turned out to be completely unknown to the locals. Their only version turned out to be pan-European legends about “loop-garo” (the French analogue of “werewolf”) - but this is already beyond the scope of cryptozoological research.

Of course, we can deal with the "stray guest". But in this case, the problem from a local one becomes a pan-European one: somewhere, after all, the ancestors of the Beast had to live, feed, breed cubs ... Even if at the same time they did not show a tendency to cannibalism, it is still difficult to understand how they managed to remain completely unnoticed in European forests . Especially considering how visible the Beast of Gévaudan was!

In the British periodical St. Games's Chronicle (the first foreign mention of the Beast) as early as the beginning of 1765, there was a message about terrorizing one of the French provinces of "an animal of a new species, which is something between a wolf, a tiger and a hyena." The phrase "new species" sounds quite "po-cryptozoologically"; the tiger was talked about precisely because of the combination of stories about stripes and large claws.

But the Beast inflicted the main wounds with his teeth. Oddly enough, he did not seem to be very good at killing: when attacking, he rarely grabbed the “wolf-like” by the throat, mostly aimed at the face. Most of the dead died from pain shock ...

So, sometimes rabid wolves bite into the face. But the animal that raged from the spring of 1764 to the summer of 1767 cannot be rabid; besides, none of the wounded fell ill with rabies ...

True, as it seemed at first, the bloody path of the Zhevaudan Beast was cut short in September 1765. The fact is that after the first murders this story became a problem of national importance - and the Paris authorities repeatedly dispatched entire hunting expeditions to Zhevaudan (once - a genuine army from two professional hunters, seventeen dragoons and four dozen soldiers); however, contrary to the "Brotherhood of the Wolf", there were no Indian karate players and enlightened academic karate players there and there weren't even close. All of them returned unsuccessfully: that is, some wolves were killed, but the attacks did not stop. But the chief hunter of France (without exaggeration: it was the head of the royal hunting service, Senor Francois Antoine de Botern) seemed to be lucky. He shot a genuine monster, in which eyewitnesses recognized the Beast. Yes, and in his stomach they found the remains of human flesh ...

They did not guess to make a detailed description of the beast: so great was the general confidence that this was the Beast. In a non-detailed description, the suit known to all Zhevodan and an unusually massive physique appear, so that the weight was pulled by almost 60 kg (larger specimens of wolves are also found in Siberia and Canada, but in France they rarely reach even 30 kg!), And the length was only a little less than 2 m. In general terms, without specifying specific sizes, they speak of a very long tail and a large head. The shape of the muzzle, the shape of the ears, the shape and size of the fangs and claws - all this remained “behind the scenes”. However, an effigy was stuffed from the skin of the Beast, but it has not survived to this day: in 1819 it burned down in a fire.

Señor François, a man with colossal hunting experience, considered his prey to be a “freak of a wolf tribe”: he specifically tracked down and shot a very large she-wolf, with whom, in his opinion, the Beast “did tricks”, and then her only offspring, also very large but without any other deviations. Was he right in his suspicions? Who knows ... The court hunter still had no experience in comparative anatomy, so, being well versed in wolves, he could involuntarily “adjust the parameters of an unknown beast to the wolf standard”, especially if he really looked like a wolf! Maybe the wolves, not participating in the attacks on people, “ate up” the remains of the victims after the Beast? After all, they eat up a different kind of animal (for example, a bear) ...

De Botern received a well-deserved award (9400 livres - a fortune!) And, so to speak, "an extraordinary title of nobility." The Royal Council considered the case closed. And when, two weeks later, news came from Gévaudan that the epidemic of murders, it turned out, was continuing, there was no reaction to this.

The last period of the history of the Zhevaudan Beast is the most bitter. Left without help, the locals organized religious processions, then raids; they slaughtered cattle, not daring to send them to pasture; they went bankrupt because it became too dangerous to carry products to the market - and, despite all these precautions, they continued to die ...

During one of these raids on July 19, 1767, a wolf-like monster, almost an exact double of the one that was killed almost two years ago, was shot under the bullet of a local hunter Jean Chatel. And since then, the attacks have stopped.

In Paris, Chatel was not paid the prize: after all, “the issue is closed!”. Grateful residents of Zhevodan, however, collected a certain amount for him: as much as ... 72 livres. More ruined, exhausted edge could not select.

The Chatel trophy was described in great detail: this time, so that there was no doubt about the death of the Beast, the signatures of 28 respected eyewitnesses were collected. The protocol still does not indicate "saber-toothed" and "tiger" claws or tail, but in general the appearance of the animal is exactly as reported by the surviving witnesses of the attacks.

French researcher Alain Decaux, author of the Great Mysteries cycle, several years ago, analyzing the descriptions of the shot Beasts, spoke as follows: “From the smallest details it was clear that this was not a wolf. However, in our days, zoologists, having studied the same details no less carefully, have established that this is still a wolf ... "

Let us disagree with our French colleague. The notion that "modern scientists have analyzed all the details and finally figured everything out" goes back to a single scientific conference in the 1960s, at which the opinion was expressed that the description of the teeth of the Beast did not go beyond variations of the "wolf standard". As for all the other oddities, including the riddles of behavior, no unambiguous conclusions were made.

French scientists of the 18th century, including the great Buffon (who ignored the effigy of the first Beast and briefly examined the second), simply brushed aside the problem: of course, this is just an unusually large ferocious wolf, and only dense superstitions can suggest anything else! This was the scientific approach of the Age of Enlightenment... Modern biologists, even hypnotized by the conclusions of their predecessors, are not so categorical: each of the described signs INDIVIDUALLY can refer to a wolf, albeit "on the verge" of an acceptable one, but all of them together ... and even - strange habits …

The effigy of the second Beast, hastily made, emitted such a stench after a few days that the high society, which was still interested in this trophy, immediately considered it "unsuitable for consideration." The further fate of the exhibit is unknown - but it clearly could not be preserved.

Oddly enough, neither in the first nor in the second case there was an attempt to save the skeleton. There was no mention of scars, traces of healed wounds. But the Beast, he was in one or two "faces", received wounds from knives many times (at least once he was pierced so seriously that for some time, until the next attack, it seemed to everyone that this blow should be fatal). Twice, even before de Botern's shot, he fell under rifle fire (again, at least one wound, by common belief, should have been fatal, although it did not prevent the Beast from leaving). Is it possible that in 1765 and in 1767 not the animals that participated in the attacks were killed? Or did it simply not occur to eyewitnesses to pay attention to healed scars?

There were no drawings from nature either. At the moment, many drawings of the Zhevaudan Beast are known, but all of these are analogues of the "identikit" compiled from stories. As a result, they are rather weakly similar to each other, and one can only guess about the similarity with the original. Here is the most "revolving" of these drawings. Oddly enough, it is he who fixes the signs recognizable from a biological point of view. But they make you remember not about the wolf - but about the hyena.

Wooden relief of the 18th century in one of the churches of Gevaudan: The Beast carries off the prey, breaking the spears of the defenders, not paying attention either to the wounds or to the cross hanging from the neck of the victim... An unknown master tried to capture a werewolf, a "demonic wolf" - but, unexpectedly for himself, portrayed something like a hyena!

Another hyena... By the way, not all experts agreed to consider the Beast a wolf. For example, the English biologist D. Menatori, not convinced by the conclusion of the international conference, defended precisely this option.

Hyena, of course, for hunters accustomed to the European fauna, is an animal, firstly, hardly recognizable, and secondly, similar to a wolf. But the behavioral features, and the ultra-high combat capability of the Beast, are absolutely inapplicable to known types of hyena! Besides, how could a brood of geniuses get into Zhevodan?

In general, the Zhevodansky Beast is a very unpleasant incident for official biology: its existence cannot be denied (too much evidence), and it can only be attributed to a known species only “by force”.

It was also suggested that a maniac was operating with trained dogs. According to Dr. Hugh Trotti, a researcher of the problem of lycanthropy (a complex of legends about werewolves), references to a long tail testify in favor of this (in a wolf, his “log” is not too striking). Such a tail is much more likely to be found in a domestic dog!

True, in none of the attacks of the “tamer” was even close. But the assumption is not without meaning! After all, the current fighting dogs tend to bite into a person in the face. And they have a “boar face”: look at the bull terrier or, if you like, at such a purely French breed as the Dogue de Bordeaux! And the fangs (lower) sometimes stick out ...

And during the days of dog hunting, many pack owners experimented: they crossed dogs of different breeds, sometimes even hybridizing them with wolves!

Interestingly, two years before the appearance of the Beast in one of the neighboring districts, a “family firm” was arrested and convicted of setting on lonely travelers ... tame wolves (perhaps wolf-dog hybrids?), And then robbing the remains of those torn to pieces. The main accused was executed, the rest went to hard labor. And what happened to their "murder weapons"? Perhaps a couple of animals from the pack were left unattended? Then they could well continue the “business” to which they were accustomed, or even lure offspring to this (during the Zhevodan tragedy, not only de Botern, but also other hunters sometimes found unusually large wolf cubs in those parts and even adult wolves with “transitional signs”: it seems to be an ordinary beast, but it is somewhat similar to the Beast ...). In addition, the situation with mortal wounds is explained (unless, of course, their “lethality” was initially overestimated): since there are more predators than two, one of them could die unnoticed.

(By the way, at that time special armor was still used in dog hunts that protected selected dogs when baiting a dangerous beast: a bear, a wild boar ... If such armor is covered with fur to match the “natural” skin, it will be both inconspicuous and able to protect against cold weapons!)

The armor is also present in the famous film "The Brotherhood of the Wolf". True, the director generally brought together absolutely ALL versions that have been expressed over two centuries, and even added his own - so he got an absolutely monstrous vinaigrette!

Yes, there was apparently some kind of "Jack the Ripper" in Zhevodan. But, perhaps, he did not “cooperate” with the real Beast, but simply disguised his actions as him. After all, some of the victims, especially young girls, were “butchered” in the style of not a predator, but a maniac! At the time, this was considered as extra proof of the shape-shifting nature of the Beast, but then…

It was this version that formed the basis of one of the episodes of the novel about Til Ulenspiegel (remember: the maniac killer "masquerades" as a werewolf!). Yes, and Arthur Conan Doyle, creating his "Hound of the Baskervilles", did not forget about her. So in fact, we all know about the monster from Zhevodan since childhood. Another thing is that we do not always “recognize” it!

Returning to the version of the maniac, let's say: for a long time, the greatest suspicion in this sense is ... the Chatel clan. Perhaps not Jean himself, but one of his adult sons, Antoine Chatel. At one time he traveled a lot in the Muslim regions of the Mediterranean, was captured in Algeria, was, according to rumors, castrated - and returned home as a loser embittered by the whole world.

Yes, this is, perhaps, exactly the material from which serial killers are formed. In addition, according to some reports, Chatel Jr. was in captivity for some time the caretaker of the Sultan's menagerie (!), Which could also contain very exotic creatures. …

Some time ago, the well-known researcher of the Gévaudan Problem, G. Purrat, in a fictional form told the world the story of how the angry misanthrope Antoine Chatel returns from captivity with a tame hyena, how he teaches her to throw herself at people and uses her as a partner in murders, how, using the support of a family clan, remains beyond suspicion for a long time - and in the end, when the situation becomes too dangerous, he brings the trained beast under the shot of his father. (According to this version, the first Beast was still a wolf - but if a brood of hyenas was brought, all this could have been done in 1764.) Yes, this is more literature than science, but Gerald Menatori, already known to us, acted as a consultant for the book. !

To be honest, as a "maniac's accomplice" the hyena fits into the Gevaudan story worse than the wolfhound dog or the hybrid wolf. However, in the summer of 1997, another scientific discussion dedicated to the Zhevaudan Beast took place in Paris. Its participants did not expect any special news (after all, more than two hundred years have passed!) - but one of the reports had the effect of an exploding bomb.

This report was made by France Julien, not a cryptozoologist, but an "official" biologist, leading taxidermist of the Paris National Museum of Natural History. He collected all the data on the stuffed animal of the first Beast, which was kept in the museum's collection from 1766 to 1819, when it was destroyed by fire. And it turned out that, although Buffon's colleagues at first really "turned up their noses", nevertheless, during this period, several quite qualified naturalists examined the unique exhibit. They all gave it a clear definition: this skin was taken from a striped hyena.

Perhaps the clarity and unambiguity of the wording is evidence of the excessive "self-confidence" of science of those times. Determining the type of hyena only by the skin, without a skeleton or even a skull is not an easy task now: the appearance and color of these predators are very variable. But up to a family, a confident conclusion can indeed be drawn. And if Julien's data is accurate - apparently, a beast of the hyena family, and not a dog, raged in Zhevodan!

If in the version with the proto-bull terrier Antoine Chatel is just not an ideal candidate for maniacs (rather, this role suits one of the local nobles, owners of hunting packs), then the “genius version” with his personality, given his stay in Algeria, is easier to connect. A striped hyena lives in those parts (actually, it is more of an Asian animal, its range stretches to the Caucasus), and the spotted habitat (this is already exclusively African) is within easy reach. But can the types of hyenas known to us, even after special training - and they lend themselves to it much worse than dogs - look and behave like the Zhevaudan Beast?

Even if you consider almost all descriptions exaggerated - no, this is impossible. Suppose the eyewitnesses got it wrong with the shape of the muzzle and ears (especially since there really are disagreements); but there are still a few characteristic features. A long tail, powerful claws (combined with extraordinary jumping ability and a manner of fighting with the front paws), enlarged fangs, a massively squat physique. In hyenas, the opposite is more likely: they are high-legged and short-tailed - so, being noticeably heavier than a wolf (60 kg for them is a fairly average weight), they do not exceed it in length. They jump poorly, their front paws are relatively weak (especially in the striped one), and the claws are developed worse than those of a wolf or dog. The dental apparatus is extraordinarily strong, much stronger than a wolf's - but ... not due to fangs!

Yes, and the basic features of behavior can be changed by training no more than appearance, that is, not at all. It is completely excluded that a hyena alone, over and over again, rushed at a bull herd bristling with horns, or, even more so, an armed detachment, without retreating even after several wounds!

But all of the above applies to the species of hyenas KNOWN TO SCIENCE (in fact, there are two more species in the family, but they are even less suitable for the role of the Beast). Who can guarantee that in the Algerian menagerie of the XVIII century. was there a creature that fell out of the statistics of official science?

Monument to the Beast of Zhevaudan, located near the village of Sauge in Avignon

On the territory of Europe during the ice age (and possibly a little later) the so-called "cave hyena" lived. Her life was not really connected with the caves - just a number of finds of the bones of this animal were made there. About suit and habits, of course, nothing can be said; the skeleton as a whole corresponded to the spotted hyena - perhaps it was generally its very large subspecies. But, of course, she had time and even the need to noticeably evolve: the European fauna has changed very seriously compared to the Ice Age.

Apparently, there was also a certain crypto-species of hyena in North Africa (is it not a descendant of the cave one?). There is no data on Algeria, but on the ancient Egyptian frescoes there are images of these strange creatures, similar to their spotted counterparts, but exceeding their height and somewhat differing in physique.

And again - the main question: is it possible that the cave hyena, albeit as a small endangered species, lingered in Europe or Algeria for so long (if not until our days, then at least until the 18th century) without being noticed?

During one of the Caucasian scientific expeditions in 1991, a striped hyena was discovered on the territory of Kabarda: by the way, the official zoological reference books say that the last entry of this animal into the territory of the Caucasus was noted in the pre-war period! However, although any specialist (including an experienced hunter) at a glance will determine its sharp and undeniable difference from a wolf or a feral stray dog ​​- for an ignorant person, including ordinary hunters, these differences are almost imperceptible. Consequently, a small population can remain "invisible" for a long time - all observations are automatically transferred to its very distant "twins"...

What is true for the modern Caucasus, apparently, also applies to old Europe (not to mention the fact that in this case the importation of a pair of "puppies" from North Africa did not turn the problem of the Beast into biological nonsense). It is curious to note that the legends about werewolves, although they "mean" the transformation into a wolf, in fact contain some details that make one think of hyenas. So, the werewolf rips up fresh graves and eats corpses; such behavior is not alien to wolves, but it is more “befitting” for hyenas. Yes, and he himself, as a rule, is distinguishable from an ordinary wolf: not only more aggressive, but also larger, dressed in longer hair, sometimes forming a mane ... The legendary nature of this information does not refute anything in itself (after all, legends about werewolves do not make a wolf a mythical beast !) - but, perhaps, the very appearance of such legends is to some extent connected with "non-standard" wolves, which could well turn out to be animals of the hyena tribe! Especially if we recall the “laughing” or “sobbing” cries of hyenas, terrible for human hearing - which is why in Africa they themselves appear as werewolf animals ...

Perhaps this version is the least controversial. But it's hard to say if we'll ever know the whole truth!

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