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The Beast Of Gévaudan Terrorized France For Years - But Was It The First Serial Killer?
Jan 16, 2026
Thanks to an unknown beast seemingly roaming the countryside and tearing innocent people limb from limb, the years 1764-1767 were not a great time to be a citizen of rural France. The Beast of Gévaudan, named after the southern province of France it dominated, terrorized small farming villages and, eventually, the entirety of France, even capturing the attention of King Louis XV.
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Between 1764 and 1767, the Beast of Gévaudan
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named after the province in France where it stalked its victims, terrorized small farming villages and, eventually, the entirety of France
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But was this murderous, bloodthirsty monster an escaped zoo animal or one of the world's first and most prolific serial killers
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Or something else entirely? Well, today we're going to take a look at the strange case of the Beast of Gévaudan
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Okay, round up an old-timey posse, because it's time to hunt down some weird history
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The Beast of Gévaudan attacked over 200 people over a three-year period from 1764 to 1767
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In the centuries since the beast terrorized the people of rural France, researchers have given the death toll various estimates
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In 1987, historians took a deeper look at the records from that time
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including church records, personal letters, death certificates, and publications. This was the most in-depth research ever conducted into the attacks
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and the results suggested that the beast was extremely dedicated to its work
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The historians discovered that over 200 people claimed to have been attacked by the beast
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Of those victims, 113 were killed, and 98 had been partially eaten
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Just partially? Maybe the beast was counting calories. Interestingly, none of the people who survived a visit from the creature developed rabies
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instantly putting the kibosh on any theory that the culprit may have been a rabid wolf gone mad
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In 18th century rural France, news spread by word of mouth. And in the small farming villages of
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Gévaudan, rumor and fear spread quickly, like a wildfire, or Twitter, or Twitter during a wildfire
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Soon enough, people were sharpening their spears and pitchforks, ready to protect themselves and
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their families from, well, whatever the murderous monster turned out to be. No one really knew what
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it was, but that doesn't stop anybody from arming themselves. The first murder of a young girl, 14-year-old Jean Boulay
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took place in June 1764. Soon after, the attacks and murders were happening so frequently
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the growing panic became impossible to ignore. Rumors began flying. Some claimed the culprit was not just one ferocious beast
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but an entire herd of them. Others claimed to have seen the beast or have chased it off or killed it
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These stories were likely embellished by the people telling them to get the attention of the townsfolk
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Tales began to spread of the beast attacking in the middle of the day, and even of it flying down from the sky above
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Flying wolves? There's another thing to worry about. This brought the fear and panic to a boiling point that captured the attention of lawmakers
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The beast death toll was rising so local infantry captain Jean Duhamel decided to take action He organized a troop of 30 men to track hunt down and kill the ferocious beast That 30 with three four zeros
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That is a lot of dudes. However, even after an entire year of pursuing the monster
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with the biggest posse in history, Duhamel had very little to show for his efforts
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Despite a rising death toll, the army only managed to catch up with what they thought was the beast a single time
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But it escaped with a gunshot wound, seemingly unharmed. The people grew desperate, and they began to lose hope
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And honestly, we get it. 30,000 guys, and all you get is a swing and a miss
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The army couldn't find this thing, and moving wasn't an option. It was 18th century rural France
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Where would you move to? In J.M. Smith's 2011 book, Monsters of the Gévaudan
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The Making of a Beast, he quotes a contemporary newspaper article which reports that the soldiers have neither
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been able to stop it, because it is more agile than they, nor lure it into their traps because it surpasses them in cunning, nor engage in combat when it
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presents itself to them because its terrifying appearance weakens their courage, disturbs their
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vision, sets their hands shaking, and neutralizes their skill. So to recap, the beast was smarter
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and faster than the soldiers, and so frightening that one look at it would render you useless in
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a fight. Either they were hunting an actual werewolf, or they were buying into the spreading
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hysteria, or the soldiers were weaving a colorful story because they hadn't been able to catch the
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damn thing. After a year of fruitless effort from Captain Jean-Baptiste
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Douamal's infantry, King Louis XV was finally made aware of what was happening in the small, rural province of Gévaudan
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The situation was brought to the king's attention through the actions of a group of youngsters
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who had heroically saved their friends from death by driving the beast away with sticks
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Yeah, that notoriously savage monster whom 30,000 of the king's soldiers had been unable to stop
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Somebody's fibbing. Nothing stings like getting shown up by the goonies. After rewarding the young boys for their bravery, the king learned that victims were still being
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murdered, mutilated, and eaten. He knew he had to take further action, so the king offered a 6,000 livres reward, the equivalent
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of roughly 200,000 US dollars today, for anyone who could kill the beast and bring him its corpse
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After the Beast of Gévaudan became front page news, one of King Louis XV's advisors
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dispatched a famed Norman wolf hunter named Jean-Charles Deneval to track the monster down
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Allegedly, Deneval had killed over 1,200 wolves. That's impressive and way too many wolves
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Or even find that many wolves. But as is often the case, the reputation that precedes
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Thank you He sent his own gunman Francois Antoine to the small town of G to hunt down
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the monster. At the time, Antoine was 71 years old, which is older than most Supreme Court justices
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not exactly the image of a spry hunter. Antoine may have been in his 70s, but he had years of experience protecting the most
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important man in France. Despite difficulties with the area's rough terrain, Antoine shot a
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massive wolf in September 1765. It seemed as though Antoine had succeeded where 30,000 infantrymen
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a group of kids with sticks, and the famous wolf hunter Jean-Charles Donival had failed
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The people of Gévaudan thought the killing spree was finally over. They were wrong
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While Francois-Antoine did kill what seemed to be a massive wolf
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the murders continued a few months later, much to the chagrin of the people of Gévaudan and King Louis XV
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Predictably, when the murders resumed, the king and his court denied that the beast was to blame
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maintaining that Francois-Antoine had taken care of it. However, a cluster of brutal attacks in the summer of 1767
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made the truth impossible to ignore. The beast was back. Since the king had no longer any interest in helping
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the town of Gévaudan had to take matters into their own hands. Marie-Jean Vallée was a teenage girl who became an unsung hero
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in the battle to end the beast of Gévaudan's reign of terror. She claimed to have been traveling through the woods to a neighboring farm
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when an unusually large wolf attacked. She had been carrying a handmade spear just for such a moment
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When village wolf attacks her up, you make sure to keep a wooden lance in your purse. She stabbed the beast directly in the chest, injuring it, but not killing it
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It whimpered and ran away. Artist Philippe Capelin erected a monument to Marie-Jean in Auvers Village, France
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to pay homage to the young girl who nearly felled the beast, provided the wolf she'd encountered was, in fact, the beast
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and that she didn't make the whole thing up. Never let the truth get in the way of a cool legend or monument
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One particular citizen of Gévaudan, a farmer named Jean Chastel, was prepared to take the beast down once and for all
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According to some versions of the story, Shastel melted down several religious amulets to make silver bullets and tracked the beast into the mountains
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Honestly, you really can't blame him for the silver. At this point, wooden steaks and garlic would seem reasonable
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Allegedly, he lured the beast by sitting in a clearing and pretending to read the Bible
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The beast, who apparently had an appetite for Christians, could not resist
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As soon as it approached, the farmer fired a silver bullet into the massive wolf, killing it instantly
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He brought the corpse to King Louis XV, and the whole ordeal was declared to be over
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To this day a monument to Jean Chastel the Beast Slayer is proudly displayed in La Bessere Saint France
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Over 200 people were attacked by the beast, but 98 of them survived to tell the tale
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Many witness accounts were recorded, and some of the victims claimed the beast had spots or stripes
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that resembled a hyena. Over the years, with most witnesses describing the beast as something
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other than a wolf, people began to wonder what the creature even was. Many claimed it had a long
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tail like a panther, stripes of red fur, or even talons. That kind of sounds like battle cat. Could
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it actually be? No. No. No, it's not battle cat. Cryptozoologists favor the hyena theory and have
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even tried to change the name of the case from the beast of Gébaudin to the hyena of Gébaudin
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One problem with this theory is that hyenas had been extinct from Europe for thousands of years at
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the time of the attacks. But it's been suggested that a rich, upper-class Frenchman might have been foolish enough to
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have an African hyena as a pet, and it escaped, wreaking havoc on the French countryside
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Another hypothesis casts the beast as a vicious hyena that escaped from a zoo
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Others believe it could have been a lion, a theory that forms the basis of the 2001 film
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Le Pacte des Loupes, or Brotherhood of the Wolf. And while there are no records to support the idea that the beast was a hyena or a lion
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that movie is pretty badass. The concept of the serial killer was unknown in 1767
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but some modern observers have suggested the alleged beast was really a man in wolf's clothing
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which is elaborate but not entirely unbelievable. An overwhelming number of the beast's victims
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were women and children. All of the murdered victims were severely mutilated
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some decapitated, and some partially eaten. And bizarrely, in some cases, the victim's clothing
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was allegedly found neatly folded next to the body. If a murderer wanted to target a bunch of victims in a rural area without getting caught
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dressing up in a wolf costume isn't the craziest idea. And if a wild animal was committing these crimes, why would it bother to neatly fold
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its victim's clothes? Of course, wild animals naturally prey on children because they're easy targets, and
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the victims may have removed their clothing themselves for some unknown reason before
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they were attacked. Unfortunately, we were still a century or two away from the premiere of CSI, so no bite
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marks, DNA samples, or fingerprints were collected. Finally, while the notion of an unidentified beast or a mysterious serial killer certainly
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makes for a great copy, the truth might be considerably less romantic
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Experts have pointed out that attacks by wolves were a widespread and well-known problem
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in 18th century Europe. In fact, tens of thousands of people were killed by wolves during that era
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Records even show similar but unrelated incidents occurring at the same time as the hysteria
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over the beast. It is possible, if not likely, that the beast of Gévaudan was simply the attacks of many
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different wolves that were compounded into a single monstrous beast by the public's imagination
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Still, it's a heck of a good story