Antoine de Beauterne
Encyclopedia
M. François Antoine, Officer of the Royal Bedchamber, Knight Equerry of the Royal Military Order of Saint Louis, served as Gun-Bearer to the King and Lieutenant of the Hunt under Louis XV of France
, and is most notable as having pursued and slain the Beast of Gévaudan
, its mate, and its whelps between 23 June and 17 October 1765.
Antoine, by personal decree of the King, arrived in Malzieu on 23 June 1765 to replace the ineffective Norman father-son duo of Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and Jean-François, who had been at the hunt since March with little to show for their efforts but the skins of ordinary wolves. His hunting party consisted of eight gamekeepers from the Royal Captaincies of the Hunt, two mounted gamekeepers on loan from the Duke of Orléans
, three aides of the Duke of Penthiévre
, a servant of the Prince de Condé, two doghandlers, a valet, and Antoine's own son, de Beauterne, of the Gendarmerie Royale. With him Antoine brought four male wolfhound
s and a female greyhound
, all hand-picked from the Royal Pack. He intended to supplement this small group with hounds from d'Enneval's own pack, as the Norman had yet to receive the recall of the King, and experienced dogs from local packs that had fought with the Beast.
Antoine first hunted with the d'Ennevals on 23 June, a Sunday, in the Malzieu area. Though the majority of the Gévaudanais were Catholic, thereby restricting them from strenuous activity on the Sabbath, Sunday hunts allowed the citizenry to depart from churches en-masse and move to the positions to which they had been assigned by local government officials, often as beaters
.
s as masters of the hunt in Gévaudan
, but they were proving to be equally unsuccessful in the field. On 8 April Duhamel relocated to new quarters at Pont-Saint-Esprit
with his mixed regiment, the Volunteers of Clermont
, having been removed and reassigned by Clément Charles François de Laverdy
, whose faith in the Duhamel placed him outside of the King's favour. Despite enjoying the reputation of a great wolf hunter
in Normandy
, d'Enneval having destroyed 1200 wolves during his career, the Beast remained at large. Moreover his surly demeanor towards the Gévaudanais and local government officials, including the Bishop of Mende, did not place him in a favorable position, no matter how much favour he had at the court of the King, where he was vouched for by the intendant
of his province M. Lallemant de Levignen.
Public confidence in the d'Ennevals collapsed on 24 May during the popular fair at Malzieu. The Beast made its first attack of the day at Julianges
, critically wounding twenty year-old Marguerite Martin, who received extreme unction
by the roadside from the vicar
of Saint-Privat. A mile from this episode, in Amourettes, a boy of eleven was seized, but the Beast was put to flight by neighbors coming to his aid. It then fell upon a boy and girl as they entered a copse, devouring thirteen year-old Marie Valét even as her companion attempted to fight off the assailant. When the boy brought help from local villagers, they found only a headless corpse from which most of the flesh had been eaten. A huntsman of d'Enneval was sent to set an ambush at the corpse of Valét, but the Beast did not return. Instead, it arrived in Lorciéres and attacked Marguerite Boney, eighteen, by the village of Marcillac, emerging from its hiding place in a juniper
thicket and rending her clothes until she was naked from the waist up. To her aid came sixteen year-old Pierre Tanavelle, whose aunt had been slain by the Beast on 23 February. Wielding an improvised spear he wounded the Beast, and it fled. News of these depredations reached the marketplace at Malzieu even as the Beast went about its business, prompting many to pack up their wares and head home.
Louis XV, upon hearing of the events of 24 May, became furious and informed his court that he intended to replace the d'Ennevals, who had fared no better than Duhamel before them, with Antoine. The Royal Gunbearer departed for the Gévaudan on 8 June. Antoine and the d'Ennevals cooperated in the field until 18 July, when de Laverdy assented to the orders of Étienne Lafont, syndic
of the estates of the Gévaudan and subdelegate to the intendant of Languedoc
, to remove the Normans and give Antoine complete control of the hunt. D'Enneval and son soon returned to Normandy after they were mocked for their futile efforts at the court of the King. A contemporary was noted as saying the d'Ennevals bore "shame tantamount to that of a fox who has been caught by a chicken."
Several local government officials were soon the recipients of a communique from Antoine titled Observations, including Louis Phélypeaux, Count de Saint-Florentin and Ministre d'État
; M. Marie-Joseph-Emmanuel de Guignard de Saint-Priest, intendant of the Languedoc; and Jean-Bapstiste de Morin, Count de Moncan, the provincial commander who had originally assigned Duhamel to the hunt. His correspondence highlighted the extreme severity of the terrain in the Gévaudan, which Antoine found more difficult than that of any region he had hunted in the last fifty years, including all of France, and locales in Germany, Piedmont
, and the Pyrenees
. He also requested a dozen sergeants to organize the peasants who served as beaters during the large hunts, and pleaded for a detachment of hounds and coursers to replace the dogs of his own pack, which were faring none too well. The Duke of Penthiévre, who had already donated three of his personal huntsmen to Antoine's cause, was among the nobility to which Antoine sent his requests.
On 11 August, Marie-Jeanne Valet and her younger sister were attacked while fording a tributary of the River Desges, on the road from Paulhac-en-Margeride
to Broussous. Valet successfully defended herself and her sister with a bayonet
mounted at the end of a staff, wounding the Beast, which threw itself into the river and thrashed about madly before escaping. Antoine and company quickly made their way to Paulhac when they heard of this event, praising Marie-Jeanne for her bravery. The Royal Gunbearer compared her favourably to Joan of Arc
, calling her the "Maid of the Gévaudan." Unconvinced that the Beast had been wounded to the death, however, he remained in the field. Writing to M. Saint-Priest, Antoine respectfully requested if a monetary reward for Marie-Jeanne Valet would be forthcoming. "By the way", he added, "I have sent to the royal kennels for help, just in case the Beast is not dead. While awaiting the arrival of this help, we shall gather all our strength and our wits to finish thereby the tragedy whose sad enactment has gone on too long."
Antoine was in Besseyre on 19 August for a special mass
said in honour of the Holy Ghost
, attended by many members of the surrounding parishes and presided over by such notables as the prior
of Prévac, the prior-vicar of Nozeyrolles, and the vicars of Paulhac, Sauges, and Venteuges. A procession of Antoine's huntsmen in full dress lead to the nearby castle at Besset, where a feast was held, followed by a celebration in honour of Saint Louis
, accompanied by fireworks
, fusillade
s, and the music of hunting horns
. The men were in good spirits after the festivities, some believing that Marie-Jean Valet's bayonet thrust on 11 August had done the Beast in. Their spirits fell when a woman of twenty-two was attacked near the village of Diége on 2 September. Attacks increased in frequency through the first weeks of the month, on 8, 11, 12, and 13 September, resulting in four injuries and two deaths, and Antoine was at the verge of surrender. "Had I the wit of a Voltaire
", wrote Antoine to Saint-Priest and Lafont, tantamount to a resignation with the onset of winter, "I could pen a moving farewell." On 16 September, as he was composing his official withdrawal from the hunt, he was surprised by the arrival of two doghandlers and a dozen hounds, the progeny of the requests he had submitted at the end of July. Heartened, Antoine abandoned his surrender and again took to the field.
had been located in the Pommier Woods, north of the abbey Sainte-Marie-des-Chazes. The forest was soon surrounded. Antoine's hunting party, bolstered by the addition of forty sharpshooters from Langeac and elsewhere, moved into the trees, houndsmen at the front. Antoine himself had set up at the exit to a defile known as the Béal Ravine, and it was there that he encountered the wolf as it emerged from the forest. His musket loaded with no less than five charges of powder, a ball, and thirty to forty pieces of shrapnel known as "wolf shot", he fired at a range of fifty yards, the kick of his weapon knocking him nearly to the ground. The wolf collapsed, having taken the ball to his right eye and the shot to his right shoulder and side. As Antoine raised the call of triumph to his fellow huntsmen, the wolf struggled to its feet and made straight for him, only to be put to flight by a shot from Rinchard, cousin to Antoine and one of the mounted gamekeepers supplied by the Duke of Orléans. The wolf, struck by Rinchard's shot, made a dash of twenty-five yards before at last dropping dead.
Le Loup de Chazes, as it was afterward known, was six feet long, slightly over three feet tall, and weighed a hundred and forty pounds. Antoine was anxious to confirm without doubt that the dead animal before him was the Beast, so it was soon taken to Besset where a necropsy was performed by the surgeon Boulanger. Though no human remains were uncovered in its stomach or intestines, a number of individuals who had been attacked by the Beast came forward and identified Antoine's wolf as their assailant, including Marie-Jeanne Valet, whom Antoine had called the "Maid of the Gévaudan." His hopes confirmed, Antoine arranged for the embalming of the animal, whose carcass was to be presented before Louis XV himself.
The death of the Wolf of Chazes notwithstanding, Antoine was unable to locate the rest of the wolf pack. The she-wolf and her whelps remained unaccounted for until October. It was said at the time that Antoine, having left his post at the Pommier Woods when his father Antoine let out his cry of victory, allowed the escape of the she-wolf and whelps, he having been positioned at the edge of forest where they made their escape.
On 5 October Antoine again hunted in the Forest of Chazes and his marksmen shot and wounded the she-wolf, which escaped. His renewed activities had keept the Beast's mate and its progeny at bay; during this week they had killed nothing but sheep. On 13 October Antoine returned to Chazes at the behest of Madame de Guerin de Lugeac, prioress of Sainte-Marie-des-Chazes, who reported the presence of two wolves in her timber preserves. After a pursuit of nearly an hour and a half, Regnault, one of the eight gamekeepers from the Royal Captaincies of the Hunt, wounded the she-wolf, and she was finished off by two sharpshooters from Langeac twenty yards from where Antoine had fired on the Wolf of Chazes, the Beast, on 21 September. The she-wolf was twenty-six inches at the shoulder and showed signs of having recently nursed whelps. Antoine, who believed the first whelp to have fallen on 4 October, surmised that but one wolf remained.
17 October brought the death of the last wolf, shot fittingly by Antoine himself. The carcasses of the wolf and its mother were poorly preserved, unlike that of the Beast, and prepared for shipment to Versailles
. The reward for the slaying of the Beast, by now hovering at ten-thousand livres
, Antoine distributed among his huntsmen while only taking a small fraction for himself. After more than four months in the field Antoine departed the Gévaudan for Versailles on 3 November, reaching the court of the King where he received copious praise for his victory, the Cross of the Order of Saint Louis
, a pension of a thousand livres, and the right to add the image of the Beast to his coat of arms
.
Attacks ceased for a time after the destruction of the Loup de Chazes, the she-wolf, and her whelps, but began anew on 3 December 1765, and continued until 19 June 1767. It was Gévaudan rustic Jean Chastel
who ended the scourge of the wolves once and for all, mortally wounding the new Beast at Mountmouchet during a hunt organized by M. le Marquis d'Apcher. It was guessed by many at the time that the whelp Antoine had believed to be wounded to the death on 4 October was the animal killed by Chastel, which had retreated into the Margeride Range for two months, recuperating and growing in size and returning to continue the depredations of its sire.
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
, and is most notable as having pursued and slain the Beast of Gévaudan
Beast of Gévaudan
The Beast of Gévaudan is a name given to man-eating wolf-like animals alleged to have terrorized the former province of Gévaudan , in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767 over an area stretching . The beasts were consistently described by eyewitnesses as having...
, its mate, and its whelps between 23 June and 17 October 1765.
Antoine, by personal decree of the King, arrived in Malzieu on 23 June 1765 to replace the ineffective Norman father-son duo of Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and Jean-François, who had been at the hunt since March with little to show for their efforts but the skins of ordinary wolves. His hunting party consisted of eight gamekeepers from the Royal Captaincies of the Hunt, two mounted gamekeepers on loan from the Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe d'Orléans known as le Gros , was a French nobleman, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the dynasty then ruling France. The First Prince of the Blood after 1752, he was the most senior male at the French court after the immediate royal family. He was the father of...
, three aides of the Duke of Penthiévre
Counts and dukes of Penthièvre
In the 11th and 12th centuries the countship of Penthièvre in Brittany belonged to a branch of the sovereign house of Brittany. Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany, gave it to his brother Eudes in 1035, and the line formed a cadet branch of the ducal house of Brittany...
, a servant of the Prince de Condé, two doghandlers, a valet, and Antoine's own son, de Beauterne, of the Gendarmerie Royale. With him Antoine brought four male wolfhound
Wolfhound
Wolfhound can refer to various breeds of dogs that have been bred to hunt wolves or to established lines of wolf-dog crosses that retain significant characteristics of wolves. Wolf-dog hybrids crossed in recent generations are often referred to as wolfdogs, wolf-dog hybrids or wolf crosses, but...
s and a female greyhound
Greyhound
The Greyhound is a breed of sighthound that has been primarily bred for coursing game and racing, and the breed has also recently seen a resurgence in its popularity as a pedigree show dog and family pet. It is a gentle and intelligent breed...
, all hand-picked from the Royal Pack. He intended to supplement this small group with hounds from d'Enneval's own pack, as the Norman had yet to receive the recall of the King, and experienced dogs from local packs that had fought with the Beast.
Antoine first hunted with the d'Ennevals on 23 June, a Sunday, in the Malzieu area. Though the majority of the Gévaudanais were Catholic, thereby restricting them from strenuous activity on the Sabbath, Sunday hunts allowed the citizenry to depart from churches en-masse and move to the positions to which they had been assigned by local government officials, often as beaters
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
.
Background
The d'Ennevals themselves had on 17 February replaced capitaine-aide-major Duhamel and his fifty-seven dragoonDragoon
The word dragoon originally meant mounted infantry, who were trained in horse riding as well as infantry fighting skills. However, usage altered over time and during the 18th century, dragoons evolved into conventional light cavalry units and personnel...
s as masters of the hunt in Gévaudan
Gévaudan
Gévaudan is a historical area of France, nowadays situated in Lozère département. It took its name from the Gabali, a Gallic tribe subordinate to the Arverni.- History :...
, but they were proving to be equally unsuccessful in the field. On 8 April Duhamel relocated to new quarters at Pont-Saint-Esprit
Pont-Saint-Esprit
Pont-Saint-Esprit is a commune in the Gard département in southern France. It is situated on the Rhône River and is the site of a historical crossing, hence its name...
with his mixed regiment, the Volunteers of Clermont
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department...
, having been removed and reassigned by Clément Charles François de Laverdy
Clément Charles François de Laverdy
Clément Charles François de Laverdy was a French statesman.-Life:He was a member of the parlement of Paris when the case against the Jesuits came before that body in August 1761...
, whose faith in the Duhamel placed him outside of the King's favour. Despite enjoying the reputation of a great wolf hunter
Wolf hunting
Wolf hunting is the practice of hunting grey wolves or other lupine animals. Wolves are mainly hunted for sport, for their skins, to protect livestock, and, in some rare cases, to protect humans. Wolves have been actively hunted since 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, when they first began to pose...
in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, d'Enneval having destroyed 1200 wolves during his career, the Beast remained at large. Moreover his surly demeanor towards the Gévaudanais and local government officials, including the Bishop of Mende, did not place him in a favorable position, no matter how much favour he had at the court of the King, where he was vouched for by the intendant
Intendant
The title of intendant has been used in several countries through history. Traditionally, it refers to the holder of a public administrative office...
of his province M. Lallemant de Levignen.
Julianges
Julianges is a commune in the Lozère department in southern France.-References:*...
, critically wounding twenty year-old Marguerite Martin, who received extreme unction
Anointing of the Sick (Catholic Church)
Anointing of the Sick is a sacrament of the Catholic Church that is administered to Catholics who because of sickness or old age are in danger of death, even if the danger is not proximate...
by the roadside from the vicar
Vicar
In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...
of Saint-Privat. A mile from this episode, in Amourettes, a boy of eleven was seized, but the Beast was put to flight by neighbors coming to his aid. It then fell upon a boy and girl as they entered a copse, devouring thirteen year-old Marie Valét even as her companion attempted to fight off the assailant. When the boy brought help from local villagers, they found only a headless corpse from which most of the flesh had been eaten. A huntsman of d'Enneval was sent to set an ambush at the corpse of Valét, but the Beast did not return. Instead, it arrived in Lorciéres and attacked Marguerite Boney, eighteen, by the village of Marcillac, emerging from its hiding place in a juniper
Juniper
Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...
thicket and rending her clothes until she was naked from the waist up. To her aid came sixteen year-old Pierre Tanavelle, whose aunt had been slain by the Beast on 23 February. Wielding an improvised spear he wounded the Beast, and it fled. News of these depredations reached the marketplace at Malzieu even as the Beast went about its business, prompting many to pack up their wares and head home.
Louis XV, upon hearing of the events of 24 May, became furious and informed his court that he intended to replace the d'Ennevals, who had fared no better than Duhamel before them, with Antoine. The Royal Gunbearer departed for the Gévaudan on 8 June. Antoine and the d'Ennevals cooperated in the field until 18 July, when de Laverdy assented to the orders of Étienne Lafont, syndic
Syndic
Syndic , a term applied in certain countries to an officer of government with varying powers, and secondly to a representative or delegate of a university, institution or other corporation, entrusted with special functions or powers.The meaning which underlies both applications is that of...
of the estates of the Gévaudan and subdelegate to the intendant of Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
, to remove the Normans and give Antoine complete control of the hunt. D'Enneval and son soon returned to Normandy after they were mocked for their futile efforts at the court of the King. A contemporary was noted as saying the d'Ennevals bore "shame tantamount to that of a fox who has been caught by a chicken."
July through September
Antoine had been busy in the field long before the d'Ennevals packed for Normandy. On 6 July he and his party arrived in Broussolles, where a cowherd had been slain by the Beast two days before. Antoine discovered two sets of tracks at the site of the latest attack, that of a large male wolf and a she-wolf, which he suspected to be the Beast's mate. If the Beast had in fact reproduced, Antoine surmised, the she-wolf and whelps would have to be destroyed as well. His first formal hunt occurred on 11 July, but yielded nothing, and activity among the huntsmen was sporadic for the remainder of the month due to heavy rains, with large-scale hunts on 24 and 28 July. The Beast, however, continued to assail the Gévaudanais irrespective of the weather.Several local government officials were soon the recipients of a communique from Antoine titled Observations, including Louis Phélypeaux, Count de Saint-Florentin and Ministre d'État
Minister of State
Minister of State is a title borne by politicians or officials in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a "minister of state" is a junior minister, who is assigned to assist a specific cabinet minister...
; M. Marie-Joseph-Emmanuel de Guignard de Saint-Priest, intendant of the Languedoc; and Jean-Bapstiste de Morin, Count de Moncan, the provincial commander who had originally assigned Duhamel to the hunt. His correspondence highlighted the extreme severity of the terrain in the Gévaudan, which Antoine found more difficult than that of any region he had hunted in the last fifty years, including all of France, and locales in Germany, Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, and the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
. He also requested a dozen sergeants to organize the peasants who served as beaters during the large hunts, and pleaded for a detachment of hounds and coursers to replace the dogs of his own pack, which were faring none too well. The Duke of Penthiévre, who had already donated three of his personal huntsmen to Antoine's cause, was among the nobility to which Antoine sent his requests.
On 11 August, Marie-Jeanne Valet and her younger sister were attacked while fording a tributary of the River Desges, on the road from Paulhac-en-Margeride
Paulhac-en-Margeride
Paulhac-en-Margeride is a commune in the Lozère departement in southern France.-References:*...
to Broussous. Valet successfully defended herself and her sister with a bayonet
Bayonet
A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit in, on, over or underneath the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear...
mounted at the end of a staff, wounding the Beast, which threw itself into the river and thrashed about madly before escaping. Antoine and company quickly made their way to Paulhac when they heard of this event, praising Marie-Jeanne for her bravery. The Royal Gunbearer compared her favourably to Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
, calling her the "Maid of the Gévaudan." Unconvinced that the Beast had been wounded to the death, however, he remained in the field. Writing to M. Saint-Priest, Antoine respectfully requested if a monetary reward for Marie-Jeanne Valet would be forthcoming. "By the way", he added, "I have sent to the royal kennels for help, just in case the Beast is not dead. While awaiting the arrival of this help, we shall gather all our strength and our wits to finish thereby the tragedy whose sad enactment has gone on too long."
Antoine was in Besseyre on 19 August for a special mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
said in honour of the Holy Ghost
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
, attended by many members of the surrounding parishes and presided over by such notables as the prior
Prior
Prior is an ecclesiastical title, derived from the Latin adjective for 'earlier, first', with several notable uses.-Monastic superiors:A Prior is a monastic superior, usually lower in rank than an Abbot. In the Rule of St...
of Prévac, the prior-vicar of Nozeyrolles, and the vicars of Paulhac, Sauges, and Venteuges. A procession of Antoine's huntsmen in full dress lead to the nearby castle at Besset, where a feast was held, followed by a celebration in honour of Saint Louis
Louis of Toulouse
Saint Louis of Toulouse was a cadet of the royal French house of Anjou who was made a Catholic bishop. The California mission, city and county of San Luis Obispo, California, are named after him....
, accompanied by fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
, fusillade
Fusillade
A fusillade is the simultaneous and continuous firing of a group of firearms on command. It stems from the French word fusil, meaning firearm, and fusiller meaning to shoot....
s, and the music of hunting horns
Natural horn
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the modern-day horn, and is differentiated by its lack of valves. It consists of a mouthpiece, some long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. Pitch changes are made through a few different techniques:* Modulating the lip tension as...
. The men were in good spirits after the festivities, some believing that Marie-Jean Valet's bayonet thrust on 11 August had done the Beast in. Their spirits fell when a woman of twenty-two was attacked near the village of Diége on 2 September. Attacks increased in frequency through the first weeks of the month, on 8, 11, 12, and 13 September, resulting in four injuries and two deaths, and Antoine was at the verge of surrender. "Had I the wit of a Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
", wrote Antoine to Saint-Priest and Lafont, tantamount to a resignation with the onset of winter, "I could pen a moving farewell." On 16 September, as he was composing his official withdrawal from the hunt, he was surprised by the arrival of two doghandlers and a dozen hounds, the progeny of the requests he had submitted at the end of July. Heartened, Antoine abandoned his surrender and again took to the field.
Loup de Chazes
On 19 September, a huntsman informed Antoine that a large wolf had been sighted in Saint-Julien-des-Chazes, and that a she-wolf and her whelps were nearby. Antoine and his party quickly moved in, and on 21 September a doghandler gave the good news that the entire wolf packPack (canine)
Pack is a social group of conspecific canids. Not all species of canids - notably the red fox - form packs. Pack size and social behaviour within packs varies across species.-Species which exhibit pack behavior:...
had been located in the Pommier Woods, north of the abbey Sainte-Marie-des-Chazes. The forest was soon surrounded. Antoine's hunting party, bolstered by the addition of forty sharpshooters from Langeac and elsewhere, moved into the trees, houndsmen at the front. Antoine himself had set up at the exit to a defile known as the Béal Ravine, and it was there that he encountered the wolf as it emerged from the forest. His musket loaded with no less than five charges of powder, a ball, and thirty to forty pieces of shrapnel known as "wolf shot", he fired at a range of fifty yards, the kick of his weapon knocking him nearly to the ground. The wolf collapsed, having taken the ball to his right eye and the shot to his right shoulder and side. As Antoine raised the call of triumph to his fellow huntsmen, the wolf struggled to its feet and made straight for him, only to be put to flight by a shot from Rinchard, cousin to Antoine and one of the mounted gamekeepers supplied by the Duke of Orléans. The wolf, struck by Rinchard's shot, made a dash of twenty-five yards before at last dropping dead.
The death of the Wolf of Chazes notwithstanding, Antoine was unable to locate the rest of the wolf pack. The she-wolf and her whelps remained unaccounted for until October. It was said at the time that Antoine, having left his post at the Pommier Woods when his father Antoine let out his cry of victory, allowed the escape of the she-wolf and whelps, he having been positioned at the edge of forest where they made their escape.
She-wolf and whelps
Antoine, fearing that the hunger and ferocity of the Beast may have passed into its offspring, also resolved to destroy the she-wolf and its whelps, ignoring premature celebration over the events of 21 September. From 22 September to 3 October Antoine and his party continued the hunt to no avail. On 4 October, however, Antoine returned to the abbey of Sainte-Marie-des-Chazes, where his huntsmen wounded one of two wolves traveling together. Due to the evidence at hand, Antoine believed that the wounded wolf was one of the cubs and, moreover, had suffered a mortal injury.On 5 October Antoine again hunted in the Forest of Chazes and his marksmen shot and wounded the she-wolf, which escaped. His renewed activities had keept the Beast's mate and its progeny at bay; during this week they had killed nothing but sheep. On 13 October Antoine returned to Chazes at the behest of Madame de Guerin de Lugeac, prioress of Sainte-Marie-des-Chazes, who reported the presence of two wolves in her timber preserves. After a pursuit of nearly an hour and a half, Regnault, one of the eight gamekeepers from the Royal Captaincies of the Hunt, wounded the she-wolf, and she was finished off by two sharpshooters from Langeac twenty yards from where Antoine had fired on the Wolf of Chazes, the Beast, on 21 September. The she-wolf was twenty-six inches at the shoulder and showed signs of having recently nursed whelps. Antoine, who believed the first whelp to have fallen on 4 October, surmised that but one wolf remained.
17 October brought the death of the last wolf, shot fittingly by Antoine himself. The carcasses of the wolf and its mother were poorly preserved, unlike that of the Beast, and prepared for shipment to Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
. The reward for the slaying of the Beast, by now hovering at ten-thousand livres
French livre
The livre was the currency of France until 1795. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre was the name of both units of account and coins.-Etymology:...
, Antoine distributed among his huntsmen while only taking a small fraction for himself. After more than four months in the field Antoine departed the Gévaudan for Versailles on 3 November, reaching the court of the King where he received copious praise for his victory, the Cross of the Order of Saint Louis
Order of Saint Louis
The Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis was a military Order of Chivalry founded on 5 April 1693 by Louis XIV and named after Saint Louis . It was intended as a reward for exceptional officers, and is notable as the first decoration that could be granted to non-nobles...
, a pension of a thousand livres, and the right to add the image of the Beast to his coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
.
Attacks ceased for a time after the destruction of the Loup de Chazes, the she-wolf, and her whelps, but began anew on 3 December 1765, and continued until 19 June 1767. It was Gévaudan rustic Jean Chastel
Jean Chastel
Jean Chastel was a local farmer and inn-keeper, noted for killing the Beast of Gévaudan on June 19, 1767 at Mont Mouchet. According to tradition and several subsequent novels, he positioned himself on a prime spot to get first bids on the beast and opened the Bible...
who ended the scourge of the wolves once and for all, mortally wounding the new Beast at Mountmouchet during a hunt organized by M. le Marquis d'Apcher. It was guessed by many at the time that the whelp Antoine had believed to be wounded to the death on 4 October was the animal killed by Chastel, which had retreated into the Margeride Range for two months, recuperating and growing in size and returning to continue the depredations of its sire.
Popular culture
Antoine appeared as a character in the French film The Brotherhood of the Wolf where he is played by Johan Leysen, though the treatment of his character is greatly at odds with the official version of events.See also
- Wolf of SoissonsWolf of SoissonsThe Wolf of Soissons was a man-eating wolf which terrorized the commune of Soissons northeast of Paris over a period of two days in 1765, attacking eighteen people, four of whom died from their wounds....
- Wolves of PérigordWolves of PérigordThe Wolves of Périgord were a pack of man-eating wolves that plagued the northwestern regions of Périgord, France, in February 1766. According to official records, the wolves killed eighteen people and wounded many others before they were eliminated....
- Wolf of SarlatWolf of SarlatThe Wolf of Sarlat attacked and wounded seventeen people in Sarlat, France, in June 1766. Unlike other wolves that had become man-eaters, it was notable in that it attacked only grown men, standing on its hind legs to get at the face and neck. A burgher of Saint-Julien, Monsieur Dubex de Descamps,...
- Hunting of Jean-BaptisteHunting of Jean-BaptisteThe Hunting of Jean-Baptiste was a wolf-hunt that began in France and ended somewhere in the Duchy of Luxembourg, and is notable not only for the detailed record of the chase that survived but as an excellent representative of modernized hunting in the medieval style...
- List of fatal wolf attacks
- Wolfcatcher RoyalWolfcatcher RoyalThe Wolfcatcher Royal , a position also known historically as the Grand Wolfcatcher which is presently known as lieutenant de louveterie, was first established as a prestigious office in the House of the King during the Ancien Régime and Bourbon Restoration of France, tracing its inception to the...
, who curiously was not assigned to this task - Wolf huntingWolf huntingWolf hunting is the practice of hunting grey wolves or other lupine animals. Wolves are mainly hunted for sport, for their skins, to protect livestock, and, in some rare cases, to protect humans. Wolves have been actively hunted since 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, when they first began to pose...