I can confirm that ! and also that summarising the story in less than 10 minutes is a hell of a feat that deserves to be remembered ;-) For those interested in details of the story, French readers can turn to François Fabre's "La Bête du Gévaudan" éditions De Borée - Terre de poche
Well said, thanks man! But remembered and seen by as many as possible.. and then remembered and seen by as many as possible.. and then... 😋 For the sake of us all whenever we are. Learn good honest and honestish stuff and take some time to learn about and also sometime appropriate later make some effort to remember those who came before you. Thank you.
I had a most unusual frightening adventure on a Mountain in Western Maryland ,during the holidays from school in December and January.my friends and I were camping next to a huge background a stone cliff. Trying to fall asleep with out freezing my ass i saw a pair of glowing eyes on the ledge over our tent ,being bored and curious about this I wanted to see if they would move around up there So I shot my 30/30 towards it and then they jumped out and then up and I'm going nuts trying to wake up my friends.We were firing on the eyes as they moved ,they went up as if in a tree . Trying to find out what it was ,we stopped shooting at the eyes ,we could not find them anywhere.At day light we carefully climbed up to find what we were shooting .We found some kind of paw prints in the muddy snow and ice the area was torn up,we found nothing more it stills bothers me when I am in the wood
Having lived in France for over 30 years, ,my children in their primary school were taught about the legend of la bête du Gévaudan and as a family on vacation we went to the south eastern part of France (we were in Brittany) and visited the museum of La Bête du Gévaudan. I find all the theories behind this mystery inconclusive because they are just that: theories. I very much doubt that anyone shall ever know what or who was behind the killings of the people and livestock. The fact that after Jean Chastel killed a beast in 1767 and no further reports of any such attacks were publicized, one can well at least wonder or speculate. Thank you History Guy for your research and presentation. You do a great service for everyone,history lovers or not because we cannot understand our present condition without understanding our past. Merci!
My Son is planning on taking a history degree course in the near future, after leaving the British Military he has become disenchanted with his current job in I.T, and following my love of history programmes that we used to watch when he was growing up, programmes similar to yours (on television, no internet or RUclips then), it just goes to show that History is not a dying interest or career, he hopes to go on and teach history, I am behind him 100%, if I was younger and in better health I would join him at university. Whilst the subject of this video is not my cup of tea I applaud your enthusiasm and knowledge. 👍
When you listed the described characteristics of the beast my first idea was: "That sounds exactly like a lion". What many people don't know is that there are lions that simply have no manes. The Tsavo Man-Eaters for example were Tsavo-Lions, a breed of lions that have no manes at all. Going for the neck when attacking is also definitely lion-like hunting behavior. Btw the story of the Tsavo Man-Eaters is also history that deserves to be remembered :)
The story of the Tsavo Maneaters was popularized in The Ghost and The Darkness. I can’t remember the guy’s name now, Jim something, but he had written a book based on a series of encounters as a professional hunter, of man eating tigers in different parts of India. To his great credit he writes with a lot of objectivity, neither promoting himself nor vilifying the animals.
I remember a documentary about this. Their theory was that the Beast was a hyena, kept from a traveling menagerie. That the hero farmer had kept & trained the hyena. There was even a scene in the doc that showed the host walking the storage area of the French natural history museum until they came across preserved/taxidermied specimens of hyenas. I’ve forgotten how, but one was identified as the Beast.
Passionate storytellers are the key to gaining a love of history and you have nailed it. Thank you History Guy! This was another awesome tale I had never heard of.
In 2008 I was staying in a small town 15 miles south of Rome ,Italy. One morning while standing on a window ledge (smoking cig ) I saw what looked like a giant cat. It must have been 100yds away, I got my camcorder and filmed it. It turned out to be a Panther! It was shiney black with a long S shaped tail. It was just weaving in and out of the tall grass sniffing around. After telling the Family what I saw and showing them the 2 min film expecting them to be alarmed the Dad said " ..oh yes , we have seen him before, probably separated from the pride and now hunts alone. Years ago a few large man eating cats escaped from a circus and ended up roaming the countryside , some say that its a group that descended from cats that escaped from an animal dealer that supplied Panthers and Lions to the Roman Circus and Colloseum".From his reaction I understood that there was a good chance you would run into a "Big Cat" if you went cavorting in the sticks. If I had'nt actually seen that animal with my own eyes I would have dismissed these stories as "exagerated wolf tales" but there really are Man-eaters out there that have been living among humans for thousands of years .
It pisses me off so much when people try to disregard hundreds of witness reports as “simply exaggerated hysteria”- like, orrrr maybe you weren’t there and have zero reason to believe they were mistaken other than the fact that you don’t like not having a clean and straightforward answer?
I like the Lion theory. The entire time you were describing the beast, despite the images you showed, the one thing that kept coming to mind was "Cougar". I don't know if they lived in Medieval Europe, or if they're a uniquely American animal (or if they could have been brought back to France from the Americas for study), but the description sounded to me more like a great cat.
There's a fossilized, extinct creature that resembles drawings exactly. Perhaps it was the last of its species. Perhaps it was related to the Siberian Tiger. One of the drawings portrays the beast with stripes and an overall appearance that looks like the Siberian Tiger.
Part of the reason that such events as the depredations of the Beast of Gévaudan are remembered is the uncertainty and terror. Yet another excellent presentation, History Guy. Merci beau coup
Conan Doyle's tale was mainly inspired by a Herefordshire Marcher Country legend about 'Black Vaughan', the wicked nobleman of Hergest who terrorised the neighbourhood after his death. But given Doyle's interest in occult law and his other wide ranging interests, who's to say that he didn't know about the Gevaudan incident? Private menageries go back a long, long way with English (and doubtless other European) nobility. One medieval king had a big collection at the Tower of London and, way back in the 1100's there was one at Chillington, near Wolverhampton. One day a panther escaped, and was killed just as it prepared to pounce on a woman and her child. So, yes, the idea THG puts forward has a definite ring of plausibility to it. Love the series. Does THG read the posts?
This episode struck me as especially fascinating. The cultural context presented towards the end represents the teaching of history at its most nuanced and informative. Well done!
I just discovered your videos earlier today and have watched several of them. I like them because they include details about things I have heard about in the past, but was never given much more than basic general information on . I also like them because they are pure history, not a rewrite of history to satisfy some modern agenda. My wife graduated magna cum laude graduate, with awards in Latin and History.(Try watching any historical documentary with someone like that without having the program paused every few minutes to verify facts.) She loves anything historical, and I just told her about your programs. I am sure we will both be watching them as long as they last. Thanks again for posting them. God bless. James
The reason why it was unidentified is actually pretty ridiculous: the hunter who killed it took the beast to Paris to have it identified (and to gain some glory), but the corpse smelled so badly that everyone (the hunter, the scientists and even the king) agreed to just get rid of it.
Sorry but english videos about the subject often go way to far on the suppositions on what the beast was. There is really no reason so suspect the beast is a supernatural being, a lion or a hyena, why ? Simply because we have the autopsy report of the beast that was killed by chastel, (the autopsie paper was found by a historian in 1958) The beast was recognized by survivors before the autopsy and the report clearly describes the beast as a canidae. The autopsy describes it as looking like a wolf at the back legs and tail area but like a weird looking wolf/dog at the front part of the body with a huge head, long nose with a flat nose tip, red eyes, black stripe all across the spine, a fur the color of a deer on the body, and with a white heart shaped spot on the torso. Now was it a malformed wolf ? a dog wolf hibrid or a weird wild (or trained) dog ? We can not know but the autopsie is clear : it's a canidae.
@@kiq4767 nope, hyenas have a different number of teeth, the beast had the same dental profil as a wolf/dog. The autopsy and the survivors clearly describe an animal that looks lika a weird wolf or a dog. Actually some people made a life size reconstruction of the beast with a statue based on the description and the measurments of the autopsy : www.google.com/search?q=bete+du+gevaudan+reconstitution&sca_esv=0760d5e5572d06eb&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1ONGR_frFR946FR946&udm=2&biw=1920&bih=911&sxsrf=ACQVn0-6X6KlmmlwAENfDGxGb1l33WMbRw%3A1714142008113&ei=OLsrZunFBr-vkdUP2vK-gAE&oq=bete+du+gevaudan+rec&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAaAhgDIhRiZXRlIGR1IGdldmF1ZGFuIHJlYyoCCAAyCBAAGIAEGIsDSOIQUIwEWIIHcAF4AJABAJgBQ6ABxAGqAQEzuAEByAEA-AEBmAIEoALRAcICDRAAGIAEGEMYigUYiwPCAgkQABgIGIsDGB7CAgkQABgFGIsDGB6YAwCIBgGSBwE0oAfMBQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
In fact it's a great movie. It's got real history interwoven with fiction. It has politics, religion and kung fu tossed together lightly with action, romance, fantasy and horror. It reminds me of The Matrix. It is very well photographed and beautiful to watch The best French film since the Nouvelle Vague.
jeremy gibbins one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. some of the best fight scenes are in the extra content. it is my movie I put in to go to sleep to because of the music and the rainy/gloomy feel to it. plus ive seen it so many times I can close my eyes and still know what's happening. plus its around 3 hrs long.
Extremely well done presentation. “The History Guy’s” information is solid and up to date. He covers an amazing amount of material in a brief time and is still detailed. Thoroughly enjoyed and learned from his video.
Ive looked at this story for years. A very real fear grips my soul reading the eye witness accounts as well as a pity for the people killed. Cant imagine the fear that they felt when face to face with the beast. Nothing else can trigger this fear in me as this historical account is able to. I also appreciate your knowledge added to the story .
I really enjoyed your impact segment of your video. That part is usually my favorite part so that I can apply the lessons of history to today. Fantastic job!
Sorry, but high school history has been reduced to rote memorization. History could be this interesting... a great drama full of scandals and interesting stories but that’s not what the schools want for our children.
history class in 1967 was a place for all the students to catch up on their sleep. The teacher handed out the lessons, tests and answers all on paper on a regular bases, only rule for the class was don't make any noise to disturb others. Everyone passed that class lol
@@sunnyjim1355 History is written by the winners of wars, facts be damned in many cases. Never the less, as I said History is taught as rote memorization of irrelevant dates... what was the date of the Battle of Bull Run vs Why was the Battle of Bull Run important? Guess which test is easier to grade.... and there's why history is dumbed down.
Those where real humans, free hunters gatherers... Not peasents under unknown King leader and a murdering religion that where keeping them uneducated and feared demonising whatever they could not explain!!!
@@nicholaschristophorou3087 How to dehumanise generations of people that lived in those times. "Real humans"....Wow. Those "free" hunter/gatherers lived a life where they were in constant contact with the animals they painted. They hunted them, and them carried them back to camp where they skinned, eviscerated and dressed them. Of course they knew what those animals looked like. Lions hadn't lived in Europe for thousands of years if indeed that's what it was. The witnesses only had a few minutes to see and describe it and like the narrator said, most people would have been familiar, through pictures, of the long maned male lions and not even realised that females didn't have that mane. You're so wrapped up in hate, you can't even make a comment about an anomalie of those times without bringing your own twisted vision of human history.
@Dr. M. H. Well, I can only think of one that has it as a tenet of their faith. The same one who's founder had sex with a 9 year old, bought and sold black slaves and had a man tortured for money. That's not "religion's" fault.
Another well written and produced video, sir! I especially liked the Conclusion section; you brought a lot of well-grounded observations and rationales into it.
Your narrative on this subject was a course in higher education that was a delight. If only all teachers were as passionate and gifted with those skills we would all be better people Thank you for sharing your gifts.
I've read about this story over the years, and it has a reputation as the greatest real-life werewolf incident of all time. And yet, the descriptions of the beast and its behavior all say "feline, feline" to me. I think History Guy has it right when he notes that most people wouldn't have recognized a lion on sight. This is a time before photography when I suspect many artists who drew or painted lions had never actually seen one either, and some of their depictions were pretty far off the mark.
except the auopsy report on Chastel's kill concludes without a doubt that it was a canid. And contrary to popular believe peasants knew what a lion looks like, not all but most of them did. The lion was and still is an extremely present symbol in Europe: in heraldry, in religious art etc. You got to have someone who saw the beast that went “Hey that’s a lion!” at some point, but no one did. There even were people send from Versailles at some point, that had certainly seen realistic artistic depictions of lions or even actual lions in the royal menagerie. There are far more concrete evidences pointing toward one or several canids (wolf, dog, hybrid etc) than a lion in the end
@@martynaozog8060 What the "autopsy" reported is hardly of any relevance, when you can't even be sure they got the right animal in the first place. And he's 100% right when he says that every detail offered about how the beast allegedly moved and attacked matches a large feline to a T, while it hardly fits the idea of one or more canids.
@@martynaozog8060 Wouldn't the people be more knowledgeable about what a dog or wolf looks like? If it really was just a wolf, you'd think people would say "There's a large wolf that's killing people!" My first suspicion would be that the animal was not native to the region and people were not familiar with it.
@@martynaozog8060 that's male lions with that long mane. I never seen lions drawing, statue etc without the long mane in Europe. If it's a wolf they would say it's a large wolf. Wolf or dogs is way too common in Europe. It must be something they never seen in Europe.
hoosierhiver Not necessarily. Cats often kill by biting the head or back of the neck. If the prey is large then the will suffocate it by biting the throat. I saw a show on tigers who attack people in India. They usually grab the head or back of the neck.
Yes, that goes along with the idea that it was a tiger...but why would a tiger kill over and over and over and not always eat more than the intestinal area?
Adding to this theory, the fact that it would routinely decapitate its victims is very similar to how many species of cat, including our own cuddle-bugs with share our homes and beds with, decapitate their kills.
Jeez. That's scary. Reminds me of the squirrels occupying my attic. They're just as fierce, eat rat poison, and play with the trap cages by eating all the peanuts. They're EVIL.
jet li! When I'm out on a long distance bike-hike along Lake Erie, I like to take a rest stop inland where the old Crystal Beach Amusement Park was. That's about getting under some shade. There's a colony of big chipmunks I have to watch out for.
I find the Beast of Gevaudan to be a fascinating story and I've studied this one for a very long time. I have still not figured out what it was, and the best anyone can do is a guess. I believe that is what is so intriguing about the story. The best guess I can give would be (Maybe Spanish) War Dog. The Spanish mastiff had a weight of 270 pounds and stood 3 and a half to 4 feet tall, or at least the stories tell of this size. Ever seen the size of an English Mastiff? Celtic warriors used them, and they were larger than men. On Colombus 2nd trip he took to battle the natives with 20 Mastiff and a couple hundred conquistadors against thousands of natives. It is said that the sheer terror from just 20 dog's ripping men apart was what won them the battle. (I'm sure the black power rifles were a Boone also) Colombus said that ONE of the dogs was worth 15 of the soldiers and their bite was so powerful they could rip an arm from a man and crush a skull inside their massive jaw's. Those dogs were bread and trained for war, just imagine something so powerful, trained and smart in the countryside and the people have only been around average size dogs. The giant mastiff would have had rust colored fur, a black stripe down it's back, a bushy tail and if you look at the mouth it does look like a pig snout. No claws though.
A similar theory I heard was that the beast was a Hyena or possibly two, escaped from a menagerie. Aside from attacking with front claws, the description fits pretty well.
Well, that's no ordinary beast! That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered beast you ever set eyes on! Actually, my guess is a lioness, not a "juvenile male lion." No mane, and the lionesses are the hunters. They go for the throat.
Lions dont have long snouts like a wolf, though. Wasnt a wolf though, either. Cant be a hyena with that tail, either. 🤔 Maybe some kind of hybrid animal bornin the wild... Like a hyena/wolf hybrid. ...maybe. Thad be my best guess.
@@sagesheahan6732 Hyena/Wolf hybrid is impossible as the genes aren't close enough to allow fertilizartion to occur. In my opinion, as someone who has studied prehistoric beasts, I enjoy taking a look at two very similarly described animals. Hyeanodon gigas and Amphicyon ingens. They described them both as wolf like with long tails, very broad and muscular, and larger then the grey wolf by a long shot. Maybe the beast never ran into humans, so thought of them as an easy killing source of food. Not to add a lot of the depictions give the beast slightly shorter legs making me think it even more as a lot of primitive mammals had slightly smaller legs, even Direwolves did. However Direwolves lived in NA and SA, not EU.
I will address just one point. how do we know that all attacks credited to "the beast" were in fact the same creature and not other things blamed on "the beast"
We don't know that at all. In fact, there is a very good chance that normal wolf attacks were conflated with the attacks of the beast. Given the environment, it is quite possible that every attack, or even rumor, became part of the hysteria.
Thank you for covering this story, and for uncovering yet more of its associated drawings/engravings/coloured lithographs, some of which I still had to see! :) However, respectfully, I would like to point out that you have got some aspects of the story garbled. It is one I have read many accounts of for many years, in both books and on the internet. I think that Bedtime Stories does one of the best and most detailed retellings on RUclips. Well, for example: you said the first guy, the King's marksman, shot a large wolf. Yes, he did: and he gave instructions for it to be stuffed and transported to the King, while he went and shot its mate and at least one of its cubs. Looks like they got rid of quite a few wolves which may, indeed, have been bothering the area, hence the multiple attacks. Some of which were fended off by the likes of the kid Jacques Portefaix and his friends with pikes, which you do not mention But with regard to the hybrid theory: once they got the corpse, or at least the skin (and head/skull?) Back to Paris, some expert noted that it had double sets of dewclaws, which apparently is a sign of canine interbreeding. And the *other* beast, the one which was shot almost 2 years later by Jean Chastel (most sources say that either a silver(ed) bullet or one blessed at a shrine was used). Well, the skin of that was preserved as well, and kept at the local noble's chateau, where apparently it was examined by all sorts of surgeons and doctors. Pity none of them thought to do some naturalists' drawings! 😏 But apparently some of them thought it was a hyena. And the preserved remains were destroyed years later in a fire, something like that. So nothing remains but the engravings which were based on accounts, probably drawn years later. I have *never* believed any of the so-called "rational theories": they are garbage. Serial killers training dogs - C'MON!! 🙄🙄🙄 La Bête looked nothing like a mastiff, Chastel's or anyone elses. Mastiffs don't have wolflike faces and pointed snouts. The only thing they had in common was that the mastiff you showed was red, and the Beast was said to be russet coloured - *with a paler underside*. Hence, no doubt, the rumours! 😏 Wasn't a lion, either, sub adult or not. Lions have short faces, not long snouts. *Come on* - are we *disregarding* the testimonies of so many eyewitnesses, in order to make what *they saw* , conform to what we think it should be?? 18th c peasants on the whole had a better knowledge of animals, and spent more time watching animals, than we do. They would have known what a lion is, because it is a heraldic beast!! It looked to them more like a wolf than anything else, ergo it was no lion. Trust the dozens of witnesses! *It was a cryptid. An unknown animal. * Need I really underline that more?? It looked so weird, that if we decline supernatural explanations like "werewolf", it must have been something like a prehistoric beast, a very rare Ice Age survival I did a bit of Googling earlier, for "hoofed carnivores" (for some witnesses said it had hooves or very strange feet) and I came up with a variety of things there... Can't post them bcos RUclips at the moment has the habit of deleting posts with external links, but I thought the prehistoric Mesonychid Andrewsarchus, or something like that, was a pretty good fit! Had that black stripe down the back and paler underside, too: long narrow toothy snout, right kind of broad and formidable build. Take a look for yourselves!
Yeah... really the only thing it could have been is a manbearpig. I just don't understand why people don't believe in the manbearpig. I have had several encounters. The truth is out there.
After subscribing and watching/listening to a few of this gentalmans videos. I know before I start that I can click like without hesitation. Thankyou history guy
The Beast was actually a genetic hybrid we made of a wolf and bear that the secret company I work for sent back in time to that area because we thought it would be funny....and it was. Now you ever wonder what really happened to the Aztecs? Now that's a fascinating story. Let's say it involves a mix of DNA from a Mammoth, Racoon, a Kangaroo, DNA from Grumpy Cat and one of those square carpet samples that accidentally fell in. We were looking into getting new carpet put in. Oh and a old boot, that was my bad.
I have a BA in History and am a history buff but I had never heard of the Beast of Gevaudon. Thank you for telling this incredible story. I wonder if it is related to Werewolf legends, later popular in the era of film.
In 2001 there was a French move about this called Brotherhood of the Wolf which said it was a lion but was controlled by someone with sinister intent. It was even released to theaters in the US and is on dvd and probably streaming on line as well.
It sounds like a Lion that somehow either made it's way up there or maybe even was brought over unscrupulously... either way, there is a great fictional movie based on these attacks called Brotherhood of the Wolf, highly recommend! Great movie! Edit: Oh, great to hear that the 3rd theory is the 'lion' theory. Interesting that it is a 'new' theory, that was my first thought when I heard the 'long tail' and 'broad chest'.
There is a picture floatin around of a giant "wolf dog" they kilt back n tha day round Seymour Missouri....sure looks like tha discription of this beast.....jes sayin.....you rock Sir.....thanx for all yer efforts!
When he gave the description of the beast, my first thought was that it was a Lion. I've heard it said that only Leopards and Polar Bears will actually hunt humans, but I've read of cases where Lions have as well.
Only foxes, weasels and koalas will hunt humans if they are kumiho, kamaitachi and drop bears, respectivelly Kumiho are demon foxes 🦊 from Korean mythology. They transform into beautiful women to lure men and then eat their heart ❤ or liver or drink their blood Kamaitachi are demon weasels from Japanese mythology. They attack humans in group of three and in a gust of wind. One weasel knocks down the victim, one weasel cuts the victim and one weasel applies the ointment on the wound to stop bleeding Drop bear are man eating koalas from Australian urban legend. They drop themselves onto the turists and then eat them.
I'm not at all convinced by the Lion argument. People would likely have known it was not a lion, not by the fact they knew lions well, but by the fact that they did know wolves well, and the common features which would lead them to label it a 'wolf'.
Hey History Guy. I do a podcast about monsters and I just wanted to say that I really dig your style, man. I like how you boiled everything down, cut out the fat and made it fun. I'll definitely be tuning in for more research. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
No hyena theory? I heard a theory it was a hyena that escaped a menagerie. It would explain the ears and the neck in the description and hyenas do attack people
david Bruce first, you may have seen a TV special but nothing assures all it told was true. Second, something was killed and stuffed but there’s no modern evidence of what it was nor any guarantee it was “THE Beast”. Third, very little about how Beast was described seems to match with a hyena. Hyenas don’t have long fangs, don’t have long claws, don’t move in quick large jumps and don’t ambush their preys aiming for the throat and head. Only big felines do.
david Bruce also, if you’ll watch the video on this very same channel about other notorious “maneater” beasts in history, you’ll notice an impressive amount of similarities with this story... and they were all big felines.
The thing I love the most about your channel is your firm belief in history itself. By that I mean, was it well documented, were there plenty of recorded eye witness accounts, was it ever disproven beyond doubt, well then folks, it may be difficult to explain, but it's history. There are many people who increasingly believe only the history they want to believe in. If it somehow clashes with their own understandings or beliefs, they dismiss it as propaganda, mythology, a story made up by 'the man'. History is as indisputable as physics people. You are supposed to take it in and learn from it, not dismiss it anytime it's convenient. That's just a type of confirmation bias, and it's dangerous.
My guess would be a pet hyena probably not as well known as lions watching your video and seeing some of the pictures that would be what I would have thought it was
@@shanasimpson2785 That does seems highly unlikely. An individual African mammal way out of its natural habitat, and having a rare tail deformation at the same time?
I love your work. I was wondering if you ever considered doing a segment about the Tuscaloosa Indian war in North Carolina. I have always been fascinated in that.
I watched this presentation once and long before I’d seen half of it had calculated for a lion. At the end you submitted it may have been a juvenile lion. I thought that an interesting hypothesis. Then you began discounting the theory of lions. Before you’d finished that thought line, I’d come up with another theory. Adult male lions of Tsavo are maneless an-nd coincidentally they are known man eaters...an-nd they are abnormally larger than savanna/maned lions. A Tsavo (pronounced Sãvō) lion would tick off quite a number of “yes” boxes. In fact they might tick off points that you may not be aware of. Tsavo lions are notably lighter and possible spots are much less obvious. If you like my theories - let me know.
Particularly liked the comprehension slot at the end where you try to make sense of all the possible theories. As for me, I remember this story from the UK magazine series, The Unexplained. So, perhaps some 30 years later, like the Exmoor Beast, the finger of suspicion rightly falls on us. Great watch.
It had a longer nose, longer snout and also broader, it's sides were very flexible like a lion or tiger, because of this it could turn it's head, it had also a membrane on it's eyes, it had thick front legs, and paws, larger claws, it had also lot sof hair on it's neck, it was also a long beast, it had a long body, it was a very strange animal,
I guessed lion based on long leaps during attack, biting the heads and the long tails. I missed the use of claws during the attacks. I was thinking of a Puma.
@Shane Butler how stupid do you think people we're back then? Lions, jaguars and other cats were already in scientific journals of the time and well documented. My God, your one of those guys who thinks humans have been constantly advancing and that science saved humanity and so fourth.
There was a history Channel special back in 2009 "The Real Wolfman". Where the team went to the Natural History museum vault and examined the taxidermist remains of the Beast of Gevaudan. And the data came back it was a Hyena. Many people don't realize Hyenas are felines not cannid.
It was not a Hyena and the stuffed one isn’t even the real beast. The Paris Museum of Natural History does have a notice mentioning the beast, and once held its ‘remains’ (not the actual remains, the modified remains presented to the king after the first ‘killing’ of the beast in 1765, the murders continued until 1767 and the second and definitive killing of the beast by Jean Chastel). The Paris Museum of Natural History never held the remains of the probable real beast which were poorly stuffed and rapidly lost after the autopsy. In addition said notice was never linked to the remains of the ‘official’ beast (which are also lost nowadays). It was written in 1819 (so 150 years later in a Post-revolution France) to describe an identified stripped hyena and this is what it states: “Ce féroce et indomptable animal est rangé dans la classe du loup cervier ; il habite l’Égypte, il parcourt les tombeaux pour en arracher les cadavres ; le jour, il attaque les hommes, les femmes et les enfants, et les dévore. Il porte une crinière sur son dos, barrée comme le tigre royal ; celle-ci est de la même espèce que celle que l’on voit au cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle, et qui a dévoré, dans le Gévaudan, une grande quantité de personnes.” “This ferocious and untamable animal is classified as a lynx; it lives in Egypt, it goes through tombs to snatch the corpses away, by day, it attacks men, women, and children, and eats them. It has a mane on its back, stripped like the royal tiger; it is from the same species as the one we see at the Natural History cabinet, and which has eaten, in Gévaudan, a lot of people.” As you can see the note itself is pretty clear that this stripped hyena wasn’t the beast of Gévaudan. In addition the first beast killed by François Antoine, aka the fake one, was most certainly a wolf, meaning that the actual remains the Natural History cabinet once held were the ones of a wolf. Which means that this hyena held by the Natural History cabinet wasn’t François Antoine’s kill or Jean Chastel’s one (aka the probable real beast).
'Le Pacte des Loups' (sp ) Shown in America as The Brotherhood of the Wolves was a movie based upon this series of animal attacks. It seemingly included all of the ideas and facts just put forth by the erudite fellow who runs this Channel. Thank you for a very interesting take on this Mystery!
I'm French and I can tell you this story of the Bête du Gévaudan is still well remembered. Thanks for this video and your always interesting channel!
I can confirm that ! and also that summarising the story in less than 10 minutes is a hell of a feat that deserves to be remembered ;-)
For those interested in details of the story, French readers can turn to François Fabre's "La Bête du Gévaudan" éditions De Borée - Terre de poche
This story also established the idea that werewolves are vulnerable to silver, but it didn't take until 1941's movie The Wolf Man.
Why noone knows what was the beast if it was shot
Could this beast be a dire wolf 🐺?
There's a few movies about this beast too. Including French ones. You can find the list on French and English wiki
Mike: "Hey Bill. You locked the lion's cage, right?"
Bill: "Ummm..."
Mike: "R-Right!"
Sounds like a lion or huge cat. These people would have never seen one.
This guy's channel deserves to be remembered.
Well said, thanks man!
But remembered and seen by as many as possible.. and then remembered and seen by as many as possible.. and then... 😋
For the sake of us all whenever we are.
Learn good honest and honestish stuff and take some time to learn about and also sometime appropriate later make some effort to remember those who came before you. Thank you.
I had a most unusual frightening adventure on a Mountain in Western Maryland ,during the holidays from school in December and January.my friends and I were camping next to a huge background a stone cliff.
Trying to fall asleep with out freezing my ass i saw a pair of glowing eyes on the ledge over our tent ,being bored and curious about this I wanted to see if they would move around up there So I shot my 30/30 towards it and then they jumped out and then up and I'm going nuts trying to wake up my friends.We were firing on the eyes as they moved ,they went up as if in a tree . Trying to find out what it was ,we stopped shooting at the eyes ,we could not find them anywhere.At day light we carefully climbed up to find what we were shooting .We found some kind of paw prints in the muddy snow and ice the area was torn up,we found nothing more it stills bothers me when I am in the wood
You have THAT right.
@dick tracy Revelance to the story? Don't believe anyone has any interest in your bowel habits.
I carry a stick in case I shit out a wildcat...
Having lived in France for over 30 years, ,my children in their primary school were taught about the legend of la bête du Gévaudan and as a family on vacation we went to the south eastern part of France (we were in Brittany) and visited the museum of La Bête du Gévaudan. I find all the theories behind this mystery inconclusive because they are just that: theories. I very much doubt that anyone shall ever know what or who was behind the killings of the people and livestock. The fact that after Jean Chastel killed a beast in 1767 and no further reports of any such attacks were publicized, one can well at least wonder or speculate. Thank you History Guy for your research and presentation. You do a great service for everyone,history lovers or not because we cannot understand our present condition without understanding our past. Merci!
It’s unbelievable people will dislike your history , it’s enlightening, thank you
My Son is planning on taking a history degree course in the near future, after leaving the British Military he has become disenchanted with his current job in I.T, and following my love of history programmes that we used to watch when he was growing up, programmes similar to yours (on television, no internet or RUclips then), it just goes to show that History is not a dying interest or career, he hopes to go on and teach history, I am behind him 100%, if I was younger and in better health I would join him at university.
Whilst the subject of this video is not my cup of tea I applaud your enthusiasm and knowledge. 👍
When you listed the described characteristics of the beast my first idea was: "That sounds exactly like a lion". What many people don't know is that there are lions that simply have no manes. The Tsavo Man-Eaters for example were Tsavo-Lions, a breed of lions that have no manes at all.
Going for the neck when attacking is also definitely lion-like hunting behavior.
Btw the story of the Tsavo Man-Eaters is also history that deserves to be remembered :)
Yea,also the long jumpes it said, the tail and the neck all my first idea was a lion as well
It seems rather evident that it is a large cat of some sort
The story of the Tsavo Maneaters was popularized in The Ghost and The Darkness.
I can’t remember the guy’s name now, Jim something, but he had written a book based on a series of encounters as a professional hunter, of man eating tigers in different parts of India. To his great credit he writes with a lot of objectivity, neither promoting himself nor vilifying the animals.
I also thought of Hyena as well but the tail points to a large cat too
@@scotttudor6647The only issue is that the autopsy of the beast showed it had 42 teeth. Lions only have 30. Everything else fits.
I remember a documentary about this. Their theory was that the Beast was a hyena, kept from a traveling menagerie. That the hero farmer had kept & trained the hyena. There was even a scene in the doc that showed the host walking the storage area of the French natural history museum until they came across preserved/taxidermied specimens of hyenas. I’ve forgotten how, but one was identified as the Beast.
Passionate storytellers are the key to gaining a love of history and you have nailed it. Thank you History Guy! This was another awesome tale I had never heard of.
In 2008 I was staying in a small town 15 miles south of Rome ,Italy. One morning while standing on a window ledge (smoking cig ) I saw what looked like a giant cat. It must have been 100yds away, I got my camcorder and filmed it. It turned out to be a Panther! It was shiney black with a long S shaped tail. It was just weaving in and out of the tall grass sniffing around. After telling the Family what I saw and showing them the 2 min film expecting them to be alarmed the Dad said " ..oh yes , we have seen him before, probably separated from the pride and now hunts alone. Years ago a few large man eating cats escaped from a circus and ended up roaming the countryside , some say that its a group that descended from cats that escaped from an animal dealer that supplied Panthers and Lions to the Roman Circus and Colloseum".From his reaction I understood that there was a good chance you would run into a "Big Cat" if you went cavorting in the sticks. If I had'nt actually seen that animal with my own eyes I would have dismissed these stories as "exagerated wolf tales" but there really are Man-eaters out there that have been living among humans for thousands of years .
Spread the word! History Guy deserves a lot more than 12K subscribers.
Thank you!
8 mo later...183k subs! Nice, that's quite a jump (and one of those 'hope for humanity' feelings)
@@JH-ji6cj 212k 2 more weeks later, seems like the start was slow, but once it starts rolling...
234K 2 weeks later.
May 2019 358K. Still should be more. Best Channel on You Tube.
It pisses me off so much when people try to disregard hundreds of witness reports as “simply exaggerated hysteria”- like, orrrr maybe you weren’t there and have zero reason to believe they were mistaken other than the fact that you don’t like not having a clean and straightforward answer?
Me too. This is one of the well-documented stories. He knows that but still chooses to call it a superstition
I agree with you both. Some scientists and sceptics are far too sceptical.
Agreed and in the justice system multiple eyewitness account stands in court as a motion of truth
Why? There are plenty of stories of mass hysteria throughout history. Look at the dancing plagues of 1518. People are definitely capable of hysteria.
Translation: boring people will believe in anything that excites their dull lives.
History guy, you're awesome.
Tim Huber He is.
It's wonderful to see someone so impassioned about history. That last bit had me on the edge of my seat.
Why did I watch this ? I just went outside after midnight and got cold chills expecting The Beast to attack me. Scary stuff, History Guy.
Why are you telling me this. Now I will be scared to go out at night alone
I like the Lion theory. The entire time you were describing the beast, despite the images you showed, the one thing that kept coming to mind was "Cougar". I don't know if they lived in Medieval Europe, or if they're a uniquely American animal (or if they could have been brought back to France from the Americas for study), but the description sounded to me more like a great cat.
Popular theories are that it was a lion or hyena (possibly an escaped exotic animal)
There's a fossilized, extinct creature that resembles drawings exactly. Perhaps it was the last of its species. Perhaps it was related to the Siberian Tiger. One of the drawings portrays the beast with stripes and an overall appearance that looks like the Siberian Tiger.
I was thinking cougar too. Though I dont know how it would get there. The lion theory sounds reasonable.
The story reminds me of the Tsavo Lions - “The Ghost” and “The Darkness”, killing all of those railroad workers 120 years ago.
I may do an episode on those lions some day.
Yes, please!
please do. the only people who seem to know of this are those who have seen the movie or been to the museum in Chicago.
Mark Welschmeyer ruclips.net/video/Rb-DSFoh7zk/видео.html
The movie you're looking for is _Brotherhood of the Wolf_
Part of the reason that such events as the depredations of the Beast of Gévaudan are remembered is the uncertainty and terror. Yet another excellent presentation, History Guy. Merci beau coup
I wonder if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have been thinking about this when he wrote " The Hound of the Baskervilles".?
marbleman52 you are not the only one to have noticed the similarity. www.historytoday.com/crispin-andrews/sherlock-holmes-and-beast-gevaudan
Conan Doyle's tale was mainly inspired by a Herefordshire Marcher Country legend about 'Black Vaughan', the wicked nobleman of Hergest who terrorised the neighbourhood after his death. But given Doyle's interest in occult law and his other wide ranging interests, who's to say that he didn't know about the Gevaudan incident?
Private menageries go back a long, long way with English (and doubtless other European) nobility. One medieval king had a big collection at the Tower of London and, way back in the 1100's there was one at Chillington, near Wolverhampton. One day a panther escaped, and was killed just as it prepared to pounce on a woman and her child. So, yes, the idea THG puts forward has a definite ring of plausibility to it.
Love the series. Does THG read the posts?
marbleman52: It makes you wonder how he had time between chasing ficticious Fairies.
marbleman52 Good question.
I loved his movies of Sherlock Holmes. I use To read all the time, but I'm older now and can't see the words much.
This episode struck me as especially fascinating. The cultural context presented towards the end represents the teaching of history at its most nuanced and informative. Well done!
I just discovered your videos earlier today and have watched several of them. I like them because they include details about things I have heard about in the past, but was never given much more than basic general information on . I also like them because they are pure history, not a rewrite of history to satisfy some modern agenda. My wife graduated magna cum laude graduate, with awards in Latin and History.(Try watching any historical documentary with someone like that without having the program paused every few minutes to verify facts.) She loves anything historical, and I just told her about your programs. I am sure we will both be watching them as long as they last. Thanks again for posting them. God bless. James
This story has fascinated me since childhood especially because they actually caught the beast and yet it still remains unidentified
Cuz it wasn't the real beast
The reason why it was unidentified is actually pretty ridiculous: the hunter who killed it took the beast to Paris to have it identified (and to gain some glory), but the corpse smelled so badly that everyone (the hunter, the scientists and even the king) agreed to just get rid of it.
Sorry but english videos about the subject often go way to far on the suppositions on what the beast was. There is really no reason so suspect the beast is a supernatural being, a lion or a hyena, why ? Simply because we have the autopsy report of the beast that was killed by chastel, (the autopsie paper was found by a historian in 1958) The beast was recognized by survivors before the autopsy and the report clearly describes the beast as a canidae. The autopsy describes it as looking like a wolf at the back legs and tail area but like a weird looking wolf/dog at the front part of the body with a huge head, long nose with a flat nose tip, red eyes, black stripe all across the spine, a fur the color of a deer on the body, and with a white heart shaped spot on the torso. Now was it a malformed wolf ? a dog wolf hibrid or a weird wild (or trained) dog ? We can not know but the autopsie is clear : it's a canidae.
@@guillaumechacun9049maybe hyena?
@@kiq4767 nope, hyenas have a different number of teeth, the beast had the same dental profil as a wolf/dog. The autopsy and the survivors clearly describe an animal that looks lika a weird wolf or a dog.
Actually some people made a life size reconstruction of the beast with a statue based on the description and the measurments of the autopsy : www.google.com/search?q=bete+du+gevaudan+reconstitution&sca_esv=0760d5e5572d06eb&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1ONGR_frFR946FR946&udm=2&biw=1920&bih=911&sxsrf=ACQVn0-6X6KlmmlwAENfDGxGb1l33WMbRw%3A1714142008113&ei=OLsrZunFBr-vkdUP2vK-gAE&oq=bete+du+gevaudan+rec&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAaAhgDIhRiZXRlIGR1IGdldmF1ZGFuIHJlYyoCCAAyCBAAGIAEGIsDSOIQUIwEWIIHcAF4AJABAJgBQ6ABxAGqAQEzuAEByAEA-AEBmAIEoALRAcICDRAAGIAEGEMYigUYiwPCAgkQABgIGIsDGB7CAgkQABgFGIsDGB6YAwCIBgGSBwE0oAfMBQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
They did a movie based on this called "The Brotherhood Of The Wolf" not a bad movie.
In french its called le pacte des loups
In fact it's a great movie. It's got real history interwoven with fiction. It has politics, religion and kung fu tossed together lightly with action, romance, fantasy and horror. It reminds me of The Matrix.
It is very well photographed and beautiful to watch The best French film since the Nouvelle Vague.
jeremy gibbins one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. some of the best fight scenes are in the extra content. it is my movie I put in to go to sleep to because of the music and the rainy/gloomy feel to it. plus ive seen it so many times I can close my eyes and still know what's happening. plus its around 3 hrs long.
yes! have the dvd great movie!
I loved that film!
Extremely well done presentation. “The History Guy’s” information is solid and up to date. He covers an amazing amount of material in a brief time and is still detailed. Thoroughly enjoyed and learned from his video.
Ive looked at this story for years. A very real fear grips my soul reading the eye witness accounts as well as a pity for the people killed. Cant imagine the fear that they felt when face to face with the beast. Nothing else can trigger this fear in me as this historical account is able to.
I also appreciate your knowledge added to the story .
Soviless99 oh I think if you saw a grizzly bear face to face it might surpass the feeling this gives.
I appreciate your sentiment. Not many people can connect with others outside of their own experiences.
Fantastic. I’ve been watching all your old episodes.
I really enjoyed your impact segment of your video. That part is usually my favorite part so that I can apply the lessons of history to today. Fantastic job!
I've also heard a theory that the beast was a large spotted hyena instead of a lion
I believe that's what it is too
Thats true they said it had a laugh like cry and a massive head sounds like hyena
Interesting. Possibly.
Hyena isn't that huge though and a large male probably can put up a fight. I think it's something else.
@@icyboy771z maybe the lack of rivals allowed the Hyena to eat and grow larger? Or Hyena hybrid?
I wish you were my history teacher back in high school!👍😁
Sorry, but high school history has been reduced to rote memorization. History could be this interesting... a great drama full of scandals and interesting stories but that’s not what the schools want for our children.
history class in 1967 was a place for all the students to catch up on their sleep. The teacher handed out the lessons, tests and answers all on paper on a regular bases, only rule for the class was don't make any noise to disturb others. Everyone passed that class lol
@@@ai4px That's because high school history is, and should be, focused on known facts, not some folk stories.
@@sunnyjim1355 History is written by the winners of wars, facts be damned in many cases. Never the less, as I said History is taught as rote memorization of irrelevant dates... what was the date of the Battle of Bull Run vs Why was the Battle of Bull Run important? Guess which test is easier to grade.... and there's why history is dumbed down.
I had a history teacher in grade 9. Like him ! Got me into exploring our past ! Thanks Mr Winters !
Too bad older cave paintings were more anatomically accurate than the folks in the 15 16 and 1700s
Those where real humans, free hunters gatherers... Not peasents under unknown King leader and a murdering religion that where keeping them uneducated and feared demonising whatever they could not explain!!!
@@nicholaschristophorou3087 murdering religion? What are you even talking about.
@@nicholaschristophorou3087
How to dehumanise generations of people that lived in those times. "Real humans"....Wow. Those "free" hunter/gatherers lived a life where they were in constant contact with the animals they painted. They hunted them, and them carried them back to camp where they skinned, eviscerated and dressed them. Of course they knew what those animals looked like.
Lions hadn't lived in Europe for thousands of years if indeed that's what it was. The witnesses only had a few minutes to see and describe it and like the narrator said, most people would have been familiar, through pictures, of the long maned male lions and not even realised that females didn't have that mane.
You're so wrapped up in hate, you can't even make a comment about an anomalie of those times without bringing your own twisted vision of human history.
Many was burned ass witch speaking wrong
@Dr. M. H. Well, I can only think of one that has it as a tenet of their faith. The same one who's founder had sex with a 9 year old, bought and sold black slaves and had a man tortured for money. That's not "religion's" fault.
Another well written and produced video, sir! I especially liked the Conclusion section; you brought a lot of well-grounded observations and rationales into it.
Your narrative on this subject was a course in higher education that was a delight. If only all teachers were as passionate and gifted with those skills we would all be better people
Thank you for sharing your gifts.
I've read about this story over the years, and it has a reputation as the greatest real-life werewolf incident of all time. And yet, the descriptions of the beast and its behavior all say "feline, feline" to me. I think History Guy has it right when he notes that most people wouldn't have recognized a lion on sight. This is a time before photography when I suspect many artists who drew or painted lions had never actually seen one either, and some of their depictions were pretty far off the mark.
except the auopsy report on Chastel's kill concludes without a doubt that it was a canid. And contrary to popular believe peasants knew what a lion looks like, not all but most of them did. The lion was and still is an extremely present symbol in Europe: in heraldry, in religious art etc. You got to have someone who saw the beast that went “Hey that’s a lion!” at some point, but no one did. There even were people send from Versailles at some point, that had certainly seen realistic artistic depictions of lions or even actual lions in the royal menagerie. There are far more concrete evidences pointing toward one or several canids (wolf, dog, hybrid etc) than a lion in the end
@@martynaozog8060 What the "autopsy" reported is hardly of any relevance, when you can't even be sure they got the right animal in the first place.
And he's 100% right when he says that every detail offered about how the beast allegedly moved and attacked matches a large feline to a T, while it hardly fits the idea of one or more canids.
@@martynaozog8060 Wouldn't the people be more knowledgeable about what a dog or wolf looks like? If it really was just a wolf, you'd think people would say "There's a large wolf that's killing people!" My first suspicion would be that the animal was not native to the region and people were not familiar with it.
@@martynaozog8060 that's male lions with that long mane. I never seen lions drawing, statue etc without the long mane in Europe. If it's a wolf they would say it's a large wolf. Wolf or dogs is way too common in Europe. It must be something they never seen in Europe.
This video says it had long red fur and a black stripe down its back.. doesn't sound like a lion to me. ruclips.net/video/1fyTL50hQKM/видео.html
This was some of your best and most lyrical prose, sir.
Attacking a person by the head sounds like a lion or tiger.
Most predators go for the throat
hoosierhiver Not necessarily. Cats often kill by biting the head or back of the neck. If the prey is large then the will suffocate it by biting the throat. I saw a show on tigers who attack people in India. They usually grab the head or back of the neck.
Yes, that goes along with the idea that it was a tiger...but why would a tiger kill over and over and over and not always eat more than the intestinal area?
Lori Boufford Because that's the most delicious part.
Hardscrabble Blake 1968 the Romans had records of all these animals hundreds of years before this. they would have known...
Ever since I’ve found you channel about two weeks ago I just can’t stop watching whenever I get time I love it thank you for your content
The lion theory makes the most sense.
Adding to this theory, the fact that it would routinely decapitate its victims is very similar to how many species of cat, including our own cuddle-bugs with share our homes and beds with, decapitate their kills.
A Leopard absolutely wild...
Wild Cat absolutely Wild.
except the auopsy report on Chastel's kill concludes without a doubt that is was a canid
@@martynaozog8060 and cats use their hind legs to disembowel during an attack
The History Guy is fantastic. I hope many of our youth listen to what he has to say. Maybe they'll learn something!! Job well done. My respect.
Jeez. That's scary. Reminds me of the squirrels occupying my attic. They're just as fierce, eat rat poison, and play with the trap cages by eating all the peanuts. They're EVIL.
Animals can't be evil.
That's a human trait.
Well, maybe not EVIL. But VICIOUS!
100 people dead, not quite, but still humorous
The only way to win is to burn your house down!
jet li! When I'm out on a long distance bike-hike along Lake Erie, I like to take a rest stop inland
where the old Crystal Beach Amusement Park was. That's about getting under some shade.
There's a colony of big chipmunks I have to watch out for.
I find the Beast of Gevaudan to be a fascinating story and I've studied this one for a very long time. I have still not figured out what it was, and the best anyone can do is a guess. I believe that is what is so intriguing about the story. The best guess I can give would be (Maybe Spanish) War Dog. The Spanish mastiff had a weight of 270 pounds and stood 3 and a half to 4 feet tall, or at least the stories tell of this size. Ever seen the size of an English Mastiff? Celtic warriors used them, and they were larger than men. On Colombus 2nd trip he took to battle the natives with 20 Mastiff and a couple hundred conquistadors against thousands of natives. It is said that the sheer terror from just 20 dog's ripping men apart was what won them the battle. (I'm sure the black power rifles were a Boone also) Colombus said that ONE of the dogs was worth 15 of the soldiers and their bite was so powerful they could rip an arm from a man and crush a skull inside their massive jaw's. Those dogs were bread and trained for war, just imagine something so powerful, trained and smart in the countryside and the people have only been around average size dogs. The giant mastiff would have had rust colored fur, a black stripe down it's back, a bushy tail and if you look at the mouth it does look like a pig snout. No claws though.
A similar theory I heard was that the beast was a Hyena or possibly two, escaped from a menagerie. Aside from attacking with front claws, the description fits pretty well.
Where was this channel hiding! So glad I came across this. Let the binge resume!
Definitely a channel to sub to I'm well into my history and you sir are well above my grade . bravo and well done .
His ending was superb. Good clear way to understand the multitude of factors.
I'm glad I found your channel. It is great.
Sounds exactly like the description of Dogman, which is becoming very very popular with sightings all over the world these days
Somebody call Agent Mulder quick! It'd be the oldest X-file yet...
Fabulous presentation!! Thank you very much!!
I'd never heard of this before. Thank you.
Well, that's no ordinary beast! That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered beast you ever set eyes on!
Actually, my guess is a lioness, not a "juvenile male lion." No mane, and the lionesses are the hunters. They go for the throat.
Male lions do hunt aswell especially when they're solitary
There is a breed of lions as well where the males don't have manes. The Ghost and the Darkness were of that breed.
Lions dont have long snouts like a wolf, though. Wasnt a wolf though, either. Cant be a hyena with that tail, either. 🤔
Maybe some kind of hybrid animal bornin the wild... Like a hyena/wolf hybrid. ...maybe. Thad be my best guess.
Well played "Holy Grail" reference dude..
@@sagesheahan6732 Hyena/Wolf hybrid is impossible as the genes aren't close enough to allow fertilizartion to occur. In my opinion, as someone who has studied prehistoric beasts, I enjoy taking a look at two very similarly described animals. Hyeanodon gigas and Amphicyon ingens. They described them both as wolf like with long tails, very broad and muscular, and larger then the grey wolf by a long shot. Maybe the beast never ran into humans, so thought of them as an easy killing source of food. Not to add a lot of the depictions give the beast slightly shorter legs making me think it even more as a lot of primitive mammals had slightly smaller legs, even Direwolves did. However Direwolves lived in NA and SA, not EU.
AKA...the True Story of Brotherhood of the Wolf! Great work, thanks again!
Enjoyed it, Very good analysis, I will be tuning into "The History Guy" again
I will address just one point. how do we know that all attacks credited to "the beast" were in fact the same creature and not other things blamed on "the beast"
We don't know that at all. In fact, there is a very good chance that normal wolf attacks were conflated with the attacks of the beast. Given the environment, it is quite possible that every attack, or even rumor, became part of the hysteria.
It was Dogman. Look into it.
from what I've read it seems several private murders were done in a way to put the blame on the monster.
Thank you for covering this story, and for uncovering yet more of its associated drawings/engravings/coloured lithographs, some of which I still had to see! :)
However, respectfully, I would like to point out that you have got some aspects of the story garbled. It is one I have read many accounts of for many years, in both books and on the internet. I think that Bedtime Stories does one of the best and most detailed retellings on RUclips.
Well, for example: you said the first guy, the King's marksman, shot a large wolf. Yes, he did: and he gave instructions for it to be stuffed and transported to the King, while he went and shot its mate and at least one of its cubs. Looks like they got rid of quite a few wolves which may, indeed, have been bothering the area, hence the multiple attacks. Some of which were fended off by the likes of the kid Jacques Portefaix and his friends with pikes, which you do not mention But with regard to the hybrid theory: once they got the corpse, or at least the skin (and head/skull?) Back to Paris, some expert noted that it had double sets of dewclaws, which apparently is a sign of canine interbreeding.
And the *other* beast, the one which was shot almost 2 years later by Jean Chastel (most sources say that either a silver(ed) bullet or one blessed at a shrine was used). Well, the skin of that was preserved as well, and kept at the local noble's chateau, where apparently it was examined by all sorts of surgeons and doctors. Pity none of them thought to do some naturalists' drawings! 😏 But apparently some of them thought it was a hyena. And the preserved remains were destroyed years later in a fire, something like that. So nothing remains but the engravings which were based on accounts, probably drawn years later.
I have *never* believed any of the so-called "rational theories": they are garbage. Serial killers training dogs - C'MON!! 🙄🙄🙄 La Bête looked nothing like a mastiff, Chastel's or anyone elses. Mastiffs don't have wolflike faces and pointed snouts. The only thing they had in common was that the mastiff you showed was red, and the Beast was said to be russet coloured - *with a paler underside*. Hence, no doubt, the rumours! 😏
Wasn't a lion, either, sub adult or not. Lions have short faces, not long snouts. *Come on* - are we *disregarding* the testimonies of so many eyewitnesses, in order to make what *they saw* , conform to what we think it should be?? 18th c peasants on the whole had a better knowledge of animals, and spent more time watching animals, than we do. They would have known what a lion is, because it is a heraldic beast!! It looked to them more like a wolf than anything else, ergo it was no lion. Trust the dozens of witnesses!
*It was a cryptid. An unknown animal. * Need I really underline that more?? It looked so weird, that if we decline supernatural explanations like "werewolf", it must have been something like a prehistoric beast, a very rare Ice Age survival
I did a bit of Googling earlier, for "hoofed carnivores" (for some witnesses said it had hooves or very strange feet) and I came up with a variety of things there... Can't post them bcos RUclips at the moment has the habit of deleting posts with external links, but I thought the prehistoric Mesonychid Andrewsarchus, or something like that, was a pretty good fit! Had that black stripe down the back and paler underside, too: long narrow toothy snout, right kind of broad and formidable build. Take a look for yourselves!
Great video and analysis
Alex Ch thank you!
Thank you for truly keeping history alive!
I personally thunk it was a manbearpig... it fits perfectly the attack tactics of a prepubescent manbearpig
Don't be ridiculous, everybody knows the manbearpig is a myth.
Excelsior!
Are you cereal?
Yeah... really the only thing it could have been is a manbearpig. I just don't understand why people don't believe in the manbearpig. I have had several encounters. The truth is out there.
Didn't manbearpig star in the movie "Mitchell"?
After subscribing and watching/listening to a few of this gentalmans videos. I know before I start that I can click like without hesitation.
Thankyou history guy
The Beast was actually a genetic hybrid we made of a wolf and bear that the secret company I work for sent back in time to that area because we thought it would be funny....and it was. Now you ever wonder what really happened to the Aztecs? Now that's a fascinating story. Let's say it involves a mix of DNA from a Mammoth, Racoon, a Kangaroo, DNA from Grumpy Cat and one of those square carpet samples that accidentally fell in. We were looking into getting new carpet put in. Oh and a old boot, that was my bad.
Another quality program, thank you sir!
It sounds at first similar to Hound of the Bascervillles. And later it sounds like The Ghost and the Darkness.
I have a BA in History and am a history buff but I had never heard of the Beast of Gevaudon. Thank you for telling this incredible story. I wonder if it is related to Werewolf legends, later popular in the era of film.
You've just earned a new subscriber
TY for covering this one! Loving your videos
Cryptozoology and history. Awesome video.
Josh Geiger Yo JOSH
Dogman, yo!
Jordan Coggburn HoWl At ThE mOoN
In 2001 there was a French move about this called Brotherhood of the Wolf which said it was a lion but was controlled by someone with sinister intent. It was even released to theaters in the US and is on dvd and probably streaming on line as well.
“Lions don’t do this. Lions never did this.... “
The Ghost and the Darkness.
"ONE SHOT!"
Superb production my man. You have quite the flair for presentation and drama. Well done, I truly hope you are recognised accordingly.
It sounds like a Lion that somehow either made it's way up there or maybe even was brought over unscrupulously... either way, there is a great fictional movie based on these attacks called Brotherhood of the Wolf, highly recommend! Great movie!
Edit: Oh, great to hear that the 3rd theory is the 'lion' theory. Interesting that it is a 'new' theory, that was my first thought when I heard the 'long tail' and 'broad chest'.
Remarkable explanation of an enduring mystery 👍
There is a picture floatin around of a giant "wolf dog" they kilt back n tha day round Seymour Missouri....sure looks like tha discription of this beast.....jes sayin.....you rock Sir.....thanx for all yer efforts!
Always love your stories and interpretations history guy.
When he gave the description of the beast, my first thought was that it was a Lion. I've heard it said that only Leopards and Polar Bears will actually hunt humans, but I've read of cases where Lions have as well.
Only foxes and weasels will hunt humans if they are kitsune and kamaitachi, respectivelly
Only foxes, weasels and koalas will hunt humans if they are kumiho, kamaitachi and drop bears, respectivelly
Kumiho are demon foxes 🦊 from Korean mythology. They transform into beautiful women to lure men and then eat their heart ❤ or liver or drink their blood
Kamaitachi are demon weasels from Japanese mythology. They attack humans in group of three and in a gust of wind. One weasel knocks down the victim, one weasel cuts the victim and one weasel applies the ointment on the wound to stop bleeding
Drop bear are man eating koalas from Australian urban legend. They drop themselves onto the turists and then eat them.
I love how enthusiastic you are
I'm not at all convinced by the Lion argument. People would likely have known it was not a lion, not by the fact they knew lions well, but by the fact that they did know wolves well, and the common features which would lead them to label it a 'wolf'.
It was a manbearpig
@@landyalmond7742 more likely ;)
Hey History Guy. I do a podcast about monsters and I just wanted to say that I really dig your style, man. I like how you boiled everything down, cut out the fat and made it fun. I'll definitely be tuning in for more research. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
No hyena theory? I heard a theory it was a hyena that escaped a menagerie. It would explain the ears and the neck in the description and hyenas do attack people
Yeah female hyenas are huge
The hyena theory matches poorly with the attack patters described, while the large feline theory matches almost too perfectly.
It was a hyena. It was killed, stuffed, mounted and is stored in some French museum basement. I saw a special on TV about this
david Bruce first, you may have seen a TV special but nothing assures all it told was true.
Second, something was killed and stuffed but there’s no modern evidence of what it was nor any guarantee it was “THE Beast”.
Third, very little about how Beast was described seems to match with a hyena. Hyenas don’t have long fangs, don’t have long claws, don’t move in quick large jumps and don’t ambush their preys aiming for the throat and head. Only big felines do.
david Bruce also, if you’ll watch the video on this very same channel about other notorious “maneater” beasts in history, you’ll notice an impressive amount of similarities with this story... and they were all big felines.
The thing I love the most about your channel is your firm belief in history itself. By that I mean, was it well documented, were there plenty of recorded eye witness accounts, was it ever disproven beyond doubt, well then folks, it may be difficult to explain, but it's history. There are many people who increasingly believe only the history they want to believe in. If it somehow clashes with their own understandings or beliefs, they dismiss it as propaganda, mythology, a story made up by 'the man'. History is as indisputable as physics people. You are supposed to take it in and learn from it, not dismiss it anytime it's convenient. That's just a type of confirmation bias, and it's dangerous.
Definitely a Chanel to subscribe to thanks again
Steven Lower thank you!
merry christmas History Guy, love your channel. watching all i missed... found you only a couple weeks ago. Hope you are well.
My guess would be a pet hyena probably not as well known as lions watching your video and seeing some of the pictures that would be what I would have thought it was
One of his best video’s. Love the passion.
I remember reading a book about it and it was discovered it was a hyena that a noble had brought back.
Hyenas have very short tails.
@@JohnVanRaak-yx6cb maybe a deformed
@@shanasimpson2785 That does seems highly unlikely. An individual African mammal way out of its natural habitat, and having a rare tail deformation at the same time?
I believe it was a wolf or wolves, they can grow to be enormous in size and are just as cunning and clever as humans, if not more so!
I love your work. I was wondering if you ever considered doing a segment about the Tuscaloosa Indian war in North Carolina. I have always been fascinated in that.
Clearly it was a loup-garou.
I think so, too! Cryptids ARE out there. We don't know everything! 👹
Gentleman Jim except got the tail
Were wolf???
Fishfan 2 There Wolf.
@@fishfan2 they are called dogmen
This channel is great! Thank you for producing such excellent content.
*_TO THE FATHER AND THE SON, CAME THE BEST OF GÉVAUDAN_*
TERMINATOR, A TRAITOR, HALF WOLF AND HALF MACHINE
This gives me chills....
I watched this presentation once and long before I’d seen half of it had calculated for a lion. At the end you submitted it may have been a juvenile lion. I thought that an interesting hypothesis. Then you began discounting the theory of lions. Before you’d finished that thought line, I’d come up with another theory. Adult male lions of Tsavo are maneless an-nd coincidentally they are known man eaters...an-nd they are abnormally larger than savanna/maned lions. A Tsavo (pronounced Sãvō) lion would tick off quite a number of “yes” boxes. In fact they might tick off points that you may not be aware of. Tsavo lions are notably lighter and possible spots are much less obvious. If you like my theories - let me know.
This is brilliant!
That's my favorite theory also. The man-eaters of Tsavo were terrifying and killed adult men.
Particularly liked the comprehension slot at the end where you try to make sense of all the possible theories. As for me, I remember this story from the UK magazine series, The Unexplained. So, perhaps some 30 years later, like the Exmoor Beast, the finger of suspicion rightly falls on us. Great watch.
It had a longer nose, longer snout and also broader, it's sides were very flexible like a lion or tiger, because of this it could turn it's head, it had also a membrane on it's eyes, it had thick front legs, and paws, larger claws, it had also lot sof hair on it's neck, it was also a long beast, it had a long body, it was a very strange animal,
sadaqataljariya Sounds like a andrewsarchus to me
hyena
I always come back to this story every now and then, but ive never heard about it being shot and getting back up. Interesting.
Some of the illustrations look like Tasmanian Tigers.
I love your channel. Thank you for doing this.
I guessed lion based on long leaps during attack, biting the heads and the long tails. I missed the use of claws during the attacks. I was thinking of a Puma.
Bill the traveler no pumas in Europe
Unless you import them.
except the auopsy report on Chastel's kill concludes without equivoke to a canid
@Shane Butler how stupid do you think people we're back then? Lions, jaguars and other cats were already in scientific journals of the time and well documented. My God, your one of those guys who thinks humans have been constantly advancing and that science saved humanity and so fourth.
Pumas are not black. Puma is equivalent to cougar and mountain lion, not leopard.
There was a history Channel special back in 2009 "The Real Wolfman". Where the team went to the Natural History museum vault and examined the taxidermist remains of the Beast of Gevaudan. And the data came back it was a Hyena. Many people don't realize Hyenas are felines not cannid.
I like the idea of a group of trained hybrids of Hyenas. Definitely could have had pack of Hyenas going out
I hear there is a museum in the area that posits that it was a hyena. It seems as good an answer as any.
It was not a Hyena and the stuffed one isn’t even the real beast. The Paris Museum of Natural History does have a notice mentioning the beast, and once held its ‘remains’ (not the actual remains, the modified remains presented to the king after the first ‘killing’ of the beast in 1765, the murders continued until 1767 and the second and definitive killing of the beast by Jean Chastel). The Paris Museum of Natural History never held the remains of the probable real beast which were poorly stuffed and rapidly lost after the autopsy. In addition said notice was never linked to the remains of the ‘official’ beast (which are also lost nowadays). It was written in 1819 (so 150 years later in a Post-revolution France) to describe an identified stripped hyena and this is what it states:
“Ce féroce et indomptable animal est rangé dans la classe du loup cervier ; il habite l’Égypte, il parcourt les tombeaux pour en arracher les cadavres ; le jour, il attaque les hommes, les femmes et les enfants, et les dévore. Il porte une crinière sur son dos, barrée comme le tigre royal ; celle-ci est de la même espèce que celle que l’on voit au cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle, et qui a dévoré, dans le Gévaudan, une grande quantité de personnes.”
“This ferocious and untamable animal is classified as a lynx; it lives in Egypt, it goes through tombs to snatch the corpses away, by day, it attacks men, women, and children, and eats them. It has a mane on its back, stripped like the royal tiger; it is from the same species as the one we see at the Natural History cabinet, and which has eaten, in Gévaudan, a lot of people.”
As you can see the note itself is pretty clear that this stripped hyena wasn’t the beast of Gévaudan. In addition the first beast killed by François Antoine, aka the fake one, was most certainly a wolf, meaning that the actual remains the Natural History cabinet once held were the ones of a wolf. Which means that this hyena held by the Natural History cabinet wasn’t François Antoine’s kill or Jean Chastel’s one (aka the probable real beast).
'Le Pacte des Loups' (sp ) Shown in America as The Brotherhood of the Wolves was a movie based upon this series of animal attacks. It seemingly included all of the ideas and facts just put forth by the erudite fellow who runs this Channel. Thank you for a very interesting take on this Mystery!
Who came here after the new Powerwolf song?
History Guy needs a show on Channel 13 PBS!!
To grab the attention of young children, kids and people of all ages. History Guy is the Best!