
What Was the Beast of Gévaudan? - yaa_minu
https://www.history.com/news/beast-gevaudan-france-theories
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pluc
'Le Pacte des Loups' (Brotherhood of the Wolf -
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0237534/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0237534/))
was a 2001 french movie in which the beast turned out to be a wolf raised,
bred and controlled by someone.

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foreigner
I enjoyed that movie. Some silly points but very pretty, lots of horses
running in slow motion, etc... If I recall correctly the best turned out to be
some exotic creature imported from Africa.

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prox
I assumed it was a tiger with some sort of armour around it.

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codetrotter
Pretty cool. The picture of the statue in the article reminds me of the 18th
century lion taxidermy which is known for its comical look.

Here: [https://www.kungligaslotten.se/english/articles-and-
movies/n...](https://www.kungligaslotten.se/english/articles-and-
movies/news/2019-02-06-the-legend-of-leo.html)

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misiogames
I remember a french action movie loosely based on this story: Le Pacte des
loups, cool movie for some pandemic popcorn session :D

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esfandia
The logo of Marcel Robbez-Masson, a fairly big company specialized in
producing gold jewelry, is the beast of Gevaudan, a neat way to trace to the
company's roots in the Lozere region where the beast's legend originated:
[http://www.robbez.fr/](http://www.robbez.fr/)

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axaxs
Short hair, color of a deer, long tail, claws... it sounds to me based solely
on that description like a mountain lion. Makes me wonder if the townsfolk had
not seen one before, so assumed it to be a 'weird looking wolf'. Then again,
how one got there in the first place would be interesting.

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Udik
Wouldn't they have immediately recognised a mountain lion as some sort of big
cat?

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axaxs
Perhaps. I'm not well versed in education of the times, so take with a grain
of salt. As far as I know, there are no big cats native to France, so it's
likely they didn't know such a thing existed, or what it looked like.

In rural Kentucky when I was a younger, there were a string of cow killings in
the area. Some farmers said it was a wolf or large coyote, but they didn't get
a great look. One farmer called a trapper to kill it, and it was finally
killed. It turned out to be a mountain lion. These farmers didn't even know
they were in the area(they aren't supposed to be, in fairness). And this was
in the information age.

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Udik
> there are no big cats native to France

I didn't mean a big feline. I meant literally a big cat. Something with a head
that looks remarkably more similar to that of a domestic cat rather than a
dog's.

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axaxs
Understood. Mountain Lions are kinda weird, they tend to have an elongated
snout. They do resemble cats, mainly in the eyes, but could easily be mistaken
for.. something else. Here's a picture I found to showcase that a bit, I
wouldn't personally think it looks much catlike. YMMV.

[https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2016/11/29/23b79701-c4...](https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2016/11/29/23b79701-c4d2-4448-b292-3f80c428fb58/p45-mountain-
lion.jpg)

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riffraff
Why do they consider "sub-adult-male" lion rather than just a female lion?

People wouldn't be familiar with it due to the lack of mane, but it would
certainly be able to pray, and would match the claws and other
characteristics, tho not the stripes.

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unnouinceput
I thought this was already cleared by History. They ran some program like over
a decade ago where they concluded The Beast was a hyena, which was
domesticated and used by the killer. This was a team, serial killer + beast.

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zbentley
I think that was the plot of the "Pacte Des Loups" movie others in the
comments are discussing, but I don't know of the idea ever having been proven
out.

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unnouinceput
I know that movie, I saw it. Also I watched their documentary, in it they
actually traced documents that 2 centuries later stated that some national
French archive achieved The beast taxidermy body and had a very clear
description, which made them conclude it was a hyena.

I am very aware the difference between the movie and the documentary. Also in
documentary they kinda accused the dude that shot it with silver bullets being
the actual killer. According to their conclusion, the dude barely exited from
the bishop that blessed his silver bullets and he encountered The Beast and
shot it. They concluded that hyena was tamed by him and he simply call it and
shot it to achieve fame. Then last frame in documentary was their detective
team standing to some statue of that hunter that is erected in some village in
France and concluding that France might celebrate a serial killer instead with
that statue.

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dang
It also made an appearance last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235565)

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JackFr
This article sets some interesting historical context for the behavior of the
villagers in "Beauty and the Beast".

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agumonkey
The topic was featured on the radio this week, either something is happening
or there's a daily zeitgeist around this.

