Terror in Gévaudan: The Beast

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2019

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1764, France was a tumultuous place. On the eve of Revolution, the peasant farmers of the remote region of Gévaudan were suffering from decades of difficulties, brought about by war, poverty, poor agricultural conditions and plague. As the Summer brought about favourable weather and life for the population of the barren and sparse region should have begun an upswing in fortune, a series of attacks marked the beginning of a reign of terror that would last almost three years, headed by a monster known simply as “The Beast”. Bodies were found half eaten, the remains left on the ground spreading a fear throughout the region that would eclipse all of the previous problems and would escalate the situation as high as the court of the King. Sources: Smith, J.M (2011) Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast. Harvard University Press, 2011. This day arrived, the mail from France & Flanders (1764, November 30), The Derby Mercury, p.2. Tuesday’s Post, Utrecht Nov. 29. (1764, December 8), The Oxford Journal, p.1. Thursday’s Post, Foreign Affairs (1765, January 26), The Oxford Journal, p.2. Foreign News (1765, March 9), The Ipswich Journal, p.2. Affairs in Italy, Spain, Portugal etc. (1765, October 7), The Scots Magazine, p.43. Extract of a letter from Paris, Oct 4 (1765, October 25), Derby Mercury, p.2. Soulier, Bernard (2012) D’où était Agnès Giral? (2012, December 12), Gazette de la Bête, p.3 Sée, Henri (2004) Economic and Social Conditions in France During the Eighteenth Century. Batoche Books, 2004. Bonet, Alain (2019) La Bête du Gévaudan: Chronologie et Documentation Raisonnées. Bonet, 2019. For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone. Thanks so much for downloading Dark Histories. The podcast has been growing really well recently and that's thanks to all you good people who share it around with your friends and families.
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0:40.8	okay let's get on with the show.
0:48.2	In 1764, France was a tumultuous place. On the eve of revolution, the peasant farmers from the remote region of
0:56.2	Jevudin were suffering from decades of difficulties, bought about by war, poverty, poor agricultural conditions and plague.
1:05.5	As the summer brought about favourable weather and life for the population of the barren and
1:09.8	sparse region should have begun an upswing in fortune, a series of attacks marked the beginning
1:15.2	of a reign of terror that would last almost three years, headed by a monster known simply as
1:20.7	the beast. Bodies were found half eaten, the remains left on the ground
1:25.9	spreading a fear throughout the region that would eclipse all of the previous
1:29.6	problems and would escalate the situation as high as the court of the king.
1:35.2	This is Dark Histories where the facts are worse than fiction.
1:42.1	Hello and welcome to Dark Histories. I'm Ben. I hope you've all had a fantastic couple of weeks.
1:47.3	It's good to be back. Today's episode is an interesting one in that I actually had no idea what it was until I stumbled
1:56.6	across it in a newspaper that I was looking up for yesterday today and when I posted it
2:02.4	the YouTube user going by the name of I have no idea
	...

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