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Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast
In a brilliant, original rendition, "Monsters of the Gevaudan" revisits a spellbinding French tale that has captivated imaginations for over two hundred years, and offers the definitive explanation of the strange events that underlie this timeless story.
In 1764 a peasant girl was killed and partially eaten while tending a flock of sheep. Eventually, over a hundred victims fell prey to a mysterious creature, or creatures, whose cunning and deadly efficiency terrorized the region and mesmerized Europe. The fearsome aggressor quickly took on mythic status, and the beast of the Gevaudan passed into French folklore.
What species was this killer, why did it decapitate so many of its victims, and why did it prefer the flesh of women and children? Why did contemporaries assume that the beast was anything but a wolf, or a pack of wolves, as authorities eventually claimed, and why is the tale so often ignored in histories of the ancien regime? Smith finds the answer to these last two questions in an accident of timing. The beast was bound to be perceived as strange and anomalous because its ravages coincided with the emergence of modernity itself.
Expertly situated within the social, intellectual, cultural, and political currents of French life in the 1760s, "Monsters of the Gevaudan" will engage a wide range of readers with both its recasting of the beast narrative and its compelling insights into the allure of the monstrous in historical memory.
In 1764 a peasant girl was killed and partially eaten while tending a flock of sheep. Eventually, over a hundred victims fell prey to a mysterious creature, or creatures, whose cunning and deadly efficiency terrorized the region and mesmerized Europe. The fearsome aggressor quickly took on mythic status, and the beast of the Gevaudan passed into French folklore.
What species was this killer, why did it decapitate so many of its victims, and why did it prefer the flesh of women and children? Why did contemporaries assume that the beast was anything but a wolf, or a pack of wolves, as authorities eventually claimed, and why is the tale so often ignored in histories of the ancien regime? Smith finds the answer to these last two questions in an accident of timing. The beast was bound to be perceived as strange and anomalous because its ravages coincided with the emergence of modernity itself.
Expertly situated within the social, intellectual, cultural, and political currents of French life in the 1760s, "Monsters of the Gevaudan" will engage a wide range of readers with both its recasting of the beast narrative and its compelling insights into the allure of the monstrous in historical memory.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 12, 2013
The book started out well, but after a few chapters descended into typical, labored academic writing.
The introduction and first chapter were gracefully written and set the stage nicely. It almost felt like reading one of those grandiose histories from the 1950s, with the firm but polite authorial voice, although focused on a small scale. Smith says that the story of the Beast of Gevaudan is common in French culture. In the years between 1764 and 1766 some_thing_ viciously killed dozens of women and children, mostly shepherds. That the deaths occurred is not doubted. What caused the death, though, is ambiguous, and as the story has waxed and waned in popularity over the centuries, focus has mostly been on what did the killing. Smith wants to tell a different story. He wants to tease out the meaning of the events as they were understood then, and put them in the broader context of changes in French culture.
The first chapter does this admirably, arguing that from today's perspective there is no doubt that such events would be made into a national story. But there is a question of why it became popular then. France at the time suffered about 1,000 deaths per year to wolves. (Praise French micro-history, there's an entire monograph on the subject!) So what made these events so special as to attract the attention of newspapers, the king's court, even international news and such luminaries as Horace Walpole and Immanuel Kant? The traditional explanation by the few historians who have looked at the story is, Rural superstition intersected with the rise of mass culture, and an everyday event was blown into a sensation.
Smith doubts this explanation, It is true that newspapers carried the story, and often for sensationalistic reasons, but there were other forces operating upon them. As well, superstition was not limited to the locals. Elites, too, were drawn to the story for various reasons. He also dabbles a bit in environmental history to explain exactly why the killer could escape detection so long, and why the poor people of the thinly popularized region continued to her their sheep even as the depredations became worse--with beheadings not uncommon. This tangent would fit into a book that focused more tightly on the story of the attacks themselves, but fits oddly into the book as it eventually unfolds, leaving behind the story itself for great swaths of pages.
The second chapter examines why elites would be interested in this story. He notes that fascination with wonders was common, for both religious reasons--as omens from God--and secular ones; wonders were central to science, he says, borrowing from Parker and Daston's Wonders and the Order of Nature. Comparing descriptions of the beast to natural historical discussions of different animals, elites suggested a number of possible culprits: hyenas, monkeys, leopards, and, of course, wolves. The second half of the chapter is where the book starts to go off the rails, losing track of the story. Smith spends an inordinate amount of time arguing that religion was not just important to focusing on wonders, but that the beast fit into a particularly intra-Catholic battle of the time. The problem is not this argument--it is good to know! But Smith starts wandering further and further afield.
A third chapter brings additional context to explain interest in the beast, but is even more digressive. Smith argues that the Seven Years War permeated coverage of the killings: martial language seeped into descriptions of the beast and need to control it; stories of the beast filled space in the paper that had been devoted to the War; and hunting the beast gave elites a chance to prove their greatness after the humiliating defeat. This was especially true in the case of Jean-Baptiste Duhamel a military captain, who was appointed to destroy the beast.
Unfortunately, he failed. It was in the course of his failure, Smith argues, that the beast became an extraordinary star--that it became a celebrity in something approaching the modern sense. Before that time, celebrity meant solemnity. As the beats became a star it came to mean reputation. (Only later would it attach to an individual as a celebrity.) And Duhamel was one of the sources for its celebrity as an unusual beast. In order to account for his failure, Smith shows, Duhamel exaggerated the beast's abilities, making it more than a mere wolf. It could hurdle ten foot walls and survive several gun shots. The process continued when a father and son pair of famous wolf hunters were brought in from Normandy. They too failed to capture the beast--and also aggravated the locals with their insolence and indolence. And they too fed newspapers with hyperbolic stories to explain their failures. (It may have helped that the general hunts for the beast recruited as many as 20,000 people! Suggesting many were scared of the creature, whatever it was.)
In 1765 came news that some locals had battled the beast, in one case winning, in one case drawing even--though in neither case was the beast killed. These stories fed into a trend of valorizing the rurals, especially against the interlopers from other parts of France. It also fed skepticism about the beast's supernatural traits. Some even began to suspect that there were more than one beast causing the problems, which could account for the creature's amazing ability to cover vast territory even after being shot.
Finally, the following year, another hunter Francois Antoine killed a wolf that was thought to be the beast. The attacks ceased. And the beast's body was sent to Versailles, where it was proclaimed . . . underwhelming--further feeding the skepticism elites had about the beast's supernatural abilities. When similar killings resumed six months later, the king and his court were no longer interested in sponsoring hunts for a singular beast. The monarchy was already distracted by pre-Revolutionary foment and had invested its credibility in declaring the beast dead, so would not entertain the possibility that it still lived. Rather, the court argued that the problem was with wolves in general, and recommended large-scale extermination of the predators.
In the years immediately following and lasting until the nineteenth century, the story of the beast fell out of favor. It was blamed on superstitious women and children who forced elite men to operate against their better judgment; it was used as a political insult--to suggest silliness. And was incorporated into Gothic romances. In Smith's system, the beast was banished from rational spaces--including the increasingly rational public sphere. The story regained purchase in the public imagination with the work of abbey Pierre Pourcher in the late nineteenth-century who argued that the beast had been visited upon the region by God as a punishment.
Since that time, the story has become a popular point of debate--mostly over what perpetrated the killings. Underlying these debates, though, is the continued idea that the story was a product of rural superstition, not something created by powerful forces for their own, various reasons.
Synopsized like this, the book becomes interesting again. But as it is, Monsters of the Gevaudan is badly overwritten and the excursions into French cultural history way too long. Obviously in structure and intent the book is comparable to Stephane Gerson's recent book on Nostradamus, but where Gerson worked from the particulars of Nostradamus to the larger French culture, thereby changing some of what we think about French cultural history, Smith always works from the general to the particular, adding a bit more depth to the story of the beast, but not really adding anything to our understanding of French culture.
Interestingly, this is the very same fault of my own book on a mysterious book, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of an American Legend. It also spends too much time using the general to explain the particular, rather than the reverse.
And that is not the only similarities between the two events. Indeed, I was struck by how many parallels there were--almost like history repeating itself. There's the beast as monkey, substitution of the hunt for war, the interloping hunters disdained by locals, the claims that it was all from rural superstitions and that elites could never take it seriously.
The other problem with the book, despite its prolixity, is Smith's conventional notion of enlightenment versus superstition or enchantment versus disenchantment. It is true he complicates the traditional story a little--Enlightenment did not immediately rout all superstition from culture. But it is just as true that he sees the replacement as coming eventually, and as a positive good. The public sphere is rid of superstition and enchantment.
Except, of course, that it wasn't, as recent scholarship continually proves. Modernity was always enchanted, if sometimes in different ways than before. In the last page or two, he seems to realize that, and points to the work of Michael Saler and Joshua Landy to substantiate his claim, but by then it is too late; the story is already built around the notion of disenchantment--which is the wrong pole.
The introduction and first chapter were gracefully written and set the stage nicely. It almost felt like reading one of those grandiose histories from the 1950s, with the firm but polite authorial voice, although focused on a small scale. Smith says that the story of the Beast of Gevaudan is common in French culture. In the years between 1764 and 1766 some_thing_ viciously killed dozens of women and children, mostly shepherds. That the deaths occurred is not doubted. What caused the death, though, is ambiguous, and as the story has waxed and waned in popularity over the centuries, focus has mostly been on what did the killing. Smith wants to tell a different story. He wants to tease out the meaning of the events as they were understood then, and put them in the broader context of changes in French culture.
The first chapter does this admirably, arguing that from today's perspective there is no doubt that such events would be made into a national story. But there is a question of why it became popular then. France at the time suffered about 1,000 deaths per year to wolves. (Praise French micro-history, there's an entire monograph on the subject!) So what made these events so special as to attract the attention of newspapers, the king's court, even international news and such luminaries as Horace Walpole and Immanuel Kant? The traditional explanation by the few historians who have looked at the story is, Rural superstition intersected with the rise of mass culture, and an everyday event was blown into a sensation.
Smith doubts this explanation, It is true that newspapers carried the story, and often for sensationalistic reasons, but there were other forces operating upon them. As well, superstition was not limited to the locals. Elites, too, were drawn to the story for various reasons. He also dabbles a bit in environmental history to explain exactly why the killer could escape detection so long, and why the poor people of the thinly popularized region continued to her their sheep even as the depredations became worse--with beheadings not uncommon. This tangent would fit into a book that focused more tightly on the story of the attacks themselves, but fits oddly into the book as it eventually unfolds, leaving behind the story itself for great swaths of pages.
The second chapter examines why elites would be interested in this story. He notes that fascination with wonders was common, for both religious reasons--as omens from God--and secular ones; wonders were central to science, he says, borrowing from Parker and Daston's Wonders and the Order of Nature. Comparing descriptions of the beast to natural historical discussions of different animals, elites suggested a number of possible culprits: hyenas, monkeys, leopards, and, of course, wolves. The second half of the chapter is where the book starts to go off the rails, losing track of the story. Smith spends an inordinate amount of time arguing that religion was not just important to focusing on wonders, but that the beast fit into a particularly intra-Catholic battle of the time. The problem is not this argument--it is good to know! But Smith starts wandering further and further afield.
A third chapter brings additional context to explain interest in the beast, but is even more digressive. Smith argues that the Seven Years War permeated coverage of the killings: martial language seeped into descriptions of the beast and need to control it; stories of the beast filled space in the paper that had been devoted to the War; and hunting the beast gave elites a chance to prove their greatness after the humiliating defeat. This was especially true in the case of Jean-Baptiste Duhamel a military captain, who was appointed to destroy the beast.
Unfortunately, he failed. It was in the course of his failure, Smith argues, that the beast became an extraordinary star--that it became a celebrity in something approaching the modern sense. Before that time, celebrity meant solemnity. As the beats became a star it came to mean reputation. (Only later would it attach to an individual as a celebrity.) And Duhamel was one of the sources for its celebrity as an unusual beast. In order to account for his failure, Smith shows, Duhamel exaggerated the beast's abilities, making it more than a mere wolf. It could hurdle ten foot walls and survive several gun shots. The process continued when a father and son pair of famous wolf hunters were brought in from Normandy. They too failed to capture the beast--and also aggravated the locals with their insolence and indolence. And they too fed newspapers with hyperbolic stories to explain their failures. (It may have helped that the general hunts for the beast recruited as many as 20,000 people! Suggesting many were scared of the creature, whatever it was.)
In 1765 came news that some locals had battled the beast, in one case winning, in one case drawing even--though in neither case was the beast killed. These stories fed into a trend of valorizing the rurals, especially against the interlopers from other parts of France. It also fed skepticism about the beast's supernatural traits. Some even began to suspect that there were more than one beast causing the problems, which could account for the creature's amazing ability to cover vast territory even after being shot.
Finally, the following year, another hunter Francois Antoine killed a wolf that was thought to be the beast. The attacks ceased. And the beast's body was sent to Versailles, where it was proclaimed . . . underwhelming--further feeding the skepticism elites had about the beast's supernatural abilities. When similar killings resumed six months later, the king and his court were no longer interested in sponsoring hunts for a singular beast. The monarchy was already distracted by pre-Revolutionary foment and had invested its credibility in declaring the beast dead, so would not entertain the possibility that it still lived. Rather, the court argued that the problem was with wolves in general, and recommended large-scale extermination of the predators.
In the years immediately following and lasting until the nineteenth century, the story of the beast fell out of favor. It was blamed on superstitious women and children who forced elite men to operate against their better judgment; it was used as a political insult--to suggest silliness. And was incorporated into Gothic romances. In Smith's system, the beast was banished from rational spaces--including the increasingly rational public sphere. The story regained purchase in the public imagination with the work of abbey Pierre Pourcher in the late nineteenth-century who argued that the beast had been visited upon the region by God as a punishment.
Since that time, the story has become a popular point of debate--mostly over what perpetrated the killings. Underlying these debates, though, is the continued idea that the story was a product of rural superstition, not something created by powerful forces for their own, various reasons.
Synopsized like this, the book becomes interesting again. But as it is, Monsters of the Gevaudan is badly overwritten and the excursions into French cultural history way too long. Obviously in structure and intent the book is comparable to Stephane Gerson's recent book on Nostradamus, but where Gerson worked from the particulars of Nostradamus to the larger French culture, thereby changing some of what we think about French cultural history, Smith always works from the general to the particular, adding a bit more depth to the story of the beast, but not really adding anything to our understanding of French culture.
Interestingly, this is the very same fault of my own book on a mysterious book, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of an American Legend. It also spends too much time using the general to explain the particular, rather than the reverse.
And that is not the only similarities between the two events. Indeed, I was struck by how many parallels there were--almost like history repeating itself. There's the beast as monkey, substitution of the hunt for war, the interloping hunters disdained by locals, the claims that it was all from rural superstitions and that elites could never take it seriously.
The other problem with the book, despite its prolixity, is Smith's conventional notion of enlightenment versus superstition or enchantment versus disenchantment. It is true he complicates the traditional story a little--Enlightenment did not immediately rout all superstition from culture. But it is just as true that he sees the replacement as coming eventually, and as a positive good. The public sphere is rid of superstition and enchantment.
Except, of course, that it wasn't, as recent scholarship continually proves. Modernity was always enchanted, if sometimes in different ways than before. In the last page or two, he seems to realize that, and points to the work of Michael Saler and Joshua Landy to substantiate his claim, but by then it is too late; the story is already built around the notion of disenchantment--which is the wrong pole.
September 12, 2017
Smith ties the beast of Gevaudan to French history, showing in particular, how the raise of the news was able to use the Beast. The book is interesting.
September 29, 2016
While the first 100 pages are exhilarating and paint a believable and eerily captivating picture of French life in and around Gévaudan in the 1700's, the rest of the book quickly loses steam and more often than not stretches the story just a bit too close to the breaking point.
October 13, 2018
Very thorough but dry.
3 stars
3 stars
November 28, 2022
Endiselt Gévaudani eluka jälgi ajades jõudsin kuidagi ootamatult selle teoseni. Todaroga (The Man-Eater of Gévaudan) võrreldes valmistas Jay-Smith mulle pettumuse, ilmselt juba sel põhjusel, et temaatika oli juba tuttav ning uut infot leidus vähe. Teisalt, selline dotseeriv ja kohati lausa tänitav jutustamisstiil kipub lugejat varem või hiljem ära tüütama. Esimesed sadakond lehekülge olid kohati nauditavad, aga edasi läks lugu väga tuimaks. Korduseid oleks võinud märksa vähem olla.
Järgmisena on kavas Karl-Hans Taake... ja siis üritaks juba mõne prantsuse tellise läbi närida.
Järgmisena on kavas Karl-Hans Taake... ja siis üritaks juba mõne prantsuse tellise läbi närida.
August 10, 2011
While this is a fascinating subject for me, this book was very long-winded, and at times very repetitive. I liked the spin of looking at the politics, as well as the religion and everything else of the time period in order to see how the story of the beast of the Gevaudan escalated to its peak, and how it affected the people of the time. If you're into this kind of thing, this is a decent book, but if you're hoping for folkoric tales of werewolves, serial killers, etc. as an explanation for the what the beast was, then this is not the book for you.
August 17, 2022
A truly impressive work of research and such a focused case study. If you're looking for a spooky, scary tale of a beast, this won't be quite that. But if you're interested in all the moving parts of culture that create and shape and love and deny a legend, then this is a must-read! It is a journey of context. A sharp lens turned toward the twisted web that makes up folklore. And an acute reminder that to study folklore means to study, well, everything.
April 13, 2022
It's undisputed that a very aggressive, very violent *something* (or somethings) killed scores of peasants in rural France from 1764-1767. The details of the story of the Beast of Gevaudan are astounding. While the author persuasively argues that the killers were aggressive wolves, there is enough mystery to keep folks guessing hundreds of years later.
I've enjoyed reading about the Beast over the years because it seems like a story right out of a folk tale: dark forests, brave peasants, and a villainous creature that thwarts its pursuers at every turn. Smith's comprehensive account of the saga does an admirable job adding much needed historical context. It is also refreshing to read something about the Beast from a historian who takes the subject matter seriously and eschews paranormal or conspiratorial explanations.
Smith's argument, essentially, is that a confluence of factors--religion, science, politics, mass media, culture--turned a particularly nasty wolf pack into a creature from out of legend. Unfortunately, as other reviewers note, at times this context becomes overly detailed. The pacing is also strange; at times Smith digresses to plunk down pages of exposition about a specific issue (say, religion). By the time you're done reading these apparent tangents, you've forgotten how this is supposed to relate to the story of the Beast. It would be better to weave this explanatory context in organically. Smith also sometimes lapses into academic jargon, which obscures far more than it clarifies.
I also wish Smith engaged more seriously with the question of the identity of the Beast--which, let's be honest, is probably why most people will pick up the book. Smith doesn't hide the ball: he thinks it was multiple aggressive wolves. That is almost certainly right, and is far and away the most plausible explanation (although wolf-dog hybrids is also plausible and is my preferred explanation). Skeptics of the wolf explanation have raised a number of counterarguments and so kept the mystery of the Beast of Gevaudan alive. Some of those arguments are sound: many peasants survived attacks and insisted the Beast was not a wolf; people independently reported similar physical details that are not characteristic of wolves; the Beast's behavior and method of attack was not characteristic of wolves, and so on. Smith largely doesn't engage with these arguments and waves them away as the products of mass hysteria. That is a pity, because I think there are strong replies to those skeptics, and a serious scholar like Smith could make those arguments effectively. (For example, skeptics routinely argue that wolf attacks on humans are rare. That may be true now, but it was absolutely not the case in rural, early modern Europe. There is a reason the big bad wolf trope is so prominent in fairy tales.)
In all, this was a thorough if sometimes very dry account of a fascinating period, and for now, at least, Smith's is the definitive account.
I've enjoyed reading about the Beast over the years because it seems like a story right out of a folk tale: dark forests, brave peasants, and a villainous creature that thwarts its pursuers at every turn. Smith's comprehensive account of the saga does an admirable job adding much needed historical context. It is also refreshing to read something about the Beast from a historian who takes the subject matter seriously and eschews paranormal or conspiratorial explanations.
Smith's argument, essentially, is that a confluence of factors--religion, science, politics, mass media, culture--turned a particularly nasty wolf pack into a creature from out of legend. Unfortunately, as other reviewers note, at times this context becomes overly detailed. The pacing is also strange; at times Smith digresses to plunk down pages of exposition about a specific issue (say, religion). By the time you're done reading these apparent tangents, you've forgotten how this is supposed to relate to the story of the Beast. It would be better to weave this explanatory context in organically. Smith also sometimes lapses into academic jargon, which obscures far more than it clarifies.
I also wish Smith engaged more seriously with the question of the identity of the Beast--which, let's be honest, is probably why most people will pick up the book. Smith doesn't hide the ball: he thinks it was multiple aggressive wolves. That is almost certainly right, and is far and away the most plausible explanation (although wolf-dog hybrids is also plausible and is my preferred explanation). Skeptics of the wolf explanation have raised a number of counterarguments and so kept the mystery of the Beast of Gevaudan alive. Some of those arguments are sound: many peasants survived attacks and insisted the Beast was not a wolf; people independently reported similar physical details that are not characteristic of wolves; the Beast's behavior and method of attack was not characteristic of wolves, and so on. Smith largely doesn't engage with these arguments and waves them away as the products of mass hysteria. That is a pity, because I think there are strong replies to those skeptics, and a serious scholar like Smith could make those arguments effectively. (For example, skeptics routinely argue that wolf attacks on humans are rare. That may be true now, but it was absolutely not the case in rural, early modern Europe. There is a reason the big bad wolf trope is so prominent in fairy tales.)
In all, this was a thorough if sometimes very dry account of a fascinating period, and for now, at least, Smith's is the definitive account.
November 17, 2018
Smith mounts a convincing argument that subverts the popular trope of enlightened urban elites surrounded by superstitious peasants. The chapter describing the French public's fascination with natural history, along with greater clarity into the progression of the Enlightenment, shows how even the most educated were receptive to ideas of the monstrous (be it through hybridization, divine intervention, or stories of New World discoveries). Add to this open-mindedness a budding printed media industry hoping to capitalize on sensational news during an otherwise slow cycle (the peace following the Seven Year War), and the occasional self-interested actor, and the life of a man-eating wolf can take on new dimensions. All in all, Smith describes a fascinating moment in French history, following various threads that carry the reader from the impoverished lands of the Gevaudan to Parisian street fairs to Versailles, all while providing the necessary context for readers unfamiliar with 18th-century France.
July 21, 2017
Jay M. Smith gives readers a fantastical experience of the politics, social mores, scientific space and failures of the French monarchy to create an overarching vision of why the Beast of Gevaudan rose to fame.
I found the book an incredible resource for tracking the historical players well outside the range of the standard telling of the killings. Opportunities to expand on ideas including the role of natural philosophers and state-sponsored experimental science intrigued me.
I gave it 4 stars because there was a fair amount of information repeated as the book went on. Otherwise, a great read.
I found the book an incredible resource for tracking the historical players well outside the range of the standard telling of the killings. Opportunities to expand on ideas including the role of natural philosophers and state-sponsored experimental science intrigued me.
I gave it 4 stars because there was a fair amount of information repeated as the book went on. Otherwise, a great read.
November 13, 2018
At times a rather dry read, there can be no doubt that this is a very comprehensive and meticulously researched book about the Beast. But more than that, it's an engrossing study of the social conditions and political atmosphere surrounding the Beast's reign of terror, and a look at the cast of characters in this macabre dance of death and terror in the forbidding region of the Gevaudan.
March 8, 2019
2.5 rounded down
At times spectacularly interesting, at time dry and academic, the book never really develops a consistent tone. That said, it is still a fascinating subject and it was nice to get a look at the Beast of Gevaudan that put things in a historical context instead of just sensational "but was it a werewolf???" 'theories.'
At times spectacularly interesting, at time dry and academic, the book never really develops a consistent tone. That said, it is still a fascinating subject and it was nice to get a look at the Beast of Gevaudan that put things in a historical context instead of just sensational "but was it a werewolf???" 'theories.'
March 18, 2025
The monster of the gevaudon is an interesting story that Smith does a great job of tying into broader 18th century french history. The first two chapters are great, but later chapters hold less appeal for the casual nom academic reader. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the "vibes" of pre revolutionary France.
December 17, 2025
It's alright.
February 7, 2017
Facinating, good index and bibliography. Read cover to cover...twice!
June 12, 2013
In the wake of the Seven Years War, a seemingly unstoppable beast in on a rampage in the Massif Central region of France. It kills and devours shepherds (largely women and children) seemingly at will and with impunity. It strikes at multiple locations separated by miles of mountainous terrain almost simultaneously. It escapes local hunters and Louis XV's specially huntsmen with a supernatural ease. Is it a hybrid animal, is it a pack of wolves, is it an imported hyena or is it a messenger of divine retribution?
Smith does an interesting job of documenting how what surely was a series of disparate attacks by wolves morphed into a larger mythology that still survives in the French consciousness and imagination to this day. Less of a straight history of the events and more of a deconstruction of the creation and propagation of the myth of the Beast of Gevaudan, it is an interesting read and a demonstration of how narratives compete to sometimes overshadow historical fact.
A word on the Kindle edition which I read. The text is extensively endnoted but those endnotes are not linked between the text and the note which makes a hugely frustrating reading experience. Additionally, the text apparently contains not a few reproductions of contemporaneous drawings and illustrations which would have added to the experience but the plates are not reproduced in the Kindle version which adds an additional level of frustration to the reader. I have tried not to factor these in to my rating of the book qua the book but I can't help but feel the annoyance might have led to a downgraded overall experience. If the subject really interests you (and it is an interesting subject and well written book) then I would suggest getting the print version for the full experience.
Smith does an interesting job of documenting how what surely was a series of disparate attacks by wolves morphed into a larger mythology that still survives in the French consciousness and imagination to this day. Less of a straight history of the events and more of a deconstruction of the creation and propagation of the myth of the Beast of Gevaudan, it is an interesting read and a demonstration of how narratives compete to sometimes overshadow historical fact.
A word on the Kindle edition which I read. The text is extensively endnoted but those endnotes are not linked between the text and the note which makes a hugely frustrating reading experience. Additionally, the text apparently contains not a few reproductions of contemporaneous drawings and illustrations which would have added to the experience but the plates are not reproduced in the Kindle version which adds an additional level of frustration to the reader. I have tried not to factor these in to my rating of the book qua the book but I can't help but feel the annoyance might have led to a downgraded overall experience. If the subject really interests you (and it is an interesting subject and well written book) then I would suggest getting the print version for the full experience.
February 6, 2013
In the beginning the book does delve alot into the politics and religious aspects of this event mixed with facts about the attacks. But stick with it! After you get through that it pretty much sticks to the beast and the men hunting it. I thought it was pretty good. I knew a little of the history about this event and was very interested. I did not realize how severe the attacks were. I also find it hard to believe that a wolf was responsible for all the attacks. These people were VERY familiar with wolves and many of them claimed that they had never seen a creature like the one they witnessed. Considering the importation of exotic animals for pets was common among the wealthy... I can easily believe that at least some of these attacks where committed by another animal... that maybe they just never found and killed it. I believe the first big wolf they killed was called "The Beast" to put a end to it. Considering the attacks continued for another 6 months, I'd say their wolf was NOT the Beast. It is a interesting book and if you have a interest in this story, get through the first couple chapters, then it will get more interesting and talks more about the actual Beast and the hunt for him.
May 2, 2014
I used this book as a reference while writing a novella based on the Beast of Gevaudan. While the focus of this book was not to detail the sequence of events but rather to look at the political and social circumstances that allowed the Beast to become what it did, there was a lot of detail and research within that was much more helpful that what I could unearth online.
I did not read this from cover to cover. The first couple of chapters, then skipped around to parts related to scenes I was writing, mostly focusing on the inital attacks and the arrival of the hunter Duhamel.
I did not read this from cover to cover. The first couple of chapters, then skipped around to parts related to scenes I was writing, mostly focusing on the inital attacks and the arrival of the hunter Duhamel.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews