Twice ToldGazette de France, 23 November 1764: letter from Marvejols
- Language
- French
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 24 September 2026
The Gazette printed this as an extract from a letter written at Marvejols, in the Gévaudan, on 1 November 1764. The letter’s writer is not named.
EXTRAIT d’une Lettre écrite de Marvejols dans le Gevaudan, le 1er Novembre 1764.
« Il paroît depuis deux mois dans cette Province, aux environs de Langogne & de la Forêt de Mercoire, une bête farouche qui répand la consternation dans toutes les campagnes. Elle a déjà dévoré une vingtaine de personnes, sur-tout des enfans & particulierement de jeunes filles ; il n’y a guère de jours qui ne soient marqués par quelque nouveau désastre. La frayeur qu’elle inspire empêche les Bucherons d’aller dans les forêts, ce qui rend le bois fort rare & fort cher.
» Ce n’est que depuis huit jours qu’on a pu parvenir à voir de près cet animal redoutable. Il est beaucoup plus haut qu’un loup ; il est bas du devant & ses pattes sont armées de griffes. Il a le poil rougeâtre ; la tête fort grosse, longue & finissant en museau de levrier ; les oreilles petites, droites comme des cornes ; le poitrail large & un peu gris ; le dos rayé de noir, & une gueule énorme armée de dents si tranchantes qu’il a séparé plusieurs têtes du corps comme pourroit le faire un rasoir. Il a le pas assez lent & court en bondissant. Il est d’une agilité & d’une vîtesse extrêmes ; dans un intervalle de temps fort court, on le voit à deux ou trois lieues de distance ; il s’approche de sa proie, ventre à terre & en rampant, & ne paroît pas alors plus grand qu’un gros renard. A une ou deux toises de distance, il se dresse sur ses pieds de derriere & s’élance sur sa proie qu’il attaque toujours au cou par derriere ou par le côté. Il craint les bœufs qui le mettent en fuite. L’allarme est universelle dans ce canton ; on vient de faire des Prieres publiques ; le Marquis de Marangis a rassemblé quatre cents Paysans pour donner la chasse à cet animal féroce ; mais on n’a pu encore l’atteindre. »
Translation
From a letter written at Marvejols, in the Gévaudan, on 1 November 1764.
“For two months now a wild beast has been roaming this province around Langogne and the forest of Mercoire, and the whole countryside is in dismay. It has already devoured about twenty people, mostly children and above all young girls. Hardly a day goes by without some new disaster. Woodcutters are too frightened to go into the forests, so wood has become very scarce and very expensive.
“Only in the past week has anyone managed to get a close look at the creature. It is much taller than a wolf, low at the front, with clawed paws. Its coat is reddish. The head is very large and long, ending in a muzzle like a greyhound’s; the ears are small and stand up straight like horns; the chest is broad and a little grey; its back is striped with black; and its huge mouth is armed with teeth so sharp that it has taken several heads clean off their bodies, as a razor would. It walks fairly slowly but runs in bounds, and it is extremely quick and agile: within a very short time it is seen two or three leagues away. It creeps up on its prey belly to the ground, and then looks no bigger than a large fox. From one or two toises away it rears up on its hind legs and springs, always going for the neck, from behind or from the side. It is afraid of oxen, which drive it off. The whole district is in alarm. Public prayers have just been said, and the Marquis de Marangis has gathered four hundred peasants to hunt the animal, but so far no one has been able to reach it.”
Notes
- Transcription conventions: the long s (ſ) is printed as s; spelling, accents and the ampersands are as printed. The Gazette repeats « » at the start of each line of the quotation; only the opening marks of each paragraph are kept here.
- A toise was just under two metres; a league, about four kilometres.
- This is the description most later retellings draw on: taller than a wolf, reddish, the black stripe down the back, the greyhound’s muzzle. It is secondhand twice over, a letter reporting what witnesses said, printed in Paris three weeks later.
- “Some twenty people” by 1 November 1764 is the letter’s figure. Historians’ counts, built from parish burial registers, are the ones to use for the death toll (see the article’s notes).