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The Beast of Gévaudan
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during a three-year period of the mid-18th century a mysterious creature was responsible for the gruesome slayings of over 100 people living in a small region of southern france this week on bedtime stories we ask what was the beast of zevudong but first let's talk about the beast of free vpns thanks to this episode sponsor surfshark when speaking to friends and family about investing in a vpn something i often hear is why would i pay for a vpn when i can get one for free and whilst this is true the old adage you get what you pay for comes to mind the vast majority of free vpns do more harm than good these providers have to make their money somehow and many of them do so by tracking your browsing data and selling it on to third-party advertisers not only does this mean that your online sessions will be bombarded with ads you'll have a much slower internet connection and a far more limited array of security features you pay nothing you basically get nothing however by going to surfshock.deals forward slash bedtime stories you can get a full 2 year premium vpn service for the insanely low price of just 48 on top of that you get three months extra free so effectively you're getting 27 months worth of service for just 1.80 a month it's not quite free but it's close enough and without any of the drawbacks surfshark guarantees one of the most secure services available with features that block adverts and any attempts to mine your personal data ensuring you remain completely anonymous online it is also one of the fastest vpns on the market with little to no noticeable slow down to your internet connection head over to surfshark.deals forward slash bedtime stories today and get yourself one of the best vpns on the market for a truly unbelievable price [Music] the small detachment of dragoons had ridden hard through the night until they had finally reached the outskirts of the settlement where the latest attack was purported to have taken place eagerly dismounting from his horse their lieutenant had immediately hurried off into the depths of the village leaving the rest of his men behind as the inevitable murmurs of discontent began to spread throughout the assembled riders the sergeant moved swiftly to silence them these men were hardened soldiers invaluable on the field of battle but in peacetime they proved difficult to keep motivated and engaged particularly when their new commanding officer was barely an adult and from some rich parisian family ordering two of the men to stand watch with the horses he led the rest through the narrow streets towards the main square where a small crowd of villagers had assembled in the middle of this throng knelt their lieutenant a gloved hand clasped across his mouth and fresh vomit on his boots sighing to himself the sergeant deduced that the two corpses laid out on the ground before them were probably the first that the young officer had ever seen he moved forward holding out the canteen for his superior before kneeling down himself to inspect the bodies having drawn back the first blood-soaked sheet he found himself recoiling before quickly replacing it despite having thought against the british and their allies in india during the recent war he had never seen such savage brutality inflicted upon a human body looking around he noted the mixture of fear and hatred in the eyes of the villagers as they quietly surveyed their new arrivals it seemed the distance between the city and countryside grew wider with each passing year although these people now depended on the likes of him and his fellow soldiers for protection the contempt they felt for their new guests was palpable prior to their departure the battalion commander had read the men a personal message from the king promising a fortune in gold to whomever amongst them ended the reign of terror this supposed creature had imbued with the disturbing visions of the bodies he had just seen still racing through his mind the sergeant considered riding straight back to paris and telling the sovereign where to shove his reward emerging from his thoughts he began to bark familiar orders to the rest of the dragoons they were to check their weapons were in working order and then form a perimeter around the village until the arrival of the bloodhounds the following morning if the beast was sighted the men were not to fire upon it for fear of driving it away instead attempts would be made to entice it inside the perimeter where it could be cornered and dispatched by volley fire as the cavalry men reluctantly filed out towards their positions he scanned the assembled villages for a priest whoever the poor souls were that now lay dead at the center of the village the manner of their passing dictated that they should receive benediction before moving on to the afterlife as much as the sergeant did not want to admit it he knew deep down that he and his men would not be leaving this place any time soon the legend of the beast of shivoudong began towards the end of the summer in 1764. a 14 year old girl named jian boulay had been left by her family tending to a flock of sheep on the outskirts of the village of lezubak when she was later found killed her throat had been torn out but bizarrely the animal she had been tending to had been left unmolested by the perpetrator further savage killings followed with witnesses claiming that the assailant was a gigantic canine creature it was described as being longer and broader than a wolf rusted in colour and possessing an oversized head with a mouth full of sharp and wicked looking teeth the creature only targeted the faces and throats of its victims seemingly materializing out of nowhere and giving no warning of its approach as the number of fatalities steadily increased all attempts to capture and kill the monster met with dismal failure it seemed capable of detecting and avoiding poison bait and traps and possessed the ability to sense large groups of people lying in ambush survivors who had injured and driven the creature away claimed that the wounds they inflicted had mysteriously healed and that bullets which hunters had fired at the beast seemed to bounce off its thick hide causing no visible damage in paris newspaper editors keen to report on something other than the country's dismal foreign affairs enthusiastically seized upon the story the colourful descriptions of bravery and tragedy which they published soon found their way to the court of louis xv himself and it was the tale of a young farm boy named jacques portefe that finally prompted the king to send help to his citizens ten-year-old jack and several of the boys were heard in cattle across a field near to some woods when the monster appeared from the tree line ignoring the large group of cows it instead made straight for the youngsters who instinctively banded together and fended it off using their pikes several of them including jacques sustained severe injuries prompting the king to reward their bravery by pledging to fund their future education and dispatching several parties of cavalrymen to the region to kill the creature these dragoons were led by captain jean-baptiste duamel a veteran of the seven years war who saw the posting as a possible means to atone for the army's recent string of military defeats duramal made efforts to conscript the rather reluctant local populace ordering them to deploy across the countryside in large groups with the intention of herding the beast towards his limited resources he also attempted to dress male villagers up as women to act as decoys and yours given the monster's propensity for attacking females [Music] unsurprisingly the region's inhabitants reacted to these demands with varying degrees of disinterest further frustrating the already exasperated officer it was whilst uml was attempting to coordinate these efforts that one of the most famous incidents involving the monster took place nineteen-year-old marijuan valley was crossing the river des with her younger sister when the beast attacked using a knife affixed to the end of a wooden stave she speared the creature through its chest and drove it away earning her the nickname of the maid of javodong when captain duramel's methods failed to prevent the rising death count the royal court dispatched two professional hunters a father and a son by the name of dynval to kill the creature believing their quarry to be a wolf of some kind they took a very different approach to that of the army using bloodhounds to scour the countryside and then setting concealed hides near to any trail they detected four months later yet more innocent citizens had been slain and the hunters had little to show for their efforts enraged with their failure the king ordered his personal gun bearer to resolve the situation once and for all francois antoine the most famous marksman in the land subsequently arrived at lamel's year in june of 1765. three months later he would write to the king declaring that the horror was finally over on the morning of september the 20th antoine and his entourage cornered a pair of wolves in their offspring near to the obedience shares the animals were considered large for their species with the male particularly oversized without hesitation antoine dispatched the mail ordering that its remains be stuffed and sent back to the king he then set off in pursuit of the rest of the pack when the body of the wolf arrived in paris it was discovered that it possessed a double set of dew claws suggesting that it could be the descendant of some form of wolf and dog hybrid antoine returned shortly afterwards to a hero's welcome having gone on to kill the wolf's mate and one of its cubs the king rewarded him handsomely publicly declaring that the beast's reign of terror was finally at an end but back in the south of the country the deaths continued over the next 18 months the bodies of a further 30 men women and children were found with their heads and throats torn to pieces the authorities desperately pleaded with the court to again send assistance only to be told that the beast was considered dead and whatever was taking place now was their problem to solve accepting that no help would be forthcoming the people of javedon finally took matters into their own hands the coordination of their defense fell to a local nobleman named the maki depshier who organized small groups of men with extensive local knowledge or suitable skill sets and backgrounds many of these men were hunters or military veterans and some were local criminals and it was just such an offender who had been set free that ultimately vanquished the beast of jesudong on the 19th of june 1767 one of the hunting parties was attacked by a huge canine on the slopes of mol mushay amongst their number was a farmer by the name of jean chantel who had been thrown in prison two years previously by captain duhamel for refusing to assist in the hunt for the beast chantelle secretly believed that the monster which was now charging towards him was some form of werewolf or similar mythical creature standing his ground he fired upon the beast using a large caliber bullet which had been tipped with silver with a deafening roar the rampaging creature stumbled and went crashing to the ground where it then lay still the body of the beast was taken directly to the chateau dapte where it was cut open and human remains were recovered from inside its stomach it was then stuffed and held on display at the castle for doctors and surgeons from across the land to inspect whilst those who viewed it could not agree on exactly what the creature was what they did agree upon was that it was not simply a large wolf over the centuries that have passed since the beast of jevodon was finally slain there have been many theories as to what kind of creature it may have been amongst the most colourful of these was that it was some form of lycanthrope possessing extreme strength and the power to heal itself as well as being able to call upon its inherent human cunning in order to evade capture this was certainly what the newly freed john chantal believed as he incorporated silver into the manufacture of his ammunition and whilst many of his compatriots may not have shared his views on lycanthropy some did believe that the beast was the instrument of a powerful and evil force to the god-fearing catholic citizens of 18th century france it was clear that the devil or one of his worshippers must have ultimately been responsible for the creature's actions whether the beast was an agent of the devil himself or under the influence of some malevolent mage or warlock the savagery with which it killed its victims was clear evidence of satanic influence other more rational but equally conspiratorial theories were also proposed one suggested that a serial killer was at work either using the beast as a means of dispatching their victims or as cover for their own activities allegations abounded that the killer may have recently returned from the americas adopting the traditions of their native populations and hunting victims wearing animal skins in order to hide their true identity this would surely have accounted for the beast's alleged supernatural qualities its surviving victims mistaking its very human behavior for what would be considered mysterious and incomprehensible in an animal others allege that the monster was some form of hunting dog protected by an armor of animal hide that had been fastened to it which might account for the ineffectiveness of the guns fired upon it whilst it was known for some hunting dogs to wear armor in pursuit of dangerous quarry such as wild boars or stags the practice was far from common and was restricted largely to the upper classes did this murderous creature once belonged to the nobility had it then escaped and run a mark well beyond their control if not an armored hunting dog was it some form of exotic pet imported from abroad which had escaped from a private collection it is along this line of thinking that the majority of commentators have settled seeing in the various colourful descriptions of the monster the characteristics of a striped hyena or potentially even a sub-adult lion unfortunately the carcass of the animal killed by chantal has long been lost in the mists of time so it is unlikely we will ever know its true identity over the three years in which it was active the beast of jesudong is alleged to have killed more than a hundred people injuring a further fifty it is clear that both the manner in which the slayings were recorded and the mechanics of the attempts to capture it were both colored by the politics of the day the fact that no further attacks took place after 1767 and no similar incidents have ever been reported since suggests that whatever the creature was it was most likely the only one of its kind whether a now extinct form of primeval predator a hunting animal that had been trained or adapted or something more paranormal it would appear that the beast and its legend both perished on that fateful day on the slopes of monmouth so so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] bedtime stories
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