Jean-Christian Brodeur

Over a period of three years, from the beginning of the summer of 1764 to that of 1767, an enigmatic animal would perpetrate murders and carnage against the population of the province of Gévaudan in France.

Its figure is unlike anything known, and its prodigious abilities (high jump of over eight feet, long jump of twenty-eight feet on flat ground, tireless running) set it apart from any similar animal. It attacks its victims from behind, severing their heads with a blow from its enormous jaws. No one has ever seen a creature so hideous and terrifying.

Neither the dragoons of Captain Jean-Baptiste Duhamel, nor the bloodhounds of the wolf hunter Martin Denneval, nor even the tricks of Louis XV's arquebus-bearer, François Antoine de Beauterne, manage to put an end to the depredations of the Beast "who eats the world". Other actors, working in the shadows, will have to intervene in order to reduce to nothing this veritable curse cast against the population of Gévaudan.

Intrigued by this monstrous animal decapitating young cattle keepers, Jean Jacques Hilaire Daudé de Tardieu, Lord of La Barthe, sets out on the trail of the enigmatic Beast. As a man of science, he examines the traces, collects the testimony of the victims, reports the popular rumor convinced of the intervention of a sorcerer.

The creature's remarkable abilities shake his convictions. He confides in his correspondent in Nîmes, Jean-François Séguier, who sends his letters to Élie Fréron's magazine, "L'année littéraire" whose articles will spread astonishment throughout France.

Alerted, King Louis XV sends hunters and dragoons to track down the monster, but in vain, it foils each of their plans, flees the hunting grounds, avoids bullets, shies away from traps and poison, miraculously healing from its rare injuries.

During his investigation, Jean Jacques crosses paths with a tavern keeper from La Besseyre-Saint-Mary, Jean Chastel, who tells him about his own deductions about the killer whose lair seems to revolve around the lands of the Marquis de Morangies.

 

Together the two men will discover the horrible drama surrounding this Beast story and put a definitive end to it.