Gilbert Bordes brings us his truth about the beast of Gévaudan

It still remains a source of fantasies today. The beast of Gévaudan, a horrible bloodthirsty beast which does not hesitate to attack children. Gilbert Bordes with “La Malbête” offers us his truth in the form of a historical novel.

1764, Gévaudan, a bloodthirsty creature sows terror. Three years of savage attacks followed which cost the lives of several dozen people. The beast of Gévaudan is not, like the Loch Ness monster, a legendary creature…

These attacks took place in a vast territory which today covers the departments of Lozère, Cantal and Haute-Loire. From the outset, these events will take on a considerable scale due to unparalleled international media coverage! Engravings of the Beast are published everywhere, from Paris to San Francisco!

The media pressure became such that it pushed King Louis XV to take action. What follows is the hunt for the beast and all the fantasies that go with it. Is it an animal escaped from hell, as the priests preach, come to punish the terrified population for their meager sins? A beast trained by a criminal?

Gilbert Bordes turns the story of the beast of Gévaudan into a historical novel. A cunning peddler and his young apprentice lead the investigation. The author gives us his truth.

Born in 1948, in Tulle, in Corrèze, Gilbert Bordes was a teacher then a journalist. Member of the Brive School, he is the author of more than fifty regional and historical novels.

Why is the beast of Gévaudan so anchored in history, in people’s imagination?

Quite simply because I believe that at the very beginning, it is a struggle between nature and man. The man who wants to enslave him, the man who needs to work in the fields to feed himself, and nature who rebels. Nature which continues its own life, which is not that of men. In my opinion, it’s a bit like that at the start.

Why did this story interest you?

It has interested me for a very long time, because I was born in the Massif Central. But you know, Corrèze, just like Lozère and all these regions are absolutely made the same, with deep gorges, small mountains. It’s the same geology. And obviously, people, two centuries ago or a little more, they lived in the same way. This case has interested me for a long time because we have always talked about the wolf. First, if you read, you realize that throughout history, we did everything we could to eliminate wolves who ate flocks and sometimes even small children.

And then, nowadays, we are starting to say that the wolf is the nice teddy bear, that he doesn’t harm anyone and that we absolutely must protect. This is why I wrote this novel, because I think that there is a middle, middle path to find.

So, for you, which one is it? What did you want to show or in any case demonstrate?

The wolf of my beast of Gévaudan is a wolf, but one that has nonetheless been deformed by men, in my opinion. And besides, that’s a bit what most people who are interested in the question now believe. A tamed wolf, which man is capable of making extremely dangerous, quite simply because it is man who teaches him evil.

A wolf that has been deformed by men

But on the other hand, the wolf is not a nice animal. He’s a predator. And he must be taken as such, that is to say, he needs to eat meat. To eat meat, he must hunt. He hunts animals, including our farm animals, when he can. But at the time of Gévaudan, kids who, at 6 or 7 years old, could not push the plow, were used to herd the mountain herds. Nothing is easier than catching a child at that age when you’re a wolf. Especially when you’re a lone wolf. These were easy prey.

You also show in your book the total discrepancy, the lack of knowledge of Versailles in relation to these regions, we will say very distant and very rural.

Absolutely. At that time, in Versailles, we lived isolated from the rest of the world and no one worked. And in Gévaudan, on the other hand, you had to work a lot to manage to eat more or less to your hunger when nature wanted it.

You also show the extremely important weight of religion.

Imagine this beast which begins to attack children, young girls and soon also, sometimes, adults from time to time. It is still very easy for the Bishop of Mende to have his letter read in all his parishes saying that it is the fault of the naughty women, since it was still the naughty ones, the fault of the men who do not pray not, who do not sufficiently respect the commandments of the Church and obviously, God punishes them. It’s a way like any other to bring the blanket back to yourself.

You’ve done a lot of research. What is your deepest conviction about this famous story of Gévaudan?

The belief is that it was a wolf. So was it a wolf and half dog? That’s likely. This is what many researchers are now saying. At that time there were enormous dogs, the Naples mastiffs, which were a bit like our modern-day dogs.

You know, when you mix the herd in the mountains, these huge dogs were obviously capable of dealing with wolves, since they’re the same species, in fact. And so the offspring gave animals which were not afraid of men because they had dog heredity and which were hunters and great predators because they had wolf heredity. It could be this kind of animal.

It is also possible that they were wolves, a wolf, coming from the south of the Massif Central, from the Cévennes, where the wars of religion were officially over but were still continuing. That is to say that there were fights between Catholics and Protestants. And of course, the dead people remained there. Wolves that are not good hunters ate carrion. They took advantage of it, obviously. So they would have acquired a taste for human flesh. And once this wolf came to Gévaudan, it could have continued its harmful habits.