Folklore / history Paris, France (Press Club de France); the beast's range, Gévaudan (today's Lozère), is not mapped
A Life-Size Beast of Gévaudan, Built From a 1767 Autopsy, Goes on Show in Paris
A 150,000-euro resin model of the Beast of Gévaudan, based on a 1767 autopsy and testimony, was shown in Paris. What AFP reported and what is claimed.
Sign in to save stories to your shelf.
Red eyes. Blood on the fangs. A tongue 37.8 centimetres long.
On Monday, April 11, 2016, a resin-and-polyurethane Beast of Gévaudan stood in a Paris press club, built, its backers say, from the measurements of a surgeon's autopsy in 1767.
What was unveiled
According to an AFP dispatch carried by franceinfo and BFM TV, journalist Jean-Claude Bourret presented the life-size model at the Press Club de France. Bourret, a former TF1 news presenter, co-wrote a book on the subject with Julien Grycan, published in 2010; he is also credited with the two-volume "Le secret de la bête du Gévaudan."
"It's a world first," he said, as AFP quotes him. "Nobody in 250 years has had the idea of reconstructing the beast using the dimensions measured by the two surgeons who carried out its autopsy on June 20, 1767."
The model, per the report, shows very powerful legs, a brown coat with a black stripe down the back, large teeth and a tongue of 37.8 cm. It also draws on the accounts of 70 eighteenth-century peasants who survived attacks. It is posed in attack stance, with blood on the fangs and red eyes. "You can find the red eyes that frightened the witnesses of the time," Bourret said. Thirty or so craftspeople, among them sculptors, taxidermists and mould-makers, worked on it, and it cost more than 150,000 euros.
Bourret's theory
AFP recalls the old puzzle. The beast is said to have killed about a hundred people between 1764 and 1767 in the Gévaudan, today's Lozère, before a local hunter, Jean Chastel, shot it in 1767. It has been described in turn as a man disguised as a wolf, a lion or a hyena.
Bourret's reading is different. He says the animal was "certainly a cross" between a fighting dog descended from Roman legions, with a heart-shaped marking he calls "entirely characteristic," and a wolf. BFM TV's version adds that the model evokes a wolfdog, not a lion or a hyena.
That is his interpretation, and AFP quotes no independent historian or veterinary anatomist for or against it. The autopsy measurements are as Bourret relays them. The report does not say who holds the original document, nor how its figures were turned into a sculpture.
Who is behind it, and what comes next
The project was the idea of businessman Guy Gilbertas, described as passionate about the legend. He told AFP the model could end up in a museum, adding: "We want to use it to energise the area of the old Gévaudan." In other words, the reconstruction is partly a tourism bet.
What the record shows
Two outlets carried the story, but both run the same AFP text, so they count as one report. What it establishes: a model exists, it was shown on April 11, and its makers say it follows a 1767 autopsy and survivors' testimony. What it does not establish is what the beast was. A resin animal cannot settle that, only restate the best-known theory in three dimensions.
For the historical background, see our earlier post The Beast of Gévaudan.
Bottom line
Per AFP, a life-size resin-and-polyurethane Beast of Gévaudan was shown at the Press Club de France on April 11, 2016. Bourret says it follows the 1767 autopsy measurements and survivors' accounts, and that the animal was a fighting-dog and wolf cross. Gilbertas says it may go to a museum to boost tourism. No independent expert is quoted.
Attribution / source table
- Claim: Model unveiled Apr 11 at the Press Club de France; Bourret's "world first" quote; autopsy of June 20, 1767; legs, coat, teeth, 37.8 cm tongue; 70 peasant accounts; attack posture; about 30 craftspeople; over 150,000 euros; Gilbertas and a possible museum; the beast's history; Bourret's fighting-dog-and-wolf theory; his 2010 book with Julien Grycan (Éditions du Signe) and two-volume "Le secret de la bête du Gévaudan"
Attribution: AFP via franceinfo, Apr 12, 2016 (published 10:19 CEST)
Link: franceinfo - Claim: Same dispatch, published Apr 11 at 23:04 CEST; "wolfdog" wording
Attribution: BFM TV, Apr 11, 2016
Link: BFM TV - Claim: Earlier Monstrum report on the Beast of Gévaudan
Attribution: Monstrum Athenaeum, Oct 8, 2014
Link: The Beast of Gévaudan
Legal / disclaimer footer
Entertainment and cryptid-news commentary only. Nothing here confirms any identity for the Beast of Gévaudan. The reconstruction, the autopsy measurements, the cost and the theory are given as AFP, franceinfo and BFM TV reported them, and each claim belongs to its source. The map location is approximate to town level.
Original illustration of folklore, a costume or an imagined setting, as described above.
