When the Beast arrived in Gévaudan, the region was in the cold clutches of the Little Ice Age. The Seven Year’s War had ended in 1763, leaving France defeated and in economic peril. Gévaudan, a ...

This would place the Beast of Gévaudan in the realm of the Loch Ness Monster – a time displaced, but real creature ... collection of wolves in the area. Images courtesy of Harvard University ...

The beast of Gévaudan terrorized French villagers for three years, killing around 100 and injuring nearly 300. Wikimedia Commons The monster’s first victim was Jeanne Boulet, a 14-year-old girl ...

In 1765, 16-year-olds Joséphine and Clara eke out a subsistence lifestyle herding sheep in the village of Mende in the Gévaudan ... and real death tolls mount, the growing infamy of the beast ...

During the last day of June 1764, the 14-year-old Jeanne Boulet was killed near the village of Saint-Étienne-de-Lugdarès, at the time located in the region of Gévaudan. Just a month later ...

These days werewolves can be fun, exciting and even a little sexy, but in early modern period Europe, they were deemed a very real and dangerous ... La Bête du Gévaudan (The Beast of Gévaudan).