Killer(s) Of The Beasts of Gevaudan

Philippe Berard
11 min readDec 10, 2020
The Beast at wordpress

A New Light Shed on The Mysterious ‘Beast’ or ‘Beasts’ of Gevaudan During The Last Decades of Ancient Regime France

The Background

Les Grands Jours d’Auvergne (1665)

This old French phrase is translated as the ‘Great Days of Auvergne’. The Auvergne is the province that covers the Central Mountains in which is included the Gevaudan area. At the Gevaudan is not yet at the center of the largest hunt that is our story but not until a century later. A Great Day would be equivalent to a Great Trial.

Bibliotheque Nationale

Louis XIV was faced with many challenges to his absolutist power coming from the middle aristocracy. Since he was not going to bow to that latent rejection, he decided to punish the aristocrats of Auvergne who were guilty of tormenting the local peasant population (12000 complaints were received)

Secrets d’histoire

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Philippe Berard
Philippe Berard

Written by Philippe Berard

A passionate writer, I want to bring the best and the most compelling knowledge to my readers.

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