The historic Gévaudan county, situated in the rugged highlands of the Massif Central, straddles France’s Auvergne and Languedoc regions. Between 17 more than a hundred wolves were killed in Gévaudan, but scholars are still trying to determine if any of them was the deadly beast responsible for the attacks. It would terrorise Gévaudan for three years, killing as many as 100 people (although some sources claim the total could be as high as 300). ( These imaginary beasts fuelled nightmares around the world.) As whispers of a werewolf began to circulate, the deadly creature became known as la bête, the beast. Whatever this deadly creature was, it was far more ferocious than a regular wolf. More fatalities like Boulet’s followed with severe injuries, dismemberments, and even decapitations. Children often shepherded sheep or cattle by themselves, and wolves were part of the hazards of rural life. Her death did not seem unusual at the time.
Her badly injured body was later discovered, the victim of an apparent wolf attack. Jeanne Boulet, a fourteen-year-old shepherd girl, was tending livestock in the wooded valleys near the Allier River in the Gévaudan region of central southern France one day in June 1764.
