Dr Sex and The Electric Love Bed

Tags

British History, Celestial Bed, eighteenth century history, electricity, emma hamilton, Georgian Society, James Graham, medical history, sex therapy, temple of heath

James Brown, medical reformer, with James Graham just visible in a white suit in the background by John Kay 1786, National Portrait Gallery

A lot of people think  sex was invented in the 1960’s with it’s free-love, orgasms for all, and sex therapy…prior to that people simply pro-created out of a sense of duty.  How dull…..

Well, obviously that’s simply not true (Ok so, maybe the Victorian’s were a bit prudish, but hey, Victoria still managed to knock out nine children so Albert must have been keeping her amused between the sheets).

But what about bad sex? Or no sex? What about infertility? what did people do and where did they go for their sexual healing…?

Enter the eighteenth century’s answer to Dr Ruth:  The first Sex Therapy Superstar and all round crowd pleaser: ‘Doctor’ James Graham! Roy Porter acerbically described in the following terms:

“James Graham, former pedlar of health through sex-therapy and mudbaths, later founded the ‘New and True Christian Church, practiced Adamic nakedness, died insane.”(1)

Welcome to the world of the Prince of Quacks and keen imbiber of ether!

Formative Years

James Graham was born on 23 June 1745 in Edinburgh.  He was of humble origins but not so poor that he could not afford a good education.  He studied at the prestigious Edinburgh University. He left without a degree, however this far from unusual – neither did most of his contemporaries.  At first he tried his hand as an apothecary in Doncaster but a more adventurous spirit was calling him.  In 1770 he set off for America, where he spent the next five years.  It was in America that he came across the cutting edge of scientific discovery that was quite literally setting the world on fire:  electricity.

In Philadelphia Graham was introduced to electrical theory and practice by Ebenezer Kinnersley a close friend of Benjamin Franklin (also famous for his experiments in electricity).  With this new-found knowledge, the proverbial light-bulb (OK, slightly anachronistic imagery) went off in Graham’s brain.

Graham came to believe that electricity was the new panacea and this belief formed the basis for his future medical therapies, philosophy and, of course, his business ventures, he wrote:

“Electricity invigorates the whole body and remedies all physical defects.”

Graham believed that through magnetic and electric therapies, the very fabric of the human race could be improved upon and in improving individuals society as a whole would become more harmonious.

As the War of Independence swept through America, James Graham returned to England charged with these radical new scientific and medical  ideas and armed with an innate flair for self-promotion.

No publicity is bad publicity

Catherine Macauley, c1775, image by Robert Edge Pine

On return to England, in 1775,  he set up a fashionable practice in Bath, and began a vigorous advertising campaign in the form of leaflets and pamphlets advertising such things as “Effluvia, vapours and applications aetherial, magnetic or electric”. 

His biggest publicity coup however was in catching the most famous Blue-stocking of the day: Catherine Macaulay.  Catherine was unusual in being an eighteenth century woman famed for her intellect rather than who she was sleeping with.  This was soon to change.

Catherine was in her forties in poor health. James Graham, charming, charismatic and opportunist, soon inveigled his way into Catherine’s salon.   Despite her ill-health, Shortly after engaging James Graham as her physician she recovered her vitality enough to marry his 21-year-old brother!  Society was deliciously shocked by the events.  Although Catherine’s reputation was in ruins, Graham used the scandal to prove the efficacy of his methods:  after all he had transformed a frail middle-aged blue stocking into a rapacious cougar!  Banking on this to bolster his reputation he relocated to London within two weeks of the marriage.

London: Electric Ladyland and the Temple of Health

London 1780’s:

“Carriages drawing up to the door of this modern Phaphos, with crowds of gawping sparks, on each side, to discover who were the visitors, but the ladies’ faces were covered; all going incog.  At the door stood two gigantic porters with each a long staff with ornamental silver heads….and wearing superb liveries, with large gold-laced cocked hats, each was seven feet high, and retained to keep the entrance clear.”
Henry Angelo, Royal Fencing Master,  recollected of the biggest crowd pullers in London in 1780.

Sex, scandal and excess – welcome to James Graham’s Temple of Health and Hymen.

An expert at creating publicity and marketing his ideas, Graham chose the Adam brother’s uber-fashionable development the Adelphi for the site of his first Temple of Health and Hymen, also called ‘Templum Aesculpium Sacrum’.  Already much talked because the development had nearly ruined the Adam brothers, it already boasted famous residents, the addition of a highly salacious medical/scientific establishment created an immediate buzz.

Emma Hamilton by George Romney

The Temple soon attracted crowds of the curious, bustling to see the elaborate scientific implements, the ornate and luxurious interiors, the sexy young ‘goddesses’ (Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson’s future mistress, briefly caused a sensation as the Goddess  Vestina during her short sojourn in the Temple).

For the price of 2 guinea’s you could even attend one of the  scandalously frank sex talks that James Graham delivered nightly, such as his ‘Lecture on Generation’ which recommended genital hygiene and marital sex, whilst condemning masturbation and the use of prostitutes.  Mind you he did think it was OK for the married ladies to look at dirty mags…(aka erotica).  At the lectures the audience would be treated to music, poetry, fireworks and dance, and as an added bonus you also got a free electric shock thrown into deal (the padding of the chairs had conductors concealed in them!) – so you could quite literally come out shocked rigid!

If you had the reddies, you could really buy into his ideas: the scantily clad nymphs sold patrons Graham’s Electrical Ether, Nervous Aetherial Balsam or Imperial Pills for a guinea or so each; and if you were really rich, you could enjoy some of the electro-therapy equipment itself:  elaborate multi-seater thrones and crowns designed to give light electric shock’s to the patient to cure impotency or barrenness.

Roll up Roll up for the amazing Medico, Magnetico, Musico, electrical bed!

Or to give it its formal title:  The Great Celestial State Bed.  The centre piece, star turn of James Graham’s second Temple of Health and Hymen based in Shomberg House and opened on the 26th June 1781.

Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Joshua Reynolds

Graham teased the public with pamphlets and soon had the crowd flocking to his new temple.  Duchesses vied with famous courtesans, politicians rubbed shoulders with bricklayers, old Roue’s like the Earl of Sandwich cast their jaundiced eye over the exotic and luxurious interiors.  Acidic commentators like Horace Walpole decried James Graham as a quack.

But James Graham was much more than a quack, he used scientific advances to great visual effect, taking much inspiration from famous theatrical designer Philippe De Loutherbourg and his innovative stage lighting techniques and use of automatons.

A visit to the temple would plunge the visitor into,as Peter Otto describes it:

“A multi-media show [that] combined drama, medicine, science, metaphysics, religion, music, sex and even politics” (2)

Clearly, there is too much there to cover in this post!  So let’s get to the main feature – the Great Celestial State Bed as it seems to embody quite a few of the themes that Otto identifies.

A description is in order I think, I have read various descriptions of the bed, Lydia Syson in her book Doctor of Love provides a great description, however first I will let James Graham describe his crowning glory in his own words:

The Celestial Bed

“forty pillars of brilliant glass, of great strength and of the most exquisite workmanship, in regard to shape cutting and engraving…[and] an abundance of the electrical fire..”

Syson goes into further detail:  the bed had a vast dome above it which contained exotic perfumes and a dash of ether just to get the occupants into the mood.  Music also played from the bed, organ pipes were integrated into it and the music was regulated by the pace and vigour of the nookie going on beneath the canopy!

The dome also had inlaid mirrors, reflecting the couple rolling in the rich bedclothes atop a tilting mattress stuffed with oats, spices and stallion hair and stuffed with 1500lbs of magnets to prevent impotency and aid conception (well a simple feather mattress would have been redolent of effete luxury).  Graham was not alone in using magnets in relation to sex therapy, they had long been connected with love and sex.  The magnets were said to ‘jolt’ the couple as they copulated, however Kate Williams notes that it was probably one of the ‘goddesses’ hidden away and frantically pumping away on a lever (rather a parallel of events in the bed…)

As if this was not enough, the bed was loaded with other diversions and adornments:  Atop the dome where Cupid and Psyche, Hymen watching over them with an electric crown in one hand and torch in the other.  Inside were caged turtle doves, automata (a creepy pastoral show with nymphs, brides and bridegrooms entering the temple of hymen).  And all topped off with an electric message, reading “Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth”

Sounds terrifying!  But for £50 a night (close to £3,500 in today’s money) you would want to make the most of it.    James sold it as:

“to insure the removal of barrenness…but likewise, improve, exalt and invigorate the bodily, and through them, the mental facilities of the human species.”

The aristocracy flocked to it, desperate for legitimate heirs.  After 5 and a half years of marriage with no heir to show for it, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire may well have taken a tumble in the famous bed.

Gaudy and vulgar, and slightly scary as the bed sounds today, in the eighteenth century it embodied cutting edge science and medical theory and it was the acme of technological advancement. The ingenious mechanic Thomas Denton was involved in the creation of the bed (Denton famously viewed some automatons which were on display, decided he could do better, and promptly made a speaking automata and later a drawing one which astounded all who saw them).

The lights go out

Fashion is fickle, and publicity can be cruel – Graham became the butt of satire and innuendo in the popular press and in the theatres.  It can’t have helped his already dubious reputation to note that many prostitutes advertised their use of the ‘Grahamite method’ of sex.  So, despite James Graham’s stratospheric success, his fame and fortune lasted only a couple of years.  Soon both temples were in financial difficulty and by 1784 he was forced to sell his possessions.  He returned to Edinburgh, and became ever more eccentric.  He seems to have developed a Messiah Complex – founding a new religion (he was its only convert).  He eventually renounced his electric therapies in favour of mud and extreme calory counting.  He was partial to giving lectures buried up to his neck in soil, and wearing vests made of turf.  He even did a spell in the Edinburgh Tollbooth after giving one of his saucy sex lectures to the staid and respectable Edinburgh worthies.

Yet in a time of social unrest – Britain was in fear of invasion following Spain and France joining with the Patriots in the American War of Independence and the capital was reeling after the chaos and violence of the Gordon Riots – James Graham offered people the chance to glimpse an idealistic alternative.  And and he gave that very commercial society the chance to buy into it.  He offered a slightly hedonistic opportunity to achieve an almost religious transcendence through sex and he wanted patrons to leave his temple feeling empowered and invigorated.

Many of his theories were not to far removed from contemporary medical advice (and compared to a blood-letting, his methods offered enjoyment). Although some of his sexual theories relied on standard chauvenistic Male/Active/good  female/passive/corruptible dualisms he did hold relatively progressive views on women’s education, nutrition and hygiene.

His reputation as a quack seems to have stemmed from his expert use of self-promotion and marketing.  Syson notes that in the eighteenth century Quackery was identified primarily by use of self-promotion and geographic mobility rather than actual survival rates of patients.  One would imagine that most of James Graham’s patients not only survived, but came out of the procedure with a smile on their face – no wonder the other doctors hated him!

Wellcome Institute Collection

Notes

1) Roy Porter, ‘English Society in the Eighteenth Century’ (p182)
2) Otto, Peter, http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2001/v/n23/005991ar.html

Sources

Cruickshank, Dan, ‘The Secret History of Georgian London’, Windmill, 2010
Foreman, Amanda, ‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’, Flamingo, 1999
http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/james-graham.html James Graham,
Otto, Peter, http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2001/v/n23/005991ar.html
Porter, Roy, ‘English Society in the 18th Century’, Penguin, 1990
http://quackscharlatansandfakers.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/hello-world/ James Graham, Quack?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Graham_%28sexologist%29
Syson, Lydia, 2008, ‘Doctor of Love: James Graham and his Celestial Bed’, Alma Books (Kindle Edition)
Williams, Kate, ‘England’s Mistress’, Arrow Books, 2007

Merlin and the Silver Swan

Tags

Age of Enlightenment, automaton, Bowes Museum, Charles Babbage, early computers, eighteenth century, Georgian Society, history, John Joseph Merlin, North East England, robots

The Silver Swan, 1774, created by John Joseph Merlin and James Cox.

The eighteenth century was a time of magic and mystery despite – or perhaps because of – the Enlightenment.  The more scientific, rational and demystified the world became, the more people sought out the shadows, the unknown and the extraordinary.  From the passion for the Gothic Novel, to the vogue for seances and Phantasmagoria, the thrill seekers and the curious were desperate to be amazed.  Science helped to fulfill this need, and Scientists became the new Wizards of the age – often just as good showmen and PR guru’s as any  market-place mountebank.

Automata were at the forefront of eighteenth century technological developments, yet they were also things of beauty and wonder that posed philosophical questions about the human condition.

One of the most sublime and magical of the Automata, in my opinion,  is the Silver Swan created by a later-day Merlin.  Truly a master of mechanical magical arts – John Joseph Merlin (1735 – 1803) was an eccentric Belgian inventor who came Britain.

John Joseph Merlin

John Joseph Merlin, by Gainsborough, Public Domain via Wikipedia

Merlin was from an early age a genius with clockwork.  He studied at the Academie des Sciences in Paris and at only 25 years old he was already a well-known inventor, so much so that he was brought to England by the Spanish Ambassador.

He enthusiastically threw himself into the heart of Georgian celebrity culture, he had a knack for hanging out with the intellectual and artistic ‘in-crowd’ (Dr Johnson, Gainsborough, Walpole and JC Bach (son of JS) to name but a few).  He also had a talent for publicity.   One of his favourite publicity stunts was to attend soirees dressed up as a barmaid, whilst whizzing round the bemused guests on roller skates (also his invention) serving drinks – or playing the violin (he could do that as well –the smarty pants!).

On the subject of his inventing roller skates, I can’t help but mention on of the most famous and oft-repeated anecdotes about him, which was recorded by Thomas Busby in 1805 (some years after Merlin’s death):

“One of his ingenious novelties was a pair of skaites contrived to run on wheels.  Supplied with these and a violin, he mixed in the motley group of one Mrs Cowley’s masquerades at Carlisle House; when not having provided the means of retarding his velocity, or commanding its direction, he impelled himself against a mirror of more than five hundred pounds value, dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces and wounded himself most severely”

Note the wonderful eighteenth century emphasis on the damage to property prioritized over personal injury! Fortunately Merlin is said to have had a good sense of humour (and a strong constitution – one hopes).

He was also noted for being very musical (hence the violin) and inventing and improving various musical instruments including a Barrel Organ for a princess and a compound harpsichord with pianoforte action which was used by Bach.

The Silver Swan and the modern computer

The famous Silver Swan came about through a partnership between Merlin and James Cox.  Cox was a jeweller and clockmaker with brassy flare of a showman.  The perfect promoter for top end exquisite and exclusive Automata.

The Silver Swan, Bowes Museum, Durham

The Silver Swan, created in 1773, was a show stopper from the start drawing huge crowds to ‘The Mechanical Museum of James Cox’ in London.  It was exhibited in 1867 at the Paris Exhibition, and bought by John and Josephine Bowes in 1872 for their museum in Barnard Castle.  And that is where it remains to this day – as the star turn of Bowes Museum.

The Swan is the ultimate luxury object – solid silver, with a top of the range clockwork mechanism and artistic touches such as the uneven glass rods that form the water in which the swan sits – Cox gave the Swan its beauty whilst Merlin gave it life.

Imagine the swan in action in candle-light, flickering flames making the water shimmer as the swan inclines its elegant silvery neck, whilst eerie music plays from within its mechanism.

In 1783, after Cox ran into financial difficulties, Merlin opened his own show room: ‘Merlin’s Mechanical Museum’; it ran with great success for a number of years. Amongst his clock-work masterpiece was a perpetual motion machine run by changes in atmospheric pressure as well as his famous automatons.

Charles Babbage, inventor of an early proto-type for modern computers visited this museum as a child and was mesmerised by what he saw, and became hooked on the potential of automata.

He was so taken with two saucy little nude automata that years later he eventually acquired them for his own delectation (all in the course of research – naturally).  He described them thus:

“..she used an eye-glass occasionally and bowed frequently as if recognizing her acquaintances….” the other “..an admirable danseuse, with a bird on the forefinger of her right hand, which wagged its tail, flapped its wings and opened its beak….the lady attitudinized in a most fascinating manner.  Her eyes were full of imagination, and irresistible.”

The price of perfection

There was also a dark side to this beauty and technology.  For much of the eighteenth century these beautiful and innovative creations were produced by highly skilled low paid workers.  Artisans who worked by candle-light on tiny mechanisms.  Many of them must have damaged their eyesight or gone blind.  And of course, most ordinary people would never have been allowed to glimpse these marvels of the age as they were primarily for the entertainment of the wealthy elite. One famous maker – Pierre Jaquet-Droz even vowed that no servant would ever see his creations.

Automaton owned by Marie Antoinnette, Versailles collection.

Automatons were so much associated with the elites and ruling classes that during the French Revolution, revolutionaries likened the hated aristo’s to the automatons that they loved so much: “bodies without souls, covered in lace”.

The Legacy of Celestial Clockwork

Mark Twain described his viewing of the Silver Swan in action in his book ‘Innocents Abroad’:

“I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes – watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop – watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it..”

Automaton from Dr Who ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’

I think Mark Twain truly captures the essence of automata here, they were not just imitations of life, there was a growing philosophy that the body and machine could become one and be recreated in clockwork.  Scientists and philosophers saw automatic movements and processes in the way the bodies of humans and animals worked and many automaton’s were designed to replicate these processes and in doing so posed the question were humans really any different from machines?

These early Automatons also hinted at the industrial revolution and the mechanisation of many industries (such as the textile industry) which had a direct impact on the working classes.  They were also very early precursors of the computer: automatons were directed in their actions by Cams, each cut differently, and capable of ordering the movements of the automaton.  Often hundreds of cams were required, and as many were numbered, potentially an automaton could be programmed to perform a variety of tasks by rearranging them – a mechanical form of computer programming.

They have also helped inspire and drive the creative imagination in literature and in science in the form of robots and androids.  And reality is fast catching up with sci-fi with sophisticated robots such as Asimo, and the current debate about the possibility of creating ‘killer’ robots in the not to distant future.

**

Unfortunately very few of the original automatons survive, and those that do, are often just as inaccessible to ordinary people as they were in the eighteenth century.  However, it is still sometimes possible to glimpse one of these remarkable creations in action.  The Silver Swan at Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, is operated every day at 2pm for the public.  I have seen the swan in action, it is incredible to watch a clockwork masterpiece built 240 years ago working so perfectly.  You can see it in action on You Tube on the link below, and details of how to visit can also be found  below.

Link to Silver Swan display:

Sources

Bowes Museum website, http://www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk/collections/the-silver-swan/history/
Busby, Thomas, 1805, ‘Concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes’
Leinhard John H, John Joseph Merlin, http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi630.htm
Rendell Mike, John Joseph Merlin Part One, http://blog.mikerendell.com/?p=5077
Rendell, Mike, John Joseph Merlin Part Two, http://blog.mikerendell.com/?p=5097
Schaffer, Simon, Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams, BBC4 Broadcast 3/6/13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joseph_Merlin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cox_%28inventor%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Swan_%28automaton%29

The Beast of Gevaudan: the Napoleon Bonaparte of Wolves*

Tags

Beast of Chazes, Beast of Gévaudan, eighteenth century, france, Jean Chastel, Louis XV, Loup Garou, werewolves, Wolf Hunters, wolves

The Beast of Gévaudan

Max Von Sydow in The Wolfman, 2010, Copyright Universal Pictures

I first came across the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan in The Wolfman, Joe Johnson’s 2010 version of the 1941 film.  Despite the criticism the film garnered I thought it was a very atmospheric take on the  ‘classic’ horror film oeuvre and had some beautifully crafted scenes and wonderful settings.

One of my favourite scenes (which was cut from the theatrical edit but is in the extended version) finds the hero Lawrence Talbot travelling by train to his ancestral home Blackmoor on the wild Yorkshire moors.  He awakes to find a mysterious old gentleman in his compartment (played by the patrician and always slightly menacing Max Von Sydow).

Engaging in conversation Von Sydow offers Talbot his walking cane, a fine stick with an ornate Wolf’s Head handle.  He explains that he obtained the stick in Gévaudan, many years ago.  His character has few words, but what he says holds much significance.  Although Talbot refuses the offer, he wakes later to find the old man gone, and the stick remaining.

Even if you refuse your destiny it has a way of claiming you anyway the scene seems to say.

The History of the Beast

But what was behind this casual but loaded reference to the Beast of Gévaudan – what was the beast?  Was the big bad wolf simply a fairy tale or was it based on real events?  As it turns out, the beast was real, and even came to the attention of a King.

Woman fighting off the Beast of Gevaudan, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

The Beast’s reign of tooth and claw lasted from the early Summer of 1764 to midsummer 1767, it ranged over an area 50miles Sq in the Gévaudan province, in the mountainous South Central region of France.  The beast is said to have attacked over 200 people over 100 of whom died, many of those were partially eaten. Others were injured, and the lucky few escaped unscathed but with one hell of a tale to tell.

Descriptions from survivors had common features – the creature was large and wolf-like, it had sharp fangs, shaggy red fur, a hugely long tail and a foul stink.  It was also noticed that the beast had a marked preference for human prey.   The first sighting was by a woman walking with her cattle, she spotted a fanged beast hurtling out of the treeline towards her and was only saved when the bull of the herd chased the creature away.  That was at the beginning of June 1764.

Later that month teenager Jan Boulet was not so lucky.  She was savaged and killed by the beast.  It had made its first kill and from then on had a taste for blood, human blood.

Another documented attack occurred in January the following year.  A group of friends, both male and female, were attacked en masse by the beast.  They only survived because of the particular bravery of one of their number, Jacques Portefaix, and through sticking together.

By now the gruesome events in the South of France had come to the attention of non other than King Louis XV himself.  Louis made a special award to Jacques, and to his friends for their bravery.   As a keen huntsman himself the beast piqued his interest and he despatched a crack father/son team of huntsmen.  Jean Charles Mare Antoine and Jean-Francoise Vaumesle D’Enneval packed up their guns and their specially trained hounds and set off for Gévaudan.  Despite spending months tracking the beast through forest and field their search was fruitless and the beast’s predation continued.

Undaunted by the failure of his first team of hunters, the King then despatched his own personal harquebus bearer and Lieutenant of the Hunt, Francois Antoine to bring down the Beast of Gévaudan.  He arrived on 22 June 1765 perhaps with as much trepidation as exhilaration; after all his rivals had failed spectacularly so he may have had a general fear of losing the king’s favour and of damaging his reputation as a hunter should the beast elude him as well.

Louis XV meets the king of the Wolves, 1765. Public domain via Wikipedia

Within three months Antoine was proclaiming his triumph over the terrible beast.  On 21 September 1765 he killed a huge grey wolf, which became know as Le Loup de Chazes after the area is was found in.  Despite the fact previous reports had said the wolf-like creature had red fur, a number of survivors identified the lupine corpse as their attacker by various scars on its body.

The carcass of the huge wolf was swiftly transported to Versailles for the edification and entertainment of the King and court.  Antoine was loaded with money and honours for his success.

There was only one small fly in the ointment….the attacks did not end with the death of Le Loup de Chazes.  In December 1765 two children were badly injured in another attack at La Besseyre Saint Mary.  Bringing Antoine’s success into question.

Typical French village viewed from woodland.

Eventually, on 19 June 1767, a pious local hunter called Jean Chastel finally ended the beast of Gévaudan’s reign of blood  – some say with a silver bullet.

Local legend has it that Jean had been hunting the beast but paused to read a prayer from his Bible when the beast appeared.  Instead of following its usual pattern of immediate and devastating attack, the beast patiently waited until Jean finished his prayer and meekly took the bullet when he fired.  This can only have added to the supernatural interpretation of the beast as either a punishment from God or a Loup Garou/werewolf.

Theories about the Beast….

There are many theories about the nature of the beast.  Was it, as some villagers believed, a punishment from God? Was it just an unusually large wolf or a pack of wolves? Or some sort of wolf-domestic dog cross-breed? Or was it a were-wolf?

The Beast of Gevaudan – was it a cross-breed? Public Domain via Wikipedia

When I first read about the wolf, particularly the colour, the savagery of its attacks and the smell, I thought perhaps it had been a Hyena or some other exotic animal collected and released by some local grandee.  But this theory has been dispelled by Michel Louis who referred to the fact that the beast had 42 teeth a lupine characteristic, whereas Hyenas have only 34. He favored the idea of a cross-breed which he felt could account for the strange colouring of the wolf.

In fact the colouring of the wolf killed by Antoine struck me as problematic.  Many witnesses commented on its distinctive red colouring, yet he killed a grey wolf.  Did the King’s huntsman, drop a few coins into the hands of the locals to get them to confirm his kill and enhance his reputation?  Human remains were found in the stomach of the second beast killed – were they also found in Antoine’s kill? Or was there simply more than one beast?

Jean Chastel also comes out as an ambiguous figure.  He is said to have been known for having a large red hound, which made some people think perhaps he had more connection with the beast than he admitted too.  The fact that the beast did not attack him while he was reading also made people suspicious of his part in the tragedy.  But would someone really intentionally release such a beast – after all it killed upwards of 200 people many of whom Chastel would have known.  Was it an accidental breeding from his dog?  Or was he a genuine accidental hero?

The truth is we will probably never know for sure.  It could have been a Wolf, but perhaps a cross-breed might be a more likely explanation.  Except in very harsh winters, or when sick, I have not heard of wolves targeting people over say, cattle or other prey.  A cross-breed might have less fear of humans and be more inclined to attack them.

Oh, and as for the silver bullets, I was devastated to find out they were added into the tale as late as the 1930’s by the novelist Chevalley and are not part of the contemporary tale.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that the huge bounty placed on the beast by the King encouraged masses of hunters to descend on the region and engage in a killing spree. Hundreds of innocent wolves were killed, all of which helped to reinforce the deep rooted mistrust of humans for their lupine neigbours and to ultimately to lead to the point where wolves were nearly wiped out in much of Europe.

Contemporary Wanted Poster for the Beast, Public domain, via Wikipedia.

 Sources

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan

http://www.unmuseum.org/werewolf.htm

*Stevenson, Robert Louis, Travels with a Donkey (Quote: “the Napoleon Bonaparte of Wolves.”)