"You know how I acquainted you, some
mouths ago, that Monsieur Bardelle, his son
and I, designed going by the Diligence, and
opening the New Year at our old friend
Monsieur Dura's chateau, near Babres, in
Languedoc.  We spent the time very agreeably,
our host and his family having done all
in their power to make us welcome.  The
party broke up and took leave the first of this
month, amongst whom was Monsieur Lefevre,
a counsellor, and two young ladies, who were
engaged to pass a week at Monsieur de
Sante's, the curé of Vaistour, about three
days' journey distant from the chateau of
Monsieur Dura.  The company went away
in a berlingo and four, and the footman,
Michel, on a saddle-horse; the carriage,
after the manner here, being drawn by four
post-horses, with two postilions, the
berlingo having no coach-box.  The first night
the party lay at Guimpe, and set out next
morning at nine, to bait halfway between that
and Roteaux, being four posts, and a
mountainous barren country, as all the Gévaudan
is.  The parish of Guimpe had been greatly
alarmed by the frequent appearance of, and
the horrid destruction made by the fiery
animal that has so long been the terror of
the Gévaudan, and is now so formidable
that the inhabitants and travellers are in
very great apprehension.  The bailiff of
Guimpe acquainted the party that this animal
had been often lurking about the chaussée
that week, and that it would be proper to
take an escort of armed men, which would
protect the carriage; but the gentlemen
declined it, and took the ladies under their
protection, and set out, on the second of
February, very cheerfully.  When they had
made about two leagues, they observed at a
distance a post-chaise, and a man on horse-back,
coming down the hill of Credi, and
whipping the horses very much; and at
the descent, unfortunately the wheel-horse
fell down, and the postilion was thrown off;
whereupon the horseman who followed the
chaise, advanced to take up the boy, in
which moment, when he had got down,
we perceived the wild beast so often
described make a jump toward the horses,
and on the footman's raising his right hand
to draw a cutlass and strike the creature,
it pricked up its ears, stood on its hind
feet, and, showing its teeth full of froth,
turned round and gave the fellow a most
violent blow with the swing of its tail.  The
man's face was all over blood; and then
the monster, seeing the gentleman in the
chaise present a blunderbuss at its neck,
crept on its forehead to the chaise-step, keeping
its head almost under its forelegs, and
getting close to the door, reared upright,
vaulted into the inside, broke through the
other side-glass, and ran at a great rate to
the adjoining wood.  The blunderbuss missed
fire"  (of course), "or it is possible this had
been the last day this brute-disturber had
moved.  The stench left in the carriage was
past description, and no cure of burning
frankincense, nor any other method removed,
but rather increased the stink, so that it was
sold for two louis; and though burned to
ashes, the cinders were obliged, by order of
a commissary, to be buried without the town
walls.  We came up very well in time; for
the beast would doubtless have destroyed
some one, had it not espied three of us
advancing with guns.  It certainly jumped
through the chaise to get away from us."
As well it might.

Another six months went by.  Still the
wild beast of the Gévaudan was at large,
and doing all the mischief of which he
was capable.  A letter from Marvejols, of
the twenty-fifth of June, says: "The wild
beast devoured a woman last week, in the
long plain of the Plantes.  On Thursday
last, a child of almost eight years of age
was devoured by him between Sauvary
and Malzieu.  Some peasants saw him dart
upon the child, and ran to its assistance;
but the beast, seeing them approach, took
his prey by the arm and carried it into
a neighbouring wood.  The next day he
devoured a girl of fifteen, at Faisel, in the
parish of Ventnejols, and it is said" (what
would they not say of such a ravenous mon-
ster?) "that he has devoured a third person
this week."

As everything, however, comes to a close,
sooner or later, so it befel with the wild beast
of the Gévaudan, whose affairs were wound
up the twentieth of September, seventeen
hundred and sixty-five.  On that day the
creature was discovered in the wood of
Pommières by a certain Monsieur Antoine de
Beauterme (appropriately named) a
gentleman of a distant province, remarkable for
his skill and boldness in hunting, and the
goodness of his dogs.  He had come of his
own accord, like a valiant Paladin, to the
assistance of the terrified district, and shot
him in the eye, at the distance of about fifty
paces.  But though the animal fell on receiving
the wound, he soon recovered himself, and
was making up to Monsieur de Beauterme
with great fury, when he was shot dead by
the Duke of Orleans' game-keeper, named
Reinhard.  Several inhabitants of the Gévaudan,
who had been attacked by him, having
declared him to be the same animal which
had caused such consternation in the country
—indeed there could hardly have been two
of them—Monsieur de Beauterme set out
with the body for Versailles, in order to
present it to the king.  After the beast's
death, his dimensions were taken, and he was
found to be thirty-two inches high, five feet
seven inches and a half long, including,
of course, his sweeping tail, and three
feet thick (!)—which latter measurement
means, most likely, his circumference.  The
surgeon who dissected him, said that he
was more of the hyena than the wolf