Jean-Baptiste Louis François Boulanger Duhamel

Jean-Baptiste Louis François Boulanger Duhamel or Du Hamel (born February 6, 1732 in Amiens , France , † after 1789) was a French cavalry and dragoon officer with the rank of captain (capitaine) . He became known for his unconventional hunts for the so-called Beast of Gévaudan , which included the largest known driven hunt in history.

Family and military career

Luzières Castle (commune de Conty )

A dragoons at the time of Louis XV. (Oil painting by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier , 1863)

Duhamel was born the younger son of Jean Baptiste Nicolas Boulanger Duhamel, Seigneur de Luzières, Saint-Vrain, Obrillé etc., and Dame Marie Angélique Filleux; his older brother Jean Baptiste Nicolas, born on July 13, 1723 in Amiens, also embarked on a military career. After his father's death in 1745, Jean Baptiste Nicolas took over his father's castle in Luzières in Conty . Duhamel was his older brother's best man on July 25, 1746. As was customary in aristocratic circles at the time, he began his military career very early in his life: on February 11, 1747, just turned 15, he joined the Cambis Infantry Regiment as a lieutenant ( régiment de Cambis, named after Jacques David duc de Cambis d'Orsans).

From October 1, 1756 Duhamel belonged to the Royal Roussillon Cavalry Regiment. On July 16, 1757 he was wounded in the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763) while crossing the Weser (see Battle of Hastenbeck ). On May 6, 1758 he became adjutant (aide-major) in the corps of the regiment "foreign volunteers" ( volontaires étrangers; foreign refers to the recruits from Flanders and German-speaking regions); on December 15, 1758 he became a captain (capitaine) . During the attack on Zierenberg (Céremberg) on the night of September 6th, 1760, his horse was shot under his body and he himself suffered five to six wounds.

After the war, Duhamel was stationed in Langogne in the south of France - in the region where the Gévaudan beast attacked people from 1764 onwards . On December 9, 1771, he was awarded the title of Chevalier de Saint-Louis . After his hunts for the beast, which ended in 1765, Duhamel continued to live in Gévaudan for at least 25 years. He ended his military career as a cavalry and dragoon officer in Colmar in 1788 , and in August of the same year he went to Baden-Baden for a cure . He received a high annual pension of 1,400 livres ; his death dates are unknown.

Duhamel's hunts for the "beast"

The small graphic in the lower right corner and the one above relate to the events at La Baume without reproducing them authentically. So the wall in the middle of the area, which, according to the caption, stops the chasing dragons and enables the beast to escape, was apparently sealed.

This contemporary illustration probably shows the attack on Marianne Hébrad on August 6, 1764 near Mende. Duhamel called the animal a "monster whose father is a lion".

From the spring or summer of 1764, fatal predatory attacks on residents of this sparsely populated, rugged mountain region took place in what was then the southern French province of Gévaudan and in adjacent areas. After six deaths had been recorded near Langogne, a municipality in the east of Gévaudan (before which there had apparently been some unregulated attacks) and the first drive hunts had been carried out, Duhamel hunted the animal on the orders of the deputy governor, Jean-Baptiste Marin de Moncan, at the age of 57, sent to Langogne on September 15, 1764, some mounted dragoons, some marching on foot.

Since the hunts were unsuccessful, Duhamel varied his hunting strategy. So he left corpses of attack victims (or their remains) in the hope that the beast would return for a few days at the respective attack site; He had the body of the widow Catherine Valy killed on November 25, 1764, which had already been recovered from the site of the attack for burial, brought back there. Then he lay in wait with some of his men within firing range. The beast did not show itself; however, near the place where the widow Valy was attacked, her fresh tracks were discovered in the snow. When word got around that Duhamel used corpses as bait, some families had relatives killed by the beast secretly buried without informing the authorities responsible (as required).

On December 23, 1764, Duhamel had a drive hunt carried out near La Baume Castle, in the vicinity of which a woman had been killed by the beast. Duhamel had taken up position in a wood during the hunt; he spotted the beast a few steps ahead of him and placed his musket loaded with three lead balls on the beast. At that moment several of his mounted dragoons appeared behind Duhamel, who also saw the animal, but did not recognize Duhamel's unique opportunity and got ready to fire. The beast became aware of the soldiers, escaped in the resulting chaos and fled to a nearby marshland.

Since there were only women among the beast's adult victims, Duhamel had hoods and skirts procured in villages. From January 10, 1765, he sent two dragoons disguised as women together with children for twelve days in the vicinity of eight villages on pastureland. On the same day that Duhamel ended the operation unsuccessfully, the beast attacked a child near one of these villages.

After all attempts to kill the beast had failed and at the end of January 1765 27 deaths were recorded, Duhamel planned a "general hunt" (chasse générale) of unprecedented proportions for February 7th . He involved the provincial administration and many local dignitaries in the planning. On the morning of that day, around 20,000 men from around 100 communities, armed with muskets, sabers, picks and pitchforks, began to comb the region as part of the carefully coordinated hunt. According to Duhamel's plan, the beast, evading the advancing drivers and hunters, was to be encircled west of Malzieu . In the late morning of February 7th, the beast was actually found near Malzieu, near the Truyère , and swam across the river. The vicar of Prunières and some of his parishioners plunged into the ice-cold water and followed the animal, half wading, half swimming. The beast reached the opposite bank well ahead of its pursuers and could have been intercepted there by residents of Malzieu, who were supposed to patrol along the bank. But in Malzieu they had decided not to take orders from Duhamel and stayed at home: the beast escaped again. Further hunts in February and March were also unsuccessful or had to be abandoned due to adverse weather conditions. In early April 1765 Duhamel received the order from Minister Étienne-François de Choiseul to withdraw from the hunts; they were continued on the instructions of the court in Versailles by the (also unsuccessful) wolf hunter Jean d'Enneval and his son.

Duhamel's hunts failed on the one hand because of serious mishaps and the uncooperative behavior of some residents of the region, on the other hand the hunted animal showed an extraordinary sense of the threat posed by hunters. It repeatedly undertook large-scale changes of its attack areas and began in early 1765, apparently in response to the hunts, to include the previously ignored age group of children under ten, which it could quickly overwhelm and abduct, into its prey spectrum. Several hunters later claimed to have killed the beast; The alleged hunting successes of François Antoine, arms bearer of Louis XV, and Jean Chastel became famous . However, there are signs that these and other hunters only innocent wolves had killed, which they happened to run away from the musket. The species affiliation of the beast is controversial despite the enormous variety of historical sources from the 1760s, including the extensive correspondence going back to Duhamel. On the other hand, there is no controversy among scientific authors that the representations (ultimately based on fiction) presented in some popular non-fiction books and television documentaries, according to which a person is supposed to have planned and directed the attacks, are incompatible with the traditional history.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Waroquier de Méricourt de La Mothe de Combles, L.-Ch. de: Tableau historique de la noblesse militaire. Paris 1784; P. 118. Google Books
2. ↑ Amiens (paroisse de Saint-Martin): baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1692–1740, Archives de la Somme, 5MI_D1065, View 557/683.
3. ↑ Todaro, G .: The Maneater of Gévaudan. When the Serial Killer Is an Animal. Lulu.com. 2013, Kindle item 7235 ff.
4. ↑ Conty (paroisse de Saint-Martin): baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1645–1792, Archives de la Somme, 5MI_D757, View 77/279.
5. ↑ Cuvillier-Morel d'Acy: Histoire et généalogique héraldique sur la maison des Tyrel, sires, puis princes de Poix , Paris 1869, p 234 n ° 12. Digitalisat
6. ↑ Conty (paroisse de Saint-Martin): baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1645–1792, Archives de la Somme, 5MI_D757, View 79/279.
7. ↑ Smith, J. M: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge 2011. p. 78.
8. ↑ Le Cabinet Historique , Vol. 18, Paris 1872, p. 259 n ° 2202. Digitized
9. ↑ Smith, J. M: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge 2011. p. 8.
10. ^ Fichier Jean-Baptiste Louis François Boulanger Duhamel
11. ↑ Smith, J. M: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge 2011. p. 352.
12. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. p. 112 ff.
13. ↑ geneanet.org: Marianne Hébrad. [1]
14. ^ Moriceau, J.-M .: La bête du Gévaudan. L'histoire comme un roman. Paris 2009, Kindle item 1302.
15. ^ Moriceau, J.-M .: La bête du Gévaudan. L'histoire comme un roman. Paris 2009. Appendix: List of victimes tuées de 1764 à 1767.
16. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. p. 7.
17. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. p. 10.
18. ^ Moriceau, J.-M .: La bête du Gévaudan. L'histoire comme un roman. Paris 2009, Kindle position 223.
19. ^ Moriceau, J.-M .: La bête du Gévaudan. L'histoire comme un roman. Paris 2009, Kindle position 592.
20. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. p. 86.
21. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. pp. 87 ff.
22. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. pp. 94 f.
23. ^ Moriceau, J.-M .: La bête du Gévaudan. L'histoire comme un roman. Paris 2009. Appendix: List of victimes tuées de 1764 à 1767.
24. ^ Smith, JM: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge, 2011. pp. 95 ff.
25. ^ Moriceau, J.-M .: La bête du Gévaudan. L'histoire comme un roman. Paris 2009, Kindle item 1892 ff.
26. ↑ Moriceau, J.-M .: Histoire du méchant loup: La question des attaques sur l'homme en France XVe-XXe siecle. Pluriel 2016, p. 194 ff.
27. ↑ Taake, K.-H .: Biology of the 'Beast of Gévaudan': Morphology, Habitat Use, and Hunting Behavior of an 18th Century Man-Eating Carnivore. ResearchGate 2020, pp. 7–9. [2]
28. ^ Taake, K.-H .: Carnivore Attacks on Humans in Historic France and Germany: To Which Species Did the Attackers Belong? ResearchGate 2020. pp. 11-17. [3]
29. ↑ Smith, J. M: Monsters of the Gévaudan. The Making of a Beast. Cambridge 2011. p. 287.
30. ↑ Fehlmann, M .: Metamorphoses of the Bête du Gévaudan - or of the charm of the unusual and the unknown. In: Zeitschrift für Anomalistik, Volume 18, 2018, pp. 35–66. [4]