Jean-Joseph d'Apcher

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Marquis d'Apcher

Jean-Joseph d'Apcher (born June 3, 1748 in Charraix , France , † November 2, 1798 in Barcelona , Spain ), also known as Jean Joseph de Châteauneuf-Randon d'Apchier and as Marquis d'Apcher , was a French Nobleman. He organized a driven hunt that began on June 18, 1767, in the course of which Jean Chastel hunted a predator the following day , which became known as the Beast of Gévaudan through the so-called Marin Report .

Life

Donjon (residential tower) of the Château d'Apcher, of which only ruins remain today

Apcher was born in his family's castle in the hamlet of Besque (or Besques; north of Saugues ) belonging to the municipality of Charraix, the son of Joseph de Châteauneuf-Randon and Henriette de La Rochefoucauld (sister of Cardinal Dominique de La Rochefoucauld). Apcher graduated from military training, was Colonel in the regiment of the gendarmerie of Luneville and received the title of Maréchal de camp . After the death of his father, he inherited the title of Comte d'Apcher. On September 3, 1767, Apcher married 17-year-old Henriette de Rochefort-d'Ally de la Tour-Saint-Vidal in Langeac . The marriage had three children:

  • Joseph Elzéar Charles (1775-1813)
  • Barbe Françoise Irène (* 1777)
  • Charles Nicolas Auguste (1780-1836)

Apcher's wife Henriette died in 1782. In March 1789 , Apcher was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a representative of the nobility in Gévaudan . Shortly thereafter, he passed his mandate on to his cousin Alexandre Paul Guérin de Tournel de Joyeuse de Châteauneuf-Randon. Apcher was imprisoned during the French Revolution , but released under pressure from the parishes of Saugues and Cubelles. He went into exile with his first-born son in Barcelona , where he married a second time. There he died on November 2, 1798 and was buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Pi.

Hunt the beast

The beast of Gévaudan kept escaping, even when, as here in May 1765, it was shot down

From 1764 to 1767 killed in the southern French county Gevaudan, a sparsely populated region south Auvergne (today's department Lozère and Haute-Loire ) is a "beast" about one hundred people. The young Marquis d'Apcher, who lived in the affected area and whose farmers and tenants were in danger, organized a drive hunt for this animal. During this hunt, on June 19, 1767, Jean Chastel killed a large predator. After that, the attacks are said to have stopped, and the official version was that Chastel had killed the "beast". According to his servant Gibert, Apcher had the killed animal transported to Paris, where the renowned naturalist Comte de Buffon is said to have identified it as a wolf .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernard Soulier: Précisions historiques: On en sait un peu plus sur la fin de la dépouille de la bête de Chastel. In: Gazette de la bete . No. 11, December 2010, pp. 1–4, accessed on December 11, 2018, PDF .