Between 1764 and 1767, a beast terrorised the mountains of southern France. The Bête du Gévaudan became the benchmark for every animal scare that followed. In 1901 Léon Foin called the earlier man-eater of Trucy-sur-Yonne a Bête du Gévaudan in the Auxerrois. Half a century after Gévaudan, the fear returned around Mont Lozère with the Bête des Cévennes of 1809. Later beasts were measured against it too. Commentators called the 1977 Beast of the Vosges a modern Gévaudan, and others compared the 1982 Bête de Noth in the Creuse to the legend.
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