The Bête de Sarlat: the beast of Saint-Julien and Groléjac (1766)

In 1766, rural France already had a beast on its mind. The Beast of Gévaudan had been at large since 1764. Other "beasts" were reported that same year in the Dordogne, the Deux-Sèvres and the Bas-Dauphiné. Then came March 1766. The attacks began in the Périgord Noir, near Sarlat.

It roamed the parishes of Saint-Julien and Groléjac "with incredible speed", in the words of a pamphlet printed that year. Before it struck, it bristled its fur. Its eyes were "all aflame". It reared up on its hind legs and tried to seize its victim, sometimes by the face, sometimes by other parts of the head.

Rumour spoke of a gigantic, bloodthirsty beast with the look of a werewolf. In Sarlat, people would not go out as night fell. It seemed, the pamphlet said, that this one was after men only. Eighteen to twenty people became the sad victims of its fury.

Sieur Dubex de Descamps, a bourgeois of Saint-Julien, organised a hunt. More than a hundred guns turned out, local peasants joined by several inhabitants of Mareuil. On the appointed day, around nine in the morning, the animal was driven out on a wooded hill.

Several people fired at it. Without effect. It threw itself on hunters, full of rage, and wounded them. A hunter named Espitalier drove it back with a halberd. The halberd bent without piercing it. The animal broke out onto the plain, the hunters in pursuit. It caught up with Descamps, who was on horseback, and reared up, ready to pounce. He fired at point-blank range and killed it. The ball went in at the neck and came out by the ribs.

It was a young male, 12 to 15 months old. It stood two and a half feet high, an "extraordinary height", and measured 4 feet 4 inches long. Its coat was grey mixed with fawn, softer than an ordinary wolf's. The head was square, rather like a fox's. The wide mouth held forty-two sharp teeth, with four hook-shaped fangs. The ears were large and broad. The hind legs were longer than the front, and some parts resembled a greyhound's.

The verdict came in print. A pamphlet approved on 5 August 1766, with printing permitted on 7 August by De Sartine, called the animal a rabid wolf. Four of the wounded had died "with all the symptoms of rabies". The others were being treated with mercury rubs. Locally, the crisis was handled by the subdelegates of the intendant of Guyenne. No one has ever alleged a hoax.

Some questions never settled. French Wikipedia, citing the Journal politique, dates the hunt to 12 June 1766. Other retellings say early August. Victim counts grew in the telling, to about 15 dead, or a dozen plus around fifteen more. "After men only" became "exclusively men".

The rabid wolf did not convince everyone. People continued to speak of a werewolf, and the legend stayed alive throughout the region. In 2024, Netflix France revisited it to promote its film Loups-Garous. A cryptozoology forum links the 2010 Nicolas Le Floch episode "Le grand veneur" to the case. The Dordogne department runs a heritage trail on the beast, and on 17 April 2025 Maïté Etchechoury lectured on "L'affaire de la bête de Sarlat et autres loups" at the Archives départementales de la Dordogne.