The February 7 hunt

On Mont Mouchet, in the country of the Beast

A complex hunt involving an incredible 12,000 participants was slated for February 7, 1765. Contingents of seigneurs (nobles), paysans (peasants), outlanders, and dragoons gathered in fog and falling snow in various districts of the region, hoping to surround and hem in the creature. Some received copies of a “composite sketch” of the public enemy based on a drawing made by Captain Duhamel himself after an interview with an attack survivor. 

The Beast was observed in Prunières that morning, and hunters trailed it to the river Truyère. Residents of nearby Le Malzieu had been instructed to guard the opposite bank, but, in protest of Duhamel’s pushy ways, the townsfolk were no-shows. (Their officials later received a royal reprimand.) And so La Bête paddled across and loped away. The Prunières party followed, braving the benumbing water and tracking the animal in the snow until it evanesced into a stand of timber.