heart of a werewolf

The Beast of Gevaudan

The Beast of Gevaudan was originally a human in the early 1700s, the time of the original Gevaudan attacks.

The story talks of Sebastien Valet, a French soldier in the 1700s. While running from British soldiers in Canada, he became a werewolf after drinking rain water from the paw print of a wolf, though the reason for his transformation was never confirmed. This allowed him, through unexplained means, to transform into a monstrous werewolf.

Sebastien Valet had already had evil intentions as a man, and those evil roots only grew once the beast inside of him was awakened. That might have been the reason for his mass killing sprees, which was not what they had been made to do.

Once the man became a werewolf, there were a number of very different descriptions of it. Witnesses described everything from a black-furred giant wolf to a panther the size of a horse.

Officially, the Beast is accused of killing 113 people. Though it is said to have been closer to 305. During the time of the original attacks in Gevaudan, many people believed that the beast simply killed for sport, as it never ate its victims and would only target the head and neck of its prey, ripping out their throats. Sebastien's best friend, Marcel, covered up his crimes until Marie-Jeanne Valet discovered the truth.

The only weapon that historically proved effective against Sebastien Valet was a silver arrow head wielded by his sister, Marie-Jeanne Valet. The silver was mixed with Wolfsbane, Mountain Ash and Mistletoe, forged with her own blood under the light of a full blood moon. Marie-Jeanne Valet only found out about these effective herbs when she came across a man that lived at the edge of town, his name was Pierre Grosvenor.

Marie-Jeanne Valet hunted Sebastien for several months before finally cornering him and killing him on the spot. People of the town never knew what exactly happened to the Beast of Gevaudan, believing only that it had run off or died of illness.

Soon after his death, Marie-Jeanne Valet married Pierre Grosvenor, their family becoming hunters of these so-called werewolves, and their family name is still alive, generations later, as the well known Hunters.