Two of his dragoons fired their pistols, but both missed. They then pursued it on the spur for nearly a league, and though seldom more than four or five paces from it, they were unable to cut it down, and ultimately it escaped, by leaping a high stone wall which their horses were unable to surmount; and after crossing a marsh which lay on the other side, it leisurely retired to a wild forest beyond.
The baffled dragoons reported that it "was as big as the largest park dog, very shaggy, of a brown colour, a yellow belly, a very large head, and had two very long tusks, ears short and erect, and a branched tail, which it sets up very much when running." Fear had no share in this strange description, for the officers of Clermont's regiment asserted that the two dragoons were as brave men as any in the corps; but some declared that it was a bear, and others a wild boar!
On the 12th of January it attacked seven children (five boys and two girls) who were at play near the Mountain of Marguerite. It tore the entire cheek off one boy, and gobbled it up before him; but the other four, led by a boy named Portefaix, having stakes shod with iron, drove the beast into a marsh, where it sunk up to the belly, and then disappeared. That night a boy's body was found half devoured in the neighbourhood of St. Marcel; on the 21st it severely lacerated a girl, and (according to the Paris Gazette) "next day attacked a woman, and bit off her head!"
The four brave boys who put it to flight received a handsome gratuity from the Bishop of Mende, and by the king's order were educated for the army; the Gazette adds that the king gave the young Portefaix a gift of four hundred livres, and three hundred to each of his companions.
As females and little ones seemed the favourite food of the beast, Captain Duhamel now ordered several of his dragoons to dress themselves as women, and with their pistols and fusils concealed, to accompany the children who watched the cattle; and the King of France now offered from his privy purse two thousand crowns, in addition to the one thousand offered by the province of Mende, for the head of this terrible animal.
Inspired by a hope of winning the proffered reward, a stout and hardy peasant of Languedoc, armed with a good musket, set out in search of it; but on beholding the beast suddenly near him, surrounded by all the real and imaginary terrors it inspired, he forgot alike his musket and his resolution; he shrieked with terror and fled, and soon after "the creature devoured a woman of the village of Jullange, at the foot of the Mountain of Marguerite."
As the terror was increasing in Gévaudan and the Vivarez, the offered rewards were again increased to no less than ten thousand livres; by the diocese of Mende, two thousand; by the province of Languedoc, two thousand; by the king, six thousand; and the following placard was posted up in all the towns and cities of the adjacent provinces:—
"By order of the King, and the Intendant of the Province of Languedoc:
"Notice is given to all persons, that his Majesty, being deeply affected by the situation of his subjects, now exposed to the ravages of the wild beast which for four months past has infested Vivarez and Gévaudan, and being desirous to stop the progress of such a calamity, has determined to promise a reward of six thousand livres to any person or persons who shall kill the animal. Such as are willing to undertake the pursuit of him, may previously apply to the Sieur de la Font, sub-deputy to the Intendant of Mende, who will give them the necessary instructions, agreeable to what has been prescribed by the ministry on the part of his Majesty."
Still the ubiquitous beast remained untaken; and a letter from Paris of the 13th February relates the terror it occasioned to a party consisting of M. le Tivre, a councillor, and two young ladies, who were on their way to visit M. de Sante, the curé of Vaisour.