Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/356

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350
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[12 S. I. April 29, 1916.

married, Aug. 17, 1758, Rev. Thomas Amyand, third son of the celebrated surgeon Claudius Amyand. Was he in any way connected with Sir Dudley Ryder, Knt., who became in 1754 Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench?—and (2) the parentage and family of the Right Hon. Sir John Skynner, Knt., Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer 1777-86.

F. de H. L.


Admiral Sir John Balchin.—Information wanted as to his parentage and connexion with other Balchins. His monument in Westminster Abbey states that he was born 1669, died 1744, Answers may be sent direct to (Mrs.) H. E. Malden. 17 Rose Hill, Dorking.



Replies.

"LA BÊTE DU GÉVAUDAN."

(12 S. i. 267, 315.)

In the year 1765 this famous animal spread terror throughout the Cevennes and all through France. It appeared first in December, 1764, at St. Flour in Provence, and on the 20th of that month it was alleged that the beast had devoured a little girl who was looking after cattle near the town of Mende.

No two accounts of the animal appear to agree. Ridiculous exaggerations were printed, and a most amazing amount of nonsense was circulated and believed to be true in connexion with its ravages. We must not forget that the scene of its encounters was a mountainous part of Central France, and people living in hilly countries are more prone to be superstitious than those who dwell on the plains.

Horace Walpole wrote (from Arlington Street) on March 26, 1765, to Lord Hertford, saying:—

"We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your hyena in the Gévaudan; but our foxhunters despise you: it is exactly the enchanted monster of old romances. If I had known its history a few months ago, I believe it would have appeared in 'The Castle of Otranto.'"

Walpole was as highly diverted by "La Bête" as he was by the Cock Lane Ghost or by the Dragon of Wantley. The attitude of the two countries (France and England) towards "La Bête" may be compared. The French were terrified, and lost their heads, and the English found in the stories which reached them a source of endless fun and amusement. Walpole's reference to "our foxhunters" probably had its source in a letter which appeared in a magazine at the time, and in connexion with the matter, signed by "an English fox-hunter." This contained an amusing account of what would happen if the lions "of his Majesty's collection in the Tower" were to escape into Epping Forest, when

"half-a-dozen hearty country squires, who perhaps had served a campaign or two in the militia, with a pack of staunch foxhounds to lead them to their game, would presumably give a good account of them."

The argument was intended to show that a tremendous fuss was being made over the capture of an animal which would easily be disposed of in England by any gamekeeper and his gun. In a pretended letter from Paris headed 'Wonderful Intelligence,' it was stated very humorously in the English newspapers:—

"The wild beast that makes such a noise all over Europe, and after whom there are at least thirty thousand regular forces and seventy thousand militia and armed peasants, proves to be a descendant on the mother's side from the famous Dragon of Wantley, and on the father's side from a Scotch Highland Laird. He eats a house as an alderman eats a custard. With a wag of his tail he throws down a church; as he passed the convent of St. Anna Maria, and was smelling a grape vine on the wall, he unfortunately became flatulent, by which means the whole fabric was laid in ruins and one hundred and fourteen souls perished. He was attacked on the night of the 8th instant, in his den, by a detachment of fourteen thousand men under the command of the Duc de Valiant; but the platoon tiring, and even the artillery, had only the effect of making him sneeze; at last he gave a slash with his tail by which we lost seven thousand men; then, making a jump over the left wing, made his escape. He unfortunately made water as he passed, by which five hundred grenadiers were drowned in the puddle; but ten thousand horse and seventy-two thousand foot are in full march to reinforce the army."

Elsewhere another paragraph was printed in similar vein in the London papers:—

"Yesterday, about ten in the morning, a courier arrived [in London] from France, with the melancholy news that the wild beast had on the 25th instant been attacked by the whole French army, consisting of one hundred and twenty thousand men, whom he totally defeated in the twinkling of an eye, swallowing the whole train of artillery and devouring twenty-five thousand men."

One Scottish newspaper, unable to appreciate these humours, preferred to associate the animal with the number 666, and the Apocalypse and "the scarlet lady" were dragged in.