Doomed to Fail - Ep 263: The Beast of Gévaudan

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Let's get spooky!!! Here's a time in France where a wolf was killing people - did it walk on its hind legs?? Did it die and come back to life??? Find out more!  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail]

In the matter of the people of the state of California, versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. Hello, hello, Taylor. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I only laugh because you sound awful. I'm just great. I mean that in a loving, caring way. I know. I know. It is what it is. It's a busy season, to put it lately. October is going to kill me.

Yeah. It's, you know, on top of elections and my husband running over a school board and work. Oh, that's cool. It's my daughter's birthday and then Halloween. And I just, and like, there's just so much to do. Never, never ending. Literally never ending. I feel insane.

I feel like this is the first time I also like cannot keep up with my housework, which is also driving me out of my mind. Yeah. I just need to like, like my house, my cleaning lady, bless her heart was like, you really need me to come, huh? I was like, yes. I was like, usually I can like keep up. I was just exhausted.

I've just been exhausted. I can, yeah, I'm very much at the same boat of once one thing starts falling behind. It all starts falling behind. Cool. Hello. Welcome to doomed to fail. We bring you historical disasters. Oh, my God.

I'm sorry over. Hello. Welcome to doom to fail. We bring you historical disasters and failures. I am Taylor, joined by Fars. And we are overwhelmed. But I have some stories to tell you. Yes, we're going to dive into some Taylor-centric stories.

I have a story for you today. I have something Halloween-y because I, despite being exhausted, I do really like Halloween, obviously. We started watching movies with our friend Jay, who does movies, and it's been super-duper fun. We watched two years. We watched backrooms. Have you seen backrooms? I did. I watched it earlier.

So I saw it in the theater, but I also watched like two days of four. had it scheduled for us to watch because I wasn't going to be able to watch it when you don't work. You haven't watched a movie with us in like five years, but I appreciate that you look at the calendar. I submitted a survey response to every category. You're so great. Well, because it's obvious you put a lot of time and energy. I know, I do it too.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. But we watched April Fool's Day, which I had never seen. And if anyone Googles it, it's from, it's from 1980. and the cover is something that you'd remember from seeing a Blockbuster, if you are of age. Just if you see it, you'd like, oh, I remember that from Blockbuster. And it was great.

I'd never actually seen it, and we watched that last night, and it was really good. So that's exciting. And, yeah, more to come. But the craft is next Saturday. I think you'd like the craft. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure I've seen the craft. You have, but I feel like you'll still, I think it's your vibe.

Anyway, Halloween's super fun. So I have a couple. Halloween story is to tell you, and I'll start with one. It actually reminds me. So just to bring everyone back, our friend Jay does these Halloween movies. Every night in October, we watch at least one movie, if not two. He's done it for 10 years now. It used to be a spreadsheet.

Now he has this really great website that he made, and it has the calendar on it, and there's ways to review, and you get to vote on what you want to watch. And he takes into account, like, what I want to watch, he'll put on later, because I live in California and he lives in North Carolina. It's very nice. We are now on a Discord server and we all press play at the same time and talk through the movies and it's just delightful. We always start with a Vincent Price movie. Last year we did the Tingler, which was really fun. It's like about this idea that like when you're scared, there's like this like centipede in your spine that actually like makes you scared. And like that's like a thing that's like biological. And when they originally did the Tingler in the movie theater, they like made your chair move. and stuff. Wouldn't that have been so fun? Yeah. Like, and there's a part of the tingler where, like, the lights go out, and then they're like,

everybody's stay calm. But in the theater, it would have been, like, pitch black, you know? And, like, that would have been fucking delight. Epic. Yeah. But this year, we watched Witch Finder General, which was not good. And there was a lot of assault in it. And Vincent Price was not a good guy.

Usually he's, like, delightful or, like, fun bad, like, in the House and Haunted Hill. but he is not good. He's a bad guy. But it's about witch hunts in Europe in the 1700s, and there's a couple pretty gruesome ways that they killed the witches and all of that. So I was thinking about panics again, because we did a much less deathly panic

of one of our first episodes we did the tulip panic in, like in, I don't know, whenever that was. Like people were like thinking that tulips were going to be worth a million dollars and they were like, you know, selling them training them and people were like losing their minds and just like a kind of collective insanity about a panic and obviously there is a satanic panic which we have not talked about at length but we know a lot about it and i was watching i'm watching the x-files again um and there's one with

ryan reynolds um where he's in it he's in the beginning of it and he has this like he actually plays someone else not himself because i don't think he really like had his vibe yet he has this like really hilarious accent and he's kind of chubby um but that's like a satanic panic one So anyway, I wanted to find some more panics. And I have one from the 1700s in France about a beast that was killing people. It is called, and I apologize to everybody who speaks French for what I'm going to about to do. But it is called the Beast of G-V-A-U-D-A-N. Jevadoe? Whatever.

It's a beast. And this part of France is in like the middle of France, and there's a lot of like territories and towns that no longer exist. So it's like, oh, this town, but now it's part of this and in this area. I don't know. French geography. Let's just imagine we're in the middle of France. There's like forests. It's very pretty pastoral, 70s.

Picture that. Got it? I mean, I have Jevodon pulled up here. And yeah, it's, it looks nice. It looks very nice in French and provincial. Yeah. Pre being destroyed during World War, both. It probably also was even nicer.

So, yes, it's a rugged region of south-central France. And the people who live there are primarily like herders. So they would herd sheep and cows and stuff. And that's how people, most people there are made, their livelihood during this time. A lot of it was the women who are the ones who would go out and do the herding. So I picture them like little bo-peep with like the thing, the staff with like the hook on it. So you get like hooker sheep and like wearing a big bonnet. and whatever. So like young women with like a herd of sheep walking through the the fields is like what's

happening pretty often in town. And they're alone, but they're with their animals. So it starts with a young woman and it is a summer of 1764 and she is out near a forest with her herd of sheep and she sees something in the woods and it is she describes it as like a wolf, yes, yet not a wolf. Like, it's a little weirder than a regular wolf, like a little bit scarier, and it scares her. But she's actually, oh, I'm sorry, she's actually hurting cows and the bulls that are in her herd,

they scare it away. She goes back to town and reports it. She's like, it was weird. It was just like, it felt an excessive wolf, essentially. Then on June 30th, a 14-year-old girl, this is the very first death of many, named Jean-Boulet, is killed. In her burial certificate, it says she was killed by a ferocious beast.

And the poor thing was buried without any sacraments from the church because she didn't have time to confess before she died, which isn't fair. Right? She was attacked by a giant wolf. I mean, should you confess every week? I mean, I don't know the rules, but like- It just feels not fair. But she was killed. And the way that she is killed and the people are going to be killed is there are going to be,

kind of like bitten around the neck and head. So they're going to be just attacked by some giant animal. And then they're found very gruesomely murdered. On August 8th, another 14-year-old girl is killed. And there are going to be many attacks going into the fall. It preyed on people alone, I think obviously, you know, one person at a time. And it went for their heads and necks. So now people are like, something scary is happening.

You know, like people are getting attacked. they're dying in this really gruesome way. We're finding their bodies covered in blood, all these things. And then people start to sort of like make things up, obviously, and the rumors start flying. So they can say it walks on its hind legs. It can leap far distances. It can repel bullets. You can kill it, but it comes back from the dead.

So people are just like, it feels so much worse than like a normal wolf attack. And it's happening over and over again. And it's happening very, very often. And the people who are living in this area, it's like a pretty big area that these attacks are being reported in, like an 80 mile radius. They're getting more and more afraid. Like they're afraid to go out. And that's going to affect their livelihood because they're not going to go out and be able to herd. You know?

Yeah. So in France at this time, for context, the seven-year war just ended and France lost. So the people are like coming out of this defeat and they're feeling like they need something exciting and they need something where they're. can be victorious. So that's going to be like a time to get together and hunch something as a group, you know, which. It's like, yeah, it would be like Beauty and the Beast when Gaston rallied everyone to go fight the Beast. It's exactly like that.

That is happening in every town in around France, literally exactly. There's a man who eats all the eggs every morning. He's the leader. And that is happening. But before they get there, they start with prayer. So on December 31st, the bishop in the area says that they're being punished for their sins. And there's something that Moses said in the Bible, quote, I will arm the teeth of wild beasts against them.

So basically they're like, we're being punished for being sinned and for sinning. And they try to pray it away, but that does not work. And the attacks keep coming. on January 12th, 1765, a man and seven children were attacked, but they were able to drive it away. So they got in a group and they fought it and it went away. And that was exciting. So people were excited about this man and this happening. And that got the attention of the king, Louis X, 15th.

So he gave them an award and a little bit of money and was like, oh, great job. You're so brave. And so now the king knows about it. and people around the area know about it. It's in the paper. The paper is the Courier de Evignon. And it was making a ton of money selling stories. They have paintings and drawings and pictures of like this huge wolf attacking people.

And they're like, this is something that we want everybody to be aware of and how everybody knows. And people all over France have ideas. They're like trying to send their best hunters. They're like, maybe it's this. Maybe it's this. And now there's also a reward from the king if you kill it. So if you bring him the body of this. beast, you're going to get a reward. On February 11th, another 12-year-old girl is killed,

and people are kind of getting up in arms. And again, I think we're talking pitchfork, Beauty and the Beast. That's what's happening. So now we have some hunters. They're going to come from Paris. They're going to come from the king, and they're going to go to this part of France to try to hunt the beast. The first one is Jean-Baptiste Dumas. He's a captain. He tries to jump in help but the people don't really want his help so this reminded me a lot of which finder general because in which finder finder general the movie he's just kind of going from house from town to town being like i'll help you find witches so this guy just shows up and he's like i'll help you kill this beast and people are a little bit unwilling to help him and a little bit annoyed you know um this

story started giving me hints of urbane grand die who was a hundred years before it, but it was when all these feel organized to go kill this one guy for consorting with the devil in France. And it feels like a decidedly French thing for every 100 years to pick up a pitchfork. And then... The French like to rally. They like to protest. They like to be out on the streets. They like to burn shit. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Do you. That's cool. That's cool. I really like, so I had an idea if I ever, like I wanted to like someday like write a book. If I wrote a book about history, I wanted to write one about times when people had like the mass hysteria and like pitchforked someone out of town.

You know, I think that those are like really fun stories that people are like, you know, working together in a time when like communication is so different and like what people are their superstitions and what they think is happening. And then they just like go to someone's house and like drive them out of town because he was like consorting with the devil. I feel like if you did that book, most of it would be very under privileged people who were abused by their community. That's exactly what which hunts are. Yeah. Yeah. Old woman wants to live alone and like whatever. How dare she?

Which. Which. Yeah. So John Batiste is there and he's bringing like trained dogs. I just wrote this is exactly like a movie. You know, he's like going door to door being like help me kill the beast. And he, in a fun thing he tries is he has soldiers dress like sheep herding women out in the, and to like entice the beast, but that doesn't work.

But what a, what a day for that guy who had to go out and put on a dress and wait for a beast to attack him? So nothing works and people are getting kind of frustrated with Jean-Baptiste. So in June, he's replaced by Francois Antoinique, who is, which is the name, I would name a fake French person if I was naming a French person in a book. But Francois is the king's gunbearer, which is a fun job. He just follows the king around carrying guns. And he gets there on the 22nd of June.

And on August 11th, there's an issue with a young woman named Marie Jean Valet. And she's about 20 years old. And she's out with her herd and she's crossing her river and she gets attacked by the beast. And she manages to spear it somehow and it gets away. But there's like blood everywhere and they're able to see a trail of blood. So this gets to Francois. And he's like, she was saved because she's so pure and awesome. So Marie Jeanne gets to go out and like they kind of compare her to Joan of Arc saying that like she was able to survive the beast and they like prayed her around and all the things.

So Francois, like we have this woman who survived it. We're definitely going to find it. In September, he kills a large gray wolf. So this wolf is big. I have like, I don't know, how big is your dog? How much is your dog weigh? Luna's about 120. So a little bit bigger than that.

It's five and a half feet long. and weighs about 130 pounds. Okay, yeah. So it's a little bit skinnier, I think, and like longer. You could, where you could, like, maybe imagine it on its hind legs. You know what I mean? Like, it's like a skinnier body, but, like, very big still. Yeah.

And so he says, officially, quote, we declare by the present report signed from our hand, we never saw a big wolf that could be compared to this one. Hence, we believe this could be the fearsome beast that caused so much damage. So, like, I killed the biggest wolf I could find. Must be done. You know? 130 pounds is not a big wolf.

I don't know how big wolves are. I should look that up. But like, I don't, it seems. I mean, I feel like a wild animal that size is scary, you know, because who knows what is going to do. Okay. Actually, you know what? Males top out.

Well, they have gotten to 175 pounds. That's huge. And they, I mean, I imagine that, like, every fairy tale has, like, a wolf trying to attack sheep, you know? So like this is happening. It's not just this. Like this probably happens all the time in, in Europe and in, in those areas, you know, like obviously because they're going to go where the food is.

Right. You know. So Francois declares victory. They parade the body of this wolf around. His son goes back to Versailles with the body and he like, I assume just like has a party. And like everyone's having a great time. Francois stays. He kills another wolf.

and the pups just to be like we killed the whole family. Who knows if they were a family? But he kills more wolves just to be able to prove it. And then he goes back to Versa. He gets a bunch of money and awards. And he gets 9,000 livres, which is like a lot of money. So he gets a lot of money. And he just goes back to Versailles.

The king's like, great job. Let's move on. We have a revolution happening. Whatever. The townspeople are like, okay, maybe this is it. And it's like, again, several little towns around this area. And they go back to work, but it's not over. It still happens.

So it happens sporadically, but people are getting attacked. So two young boys are attacked. One of them gets saved. In a year, a dozen people die this way. So, like, that's a lot. That's enough to be like, this isn't over. It's still a problem. In 1766, they're like, okay, the beast is officially back.

Like, people are getting killed. The king is like, as far as I'm concerned, the matter is closed. I don't care. Like, I had this dead wolf, came to Versailles. I'm all set. Like, I'm not, I'm no longer interested. I don't care. So it continues to get worse.

The last official killing was of a 19-year-old named Gian. So a local hunter in June 1767, so it's been happening for a couple of years, named Jean Castile, he shoots a wolf, another large wolf, on a mountain in the area during a hunt that was like organized by a local marquee. So he shot it. There is, obviously, this is not true, but there, it was like a literary thing. Someone who writing about this story later added that he shot it with a silver bullet. He didn't, unfortunately.

Just a regular bullet killed it. And they autopsied it and said, could be a large wolf dog. Like, I don't know, it's just like another large animal. They brought it to the king, but they like, brought it to the king, like, later, and it smelled terrible, and the king was like, get this out of here. Like, why is this disgusting dead dog here in Versailles? So they said they buried it in Versailles, but they don't really know where it was buried. And the hunter who had killed it got 72 Libra, which is way less than the 9,000 the other guy got. But they just like, okay, then it might be done.

But that, but it actually stopped then. So, like, people, it wasn't as big of a problem anymore. People were not getting killed the same way. But in total, almost 100 people were killed in some way by some kind of animal in like this period of time with like three year period of time in the area. You don't really know like what happened. You know, definitely has like the beast and werewolf like maybe something supernatural idea behind it. You can see why people would believe that. But it was probably just several wolves together. Yeah, they probably just this place.

water source or something and they'll change the pattern of behavior of the animal and then an animal that wasn't in that area came to that area you know yeah yeah all stuff that we like know and understand but if you like don't know that and don't understand that or you know you're just you know living your life and people start dying like a really gruesome awful way like you're going to do things like prey and you know get hunters out there and try to figure it out and like declare it over and then not have it over and then you're not going to want to be alone that's for sure um so i'm sure the local economy was affected as well um yeah wasn't that about kelmer in a movie about something similar to this where they were hunting

a lion or something in india or africa oh i don't know the ghost in the darkness yeah i was based on two like sibling lions who were killing the workers who were laying down railroad tracks or something. Oh. Yeah, it was based on like a real thing. Oh, the Savo man-eaters is what they were called. Yeah, it was two, a pair of large man-eating male lions in Kenya. Yeah, I wonder if like something else was happening or like a local, like sometimes

like the rabbits in our area all get sick. you know, and then like they look terrible and there's much less one year than the next. So the coyotes have less food. So they go after other animals, you know. Right. Right. Yeah, probably, probably something like that. But I imagine the day that like this guy comes down from Versailles with his like big hat being like, I'm here.

I'm going to fix this for you. And being like, okay. And then people not wanting to help him. It's hilarious. Michael Douglas was also in this movie. Yeah. It's a strong crew. Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas.

I mean, this was when Val Kilmer, this is before he went through, like, the end stage or the, when, this is before he turned into Marlon Brando. Yes. And kind of timely, too, besides being the spooky season, it's also timely because that new movie Werewolf is coming out. Oh, yeah. Looks like it's based in 14th century England, but same same. I imagine England.

a nice time bird was the same as France. And I imagine that this happened a lot. That's like the, to your point, like, if an animal is attacking in like a way that is strange, it's going to feel strange or like new, you know? And then like, you know, like when a young girl dies in the woods and her neck is ripped out, like, which is obviously makes sense that's where animals go, you know, because that's like an easy way to get things, right? could have also been a serial killer

it could have been like the town drunk we know we don't know it could have been a werewolf could have been a were wolf I don't know I don't know that's fun it's fun and spooky yeah very fitting to the mood

yeah we would love to hear how folks are planning their spooky season what what people are up to we are obviously well you know I'm involved to some extent with calendar of horror by being invited to it.

And that's about it. I'm in a Discord channel, by the way. You are. You get so close and then you don't. All off. Okay. But in my defense, okay. So let's see.

Tonight is the whaling. Saw the whaling. Okay. It doesn't matter. I've seen the movies before. It's fun to watch them together. Your excuse last year was that you didn't know how to convert time into central time. which is the only job of someone living in central time is to convert time to central time.

Which Jay also solved for by including a time zone effort. Yeah. Somehow you're able to meet with me every week and we just say we do everything on my time, which is a very kind of view. I try to do that. I try to that. And it's also because I know I can't keep up with all of it. I'm like, you know, but I can't stay up till midnight watching a race for head tonight. I know.

Jay does stay up very late. Sometimes it's just us and Jay, like, when it gets later into the year because it's like midnight for him on like a Wednesday. Does he ever miss a movie? No. At one time I was like, I'm here, I'm here. And it was like, I'm sorry. And he was like, no, no, I'm going to watch it whether or not anyone's here. He's like, I'm not going to watch it anyway.

So I was like, okay. He's committed. he is committed. I love that. It's the best. It is the best. So I love watching scary movies. And my kids are older now because when they were younger, it was like, put them to bed real fast.

And we would like try to figure out our schedule and all that. But now that they're older, they just like walk in and out of the room. And I'm like, whatever. We did watch back rooms together. And they both ended up sleeping with me that night. But they're fine. What do you think of back rooms? I like it.

I've watched it a couple times because I watch it with the kids. And I watched it a little bit first time. I think it's interesting. I think I like the critique yesterday people were like you can tell it was written by 20 year olds like the dialogue. But like I don't know what. I like it. I like it too. I did think, spoiler alert, I thought that when like Clark lost his mind and became part of it.

Like that was a weird. Like it could have not gone that direction and teed itself up for a solid. part two with Clark still part of it but I don't know like that and then like you're right the 20 year old thing when they threw in like the therapist

and all this like you should have been an architect it sounds like a 20 year old like a 40 year old exactly like how would people in a relationship fight you know right right but

I did go see Resident Evil by Zach Rigger that's the weapons guy and it was one of the funner horror movies I've never seen. Yeah, it's very, very good. It has, like, a bit of humor and wit to it. So is it like, because President Evil's already, those movies already exist, right?

Yeah. So it's just like another one? I think this is like a relaunch, relaunch of it, yeah. What's the company's name? Like Acorn? Umbrella. Umbrella. Yeah, umbrella core, yeah.

And it's based in Raccoon City. Yes, there we go. Fun. I definitely want to see that. Weirwolf comes out on Christmas, which is fun. Yep. Yeah. A fun.

Good timing. Yeah. A fun Christmas thing. Yeah. Features period, accurate, middle English dialogue. Fun. It should be good. Yeah.

Cool. Very exciting. Yeah. Let us know any Halloween things. Doopelpod at gmail.com. Dunditfell pod on all of the socials. And then I just, for listener mail, I wanted to shout out to my friend Shannon who is so supportive and loves the show and someone in our community needed help.

And with no details, Shannon just like jumped into help, created a meal train, did all this stuff, super supportive. She's just such a shining light in the community. So thank you, Shannon. I just think you're awesome. Thank you, Shannon. Do we have anybody else to call? Did anybody else write them? I did guys get a couple ideas from Kiera recently. So that was cool. Thank you for sending those in via Instagram. So you can DM. me on Instagram too. Oh, yeah, Nadine and I, oh, actually, Nadine, our friend from Canada and I were chatting because something came up in a thing in a reel that she saw where in Canada they have,

it's like really easy to send money to people via your email, like it called an e-transfer and like they had those things. And she was like, you guys don't have those? And I was like, no, I was like, no, we want to make everything impossibly hard. And I was thinking about when Florence, when I had Florence 12 years ago. go and when I came back from maternity leave, everybody had Venmo. And I was like, this is a new word, you guys. Like, I'm acting like this is normal.

It's essentially the same as an email except it's a phone number. But yes. But it's like a separate bank and all the things. You know, then like, then you can like sell someone, but that's also like super annoying. Like everything is, it's not as easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So come chat with me on Instagram.

I'll chat about anything. Speaking of which, I'll give Daniel a shout out to because Daniel has been an Instagram messaging me a steady backlog of ideas. So lots to dig through there at some point. But anyways, yeah, write to us with Dunifelphalahad at

Gmail.com. Find us on the socials. As Taylor said, we're all over them and love getting messages. And again, tell us what you're going to do, what your plans in October are. It'll be good to know. Yeah. What's your favorite scary movie? There you go. Tell us. We'll do a poll.

So, cool. Anything else? That's it. All right. We'll go ahead and cut it off there.