The massacre proved to be a turning point for the country, deepening divisions and turning French Protestants firmly against the monarchy. The years that followed were troubled with the Catholic Church trying to gain a hold on the minds of the people and the Protestants striving just as hard towards the same goal. In such a heated atmosphere, it is not surprising that demonologies began to emerge, gripping the public imagination, even at village level.

  By the time Charles IX died in 1574, his reign had divided France as never before and his younger brother Henry III inherited a poisonous mess. The Guises had formed the violent Catholic League that was being aided by the great Catholic king, Philip II of Spain, whilst the Huguenots were already arming themselves for conflict. In a desperate bid to prevent a full-scale civil war (there had been many minor clashes and local “wars” between the two factions), Henry proposed a middle way that seemed to be acceptable to the politiques (moderates on both sides). He also struck up an alliance with his cousin, the Huguenot Henry of Navarre, in order to attack the Catholic stronghold of Paris, where the Guises had been stirring trouble. Before such an invasion could take place, however, Henry III was assassinated by a Dominican friar and, as he had no children, he was succeeded by his cousin from Navarre who became Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon kings. Having to retake large areas of his kingdom by force from the grip of the Catholic League, and in order to placate the Parisian mob and many of the important Catholic nobles, Henry changed his religion from Protestantism to Catholicism, declaring that “Paris was well worth a Mass.” This helped him, as a tolerant Catholic king, to enact the Edict of Nantes that went some of the way to resolve the yawning differences between the religions. The Huguenots continued to remain a problem from the monarchy for almost a century to come. Henry himself would be assassinated in 1610, leaving the throne of France to a nine-year-old boy—his son Louis XIII.

  The instability of the monarchy, the turbulence of the times, and the uncertainty of human life stalked the country as local wars raged. They all contributed to an overall feeling of doom. For many, the end of the world must surely be at hand and the forces of evil were abroad. Furthermore, localized fighting and wide-spread plague had left many bodies unburied, especially in the countryside attracting wolves from the surrounding woodlands in search of easy prey. Stories of wolf attacks may have become mixed with local stories of demonic forces, as exemplified in the writings of Henri Boguet and Nicholas Remy, stirring up popular fears and causing terrors to be seen everywhere.

  Inarticulate and bizarre-looking strangers such as Jacques Roulet or sullen hermits such as Gilles Garnier were the reasons for the general social unease of the time. The wolf attacks were often linked in the common consciousness with demons lurking in the woodlands, and the evils that beset a local community might be exorcised by executing them. And of course, the shadow of the wolf, watching from the woodland tree line was enough to frighten everyone. The idea of the diabolic man-wolf, the enemy of Mankind, was inching ever closer.

  Jean Grenier

  This case, which is generally perceived to be the end of the 16th century werewolf terror in France, occurred in 1603. This ended in the trial of Jean Grenier, known as the last French loup-garou. Most of what we know about the case comes from the account of a French witch hunter named Pierre de Lancre. De Lancre was a famous magistrate who sought out and tried witches not only within French territory, but also those who had crossed the border into Spain and, similar to Burguot, was considered something of an authority on the diabolical arts. The Grenier case had come to his attention when he was acting as a lawyer for the parlement in Bordeaux and had been referred from a lower court at St. Sever.

  Jean Grenier was a strange, fourteen-year-old boy, possibly suffering from mental abnormalities, who liked to frighten small children and young girls with the claim that he was a werewolf. As time went on, his assertions grew wilder and wilder. He had been approached by a mysterious stranger (possibly the Devil or one of his agents) who had given him a wolfskin cape that, together with a magic salve, could transform him into a wolf for the space of one hour on certain nights of the week. He also claimed to be the illegitimate son of a priest—his accepted father was not his real father—and, he claimed that the sons of priests grew up to become werewolves and serve the Devil. In his werewolf shape, he had attacked several dogs but had found their blood disgusting. Far sweeter was the blood and flesh of young girls and small children. Whilst these were clearly the fantasies of a rather disturbed mind, they were taken extremely seriously by those in the surrounding neighbourhood. One girl to whom he had told these stories, a thirteen-year-old named Marguerite Porier, with whom he’d been attending some sheep, accused him of attacking her whilst in his werewolf guise. Whilst Jean had gone off somewhere, she was approached by some kind of wolf-like animal. She managed to beat it off with her staff, but it had only retreated a little way, and then slumped back on its haunches to glower at her savagely, upon which she had turned and fled. The beast, she said, was much smaller than an actual forest wolf and its tail was a mere stump. It was, she thought, some way between a wolf and a human. It could only, she averred, be Jean Grenier.

  Given the severity of the accusation, the boy might have been expected to deny it. But surprisingly, he seemed eager to admit it and indeed confessed to a number of other similar crimes. Over the past months, a number of children had gone missing, and this added an immediate importance to his somewhat rambling confession. Indeed, the courts took a great deal of time in checking some of the detail, but found nothing of consequence. In the meantime, Jean’s stories grew wilder and wilder, symptomatic of a disordered mind. He now implicated others whom he said had hunted with him. One of these was his father and a neighbour, both of whom were arrested and imprisoned. There were more searches of the Grenier house, particularly to find the magic salve of which Jean had spoken, but nothing was discovered. Jean’s father was ordered to be tortured and he confessed that he had indeed been a werewolf and had sought out little girls but he had not eaten them, just “played with them”. It might be inferred that the older man was a pedophile who interfered with small children and that his son shared some of his predatory sexual abnormalities. However, this was well beyond the 17th century French court. Emboldened by the ongoing trial, several young children who had seen their friends carried off by wolves now came forward and added to the accusations against the Greniers. Under further torture, Jean’s father laid the blame squarely on his son and recanted of his own actions. He was spared for the time being. Based on the admittedly circumstantial evidence and on his own crazed confession, Jean Grenier was brought before the judge at Coutras in June of 1603 and the court swiftly convicted him. He was sentenced to be hanged and burnt. However, the courts were not yet finished with him.

  Le Maitre de la Foret

  Jean Grenier’s case was reviewed by the parlement of Bordeaux in September of that year. Again, he told his story of becoming a wolf, adding embellishments as he did so, seeking to implicate others whom he felt had turned against him. He told the court that, at the age of eleven or twelve, he had been taken deep into the woods by his neighbour to meet with a “black man” whom he called Le Maitre de la Foret (the Master of the Forest). This man, assumed to be the Devil, had scratched him with his nail, leaving a mark, and had given him the magic salve and wolf-pelt cloak that he needed in order to change shape. He also confessed that whilst in a wolf shape, he had entered an empty house in a village whose name he could not remember and had dragged a baby from its cradle and had eaten it. When he encountered a true wolf, he gave him what was left of the child. Later, in the parish of St. Antoinne-de-Pizon, he had attacked a small girl in a black dress who was looking after some sheep. He had partially devoured her as well. In fact, St. Antoinee-de-Pizon had become a favourite hunting ground of his, and two months earlier he had attacked and eaten a small boy playing in a yard, whilst six weeks before that he had devoured another child walking on a stone bridge. He had also fought with several dogs, killing most of them except one in Eparon, where the owner had appeared and had driven him off with a rapier. Once again, he repeated the allegation that his father was not his true parent and that he was in fact, the illegitimate son of a priest. He claimed that this fact gave him “special powers.” This was found to be a fabrication—the fantasy of a confused mind—and that his father was indeed the labourer who had been arrested and tortured. There was some animosity between father and son—Jean’s mother had died and his father had remarried. Jean and his stepmother didn’t get along well—she found him strange in his ways—and so his father had put him out of the house, reduced him to beggary, and forced him to wander the countryside seeking food. He did try to get work but was notoriously unreliable. He was reduced to terrorizing small girls with tales of werewolfery and Devil-worship. Relations had soured between Jean and his father and it was no surprise that he tried to implicate him in both his real or imagined crimes. When he had to face his father in court, however, his testimony began to fail; he crossed himself in his evidence and withdrew some of the allegations. He told the court that his stepmother had thrown him out because she had seen him behaving like a dog and further had witnessed him vomit up the fingers of a small child. He had made her afraid and she had driven him from the house. The father was dismissed without charge.

  Despite all his crazy allegations, Jean Grenier was taken seriously by the courts. And yet, the sentence that was passed down to him shows the changing attitude of the time. He should have been burnt, indeed he was already sentenced to be so. However, the court took a more lenient view than the lower judiciary. It took into account the boy’s “stupidity,” the fact that he was a beggar and was malnourished, that he was bereft of a real mother and had been raised by a cruel stepmother, and that he’d been left to fend for himself without anyone to take an interest in him. Such a miserable specimen, in the court’s view, was easy prey for the Devil and his agents but he was not beyond salvation. So, instead of condemning him to death, the court sentenced Grenier to live out his days as a prisoner in a Christian monastery. Here, it was hoped, he would renounce his formerly evil ways and turn to the path of Christ.

  Bete de Gevaudan

  It is generally accepted that Jean Grenier was the last instance of werewolfery in France and, with his trial, the whole French episode drew to a close. However, the beast, lurking at the back of the French mind, refused to go away. It resurfaced in 1764 with the infamous Bete de Gevaudan high in the Massif Central region. In the village of Langogne, in the Gevaudan, a ferocious wolf-like beast began killing people who strayed too near the edge of the forest. The death toll rose rapidly to eleven, including two labouring men. Although the deaths were probably the work of packs of wolves rather than any single animal, it did not take long for the ancient lycanthropic fears of earlier centuries to resurface. Although the probability of attacks by genuine wolf packs was acknowledged, folklore and folk-wisdom also hinted at the possibility of a werewolf. Old folktales and rumours began to circulate, accompanied by a wealth of broadsheets and printed material. Many of these included diabolical-looking woodcuts, showing monstrous and threatening figures, half-man, half-wolf. There were accounts, too, fuelled by the ongoing hysteria, of strange partially-human creatures seen slinking through the woods at Mazel-de-Grezes. (One account even said that although one of these figures was in the shape of a wolf, it wore brass buttons on its front as if the wolfskin were on an overcoat which some human had put on.) A women going to Mass had been accompanied for part of the way, by an especially hairy man who had vanished as soon as she had screamed the name of Christ. This was a sure sign that her companion had been a werewolf and in the service of the Devil. The Bete was never caught and soon the killings stopped. The terror, however, lingered on.

  Many of the alleged sightings of the beast were no more than rural folktales and imaginings, but they serve to illustrate that, although there was a formal acknowledgement that, werewolves did not exist, there was still an element of uncertainty about this, particularly in the rural mind. Folktales concerning people who could transform themselves into animals or of wolves who could speak with a human voice (in order to tempt God’s people) still circulated widely, especially in France.

  Le Grande Mal Garou

  The French collector of such supernatural tales or contes, Charles Perrault, recognized the importance of such stories. In 1697 he published a collection of folktales that contained one werewolf-themed story in particular—the notion of a speaking wolf that would create mayhem. It dealt with a petite fille, a pretty child, who has to journey through a dark wood in order to take some groceries to her grandmother who is ill. She is dressed in her favourite cape, made from a red material. On her way through the wood, she meets with a wolf, who engages her in conversation. The animal questions her and obtains the exact directions to her grandmother’s house, also learning that the old lady is both ill and housebound. It does not attack her, however, due to the presence of some woodcutters nearby. The wolf then expresses concern about the old woman and says that it will visit her as well, but suggests that they take different paths to see who will get to the grandmother’s hut first. The girl takes the longer path, but is distracted on her way by picking wild flowers and chasing butterflies. The wolf, meanwhile, has already reached the door of the hut and, by mimicking the little girl’s voice, encourages the grandmother to allow it in, whereupon it leaps on the old woman in the bed and devours her. It then puts on the corpse’s nightgown and climbs into the bed to wait for the little girl to arrive. This she does and the wolf pretends to be the bedridden old lady. There is some conversation between the two concerning the largeness of eyes, mouth, and teeth. At the very end, the wolf reveals itself, pounces upon the little girl and eats her. There is no happy ending to this tale. The story is, of course, the original narrative of the well-known children’s fable Little Red Riding Hood; the version which Perrault collected at the end of the 17th century seems to have its source in the stories of Gilles Garnier and of Jean Grenier and of the Werewolves of Poligny, over a century earlier. Here, the wolves attacked feeble and defenceless victims—small children such as Red Riding Hood and the bedridden grandmother—harking back to some of the allegations during the French werewolf trials. Indeed, it is perfectly possible that Little Red Riding Hood started out as a gruesome werewolf tale. It is strange that Perrault’s heroine is not afraid of speaking to a wolf or that she does not sense that something is wrong when the creature speaks to her. It has been suggested that initially, Little Red Riding Hood meets the werewolf in its human guise (Perrault is careful to display the werewolf as a wolf and not as a hybrid half-human creature), which doesn’t frighten her, but later encounters it in its animal shape when it eats her.

  The original French tale ends with the death of Red Riding Hood in the jaws of the wolf, but a German variant collected by the Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, has a much happier and satisfactory ending. This story was published in 1812 in their famous Kinder-und Hausmarchen tales. This German story is known as Rotkappchen or Red Cap, which gives us the familiar title Red Riding Hood. In this version, which to a point closely parallels Perrault’s narrative, the little girl’s cries draw the attention of a passing huntsman. Suspecting what has happened, he attacks the wolf, slicing its belly open with his hunting knife, allowing Red Cap and her grandmother to escape. Throughout this entire procedure, the wolf appears to be asleep, gorged after its meal, and so Red Cap fetches a large stone that they sew into the creature’s belly. The wolf wakes up and tries to run off but the weight of the stones weight it down and it dies.

  The story of Red Riding Hood undoubtedly reflected a number of ancient legends and tales, stretching back long before Perrault. The colour of the heroine’s hood or cap is the colour of blood; the girl is either extremely naïve or else deliberately misled by talking to the wolf (thus putting the creature in the role of Tempter); the notion that a demonic force (the wolf) masquerades as a human: all have traditions that stretch back almost as far as prehistoric times. And there are all sorts of political connotations—it has been suggested that the original Red Riding Hood legend is an old Huguenot tale. Allegedly it was circulated following the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, designed to symbolize the savagery of the French Monarchy—red being the colour of freedom (red caps were sometimes worn by the Huguenots as a symbol of their independence). Whatever the tradition, there is little doubt that the legend of Red Riding Hood and other tales like it kept the figures of the wolf and of the werewolf at the forefront of the popular rural mind.