The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves (15 page)

Most historians agree with the claim that this story is true. However, the many details of what occurred are hard to nail down. Little is known about the identity of the man now referred to as the “Demon Tailor of Chalons” or as the “Werewolf of Chalons.” The details of his murders were so horribly gruesome that the presiding officials ordered all records of his crimes burnt to ashes. They wanted to make certain that no one would ever be able to reproduce his terrible deeds. This may have been for the best. However, the tale of his crimes lived on in the local lore, much of which was later written down.

 

This loup-garou was a tailor in the Chalons district of Paris, France. He had been brought to the court on December 14, 1598, after the skeletal remains of his many young victims were discovered in a number of barrels in the back room of his shop. The details of his crimes are forever lost to the fire. However, surviving accounts state that he would lure children into his shop. He would then torture them (often sexually) before slitting their throats. Once his victims were dead, he would then butcher their flesh as one would butcher an animal for meat. He then kept the flesh in freezers to cook and eat for his meals.

 

Unlike many who were tried for lycanthropy, the Demon Tailor never once confessed to anything. However, he never seemed disturbed or showed so much as a hint of sadness at his trial. Throughout the trial, most surviving accounts claim that his face remained a blank slate. However, some accounts also claim that he was prone to fits of rage that he would sometimes display even in the courtroom. It would seem that he refused to fear the courts, something that became even more evident during his execution.

 

On the day of the Demon Tailor’s execution by fire, it is said that he screamed a flurry of perverse insults and blasphemies at the spectators until the flames finally claimed the last of his breath. Most accounts insist that this display of profanity was the final evidence that this monster of a man had entered into a pact with the devil and thereby become a loup-garou. The fires of Earth now sent him to face the fires of hell.

In 1598, a group of hunters came upon what they first thought was an animal. Upon closer inspection, however, they were horrified to discover that it was in fact a man. The rambling man, who identified himself by the name Jacques Roulet, was half-naked and covered in blood. His hair was matted with dirt and leaves, and he held in his hand what appeared to be a large piece of raw meat. The meat was soon discovered to be the flesh of a 15-year-old boy whom Roulet had murdered and mostly devoured. The hunters were convinced that they had discovered a loup-garou, and they immediately dragged Roulet before the courts. News of the case spread, and Roulet was soon dubbed the “Werewolf of Caude.”

 

Upon questioning, Roulet claimed that he’d been a traveling vagabond for years. However, he’d at some point in the past become obsessed with the idea of eating human flesh. He explained that his recent teenage victim was not his first, and he offered a number of gruesome details regarding many of the murders he’d committed in the past. Many of his victims had been state officials, and he seemed to have had a taste for lawyers and court bailiffs.

 

Based on his confession, Roulet was convicted of murder, lycanthropy, and cannibalism. Initially, he was sentenced to death (mostly likely an execution by burning). However, when a number of well-known scientific and medical authorities passionately testified that Roulet was not a werewolf but a madman (a condition they claimed to be able to cure), this sentence was changed. He was sentenced instead to rehabilitation at a sanitarium. After only two years of treatment, Jacques Roulet, the “Werewolf of Caude,” was deemed cured of his insanity and released.

What became of him after he left the sanitarium remains a mystery.

Francois Bertrand is referred to by some as the “Werewolf of Paris.” The name is well deserved. During the mid-nineteenth century, Francois Bertrand had spent much of his adult life as a sergeant in the French military. He was first brought before the courts when he was caught vandalizing a number of tombs in a Paris cemetery. An examination of the scene led investigators to believe that it was not the tombs that Bertrand was after … but the dead bodies held inside.

Under questioning by the courts, Bertrand explained that he had long harbored a compulsion to tear apart the corpses of dead women and young girls. He is said to have done so with nothing but his teeth and fingernails. Some of his experiences in doing these ghastly acts led to bouts of
necrophilia.
Other times, after tearing apart a corpse, he would devour some of its flesh.

Bertrand’s actions caused him to be labeled by people as a loup-garou. His confession, however, led to his conviction. Unlike in many of the werewolf trials of past centuries, Bertrand was not burned or even executed. He wasn’t even charged by the courts with being a werewolf (though the people of the area certainly considered him to be one). Instead of being executed, Bertrand was sentenced to a long prison sentence. He is believed to have died while incarcerated, though sources vary on this detail.

The record of Jean Grenier begins on a sunny afternoon in 1603 with a group of young girls watching over their family’s herd of sheep. As the girls made small talk, some of the sheep suddenly became noticeably restless. A group of them had wandered into a nearby depression in the ground, only to come rushing back out to rejoin the main herd as if something had startled them. The girls, fearing that some predator might be lurking somewhere unseen, ventured over together to investigate what was scaring their flock. As the girls approached, huddled closely together, their trusty work dog sensed something was wrong and began growling and baring his fangs.

 

The girls reached the edge of the depression, expecting to see an animal. They were shocked to instead see a teenage boy sitting on a fallen log. The boy was 13-year-old Jean Grenier, and his unusual appearance frightened the girls. His dirty and matted red hair fell about his shoulders and face in long, wild, and unkempt clumps. He was wearing ragged clothes, and much of his body could be seen through the many tears and rips of his shirt and pants. He was very emaciated, as if from prolonged starvation. His skin was dark tan, and his eyes hollow. According to the record, his canine teeth were unusually long, and they often protruded from his mouth even when it was closed.

 

The girls said nothing to him at first, and for a few moments it seemed as if Grenier did not even notice their presence. The savage-looking boy just sat there stone-faced as the girls stood before him in a state of shocked bewilderment. They were finally pulled from this trance when Grenier turned his pale-blue eyes toward them and spoke with a beastly tone of voice. He asked the girls to decide which among them was the prettiest. The oldest girl demanded to know why Grenier wished them to decide such a thing. He replied that he was going to marry whichever girl proved to be the prettiest. They thought he was joking. After all, how could they marry someone they did not know?

 

The girls had never seen this strange boy before, and now demanded that he introduce himself. Grenier claimed to be the son of a priest. The truth of his answer seemed questionable to the girls, and they now asked him if the reason for him being so dirty-skinned and dressed in such tattered rags was because of the scandal regarding his conception (obviously, since priests were celibate and unmarried, this meant he was illegitimate).

Grenier told the girls that his skin was dark and dirty because he often wore a wolf-skin instead of clothes. When the girls asked where he got the wolf-skin, Grenier said it had been given to him by a man named Pierre Labourant. The girls had never heard of any man by that name living in the area. When they said this to Grenier, he let out a long and howling row of laughter that further added to the girls’ fear of him. He stood and whirled around as if overcome with joy. The girls took a few steps back. Horrified, the oldest of them now began to suspect that this boy was either overcome by madness or possessed by demons.