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

350 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.

—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

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:—

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

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:—

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

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.