| “ | Marie-Jeanne: "Do you have any cloth? Something to wrap your hand?" Marcel: "In the cellar. You'll find what you're looking for in the cellar." |
” |
The French Tavern was a local drinking den in Gévaudan, France in the mid-1800s. After word had spread about the Beast of Gévaudan, a large creature who had gone on a killing spree in the region, many of the townspeople gathered in the tavern to discuss current events. Monsieur Tolbert, the magistrate of Gévaudan, revealed that, though the king was planning on eventually sending his best men to hunt the Beast, in the meantime, they would need to send out their own search party.
Before the discussion could continue, Sebastien Valet and Marcel, two soldiers who had just returned from the Seven Years' War in what would eventually become Canada, arrived and immediately nominated Sebastien's sister Marie-Jeanne Valet, renowned for being the best hunter of mundane animals in their town, to lead the hunt. Though Marie-Jeanne did not believe the Beast was supernatural, unlike the rest of her fellow townspeople, she still agreed to lead them, as she wanted to avenge all of the citizens of Gévaudan who had been killed by the creature.
It was in the cellar of the tavern that Marie-Jeanne ultimately found the bodies of dozens of victims of the Beast, causing her to come to the realization that it was her own brother Sebastien who was the Beast of Gévaudan, and his comrade Marcel was covering for him. Several years later, when Marie-Jeanne finally slayed her brother for good, the tavern's fireplace was used to burn everything in Sebastien's name, as she was punishing him for his murderous ways with damnatio memoriae, erasing every vestige of his existence so that history would only remember the Beast and not the man.
Notable Events[]
- 1764
- The barman, Rene, put up posters inside the tavern that warned against the Beast of Gévaudan, as many of the townspeople (including Marie-Jeanne Valet, Monsieur Tolbert, and many others) gathered to discuss the Beast and debate over what kind of creature it was.
- Sebastien Valet, Marie-Jeanne's brother, returned from the Seven Years' War and, having heard of the Beast, nominated Marie-Jeanne to lead the hunting party, reminding everyone present that she was the best huntress in Gévaudan. Despite not believing that the Beast was a supernatural creature like everyone else in town, Marie-Jeanne, devastated by the body of the young boy Emile having been found mauled to death in the forest, agreed to lead the hunt for the Beast.
- The hunting party reconvened the next day at dawn, where the hunters discussed that they believed the Beast to be a supernatural creature. Marie-Jeanne, still skeptical, was surprised to learn that Sebastien, Marcel, and another man, Henri Argent, believed it to be true and argued that she has hunted nearly every animal under the sun. Henri asked her if she had hunted everything under the moon before they set off for the woods. On the way out, Marie-Jeanne noticed an anxious Marcel locking up the tavern's cellar before joining them.
- After the hunting party was torn apart in the woods, leaving only few survivors, the town gathered in the tavern to mourn their dead. Marie-Jeanne, whose encounter with the Beast the night before led her to accept the fact that the Beast was indeed a Werewolf, worked with Henri to try to expose the Beast and learn its human identity at the tavern. Marie-Jeanne and Henri poured everyone a glass of wine that was secretly laced with Mistletoe, as Henri knew from his studies that a Werewolf would have a reaction to the berries. Marcel, realizing what the two were doing, smashed his wine glass in his hand as a distraction, causing Marie-Jeanne to lead him outside in order to tend to his wounds while Sebastien started to transform in the back of the room.
- Outside, Marcel cryptically informed Marie-Jeanne that she would find what she was looking for in the tavern's cellar. She went down the stairs leading to the basement, thinking she was just grabbing cloth to bandage his hand, only to become horrified when she saw the bodies of dozens of men, women, and children the Beast had killed strewn around the room.
- Marie-Jeanne returned to interrogate Marcel on what she had found, and Marcel immediately confessed to being the Beast and held up his hands in surrender before daring Marie-Jeanne to shoot him with her crossbow. Before she could fire the shot, Marie-Jeanne noticed that Marcel's injured hand was still bleeding onto the snow-covered ground and realized that he could not be the Beast, as a Werewolf would have healed in the time she was gone. Marie-Jeanne then became appalled when she determined that Marcel was just covering for the real Beast—her own brother, Sebastien, who had been turned into a Werewolf while serving in the Seven Years' War, as he had fallen onto the ground and had accidentally drank rainwater from a wolf's paw print in the dirt.
- Marie-Jeanne confronted her brother inside the tavern, where he smugly confessed to being the Beast and bragging about all of the death he had caused. When she threatened to expose him, Sebastien warned his sister that if she attempted to do so, he would tear all of the bar's patrons to shreds before she could even process it. Sebastien then kissed her on the forehead before going on the run for the next three years.
- 1967
- After Marie-Jeanne finally located and defeated her brother using a spear whose tip was mixed with Mountain Ash and Wolfsbane and forged with her blood under the full moon, she returned to the tavern, where the magistrate and other Gévaudan citizens helped Marie-Jeanne perform damnatio memoriae on her brother, dumping every document and object recorded to be owned by Sebastien into the fire so that his human identity would be lost to history. ("Maid of Gévaudan")
Trivia[]
- Marcel hiding the bodies of Sebastien's victims in the tavern's cellar was another case of "history repeating" theme throughout the Teen Wolf series; he would later do the same under his new identity as The Surgeon with regards to those killed by Mason Hewitt/the resurrected Beast in 2012, this time hiding the bodies in the sewers.
Gallery[]
