François Antoine

François Antoine, Officer of the Royal Bedchamber, Knight Equerry of the Royal Military Order of Saint Louis, served as Gun-Bearer to the King and Lieutenant of the Hunt under Louis XV of France, and is most notable as having pursued and slain what was thought to be the Beast of Gévaudan, its mate, and its whelps between 23 June and 17 October 1765.

Antoine, by personal decree of the King, arrived in Malzieu on 23 June 1765 to replace the ineffective Norman father-son duo of Jean-Charles-Marc-Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and Jean-François, who had been at the hunt since March with little to show for their efforts but the skins of ordinary wolves. His hunting party consisted of eight gamekeepers from the Royal Captaincies of the Hunt, two mounted gamekeepers on loan from the Duke of Orléans, three aides of the Duke of Penthiévre, a servant of the Prince de Condé, two doghandlers, a valet, and Antoine's own son, de Beauterne, of the National Gendarmerie. With him Antoine brought four male wolfhounds and a female greyhound, all hand-picked from the Royal Pack. He intended to supplement this small group with hounds from d'Enneval's own pack, as the Norman had yet to receive the recall of the King, and experienced dogs from local packs that had fought with the Beast.

Antoine first hunted with the d'Ennevals on 23 June, a Sunday, in the Malzieu area. Though the majority of the Gévaudanais were Catholic, thereby restricting them from strenuous activity on the Sabbath, Sunday hunts allowed the citizenry to depart from churches en-masse and move to the positions to which they had been assigned by local government officials, often as beaters. Provided by Wikipedia