Who is the bogeyman of Comminges?

For this new episode of "Mysteries from here", the series devoted to the extraordinary stories, stories and legends of our regions, today we bring out the file of Blaise Ferrage, a young peasant from Comminges, serial rapist, executed in Toulouse in 1782 How did this son of peasants from Couserans, west of Ariège, become the local bogeyman, the “Ogre of Comminges”, the “Cannibal of the Pyrenees”, the devourer of shepherdesses?

Hélène Ménal, journalist for

in Toulouse, conducted the investigation, and tells in our podcast.

Dozens of young victims

There is a share of sordid truth in this nightmare character, but also popular beliefs, "fake news before its time", according to historian Jean-Pierre Allinne, author of

(Cairn, 2005 ).

By exhuming the Ferrage trial file from the Foix archives, this professor of the history of law and institutions has distinguished between myth and reality.

Blaise Ferrage, born in 1755 in Cescau – in Comminges at the time, but today in Ariège due to administrative redistricting – was a serial rapist.

Disinherited as a cadet, he lived on his own as an agricultural laborer, raping isolated shepherdesses.

The sexual predator also killed a Spanish horse dealer, and attempted to murder a landowner from his village and his niece, whom he had fallen in love with after raping her.

It is for all of his work that Blaise Ferrage, at barely 25 years old, was executed on December 13, 1782 in Toulouse.

The myth of the “Cannibal of the Pyrenees” was born shortly after his execution from the pen, according to the historian, of Jean-Florent Baour, owner and sole journalist of Les

, “a sensational sheet”.

Listen to the rest of this story in our podcast.

See you very soon for a new story!

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