But I'll tell you about it after the more famous story of Victor, the wild child of Aveyron popularized by Truffaut. If you go through the village of Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance in Aveyron, perhaps your gaze will be before the town hall on the statue of Victor, the wild child.

How long did Victor live alone in the forest?

It is in the Tarn, in the region of Castres, that we hear about it for the first time. During the winter of 1797, a rumour began to roam the whole village spreading like a trail of powder throughout the canton: one saw a child about ten years old, hirsute, walking on four legs, who lives in the midst of the animals and has a smear across the throat, he eats acorns, chestnuts, roots, and climbs to trees like a squirrel.

Entirely naked and fleeing from the approach of men, he did not let himself be taken easily: one had to even look for several days in a row and take advantage of the hour when he picked up the acorns to seize them in the spring of 1797. He escapes, however.

He was captured again fifteen months later, around mid-July 1799, but, repelled by ill-treatment (we lock him up in a barn, then we entrust him to a widow who tries to clothe him and who is quick to bite), he escapes again; begging for his food in the farms at the edge of the villages, he was discovered in Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance in January 1800.

It is 7 a.m., the child comes to the door of the citizen Vidal, dye maker, living in a house outside the city. Eyes rolling in all directions, dirty, arched back, he claims asylum to the world of humans. The dyer warns the authorities.

Powered by the authorities

The next day, Constant-Saint-Estève, a humanist, decides to take care of him and informs the Government of his finding, specifying that he should be regarded as a « be phenomenal ». It measures 1.36 m, it is covered with many scars and does not speak. He walks curved, eats only raw potatoes and discards all other foods, even bread.

The local representative of the Government decides to have him transferred to the civilian hospital in Saint-Affrique, where the orphans are welcomed, he writes this letter to the hospital:

“I'm driving, citizen, into your hospice, an unknown child between the ages of 12 and 15 who seems deaf and mute by birth. In addition to the interest it inspires by the deprivation of its senses, it still presents in its habits something extraordinary that brings it closer to the state of the savages. In all respects, this interesting and unhappy being requires the care of humanity.“

Upon his arrival in the hospital, he is a tired, hagard child who bites as soon as he is tried to lie in a bed; He does not stare at anyone, refuses meat whether cooked or raw, and drinks water at the jug. Without any modesty, he meets his natural needs wherever he is. He also manifests movements of deep tenderness when he is kissed and shown affection.

He is in the presence of several couples whose child has disappeared, but none of them recognizes him as his.

At the end of January 1800, he was transferred to Rodez; It was at that time that the Minister of the Interior, Lucien Bonaparte (the consul's brother who soon became Napoleon), announced that he was claiming the unfortunate child if there was no hope of finding his parents.

Lucien Bonaparte writes to the government commissioner in the department of Aveyron: « Citizen, I learn that he has been found in your department, a young man who knows nothing but shouting confused and speaking no language, please address me without delay ».

And so the wild child leaves Rodez. He has gained some autonomy, he eats and dresses alone, but he remains silent. On 20 July 1800, he left in Paris by carriage where he arrived in early August.

Parisian life

All the newspapers are now talking about him. We show it in Paris, we show it, the whole bourgeoisie wants to see the wild child. The priest Bonnasterre who accompanied the baptism « Joseph »Those who keep him have flaired the good deal, here the money! But it is above all the scholars who await the wild of Aveyron with eager curiosity; among them, Philippe Pinel – An alienist who is now called a psychiatrist, who runs the asylums of alienated people in Paris – gives the child various tests. After many unsuccessful trials, he wrote a report:

« You see, I think that Joseph is an idiot, he didn't become an idiot, he's an idiot by birth, and that's probably why he was abandoned by his parents in the woods. ». He thinks that he only remains to lock up with the other idiots in Paris in one of the asylums he runs.

However, a young medical student, Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard He is not at all of the same opinion and he immediately decides to institute and direct the moral treatment of the child whose condition has deteriorated considerably since he was exhibited and locked up in Paris.

Victor or child of the forest

In May 1801 Itard wrote his first « Memory of the first physical and moral developments of the young savage of Aveyron« . This long review is the occasion for Itard to give a first name to the child whom he named Victor because of a very fashionable novel of Ducray Duminil « Victor or child of the forest ».
He recruits from the institution a governess, Mrs Guérin, who will be responsible for continuously supervising the child, she will receive 150 francs a year for this task.

One day, Dr.Itard showed Victor toys that mocked him royally, but he did not give up and continued his attempts to socialize him.

Every day, Madame Guérin takes her to nature. Once, the governess finds herself very embarrassed when she sees Victor climbing into a tree and not wanting to go down.
One day of snow, it will roll into it, shouting pleasure without giving the impression of being cold.

The last report (1806)

The years pass. Victor ends up showing interest in others. He kisses Dr Itard's knees, weeps when he loses sight of his governess, and then comes the moment when he has to be taught to speak, this is the greatest challenge to be faced. Doctor Itard knows that Victor is not deaf. With patience, Itard made the savage say his first word. The event is soon known to all, as echoed The National Gazette:

“The young man today, distinguishes, classifies the characters of the alphabet. He does more, speaking in an ordinary tone of voice the words milk, soup. He will immediately search for the necessary characters to trace these words; it assembles them on a board, and composes the word with all grammatical accuracy. Every day he acquires a new term. It is true, only those who have an immediate connection to his needs, but they are the only ones that even a philosopher is allowed to present to him. Finally, he is admitted not only to communicate with us; Here it is in possession of our conventional signs. He crossed the line; He's on our territory.“

Victor's big problem is that he never goes beyond the word, and he doesn't make the connection between « milk » and its meaning. Doctor Itard wants to teach him how to read, but Victor won't make it. He thought we could evolve through learning, but it doesn't work. So, in the summer of 1806, Dr. Itard wrote his fourth memoir on the child.

The 80-page report is in fact a failure. As there is no more hope, it is decided to leave him, when he is about twenty years old, to Madame Guérin, the governess who has occupied him since April 1802.

Falling anonymously

At the beginning of July 1811, Madame Guérin settled with Victor almost opposite the institution of the deaf mutes. At the nearby number 12, another Victor still a child will come to join his mother from 1812 to 1815, a Victor Hugo. Did they cross in their common gardens? No one knows.

The wild Aveyron died about 40 years old in 1828. Completely forgotten, he will not be entitled to a grave, since judged « insufficiently human « . His body is thrown into the mass grave. Was Victor a wild child or was he an autistic child probably abandoned by his family?

According to Serge Aroles, surgeon, the scars on Victor's body are not those of a long life in the woods, but those of human abuse and it comes to this icy conclusion: « Victor was a false wild child, but certainly an authentic child martyr ».

Sources: Millavois

Let's go to Africa, specifically Mali...

Joseph, the wild child of Markala.

About a dozen years ago, I visited Mali, at the time it was no problem. Unfortunately the war prevents me from returning to this country where I have excellent memories ... but there is not my purpose of the day.

I've come to Markala and my contact takes me to the family who will house or at least reserve me a corner in a storage room where a metal bed is laid.... For comfort, it is the cabin at the bottom of the garden, where one does his toilet after having pulled water from the well.
Before taking me to my hosts, he warns me that they have a little special child, a wild child.

Here's his story:

Joseph is three years old when he disappears. The whole village goes on its search, the wells and crevices of the ground are probed, the bush is searched in the vicinity, a three-year-old child could not go far the alert having been quickly given, but nothing, Joseph remains unobtainable.

Parents mourn, years pass, and six years later they learn that the hunter of a nearby village captured a child in the bush. Immediately they go there and indeed they find their son who is now about ten years old.

Hirsute, he walks on four legs, expresses himself only by grunting, washes his water, refuses any cooked food, sleeps in a gun dog from the ground and his body is zebrabed with scars due to his life in the bush in the midst of the thorns. How did he survive? It's a mystery.

Of course we are in Africa but there is no point in referring to the image of Tarzan's Epinal raised by monkeys, there is not one in Mali whose fauna is limited to phacochères and a breed of long-legged rabbits. There are many crocodiles and hippopotamuses along the Niger But in the welcoming kind we can find better.

It is assumed that Joseph was captured by a Sufi, a kind of hermit who lives removed from the world, but it is not known in the region.

Joseph is examined by doctors who do not detect any evidence of abuse, his health is good and obviously he did not lack anything. His parents take him home but despite all their efforts, they will not succeed in socializing him. I sometimes played with him and he surprised me by his colossal strength. Very mischievous, it was necessary to chain the basin in which he was put his food because he had the mania to throw it on the roof. Only the threat of a stick could reverse it, accrediting the thesis of SufiBecause who but a human can raise a stick as a threat?

I then saw him again during other stays but still as wild until the day when his parents had to separate themselves from him because as he grew up, puberty did his work, he saw only females in his mother and sisters... and they would not have been able to resist his assaults; moreover he had acquired such strength that even his father could not control him anymore.

I learned two years ago that he had died taking his mystery with him, he must have been about twenty years old.
Unfortunately I have no more photos of him.

This is the story of Joseph, the wild child of Markala in Mali.

Claude Boyer