VICTOR OF AVEYRON, THE FRENCH WILD BOY - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Victor of Aveyron was a young boy who was found in the middle of a French forest. From these first contacts, it would become one of the most studied cases of wild children by scientists.

In autumnal France at the end of September 1799, among the forests of Caune, near the Pyrenees, a boy of only ten years old appeared completely naked. His appearance appeared to be that of a vagabond of the time, with signs of having suffered smallpox, full of dirt and bruises.

Victor of Aveyron drawing

He had the typical rounded, childlike face characteristic of his age along with a long, pointed nose. His long and slender neck bore a large scar that ran across his throat.

He had already been sighted several times, while trying to collect acorns and tubers to survive, but it was not until that moment when they hit him. He would not be easily captured, but once done, he was sent to live with an old woman who lived in a nearby cabin.

Within a week, he would escape to live all winter in the forest. During that time, the young man would even go to the surrounding villages. On one of his visits to St. Sernin, he would break into an abandoned house to be captured again.

He was taken to the Saint-Afrique hospital and later to the Rodez hospital, where he spent several months. During that time, he was distant, with a wild and rebellious attitude.

The news of his capture quickly circulated throughout France. People didn't talk about anything else. The magnitude of the event was such that even a government minister would order it to be transferred to Paris in the late 1800s so that it could be studied for scientific purposes.

Transfer to Paris and study

Already in the French capital, several experts met to observe and study it. Among them was Philippe Pinel, the director of the Bicêtre asylum. He would call the boy an incurable mentally defective.

Against this theory, the doctor and pedagogue Jean Marc Gasspard Itard proposed an adaptation and education program for the boy, something that was seen favorably by other professionals.

From that moment, Jean Marc would remain with the custody and official guardianship of the savage, receiving the instruments and means necessary to treat him. The doctor would focus on enhancing and studying his rehabilitation and psychology while Madame Guérin, another scholar, would take care of the physical and material aspects.

Writings of Jean Marc Itard

In a short time, Jean Marc Itard managed to write two memoirs about his studies. These, steeped in scientific rigor, collected all his observations, experiences and conclusions with the savage of Aveyron.

The doctor collected interesting quotes from them, such as the first impression he got when meeting him:

His writings were considered of general interest and the Ministry of the Interior soon published them. In 1801 the first was born, while in 1806 the second.

Aveyron Advances

During the following years, and thanks to the care of the young man, their physical and social condition improved significantly. Jean Marc would name him Victor, whom he would treat practically like a son.

Victor entered the stages of puberty, which caused real problems for his tutor. Also, despite having made great strides in his form of communication, the boy did not seem to finish taking off. There were moments when Jean Marc gave up on the impossibility of being able to teach him to speak.

It was then that the boy moved to live with Guérin. The doctor was able to continue with the study on her own thanks to the pension that the Minister of the Interior had left her of 150 francs.

Last years and present

Despite all these studies, the inevitable controversy arose. Several people who saw Victor back in 1815, affirmed that he had not suffered any kind of improvement in his behavior: he was still the same wild boy from the Caune forests.

Finally, Victor of Aveyron died in 1828 at an age of around 41 years. Hearsay and legends say that he died of sadness longing for the freedom and nature of the forest in which he resided.

In 2008, after the untrue book - and later film - Survivre avec les loups, focused on the lives of wild children, the debate between the media and scientists was reopened.

There are numerous books on the subject. Many of them belong to the 18th and 19th centuries, speculating that many of them have been produced without any foundation.

Without going any further, the vast majority of them are not based on files, but their authors have used dubious information called "second hand" or even "third hand".

Finally, I have to tell you that if you have found this story curious and you want to learn a little more about it, you cannot miss François Truffaut's film, entitled L 'Enfant Sauvage.

As I mentioned before, Survivre avec les loups is another of the films that you can see on the subject, but I warn you that its plot is not as true as it should be.

The tutor: Jean Marc Gaspard Itard

Jean Marc used different techniques to make Victor adapt to society. For the physician-pedagogue, education was a mixture of philosophy and anthropology through culture.

For this reason, based on the principles of imitation, conditioning and behavior modification, Gaspard Itard managed to place his name among the pioneers of the experimental educational world of the time. He invented several mechanisms that, even today, are still used.

In his studies, he raised questions such as the following:

Is the individual sociable by nature? Does the individual resemble animals if they share the same means of living? How is the behavior of the human individual and that of animals similar or different? To what extent does social life influence the individual?

Given this, the French managed to establish different and interesting conclusions:

One of them was that society is crucial to human development. Another is that people learn to meet their needs, and that instructional programs should be individual and personalized for each person, always based on science.

Other cases of wild children

Throughout history, a large number of cases of wild children have been documented. As you have seen, the legend of the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, is the beginning of a history of cases that have spanned several centuries.

John ssbunya

John Ssbunya was raised by monkeys in true Tarzan style.

At the age of four, John suffered the death of his mother at the hands of his father. When he was horrified by the murder, he ran outside his house until he settled in the jungle. There he would be raised by a herd of vervet monkeys.

Over the years, the boy was found by a family, at whom he threw sticks and screamed. They decided to take him in to give him a proper education.

Today, John has managed to reintegrate into society perfectly and recognizes that when he was in the jungle, he was in a place that was not his own. Now he is dedicated to touring with a choir throughout Africa.

Lyokha

One of the most unlikely and current stories about wild children. Lyokha - the name with which he was baptized - was found in the middle of a forest at the age of ten while he slept with a pack of wolves. His appearance was totally shocking: long, pointed nails and sharp teeth like a wolf's.

He was taken to a hospital, a place from which he would escape within 24 hours. To this day, Lyokha has not been found again.

Doctors affirmed at the time that “it is very likely that it is dangerous, that it has serious psychological disorders and that it will attack people if it is cornered. It could also be a carrier of dangerous viruses and diseases ”.

Andrei Tolstyk

In 2004, several workers found a boy of only seven years old abandoned in deep Siberia. They had just found a new wild child.

His mother entrusted the care to his father, an alcoholic who abandoned him in a remote and remote Siberian area when he was three months old. Andrei He managed to get ahead and survive thanks to the dogs that roamed the place, which helped and protected him.

Andrei did not know how to speak and spoke on all fours, biting people and smelling food before eating it, something totally implausible.

To this day, he already walks on two legs, walks like a human being and speaks, although not as fluently as he should.

Marcos Rodriguez

Marcos Rodríguez has been the most notorious case of wild children in Spain. He grew up the youngest of three siblings in a postwar environment.

His mother passed away and the precarious situation of the family forced his father to sell him to an old shepherd to take care of the goats of a herd. After several months, his new “father” abandoned him to his fate in the middle of the Sierra Morena.

He went to live in a cave and began to live with wolves that hunted and shared their meat with him. Little by little, Marcos began to adopt their movements and howls, until he was completely integrated into his pack.

Finally, he was found 12 years later by the Civil Guard. His appearance was pitiful and he barely stammered words.

Today he is completely reintegrated into society. If you find this story interesting, I recommend that you watch the movie Entre Lobos, based on its story.