The Famous Savage Boy of France
Meet Victor of Aveyron, history’s ‘wild child’
His age? Eleven or twelve years. Diet? Acorns, raw chestnuts, and roots. Clothing? A tattered shirt, nothing more, even in the cold of winter. His body? Graffitied with scars from abrasions and animal bites. Language? None at all.
This was Victor of Aveyron, only later to be given a name, as he was found in 1798 in the woods of Caune, France.
The Theories
To the Parisians of this time, a wild child was an object of curiosity, and possibly a unique specimen by which to assess Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory of the ‘noble savage’ — the idea that man in an uncivilized, primitive state was better off. Victor of Aveyron would surely be educated in a few months, marvel at the city’s sights, and eloquently tell the story of his survival.
The Parisians were wrong.
“Instead of this, what did they see? — A disgusting, slovenly boy, affected with spasmodic and frequently convulsive motions, continually balancing himself like some of the animals in the menagerie, biting and scratching those who contradicted him, expressing no kind of affection for those who attended upon him; and, in short, indifferent to everybody, and paying no regard to anything.” (Itard, 1802. p. 17)
