In March 1797, a boy, about twelve years old and apparently feral, was caught by woodsmen in the fields around the town of Lacaune, in the rolling hills of southern France. He escaped after being on show briefly, was apprehended again in summer 1798, and again fled to the woods after several days. He was caught yet again by three hunters in mid-July of 1799, and was left with a peasant, who fed him on potatoes and nuts, the only food he accepted; he escaped – yet again – after eight days. Finally, he reappeared for good on 8 January 1800, in the village of Saint-Sernin in the district of Aveyron, where, perhaps motivated by hunger and remembering the kindness of the peasant, he approached the workshop of a dyer named Vidal, who took him in and called the appropriate authorities.

The wild boy was a sensation. Crowds gathered to see him in Saint-Affrique, where he was first placed in an orphanage; in Rodez, where he was transferred for observation to the custody of Abbé Pierre- Joseph Bonnaterre, professor of natural history at the École Centrale de l'Aveyron; and then in Paris, when, six months after entering Vidal's atelier, he first arrived at the Institution Impériale des Sourds-Muets (the Imperial Institute for Deaf-Mutes), headed by Abbé Roche-Ambroise Sicard. ‘L'enfant sauvage de l'Aveyron’, as he quickly became known, was a nine-day wonder in French media and society.