Henri Cot was born on January 30, 1883, in the hamlet of Le Cros, in the commune of Mounès-Prohencoux, canton of Belmont-sur-Rance.
His father was 1.53m tall and his mother, 1.56m.
He was 2m362 at the time of his census. He also weighed 160kg.
He wore size 62 shoes and had an arm span of 2m33.
He soon became a circus curiosity, dying at the age of 23.
An impresario named Souilhau working for Barnum told him that working as a shoemaker wouldn't pay and that it would be better to become a circus phenomenon. The impresario put five thousand francs on the table: a handsome sum which enabled the giant to be exhibited to his heart's content at all the fairs in Aveyron and in the leading newspapers of the day.
He won the admiration of the medical luminaries who examined him, all agreeing that "despite his young age, he is the best-built and best-proportioned giant we have ever seen", declaring that he was still growing, that he would grow until the age of 25, and that at that age, he could well measure 2m.50 to 2m.60 in height.
In exhibitions...
As his reputation grew, in 1906 he embarked for Algeria, where he spent 4 to 5 months travelling from Algiers to Oran and Bougie. He then toured England with the staff of the Emily Faraday Hotel.
From then on, he would sit between the "bearded lady" and the "Carpathian woodsman". He continued to travel from one end of England to the other. June, July, August (1906), London, Birmingham, Manchester, then September, October again Manchester, Nottingham, Yarmouk, Leeds, Walsall and Bradford. In November, he crossed the Atlantic to arrive in Halifax, Canada. Back in England, he stayed there from December 1906 to mid-July 1907, visiting Newcastle, Edinburgh, Southampton and Bath...
In England, they wanted to marry him off to a local giantess in order to give birth to giants, but this far-fetched project never saw the light of day.
He continued to travel extensively, notably in the USA, but also in Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, growing a beard, changing his frock coat for a drum major's outfit and adopting a pseudonym.
His impresario, Souillau, transformed Henri Cot's image, renaming him "Joseph Dusorc" (an anagram of "du Cros", his native hamlet) and making him don a drum major's outfit, with a large 36 cm hat. With all his effects, he measured 2 m 63!
He died in Lyin on September 11, 1912, unofficially of a heart embolism, but according to some sources, it would appear that he had been the victim of a stabbing murder.
His death remains a mystery, as does his burial. A final enigma remains... the giant's tomb has since disappeared during restoration work, and some speculate that his body may have had a purely scientific purpose, rather than resting in peace in the cemetery.
