Le 30 janvier 1883 naissait Henri Cot, dans le hameau du Cros, dans la commune de Mounès-Prohencoux, canton de Belmont-sur-Rance.
Son père mesurait 1m53 et sa mère, 1m56.
Lui… 2m362 lors de son conseil de révision. il pesait également 160kg.
Il chaussait du 62 et l’envergure de ses bras était de 2m33.
Très rapidement, il devint une curiosité de cirque avant de mourir à 23 ans.
Un impresario nommé Souilhau travaillant pour Barnum lui fit miroiter que le métier de cordonnier ne lui rapporterait rien et qu’il valait bien mieux devenir un phénomène de foire. L’impresario posa sur la table cinq mille francs : une belle somme qui permit d’exhiber le géant à son aise dans toutes les fêtes foraines aveyronnaises et dans les plus grands journaux de l’époque.
Il fait l’admiration des sommités médicales qui l’examinent, toutes unanimes à reconnaître qu’il "est malgré son jeune âge le géant le mieux constitué et le mieux proportionné que l’on ait jamais vu", déclarant qu’il était toujours dans la période de la croissance, qu’il grandirait jusqu’à l’âge de 25 ans, qu’à cet âge, il pourrait bien mesurer la taille de 2m.50 à 2m.60.
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.