MONFORT, France, May 23 (AFP) - French police launched a major murder hunt after two Dutch couples were found dead at an isolated holiday home near here, three with their throats cut and one shot, in what the state attorney Sunday called a horrific piece of barbarity. He said the crime at the house in south-western France appeared to have been prepared minutely by one or more attackers. Two women and one of the men were found gagged and bound hand and foot with adhesive tape, their throats slit. The other man was found shot. Some 60 gendarmes backed up by a helicopter joined the manhunt while detectives combed the interior and exterior of the house. The bodies were found in various rooms of the house near here in the Gers region, an area popular with German, British and Dutch visitors. State attorney Guy Etienne identified the victims as Artie van Hulst and his wife Marianne, owners of the house, both 51, of Ek-Oss in the Netherlands, and Dora Vandam, and her husband Jowan Nieuwenhuizen, aged 62. The two women were sisters. Etienne said it was "a horrible crime, a major piece of savagery, indeed barbarity." "There was no sign of a struggle but there was a certain amount of disorder in the house," Etienne said. Three victims had been killed "according to a more or less similar process." The bodies of the two women were found, gagged and bound hand and foot with their throats cut, lying on their backs in different rooms. Jowan Nieuwenhuizen was found in the kitchen, likewise bound and gagged and with his throat cut, but placed face downwards. The fourth victim had been more difficult to find because he was in a workroom behind the kitchen where he had apparently tried to barricade himself in. He had been shot with a bullet through the chest, but no weapon was found. The killer or killers had taken some precautions before departing, hiding the victims' cars in the garage and putting up a chain across the entrance the property to give the impression there was no one in the house, the official said. The state attorney ruled out the possibility of a triple murder followed by a suicide The alarm was given early Saturday evening by another Dutch couple residing in the area, who were friends of the Van Hulsts. The couple had arrived at the house on Friday evening following a dinner invitation, but no one had answered the door. They returned on Saturday, became suspicious and broke in, finding the two dead women. Police later found the men's bodies. The mayor of Montfort, Denis Carrere, said the couples appeared to have been surprised, and had been found fully dressed in warm clothes. One had last been seen by a local baker on Thursday morning. The bodies were transferred to a forensic institute at Toulouse on Sunday afternoon. The results of autopsies were expected Tuesday. The Van Hulsts' neighbours, Aime and Ginette Gorgues, said the couple owned a factory in the Netherlands and regularly came to the village to spend two weeks in their holiday home in the hamlet of Boupilleres.  