Gilles de Rais
Gilles de Rais (1404 - October 26, 1440) was a French aristocrat, soldier, and at one time, a national hero. He was reputed to have been a black magician, and serial killer, though none of the accusations brought against him by the Church were ever substantially proven.
Gilles was born in 1404 at Machécoul, in the area on the border of Brittany and Poitou. He was an intelligent child, learning fluent Latin. In 1420 he found himself at the court of the Dauphin, the then uncrowned king of France.
He was present there in 1429 when Joan of Arc arrived at the prince's court and proposed a plan for him to regain control of his throne from England. From 1427 to 1431, Gilles was a commander of some note in the Hundred Years War, and his exploits against the English promised to make him almost as famous a hero as Joan. After a signal victory at the Battle of Patay (1428), Gilles was rewarded with the post of Marshal of France.
It is at this point that the story of Gilles de Rais enters the realm of speculation and hearsay. According to the legends, Gilles became fascinated with alchemy, and became convinced that the only way to succeed at that pseudoscience was to sell his soul to the Devil. A magician offered to put these two parties in contact. Gilles was persuaded that he would have to sacrifice a child to Satan in order to carry out his alchemical plans.
Local children began to disappear at an astonishing rate. Gilles was believed to have been a homosexual and pedophile with sadistic tastes, and he had his servants lure young boys to his castle where he would rape, torture and mutilate them. Often he liked to masturbate whilst squatting over the corpses and would often play with the children's severed heads.
Because the victims were peasant children, Gille was able to get away with this until he unwisely kidnapped and assaulted a politically relevant priest, at which point the Church began to take action. His enemies amongst the priesthood and nobility latched onto the numerous and bloody rumors about de Rais' sadistic habits, provided by a desperate peasantry all too eager to cooperate with the authorities, who had previously ignored their plight.
On September 13, 1440, Gilles was taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes. Threatened with torture, Gilles soon confessed to, and was convicted of heresy, sodomy, and witchcraft, and for these crimes he was swiftly put to death, as were his alleged accomplices.
It has been suggested that the charges were fabricated or exaggerated by the powerful Church who wanted to seize de Rais' immense wealth.
Gilles de Rais is the factual basis of the legendary character Bluebeard.
