The Marshal of Dark Arts

Gilles de Rais was a man of extreme contradictions: a national hero who fought alongside Joan of Arc and a nobleman of immense wealth who plummeted into the darkest depths of depravity. As a Marshal of France, he was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, but his retirement to his estates marked the beginning of a descent into occult madness.

• Obsessed with restoring his dwindling fortune, he turned to alchemy and demonology, hiring charlatans to help him summon spirits and transmute lead into gold.
• These rituals grew increasingly sinister, involving the horrific murder of hundreds of children who were lured to his castles.
• He was eventually caught when he kidnapped a priest during a dispute, leading to an ecclesiastical investigation that uncovered his "monstrous" crimes.

His trial was a sensation, revealing the grisly details of his private life to a horrified public. Gilles was executed by hanging and burning in 1440. While some modern historians question the validity of the confessions obtained under threat of torture, his name remains synonymous with the Bluebeard legend and the terrifying intersection of power and insanity.