Gilles De Rais – A Christian With The Dark Side

Gilles became a knight and with his grandfather inheritance, bought the best equipment for the battle in Orleans. He fought with him a girl, who said that she was hearing voices of the saints and inspired for the freedom of Orleans and made Charles VII king of France. That girl was Jean d’ Arc.

Gilles after the battle of Orleans gained recognition among the society and was the man who he crowned Charles VII as emperor. His reputation reached the highest levels until 1432 and Gilles was the second man after the emperor in power. Also had five castles and plenty of money under his name after the death of his grandfather, Jean de Craon. His property and the money made Gilles one of the most hated men in France and his enemy was looking to accuse him and take control of his fortune.

Having bored his life after the death of his grandfather, according to Gilles, was lived in his five castles and begun a short of horrible action, unlike the life that he lived before. Gilles was homosexual but married a girl named Cathrine de Thouars for financial reasons only.

In his castles, Gilles lured young boys with the excuse of learning them the high society style of living and tortured them to death, after raped them for pleasure. Many young boys and girls were the victims of Gilles and his partners, with the number calculated from 80 to 200 (others say about 600).

Also, Gilles was a Christian and gave some of his money in order to build small churches and one cathedral temple. This behavior gave him the advantage of having the clergy on his side and to serving his purposes. But Gilles without making any money with his style of leaving, when he was out of money, he used the gold of his churches for his needs.

His needs were to find money because he retired as a knight at the age of 36 and also wanted to become a powerful politician. Because he was a weak man in politics, were people that coveted his property, and easily became a target.

According to the facts Gilles wanted money and fame so badly that he began to give money to the alchemists. The alchemists took advantage of him and one of them, with the name Francois Prelati, told him that he can sell his soul to the devil in order to make money and become famous. Prelati was a pretender, beautiful and he seemed a person you can trust. Also was homosexual and Gilles fell in love with him. But Prelati was smart and took advantage of Gilles.

All these actions made Gilles a hated person and in 15th of May 1440, Gille kidnapped the clergyman Jean le Ferron. That was the beginning of the end for Gilles. The Archbishop of Nantes to investigate Gilles castles and with the help of duke’s army found evidence about Gilles horrible crimes. Gilles was arrested along with his partners and sentenced to death in 26th October 1440. Before the execution, Gilles confessed his crimes but the details were so horrible, even the judges gave the order not to be written down.