The Real Bluebeard: The Life of Gilles de Rais

by Jean Benedetti

This work aims to get behind the myths and present the real Bluebeard, Gilles de Rais, one of the most enduring baddies of history. His infamy lives on, the precursor of our own time's serial killers and a founding father of the cult of the child-snatching bogeyman.

Genres: History, Biography, True Crime, Crime, Nonfiction, France, Horror

207 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor ol' Gilles. All he wanted was to be loved. If he'd only been cuddled as a child then maybe he wouldn't have developed a taste for wanton violence and wouldn't have captured, tortured and killed tens, maybe hundreds of children.

Annoyingly the author takes this stance (only slightly exaggerated here) near the end of the book. Such 'psychological explanations' always annoy me as they always come across as an excuse for the person's actions. No doubt it comes from an attempt to understand the subject's motives, it's just that sometimes I just don't see the point in making the attempt.

Anyway the book is short but covers a lot of ground. It starts off by describing Gilles de Rais' ancestors and gives the reader a glimpse into French society near the end of the Hundred Years War. Admittedly it all gets a bit confusing, especially if you aren't familiar with the period - as I'm not. But if you hang on in there you find out about Gilles' relationship with his grandfather and then Gilles' involvement with Joan of Arc's army at the Siege of Orléans.

Part Two then descends into the horrors in the years following Gilles' military career and his retreat into murder, debauchery, alchemy and black magic.

Part Three covers the trial and takes a quick look into how his story morphed into the Bluebeard legend. It's surprising this chapter is so short as I'd imagine that the trial and the legend would have warranted more space. I may seek out the Georges Bataille book at some point which I assume will expand on this part of the story.

[aya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives amazing insight and perspective on the child killer and torturer, Gilles de Rais. More than La Bas or anything else i have read about him, Benedetti portrays de Rais as a human - a very flawed and disturbed human - but still a human. The sensationalism and myth of Bluebeard is dispelled, and he is shown in the context of his age and also of his circumstance.
Never dry and well-paced throughout, this book fires the imagination and allows us to see the man behind the grotesque and inhuman acts he committed.

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW, what a fascinating biography. I wouldn't have thought it possible to obtain so much information on a man who died in 1440 and then put it together into a coherent picture. The author lacks psychological insight, in my opinion, but she tells the story well -- and what a story!

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very confusing book, in different ways. First, some of the writing and historical context is confusing. The author kind of assumes your a medieval historian and know certain things. It isn't entirely descriptive. Like for instance, it mentions several of the bodies were thrown down "cesspools", at one point one of them men helping Rais had to go down a cesspool to make sure the body wouldn't be seen...and I am going "Why doesn't this book explain what a cesspool during that period would be like?" and I thought that for a lot of things. I would of liked more context and through out the book, it gets super confusing. Places, people. So many people are mentioned and I am going "who is that" "okay, he's suppose to be this type of person....what is that?" Again, the author assumes the reader knows all about the medieval time period. it kept mentioning names and I kept getting confused.

Still, I kept reading, because despite this, it wasn't boring and the information about Rais, the murders, the cultural context, and everything else was interesting and fascinating. I simply wish it wasn't as confusing, far more easier to follow, and had a lot more context. Despite that, i was also very easy to read. Not easy to understand, but easy to read. If that makes any sense.

We learn enough about Gilles De Rais, we even learn about how some of the victims were lured to their deaths and their parents. Author states they uncovered the bodies, but never gives details. I would of liked to have known more about the recovery of the bodies. Joan of arc and the war are mentioned, but not very exciting. A bit confusing. The book mentions Joan of arc being burnt at the stake but doesn't really go full blown into it. I would of liked to have read more about this.

So I truly do feel that, if this book was written to be more coherent and easier to understand and treated with more historical context, then this book would of been even better.

Later edit: And I forgot to point out. One character I found very interesting and particularly sad and depressing was Gille's young male page named Poitou and I would of loved to know more about him.

Still, I am glad I bought it, own it, and read it. I actually bought this book in 2019. I got several books, 29 or so books that are all waiting to be read. This year, I decided to buy far less books. I've only bought....what? 3 books so far, this year? Maybe 2. I mean, I got so many books that are left unread, the economy is crashing, I got food to hoard for when it gets even worse. Just save my money and read the books I already have, right? So ya. I've been collecting more books then I can read, and I plan to read all of them. I buy at least 15-27 books every year and I only read 3-4 of them; the rest of older books. That I bought last year or 5, 7 years ago. All of this creating some anxiety "TOO MANY BOOKS. SO LITTLE TIME!!!!! I GOT TO READ EM ALL AND I AM COLLECTING TOO MANY BOOKS EACH YEAR. JUST ADDING A TON OF NEW BOOKS TO READ. I CAN'T KEEP UP!!!!" and the economy is totally collapsing. Again, just save my money. I don't need to be buying 8, 20, 25 books this year, or next year. So I am saving my self the anxiety and money this year.

[H. P. Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, amazingly, is boring. I can't figure that out. Gilles de Rais and boredom don't go together.

[Irene · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many French aristocrats and dukes and child murderers. In the time when Joan of Arc was popular and appearing before crowds, one of her supporters was Gilles de Rais, a extremely wealthy man who owned about 15 estates all over France. Yet, when Joan of Arc meets her untimely end, Gillespie is set adrift to copious spending and inviting young men / boys over to his estate, and they are never to be seen again. Eventually he is tried for the murder, sexual abuse of more than 100 young people, ranging in age from 7 to 16. At a time when missing children of poor families were rarely investigated, he went on a spree of murders over a period of approximately 12 years. He would then burn their bodies in the massive fireplaces on these estates. He coerced 2 adult helpers who rounded up these children and aided in covering up rumors. He eventually was tried for the murders and disappearance of over 100 children, some who had no name or only the first name. He met his punishment by hanging and burning. Over the years Various fairy tale writers used these stories to enlarge the victims to be former wives and missing women. And since it was speculated that de Rais had a red beard, the beard was changed to blue.
For such a gut wrenching story, the author spends time on de Rais financial collapse, his many alliances, his political wrangling, and other drudgery details. Names are lengthy, sometimes with different titles; all in all, this is a somewhat pedantic slow moving background to the supposed beginning of the Bluebeard stories.

[Heath Alberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scholarly work, at times a bit dry (though not at the fault of the author but, rather, in the effort to develop necessary context) about one of the single most heinous and evil persons to ever walk the face of the Earth. Gilles de Rais was an absolute monster. Rich, powerful, and unencumbered, he sought excitement and pleasure wherever - and whenever - he chose. Often to the detriment - and death - of others. It's a poverty to consider how helpless the individuals whose children and families he murdered were in that time, and should also serve as a warning - even now, in the time of the likes of Epstein - to all parents, and good and upright citizens that unless individuals like this are stopped, and not ignored, history can, will, and often does repeat itself.

[Helen]

Gilles de Rais was born in 1404, at a time of great societal upheaval. France had split into many princedoms and the division between rich and poor could hardly have been more pronounced. While the nobles lived in great luxury - each castle having its own army, entertainers, and of course servants - peasants were regarded as so much expendable vermin.

His parents died while Gilles was young, and thereafter his guardian was his grandfather, Jean de Craon. In some ways it was a good match: both were aggressive and rapacious. Together they kidnapped Catherine de Thouars, an heiress and distant cousin of Gilles. They were married a week later. Gilles had no interest in her other than for the lands that she brought to the marriage.

Gilles' moments of glory came when he fought beside Joan of Arc. This was the world in which Gilles felt comfortable - the officially sanctioned killing and violence of war, and the theatricality lent to the proceedings by Joan. Joan, too, was asexual. She offered a pure friendship, whilst imposing a strict morality on her followers. But after the siege of Orleans and the abortive siege of Paris, war was over. Peacetime didn't suit Gilles' temperament.

In 1432 his guardian Jean de Craon had died. By 1433 Gilles had become a sadistic child abuser and murderer. The number of children he murdered is not definitely known, but suggestions of 300 are not unreasonable. To explain how this could have happened, Beneditti suggests that 'The psychopathic urgency of his private needs had been concealed by the general brutality of military practice.' Disillusioned and without a role to play in the new, calmer world of peacetime, Gilles turned his back on reality and lost himself in a world of private fantasy. His background was privileged, he'd been used to having anything he wanted (including his wife, who was no more than a chattel herself). Gilles' life was one of immediate gratification.

He relied on others to procure children for him. The details of the abuse and tortures he inflicted on children between the ages of 7 and 16 are stomach-churning in the extreme. How he was able to get away with his appalling crimes for so many years, however, isn't hard to understand. The peasantry were barely human beings as far as the nobility was concerned. The peasants themselves turned a blind eye - the noble's castle offered a chance for children to find work and a means of supporting themselves. Even when the rumours began to circulate, the peasants simply hadn't the economic or political power to do anything about them. As Benedetti says, 'The rights of a great feudal baron like Gilles were almost absolute.'

Gilles began to be undone by his financial excesses. Like many great lords, his wealth was tied up in lands and property. What he lacked was ready money. In an age when extravagance among the nobility was the order of the day, Gilles went several steps further in his excesses. Obsessed with finding more money to fund his lifestyle, he began to sell off his property. When this still failed to provide him with sufficient money, he turned to the magicians. Alchemy had been outlawed by the Church; but Gilles had seen the power of the supernatural during his time with Joan of Arc. He dabbled with black magic, but when one magician drowned and another almost died on arriving at Gilles' castle, he took these deaths as a warning and vowed to give up his life of sin and make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Needless to say, Gilles failed to mend his ways.

In 1439 the Dauphin Louis visited Gilles. His brief was to end the pillaging and private wars in Poitou. Gilles took the Dauphin's visit as a warning. Rumours were rife concerning Gilles - that he practised black magic and murdered children. The sexual nature of his crimes, however, was still not known. Investigations were made, and evidence taken from parents who had lost children. Even now, though, Gilles didn't - or couldn't - stop. His last recorded murder took place as late as August 1440.

Finally, in September of that year, Gilles was arrested together with his magician Prelati and his two body-servants. Gilles told the court that the origins of his troubles lay in his childhood - 'he had been poorly controlled in his childhood, when, without check, he had applied himself to everything that might give him pleasure'. Benedetti suggests that Gilles killed because he hated himself. 'What he did was to kill himself over and over again...Or rather he killed the rejected part of himself.'

In October 1440, Gilles and both of his body-servants were executed.

Benedetti's explanations for why Gilles did what he did do not entirely convince, and feel rather perfunctory. We want - perhaps need - to know what makes a person like Gilles de Rais, but perhaps we have to accept that some people are simply 'made that way'. This is an uncomfortable thought because it suggests that whatever had happened to Gilles in childhood, whatever society he had been born into, he would have behaved in essentially the same fashion. We can never know. The interest in Bluebeard - both the man and the myth - persist, over 500 years after Gilles' death. In the Bluebeard fairytale, as told by Perrault, the kidnap, torture, and murder of children is replaced by the abduction and murder of wives. Perrault's story has a happy ending: his last wife inherits all of her husband's estates. There was no happy ending for any of the dozens of children slaughtered by Gilles de Rais, the Marshal of France.

[Vincent · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full of waffly backstory of the times, and very little about the man. Quite boring.

[Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

最后的传说蛮细思极恐的）

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the way that the author gives a brief history of the situation in Medieval France to show how the society was, as background to the crimes committed by Bluebeard. It was a different person from the fairytales that I grew up with.

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

So, I wish that the book concentrated more on his trial but the second half of the book was good enough to make this a 3 star. It has intrigued me, I will read more about Gilles, that seems like a good sign, right?

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on a vile human being.

[Rebekah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring. Really.

[Phil Slattery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story of one of the most prolific (and eccentric) serial killers in world history, who was also one of Joan of Arc's most trusted lieutenants.

[Casey Obsidian · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the book purports to discuss, it fails to do for it's majority. This is really a log of historical battle references with some minor details about de Rais.