Sience history

Even if there had been nothing else unusual about the Breton nobleman Gilles de
Rais (1404–40), his outstanding career as a soldier in the Hundred Years’ War and
as a comrade in arms of Joan of Arc would have been enough to guarantee his place
in history. Today, though, those achievements can only be seen in the shadow of the
secret life he led as the perpetrator of more than a hundred gruesome child murders,
a rampage which made him arguably the first serial killer in recorded history.

The early life of Gilles de Rais was marked by tragedy. Both his parents died about
1415: his father, Guy de Laval, was killed in a gruesome hunting accident that de Rais
may have witnessed, and his mother, Marie de Craon, died of an unknown cause. He
was raised by his maternal grandfather, Jean de Craon. As a young man, de Rais
seems to have been impetuous and hot-headed, characteristics that translated well to
the battlefield, where he was by all accounts a skilled and fearless fighter. When Joan
of Arc appeared on the scene in 1429, he was assigned by the dauphin (later Charles
VII) to watch over her in battle. The two fought together in some of the major battles
of her short career, including the lifting of the Siege of Orléans. In 1429 he was
appointed to the position of marshal of France—France’s highest military distinction.

His military career began to wind down with the death of Joan of Arc in 1431, and he
spent more time at his estate, which was among the richest in western France. De
Rais spent his fortune recklessly, paying enormous sums for decorations, servants,
and a large military retinue and commissioning music and works of literature. His
sale of family lands to finance his extravagant lifestyle sparked a bitter fight with
other members of his family, especially Jean de Craon, who pointedly left his sword
and armor to Gilles’s younger brother René when he died in 1432.