The Trial of Gilles De Rais

Georges Bataille presents the case of the most infamous villain of the Middle Ages: Gilles de Rais. Fascinated with the depths of human experiencethe meeting points of sexuality violence ritual spirituality and deathBataille examines with dispassionate clarity the legendary crimes trials and confessions of this grotesque and still-horrifying 15th-century child-murderer sadist alchemist necrophile and practitioner of the Black Arts. Gilles de Rais began his remarkable career as lieutenant to the devout martyr and saint Joan of Arc; after her execution he fled to his estates in the countryside of France where he began to ritually slaughter hundreds of children. After his arrest and subsequent trials he was hanged and burned at Nantes France on October 25 1440. The latter section of The Trial of Gilles de Rais consists of the actual ecclesiastical and secular trial transcripts annotated by Bataille and translated from the ecclesiastical Latin by Pierre Klossowski.