This is not what Gilles de Rais looked like. This is an imaginative rendition of the Marshall of France, hero of the Siege of Orléans, fellow soldier of Jeanne d’Arc, in the years before he fell (literally) to hell and gone, and started summoning demons and murdering children, in a portrait painted by Éloi Firmin Féron in 1835, commissioned by the Galerie militaire de Versailles.
Marshall of France and war hero, Gilles de Rais spiraled downward precipitously, ending up being executed for murder, sodomy, torture, and heresy in 1440. Whether or not he actually sold his soul to the devil in the process is debatable. In good news, though, he produced an awesome dramatic extravaganza before he started murdering children.
