6. A Hero’s Decline From National Legend to Monster
Gilles de Rais inherited vast estates and landholdings from both his father and maternal grandfather. He then married a rich heiress, a match that brought him even more extensive holdings, and made him one of France’s greatest landowners. With so much wealth and property at his disposal, Rais retired from the military in 1434. However, it soon became clear that while Rais knew how to fight and manage men in combat, he was not nearly as good when it came to money management. He soon blew his fabulous wealth with a lavish lifestyle that rivaled that of the king who, unlike Rais, had an entire country that he could tax in order to refill his coffers.
Within just one year retirement, Rais managed to lose most of his lands. Indeed, he was so inept that his family secured a decree from the king that forbade Rais from mortgaging what was left of his property. So to raise more cash, Rais fell in with some charlatans, who got him hooked on alchemy – a medieval version of the Nigerian Prince scam. Rais began to sink both his time and whatever money he could get a hold of, to invest in “research” that he was promised would lead to the discovery of a way to turn base metals into gold. He also turned to Satanism, hoping to gain knowledge, power, and riches, by summoning the devil. That was not the worst of it, however: another thing that Rais turned to was the serial abuse and murder of children.
