Gilles de Rais, known as "Barbe-Bleue" (Bluebeard), sulfurous personage, were born in 1404 in Machecoul in country from Retz. It was important, owner of an immense fortune and inheritance, inter alia brought by his wife Catherine de Thouars. Connected to the French royal family and ducal dynasty of Brittany, great nephew of the constable Bertrand of Guesclin, it took a significant part in the "Guerre de Cent Ans", one hundred year old war at the side of Jeanne d' Arc. He had many military successes and knew glory.
It is much more known for its exactions. With complicities, it practised alchemy, the magic, the sorcery and well of other pleasant entertainments like the depravity, the vice, the kidnapping and abuse of children whom they made dead in a number, (140 known as one and it would have acknowledged of them 800 under torture), in terrible maltreatments and tortures. Decree, it is judged. Its lawsuit open in Nantes on October 8, 1440, finishes on October 25 by the judgment with its accomplices with being hung and being burned the day after.