Gilles de Rais, Joan of Arc's comrade-in-arms, Marshal of France and child murderer, has inspired a number of artistic and cultural works.
As early as the 15th century, the character appeared in a mystery play and a prose poem. He then underwent a long eclipse in cultural representations, before folklore transfigured him into Bluebeard.
From the 19th century onwards, literature revived the character, and cinema followed with films dedicated to the Maid of Orléans. Finally, comics and anime illustrate contemporary visions of the Marshal de Rais.
Iconography
All effigies of Gilles de Rais are posthumous and imaginary.
An engraving purporting to represent him was published in 1731 in Dom Bernard de Montfaucon's Les monumens de la monarchie françoise, qui comprennent l'histoire de France, avec les figures de chaque règne que l'injure des tems a épargées. Captioned "Gilles de Laval", this equestrian figure reproduces a 15th-century miniature on parchment captioned simply "Laval", included in the Armorial of Gilles Le Bouvier, herald of King Charles VII of France.
Whether in the fifteenth-century Laval illumination or the eighteenth-century engraved "Gilles de Laval" copy, the knight's facial features in armor are concealed by his closed helmet, while his shield and mount cover prominently display the arms of the Counts of Laval - not those of the Barons of Retz. Although Dom Bernard de Montfaucon believes he recognizes Rais in the illumination, the equestrian figure cannot be identified with certainty since it's an "abstract" representation of the Counts of Laval, a heraldic image rather than an individual portrait. Montfaucon's disputed identification was nonetheless later taken up by other authors, starting with Abbot Eugène Bossard.
In addition, Rais is depicted as beardless, with medium-length hair and "dressed in an anachronistic Renaissance costume" in two miniatures depicting his trial and execution respectively. The first miniature adorns a copy of the ecclesiastical trial, and the second a copy of the civil trial. Stamped with the Bouhier family coat of arms, the two illuminations and their manuscript supports were once kept by the jurist and historian Jean Bouhier, president at the parlement of Dijon. Partly inherited from his grandfather, President Bouhier's collection of manuscript compilations was part of the scholarly tradition, in the 17th and 18th centuries, of assembling copies of trials relating to crimes of lèse-majesté as examples of the legal condemnations meted out to the nobility.
Dating back to the 16th century, the miniature of the execution depicts the repentant criminal, hands bound and joined in a gesture of prayer, head and eyes humbly lowered in contrition. The other miniature, dating from the 17th century, depicts Rais, holding his headdress in hand and addressing the mitred bishop who presides over the officiality during the ecclesiastical trial.
The most famous artist's view remains Éloi Firmin Féron's oil on canvas, commissioned on December 29, 1834, by the government of King Louis Philippe I to legitimize the July Monarchy "by recovering and instrumentalizing historical representations of old France" in the Palace of Versailles. Against the backdrop of the assault on Meung-sur-Loire, with his "well-trimmed beard" and pageboy haircut, firmly planted on dilapidated rubble and leaning on an axe, Gilles de Rais in damascened armor takes his place, as a military figure of the Hundred Years' War, in the Gallery of French Marshals of the Musée de l'Histoire de France. Like the other full-length portraits of this gallery, the oil on canvas depicts Rais "on a battlefield with [his] attributes of command".
Folklore
Like other historical figures such as Conomor or Henry VIII, Gilles de Rais has frequently been associated with the main character of the Bluebeard tale, to such an extent that this association has become "a cliché of folklorist literature", points out Catherine Velay-Vallantin, French specialist in the study of fairy tales. She adds that "it's pointless to look for the origin of the Bluebeard tale in this true crime", stressing that the tale "exists independently of the historical fact of Gilles de Rais". Vincent Petitjean, French doctor in comparative literature, nevertheless highlights the fact that "the confusion between the two characters is effective and is bound to make sense."
