Gilles de Rais: the Story of the Myth of Bluebeard and More

The article analyzes the phenomenon of the mythologization of a personality during the Hundred Years’ War - the well-known Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France, friend and comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc. Historical myth, as a stable idea of the past, formed in the public consciousness and based most often on a distorted or altered perception of past events, can itself be a historical source. It reflects a complex of ethical, religious and other ideas that had social significance in one or another period in the history of society. The personality of Gilles de Rais is associated with two main myths - with the image of an alchemist and mass child murderer, and with a man who is considered to be the prototype of the main character of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale “Bluebeard”. The result of this research is the conclusion that the first myth was the product of a deliberate policy of the Inquisitorial court, which convicted Gilles de Rais of the mentioned crimes with the aim of eliminating him and confiscating his property, in which the French king Charles VII was interested. A detailed analysis of this problem was carried out on the basis of materials from the inquisitorial trial of Gilles de Rais, collected by J. Bataille. The second myth was formed spontaneously, apparently due to some coincidences of circumstances present in the content of the first myth with the plot of one of the versions of the French folk tale that existed during the time of Perrault in Brittany.