Bluebeard (redirected from Gilles de Rais)

Bluebeard, nickname of the chevalier Raoul in a story by Charles Perrault. In the story Bluebeard's seventh wife, Fatima, yielding to curiosity, opens a locked door and discovers the slain bodies of her predecessors. She is saved from death by the timely arrival of her brothers, for whose coming her sister Anne has been watching from a tower. Breton tradition links Bluebeard with the seigneur de Retz, but the story occurs in the folklore of several countries.

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Bluebeard

 or Gilles de Rais or Gilles de Retz

Bluebeard, illustration by Gustave Doré

(credit: Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co., Ltd.)

(born Sept./Oct. 1404, Champtocé, Fr.—died Oct. 26, 1440, Nantes) Baron and marshal of France renowned for his cruelty. His name was later connected with the story “Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault. He fought several battles at the side of St. Joan of Arc and was made marshal of France (1429). Back in Brittany he led a dissipated life and eventually turned to alchemy and satanism. Accused of abducting and murdering more than 140 children, he was tried by ecclesiastical and civil courts. Condemned for heresy, he confessed, repented, and died bravely at the gallows; his body was burned. Skeptics have noted irregularities in the trials and the interest of others in his ruin. The fairy-tale Bluebeard takes a wife, who, curious about the one room of the castle to which he denies her the key, discovers there the skeletons of her predecessors.

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Bluebeard

closets away bodies of former wives. [Fr. Fairy Tale: Harvey, 97–98]

See : Murder

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Bluebeard

(Henri Désiré Landru, 1869–1922) executed for murders of ten women (1915–18). [Fr. Hist.: EB (1972), XIII, 661

See : Murder

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Bluebeard

chevalier slays his six wives; seventh evades similar fate. [Fr. Fairy Tale: Harvey, 96–97]

See : Polygamy

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Bluebeard

murders six wives; a personification of wickedness. [Fr. Lit.: Walsh Classical, 58]

See : Wickedness