Unless he liked boys, no man would take it into his head to approach her.’

These words seemed to hurt Rais, who responded vehemently: ‘And what about me? You astonish me, cousin. When one likes boys, one considers that there is nothing like a boy, a real boy, for love. But, in fact, there is something else in Jeanne that explains why she is a virgin.’

‘Something else?’

‘Can’t you see the purity that radiates from her face? From her whole body? There is an obvious innocence throughout her body that absolutely discourages licentious words and over-familiar gestures. Yes, a childish innocence, with something more ― how can I describe it? ― a light that is not of this world.’

‘A light from heaven?’ Alençon asked, raising his eyebrows.

‘From heaven, exactly. If Jeanne is neither a girl nor a boy, then she must be an angel.’

They fell silent and looked at Jeanne, who was smiling as she stood, arms outstretched to form a cross, on the rump of her galloping horse. And, indeed, she did seem to glide along on invisible wings above the animal as it furiously pounded the earth with its iron shoes.


A lot of nonsense has been talked about Gilles’s early years, thus committing the common error of projecting the future on to the past. Knowing how he ended up, people are determined to make him a vicious child, a perverse youth, a cruel young man. They have been pleased to imagine all the premonitory signs of the crimes of his maturity. In the absence of any documentation, it is permissible to take the opposite line to this tradition of the ‘monster-coming-to-birth’. So we shall take it that Gilles de Rais, before that fateful meeting at Chinon, had been a fairly typical lad of his time, no better, but no worse than any other, of average intelligence, but deeply religious ― at a time when it was common to have everyday commerce with God, Jesus, the Virgin and the saints ― and doomed, in short, to the fate of a country squire from a particularly backward province.

He was born in November 1404 in the Black Tower of the fortress of Champtocé, on the banks of the Loire. The master of the house, his maternal grandfather Jean de Craon, governed his estates with a harshness and unscrupulousness that were a source of wonder even in those violent times. Gilles was eleven when, in the same year, he lost both his father and his mother. Craon tore up his son-in-law’s will and took over both the guardianship of young Gilles and the management of his fortune. His obsession was to marry the child into one of the biggest fortunes in the region. Thus, at thirteen, Gilles was engaged to Jeanne Peynel, a four-year-old orphan, who was also one of the richest heiresses in Normandy. To achieve this, Craon had to pay off her guardian’s debts. But the Paris Parlement opposed the engagement: they would have to wait until the girl came of age. Two years later, he engineered an even more lucrative union ― this time with the niece of Jean V, Duke of Brittany ― but this, too, failed to transpire. Gilles was sixteen by the time his grandfather succeeded in his plans. The prey was called Catherine de Thouars, and her property in Poitou was most conveniently situated next to the barony of Rais. There was little hope that the father would accept this union ― which, in any case, was incestuous, for the couple were cousins: but at the time he was waging war in Champagne. In late November 1420, Craon organized the forced seizure of the fiancée by her claimant. Gilles greatly enjoyed this expedition, which was more ridiculous than dangerous, and its romantic consequences: a secret marriage, outside the respective parishes of the spouses; vain threats from the Bishop of Angers; intervention in the Court of Rome; fines; pardon; solemn nuptial blessing in the church of Saint-Maurille-de-Chalonnes.

But Gilles soon realized that he could expect nothing from this fat, lazy girl, who was quite hopeless at hunting and tourneys, who was afraid of weapons, of horses, of game, of everything, it seemed. It took him nine years to give her a child ― and to forget her in the Château de Pouzauges. At Chinon, he found in Jeanne the exact opposite of Catherine. He found in the Maid the intoxicating, dangerous fusion of sanctity and war.

For Jeanne’s unexpected arrival at the Dauphin’s court meant the resumption of the war.

At Poitiers, she had replied with a pure heart to the theologians’ questions. In end the clerks concluded that there was in her nothing evil, nothing contrary to the Catholic faith, and, given the plight in which the King and kingdom found themselves, since the King and those inhabitants who were faithful to him were on the verge of despair and could expect help of no kind if it did not come from God, the King might well make use of her. Thus wrote Jean Barbin, barrister at the Parlement.

So she was given carte blanche. Her first action was to send a message to the English to the effect that they should go back across the Channel and return from whence they came, or they would regret it. It was the first time that she had made direct contact with them. Thus the vague rumours that there was a witch who had brought the pseudo-King of Bourges under her spell were confirmed. Damn the witch!

Everybody went off to Tours, where the army raised by the Dauphin assembled. A suit of white armour was made for Jeanne, together with a standard on which was painted a picture of the Saviour seated among the clouds of heaven, blessing a fleur-de-lys held out to him by an angel. Her voices had told her that she was to wear an ancient sword, buried unknown to all behind the altar of the church of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois.