You might not have heard of Gilles des Rais but you will have heard of his best friend, Joan of Arc. The question is, why was a messenger of God hanging around with a child rapist and murderer? Apparently, Joan had no idea of Rais' secret. When he retired from his military career, he is presumed to have dabbled in dark magic and the occult and his involvement with the Devil makes the rest of his crimes look rather tame. Rais would command his servants to go out and kidnap children to bring back to his residence where he would do unforgivable things to them. He would dress them up in fine clothing and make them drink wine. When they refused, they were beaten. They were then taken to Rais' torture chamber where they were gagged and hung up with rope. Rais would ejaculate over their legs and stomach as he would get excited by the initial shock on their faces when they realised what was happening. He would then take them down and declare that he wanted to play with them, before either he or his servants would kill them. They were suffocated, had their necks broken, their limbs torn off or their necks cut open. Rais would sometimes sit on their stomach and laugh at them whilst they were gasping for air until they died. Rais would then perform sex acts on the corpses or would remove the genitals from the body where he would pleasure himself. All bodies and clothes of the children were incinerated and the remains were thrown into the moat. It is unclear as to how many children were killed for his sadistic pleasure but it ranges from eighty to six hundred. They were aged between six and eighteen and were predominately male. Rais was later executed for his crimes along with his servants by hanging.
