develop in Gilles and, taking complete possession of him, incite him,
under the impulsion of a perverted mysticism, to the most sophisticated
of cruelties, the most delicate of crimes.

"For he was almost alone in his time, this baron de Rais. In an age when
his peers were simple brutes, he sought the delicate delirium of art,
dreamed of a literature soul-searching and profound; he even composed a
treatise on the art of evoking demons; he gloried in the music of the
Church, and would have nothing about his that was not rare and difficult
to obtain.

"He was an erudite Latinist, a brilliant conversationalist, a sure and
generous friend. He possessed a library extraordinary for an epoch when
nothing was read but theology and lives of saints. We have the
description of several of his manuscripts; Suetonius, Valerius Maximus,
and an Ovid on parchment bound in red leather, with vermeil clasp and
key.

"These books were his passion. He carried them with him when he
travelled. He had attached to his household a painter named Thomas who
illuminated them with ornate letters and miniatures, and Gilles himself
painted the enamels which a specialist--discovered after an assiduous
search--set in the gold-inwrought bindings. Gilles's taste in
furnishings was elevated and bizarre. He revelled in abbatial stuffs,
voluptuous silks, in the sombre gilding of old brocade. He liked
knowingly spiced foods, ardent wines heavy with aromatics; he dreamed of
unknown gems, weird stones, uncanny metals. He was the Des Esseintes of
the fifteenth century!

"All this was very expensive, less so, perhaps, than the luxurious court