After six centuries, the story of Baron Gilles de Rais rivals those of even the most prolific modern serial killers. Once the wealthiest man in Europe, a war hero, and a marshal of France, the baron was widely admired and his lavish parties always attended in the early fifteenth century. But privately, his sadism knew no bounds. Only his accomplices and victims knew that de Rais had tortured, raped, and killed anywhere from 150 to 800 children, keeping their corpses in his castle towers. In 1440, his confession revealed how a man with money, power, and constant leisure was able to spend nearly a decade devoted to evil.

Born in 1404 in Chaptoce, France, de Rais had a childhood of loneliness and rare privilege. As the heir to a line of medieval knights, he was raised in luxury at a time of general deprivation when France and England fought the remaining battles...