And how many others! I have tried, without success, to find whether in battles and forays the Marshal committed any serious misdeeds.

I have discovered nothing, except that he had a pronounced taste for the gibbet; for he liked to string up all the renegade French whom he surprised in the ranks of the English or in the cities which were not very much devoted to the king.
"We shall find his taste for this kind of torture manifesting itself later on in the chateau de Tiffauges.
"Now, in conclusion, add to all these factors a formidable pride, a pride which incites him to say, during his trial, 'So potent was the star under which I was born that I have done what no one in the world has done nor ever can do.' "And assuredly, the Marquis de Sade is only a timid bourgeois, a mediocre fantasist, beside him!" "Since it is difficult to be a saint," said Des Hermies, "there is nothing for it but to be a Satanist.

One of the two extremes.
'Execration of impotence, hatred of the mediocre,' that, perhaps, is one of the more indulgent definitions of Diabolism." "Perhaps.

One can take pride in going as far in crime as a saint in virtue.

And that expresses Gilles de Rais exactly." "All the same, it's a mean subject to handle." "It certainly is, but happily the documents are abundant.