And he had had fairly good rearing and certainly had not been corrupted by others.
"His behaviour was like that of the conscious or unconscious demonomaniacs who do evil for evil's sake.

They are no more mad than the rapt monk in his cell, than the man who does good for good's sake.
Anybody but a medical theorist can see that the desire for good and the desire for evil simply form the two opposing poles of the soul.

In the fifteenth century these extremes were represented by Jeanne d'Arc and the Marshal de Rais.

Now there is no more reason for attributing madness to Gilles than there is for attributing it to Jeanne d'Arc, whose admirable excesses certainly have no connection with vesania and delirium.
"All the same, some frightful nights must have been passed in that fortress," said Durtal.

He was thinking of the chateau de Tiffauges, which he had visited a year ago, believing that it would aid him in his work to live in the country where Gilles had lived and to dig among the ruins.
He had established himself in the little hamlet which stretches along the base of the abandoned donjon.