Character guide

Durtal

major

Also known as III Durtal, M. Durtal, Monsieur Durtal

Durtal lives alone with his notes on Gilles de Rais, having traded naturalist fiction for the fifteenth century and its monsters. His senses, dormant for years, reignite over a correspondent he has never met — and a visit to an old prostitute leaves him more haunted, not less. His research into a child-killer and his hunger for an unknown woman pull him in the same direction: toward the forbidden, and toward a faith he cannot quite name.

Gilles de Rais

major

Also known as Gilles, Undoubtedly Gilles, de Rais

Gilles de Rais is the subject Durtal cannot put down: a baron so powerful that peasants flee at his approach and his liege lord shields him for the sake of his lands. Only the Church, in the person of the Bishop of Nantes, finally moves against him — after Gilles commits sacrilege at Saint-Étienne by seizing a tonsured clerk in the middle of mass. He is the novel's true center of gravity: the monster Durtal studies, and the abyss Durtal keeps circling.

Carhaix

supporting

Also known as Mme, Mme . Carhaix, mama Carhaix, Mama Carhaix

Carhaix and his wife bow under the paternal despotism of the priests, and Durtal, watching them, cannot decide whether their simplicity is sanctity or servility. He climbs the tower to sit with them, drawn to their unsmirched souls even as his own skepticism picks at the fat, jovial abbé below. Their cramped, curtained room above the square is the one place in the novel where belief is not argued but simply lived.

Des Hermies

supporting

Also known as Monsieur Des Hermies, Monsieur des Hermies

Des Hermies is the friend who tells Durtal the truth: that he execrates the age while the other realists worship it, and that Gilles de Rais was the escape hatch his exhausted talent needed. He moves through cafés and consulting rooms with the same dry precision, collecting the era's superstitions and maladies without ever quite catching the disease himself. He is Durtal's sounding board — and the novel's clearest-eyed witness to what is happening to him.

Mme Chantelouve

supporting

Also known as Mme . Chantelouve, the Chantelouve

Durtal spends a whole day tidying his apartment and buying exotic liqueurs for her first visit, only to find himself exhausted before she arrives. She is married to a sugary, calculating hagiographer who almost certainly knows about her goings-on and says nothing. She draws Durtal toward a world of séances, satanism, and appetite that his research into Gilles de Rais had only prepared him to recognize, not to resist.

Canon Docre

supporting

Also known as Docre

Docre appears in the Chantelouve household as a smooth, rotund man of affairs, pink cotton in his ears, capable of doing one a bad turn behind his pious smile. He speaks of saints and their filth with the same detached fluency he brings to everything else, and Durtal senses in him a cool unscrupulousness that the drawing-room setting only half conceals. He is the door through which the novel's occult underworld begins to open, and he knows exactly what he is doing.

Dr. Johannès

supporting

Also known as Johannès, Only Dr. Johannès

Dr. Johannès moves between the consulting room and the séance, a man of medicine who takes seriously what his colleagues would dismiss as superstition. He is the one Durtal can confess to about the anonymous letters and the sensual fever they have ignited, since a doctor meets scores of people and can ask the questions a friend cannot. His willingness to treat the occult as a real force gives Durtal both a confidant and a push toward the darker experiments that structure the novel's middle.

Gévingey

minor

Also known as Monsieur Gévingey

An astrologer and associate of Des Hermies.

Hyacinthe Chantelouve

supporting

Also known as Hyacinthe, Chantelouve, another Hyacinthe

Hyacinthe Chantelouve first arrives as handwriting and obsession, then as flesh: a woman Durtal prepares for with cedar essences and exotic liqueurs, tidying his apartment like a bridegroom. She is married, elusive, and clearly more than the melancholy blonde he has imagined, and the gap between his fantasy and her reality is the engine of his unraveling. Her presence drags Durtal out of scholarly solitude and toward the satanic circles that give the novel its title.

Jean de Malestroit

minor

Also known as de Malestroit, Jean

A historical bishop involved in the trial of Gilles de Rais.

Père Rateau

minor

Also known as Rateau

A priest and friend of Carhaix.

Charles VII

minor

Also known as Charles

King of France during the time of Gilles de Rais.

Francesco Prelati

minor

Also known as Prelati

An Italian alchemist and accomplice of Gilles de Rais.

Gilles de Sillé

minor

Also known as de Sillé, Sillé, Gilles de

An accomplice of Gilles de Rais.

Satan

minor

The devil, invoked in black masses and occult discussions.

Michelet

minor

A historian whose work on Gilles de Rais is referenced.

Triphine

minor

A saint associated with the legend of Bluebeard.

Jean Sans Peur

minor

Duke of Burgundy, a historical figure mentioned in context.

Jean V

minor

Duke of Brittany, a contemporary of Gilles de Rais.

Eliphas Levi

minor

A famous occultist whose works are discussed.

Melchisedek

minor

A biblical figure referenced in occult contexts.

Matthæus Grünewald

minor

Also known as Grünewald

A painter whose crucifixion scene is admired by Durtal.

Bodin

minor

Also known as the benevolent Bodin

A demonologist whose writings are cited.

Zola

minor

A novelist criticized by Durtal for naturalism.

Bluebeard

minor

Also known as the real Bluebeard

The folkloric figure identified with Gilles de Rais.

Nicolas Flamel

minor

A legendary alchemist mentioned in occult discussions.

Robin Guillaumet

minor

An accomplice of Gilles de Rais.

Roger de Bricqueville

minor

Also known as Bricqueville

A nobleman and accomplice of Gilles de Rais.

Eustache Blanchet

minor

Also known as Eustache, Blanchet

A priest and accomplice of Gilles de Rais.

General Boulanger

minor

Also known as Boulanger

A contemporary political figure mentioned in passing.

Guibourg

minor

Also known as abbé Guibourg

A priest involved in black masses.

Vintras

minor

A heretical priest and occultist.