The Original Bluebeard

The tale of Bluebeard was written by Perrault in the time of Louis XIV., and has been translated from the French into nearly all the languages of Europe.

It is supposed that the idea of the story was suggested to Perrault by the life of a very wicked and atrocious man named Giles de Laval.

Giles de Laval, Seigneur de Retz, better known in French history as Marshal de Retz, was born in France in or about the year 1396. He entered the service of Charles VII., and proved himself a brave and skilful soldier.

He inherited, at different times, three large estates, and in 1432 was considered the richest subject in France.

This immense fortune was the grand cause of his ruin. He plunged into a course of profligacy and debauchery which rapidly diminished his estate. Yet, withal, he affected great pomp and splendor in religious ceremonies. He was compelled by the parliament of Paris to stop disposing of his estates; and, craving for wealth, he had recourse to alchemy. Failing to discover the art of changing the baser metals into gold, he next turned to magic, and is reported to have made a contract with Satan to give him every thing except his own soul and life for boundless wealth. It was at this time that he began to immolate children. The poor creatures were decoyed into his power, and made the victims of his iniquities in various ways, and were finally put to death, and their blood and hearts used as charms in diabolical rites.

The number of children who disappeared became so large, that the authorities took steps to investigate the matter.

In 1440 Laval was arrested, and under threats of torture confessed his misdeeds. In most cases he burned the bodies, but sufficient remains were found to indicate forty-six victims at his castle of Chantoce and eighty at Machecoul. He was convicted, and executed in December, 1440. Probably on account of some personal peculiarity, Giles de Laval became remembered as Barbe-bleue, whence our Bluebeard, which speedily became a name of terror.

The propensity of Bluebeard in the children's "Bluebeard" of Perrault is not to kill children, but to marry wife after wife, and to kill them in succession, and deposit them in a fatal closet. Each young wife was intrusted with all the keys of the castle, with strict injunctions, on pain of death, not to open one special room; but woman's curiosity in each case cost her life, until finally, as the story goes, his last would-be victim was saved by the timely arrival of her brothers. She had, during the absence of her lord, opened the forbidden door, and found the closet filled with the dead bodies of his former wives. She dropped the keys in her terror, and could by no means obliterate the stain of blood.

Bluebeard, on his return, commands her to prepare for death; but by the arrival of her brothers her life is saved, and Bluebeard put to death.

Ludwick Tieck brought out a drama in Berlin on the story of Bluebeard. The incident about the doors and the keys is similar to that mentioned by "The Third Calender" in "The Arabian Nights;" and, indeed, the origin of the story might be relegated to the beginning of "The Arabian Nights," where the deceived Sultan kills wife after wife, until the story-telling wit of one checks his murders by exciting his curiosity.