On the pages of the novel, the French writer C. J. Huysmans (1848–1907) introduces the reader to the terrible, but at the same time attractive in its uncertainty, world of black masses, witches, i.e., into a world where Satan himself reigns. One of the heroes of the novel, Marshal of France Gilles de Rais, is familiar to readers from the novel “Catherine” by J. Benzoni. The difficult story of this terrible man, whose name and deeds are preserved in human memory, was told to us through the centuries by the author.