Gilles de Montmorency-Laval (1404–1440), Baron de Rais, was a Breton knight, a leader in the French army and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known as a prolific serial killer of children. There is significant controversy over his guilt; some maintain he was framed for political reasons.
A member of the House of Montmorency-Laval, Gilles de Rais grew up under the tutelage of his maternal grandfather and increased his fortune by marriage. Following the War of the Breton Succession,...

Bertrand du Guesclin (1320 -1380) known as the Eagle of Brittany or the Black Dog of Brocéliande, was a Breton knight and French military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was Constable of France from 1370 to his death. Well known for his Fabian strategy, he took part in six pitched battles and won the four in which he held command.
His family was of minor Breton nobility, the seigneurs of Broons.


He initially served Charles of Blois in the Breton War of Succession...

Pierre Terrail seigneur de Bayard (1473-1524) was a French soldier. Throughout the centuries since his death, he has been known as "the knight without fear and beyond reproach". He himself however, preferred the name given him by his contemporaries for his gaiety and kindness, "le bon chevalier", or "the good knight".

The descendant of a noble family, the head of which had fallen in battle in nearly every generation for two centuries; Bayard was born...

Nicolas Flamel (1330 or 1340 at Pontoise - 1418 at Paris) was a successful French scrivener and manuscript-seller who developed a posthumous reputation as an alchemist due to his reputed work on the Philosopher's Stone. The essence of his reputation is that he succeeded at the two magical goals of alchemy -- that he made the Philosopher's Stone, which turns lead into gold, and that he and his wife Perenelle achieved immortality through the "Elixir of Life".

For a character...

The Beast of Gévaudan (French : La Bête du Gévaudan) is a name given to man-eating wolf-like animals alleged to have terrorized the former province of Gévaudan, in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767 over an area stretching 90 by 80 kilometres (56 by 50 mi). The beasts were consistently described by eyewitnesses as having formidable teeth and immense tails. Their fur had a reddish tinge, and was said to have emitted an unbearable odour. They killed their victims ...