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Le héros Durtal, un médiocre auteur parisien, écrit une biographie de Gilles de Rais qui fut accusé, au XVe siècle, d'avoir violé et torturé des dizaines d'enfants. Afin de se documenter, Durtal s'entretient avec ses amis d'occultisme, d'astrologie, de spiritisme, de magie et tout particulièrement de satanisme dont il apprend la persistance à l'époque contemporaine. En parallèle il entretient une relation avec une admiratrice, madame Chantelouve, qui se révèle proche d'un chanoine sataniste et lui permettra d'assister à une messe noire au moment où il achève son ouvrage.

Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (1848 - 1907 in Paris) was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans. He is most famous for the novel À rebours (1884, published in English as Against the Grain or Against Nature). He supported himself by a 30-year career in the French civil service. Huysmans' work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of Naturalism, he became associated with the decadent movement with his publication of À rebours. His work expressed his deep pessimism, which had led him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. In later years, his novels reflected his study of Catholicism, religious conversion and becoming an oblate. He discussed the iconography of Christian architecture at length in La cathédrale (1898), set at Chartres and with its cathedral as the focus of the book.