title: Dark Star: The Satanic Rites of Gilles de Rais
author: Georges Bataille
description: Georges Bataille was a member of the Surrealist Group in the 1930s before splitting to publish his own magazine, Acephale. His books include Story of the Eye and Madame Edwarda.
zlib_text: THE STAR OF SATAN 
  
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
  mw TORX • llOSTON • CHlCAGO • DAl,l..U 
  MACMILLAN ANO CO., LIMITBD 
  LONDON • 110-"lllAT • CALCUTTA. • IUORAS 
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
  OF CANADA. LIWTao 
  
  GEORGES BERNANOS 
  The Star of Satan 
  TRANSLATED BY PAMELA MORRIS 
  1940 
  The Macmillan Company 
  · 
  New York 
  
  Cop,right, 1940, b, 
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
  Set up and printed. Published ltme, 1940. 
  FUST Pl!UITING. 
  J'IUNTED 
  IN 
  Tea 
  t1N1TED 
  STATES 
  OP 
  Alo!ElllCA 
  AlllalUCAN DOO!t--STRATFOll.D PUSS, INC., NEW YORE: 
  
  Contents 
  BOOK I 
  The Story of Mouchette 
  . 
  BOOK II 
  The Temptation of Despair 
  . 
  BOOK III 
  The Saint of Lumbres 
  PAGE 
  77 
  . 
  233 
  
  BOOK I 
  THE STORY OF MOUCHETTE 
  
  Chapter One 
  HERE is the moment of sunset which the poet Toulet 
  cherished, the moment of indefinite horizons: in the west 
  a vast ivory-tinged cloud, and from zenith to earth the 
  shimmering dusk, the immense already frozen solitudes, 
  full of liquid quiet. Such instants as these belong to that 
  satiric poet whose