Would recommend anyone read J.K. Huysmans book La Bas, a slab of French decadence with prose purpler than a Roman Emperor’s cloak sporting a black eye, drinking Ribena.
Book concerns one man’s attempt to construct a biography of holy heretic and reputed serial child murderer Gilles De Rais, Joan of Arc’s closest general and friend to the church.
De Rais, in search of plains betwixt and the illusory joys of physical possessions, invited Edward Kelley-esque rogue alchemists into his employ. Sellers of snake oils and hawkers of bottled Whispers from Atlantis, who with scant affection and regard only for coffers led De Rais down qlippothic charnel paths of increasing grisliness.
Later years saw historical attempts to salvage De Rais’ reputation by considering a greedy crown or church as the Ur Source for rumors of his sanguine proclivities; that the trial and evidences given were a formality emptier than the Vichy regime, a mere attempt to wrangle from De Rais his extensive holdings, possibly fearing that his personal wealth extended him undue influence.
The book’s second half concern the author attempting to study and, if he can, witness a black mass in its period-contemporary iteration, which he accomplishes with the aid of his friends, including the pious bellringer Carhaix.
Alchemisland 
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