Read Trial of Gilles De Rais Online
Authors: George Bataille
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Cultural Anthropology, #Psychology, #True Crime, #European History, #France, #Social History, #v.5, #Literary Studies, #Medieval History, #Amazon.com, #Criminology, #Retail, #History
Trial of Gilles De Rais (20 page)
The son of Jean Bernard, of Port-Launay, on the right bank of the estuary near Coueron, is about twelve years old; he leaves for Machecoul around September 1438 to ask for alms. The four witnesses from Port-Launay who remember him cite “the charity that was customary there” In fact Port-Launey is fifteen kilometers from Nantes, where one must cross the Loire; from there, Machecoul is another forty kilometers. That implies, in any case, the notoriety of alms-giving by the prodigal of Machecoul. Jean Bernard’s child does not reappear; another child, with whom he went begging, waits for him in vain more than three hours, even though they were supposed to meet at an appointed spot in the Machecoul borough. Nobody had any more news of him and the witnesses heard the mother, who could not come to the tribunal because of the grape harvest, “complaining bitterly” (p. 256).
October Murder of Perrot Dagaye
Perrot Dagaye, aged about ten, the son of Éonnet Dagaye and the nephew of Éonnet Le Charpentier, a butcher in the parish of Saint-Clément-hors-les-murs of Nantes, disappears in October 1438. Two witnesses from the parish of Saint-Clément attest to the mother’s laments and to the fact that the child was never seen again after this. Tiphaine, Éonnet Le Charpentier’s wife, declares that her nephew Perrot “was lost about two years ago and that since this time, she has had no news of him until Perrine Martin, also known as La Pellissonne, admitted, as has been said, that she had delivered him over to Lord de Rais’ men” (p. 270).
1437-1438
Jeanne, Aimery Édelin’s widow, of Machecoul, who had previously lost her own son (p. 260), reports that “about two or three years before, she saw at Machecoul a man named Oran, who lived in the direction of Saint-Mesme, lamenting piteously and crying over the loss of a child; he was asking about him in the said place of Machecoul but so far as the said Jeanne knows, had no news of him” (p. 260).
Around year’s end
Contrary to the promise made when his brother René let him retake Champtocé, Gilles refused to release La Mothe-Achard to him. Moreover, he seizes the Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte castle, which he had given him in 1434.
1439January 15
An amiable settlement is concluded at Nantes between the two brothers who, after the Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte affair in 1438, have gone to court. Gilles definitively transfers La Mothe-Achard to his brother while keeping Saint-Étienne for himself.
April 12
The eight-year-old son of Micheau and Guillemette Bouer, of Saint-Cyr-en-Rais, a village adjoining Bourgneuf-en-Rais, goes begging at Machecoul on Low Sunday (April 12) of 1439. He does not return and from then on his mother will have no more news of him, even though the child’s father “had made inquiries after him in various places.” There is no implicit connection to an event that Guillemette Bouer reports later, namely: “on the following day, the day they distributed alms at Machecoul for the deceased Mahé Le Breton, as she was watching the animals, a large man dressed in black, whom she did not know, came to her and asked, among other things, where her children were, why they were not watching the animals. To which she responded that they had gone begging at Machecoul. Whereupon he left her and vanished.” The story reconstructs, however, the fairy-tale atmosphere in which the disappearances occurred, one which does not always permit calling Lord de Rais into question with certainty.
Ysabeau, Guillaume Hamelin’s wife, of Fresnay, who herself loses two children at the end of the year (p. 263), learns of the above disappearance on December 16, 1439. There is a good case, therefore, for Low Sunday of 1439 and not 1440 (p. 263).
Gilles de Rais is living at Tiffauges during this period, so his connection with the disappearance is at best doubtful.
End of April François Prelati’s arrival in France
Prelati and Blanchet arrive together at Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, on the right bank of the Loire. They spend several days there. Gilles, informed by Blanchet of their arrival, dispatches two squires, accompanied by Henriet and Poitou, in order to lead them to Tiffauges (pp. 210 and 210).
(1439)May 14 Prelati at Tiffauges
Later, on Ascension Day (May 14, 1439), François Prelati arrives at Tiffauges, accompanied by Blanchet and others. Gilles de Rais exuberantly rejoices at what Blanchet tells him.
Prelati and Blanchet are installed in the castle, in the same room with an alchemist (a goldsmith from Paris named Jean Petit) and an old woman named Perrote. They are supposed to lodge in the castle together. In fact, a little later there is a problem with a cold wind that, coming from a neighboring hall (the lower hall of the fortress), passes through “the said castle” (p. 217).
Around May
Guillaume Sergent and his wife Alyette, of La Boucardière, a hamlet neighboring on Machecoul, connected to the Saint-Croix parish of Machecoul, who around Pentecost (May 24) of 1439 went digging in a field in order to plant hemp, did not find their eight-year-old son again, whom they had left at home to watch over their infant daughter of eighteen months. They had no more news of him in spite of their inquiries in the Machecoul parish and other parishes (p. 258). Gilles de Rais is presently installed at Tiffauges; this testimony therefore is of little interest.
June 29
Olivier Darel, the son of Jean and Jeanne Darel, of the Saint-Saturnin parish of Nantes, aged seven to eight, disappears on Saint Peter’s Day. He disappears into the crowd, on Rue du Marché or in front of Saint-Saturnin church, while he is with his maternal grandmother. The father, ill that day, declares that he inquired about him in several regions; his wife and her mother testify with him. Éonnette, Jean Bremant’s wife, living in the marketplace of Nantes, knew the child well and declares that, since the time when his parents were complaining of his disappearance, he never returned home (p. 272).
Gilles de Rais being, so far as it seems, at Tiffauges, this testimony is no more important than the previous one.
Around June The phony Joan of Arc in Gilles de Rais’ service
On a date difficult to specify, but evidently before the spring of 1439, Gilles receives a phony Joan of Arc, a double, who since 1436 is seeking to make people believe that, having escaped the executioner’s flames in Rouen, she is truly “The Maid.”
38
This phony Joan of Arc is, like the original, able to ride a horse and command armies; Gilles entrusted her with a part of his men-at-arms, with a view towards an enterprise in the direction of Mans. But in the course of 1439 it seems this phony Maid is unmasked by Charles VII, who wanted to meet her. The King quizzes her about the secret they had between them. Thereupon the impostor, who meanwhile has married and after her marriage goes by the name of Lady des Armoises, kneels before Charles VII and confesses her deceit.
39
Gilles, having no doubt found out, sends one of his men, the Gascon captain Jean de Siqueville, to take her place, instructing him to operate in the expectation of his arrival and, if he can, seize the Mans garrison. It is probable that the Marshal does not even try to join him. Mans remains in the hands of the English until 1448.
38
This phony Joan of Arc is, like the original, able to ride a horse and command armies; Gilles entrusted her with a part of his men-at-arms, with a view towards an enterprise in the direction of Mans. But in the course of 1439 it seems this phony Maid is unmasked by Charles VII, who wanted to meet her. The King quizzes her about the secret they had between them. Thereupon the impostor, who meanwhile has married and after her marriage goes by the name of Lady des Armoises, kneels before Charles VII and confesses her deceit.
39
Gilles, having no doubt found out, sends one of his men, the Gascon captain Jean de Siqueville, to take her place, instructing him to operate in the expectation of his arrival and, if he can, seize the Mans garrison. It is probable that the Marshal does not even try to join him. Mans remains in the hands of the English until 1448.
Around June-July The great invocation in the lower hall of the castle at Tiffauges
Gilles de Rais and François Prelati, aided by Gilles de Sillé, Eustache Blanchet, Henriet and Poitou, prepare the large lower hall of the castle at Tiffauges for an invocation of the demon. After dinner, before midnight, they trace several circles with the tip of a sword on the ground where they inscribe crosses, characters, and signs “in the manner of armories.” Then Eustache Blanchet and Henriet carry in incense, myrrh and aloes, a lodestone, earthen pots containing a great quantity of coal, which they light, torches, candles, and candlesticks. They also carry in a book in which one can find the names of many demons, and formulas of conjuration and invocation. Gilles and François arrange these various objects; François adds certain signs, then has the four windows of the hall opened.
Thereupon Eustache Blanchet, Henriet, and Poitou are asked to retire to Lord de Rais’ room. From then on Gilles and François, left alone, remain — sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, and sometimes kneeling — while adoring the demon and reading from the book that they have brought. However the demon does not appear, and two hours after having been left alone, Gilles and François rejoin the others in the room where they wait. It is about one o’clock in the morning (pp. 173, 217, 219, 230, 238, 239, 278 and 280).
It is apparently at this invocation that Gilles holds in his hand a note that he has signed, ready to give it to the devil should he appear. Since the latter does not appear, the note is not delivered (p. 198). We do not have the text of that note, but it is doubtless the same as what, on the following evening, Prelati prepares to offer to Barron if he appears. (We are familiar with the second note’s text, several lines of which we will cite later.) The note is still undelivered the following day, but since Gilles in his confession acknowledges having had one delivered to the devil (p. 194), we are forced to conclude that Prelati pretended to deliver it during one of the ten or twelve invocations that he did for Gilles, and where Barron, according to him, appeared (p. 213).
(
1439)
Nocturnal invocation in a field under adverse weather
Rather late the following evening, by Gilles’ order, François Prelati and Poitou make their way to a field not far from an uninhabited old house, about a kilometer from Tiffauges in the direction of Montaigu. They carry incense, a lodestone, and a book. They make a circle and signs out of the book with the aid of a knife. They themselves enter the circle that they evidently have traced in the soil. In spite of François’ interdiction, Poitou secretly crosses himself. Oral invocations having begun, the valet hears Prelati pronounce the name of “Barron” several times in a loud voice. They stay about half an hour, but nothing appears.
From the start, the moment they enter the circle it rains profusely; a violent wind then starts up, and so great a darkness falls that they have difficulty returning once finished (pp. 198, 212 and 231).
What is more, we know from Prelati’s testimony (p. 213) that before this invocation, Gilles had given him this letter (or note) for the devil written in French in his own hand, of which this is the text: “Come at my bidding, and I will give you whatever you want, except my soul and the curtailment of my life.” The devil did not come, and François, that same day, returns the note to Gilles.
Gilles and François want to try another invocation by other means, but they give up the attempt for lack of a particular stone (p. 211). They content themselves with repeating the attempts which Gilles no longer attends. Here we should emphasize that in Gilles’ absence the devil does not fail to appear, according to Prelati’s confession. In renewing these invocations, arranged in the same way as the ones at the beginning in the lower hall of Tiffauges, “the devil named Barron” is said to have appeared “as many as ten or twelve times, in the form of a handsome young man about twenty-five years old” (p. 301).
May to November Prelati beaten by the devil
Moreover, it is right around the same time that we place another of Prelati’s invocations, where the charlatanism that Gilles apparently never perceived is clearly revealed. In any event, this invocation takes place during the period when, in 1439, Blanchet is staying at the castle of Tiffauges: between Ascension Day (May 14) and All Saints’ Day (November 1). The ecclesiastic, having left that same day, is summoned by his master. He runs to Gilles and finds him in shock. Lord de Rais is convinced: Prelati is dead! In fact, there was a loud noise in Prelati’s room and they heard a great many groans and blows, “as if someone were beating a featherbed.” His horror of the devil is then so great that Gilles is terrified. He does not dare enter the room and weakly asks Blanchet to do it in his stead. The latter trembles no less than his master. Blanchet at last has the courage to look through a kind of interior window rather high up, from which one can peer into the room. Prelati does not respond to the calls; he is content with multiplying his groans. When he finally exits the room, the pitiful man, he recounts how the devil
beat him horribly.
He is wounded; he will remain ill for a week. Gilles himself nurses him, not letting anyone enter his room. He has him confessed. Prelati thinks that the punishment he has received is due to the anger of the spirits indignant with him for having, in his conversations, held them for demons of little consequence and little power. Doubtless it is for this reason that he attempts a kind of reparation; he had heard it said, so he says anyway, that the said spirits were “begotten from material nobler than the Blessed Virgin Mary” (p. 223).
beat him horribly.
He is wounded; he will remain ill for a week. Gilles himself nurses him, not letting anyone enter his room. He has him confessed. Prelati thinks that the punishment he has received is due to the anger of the spirits indignant with him for having, in his conversations, held them for demons of little consequence and little power. Doubtless it is for this reason that he attempts a kind of reparation; he had heard it said, so he says anyway, that the said spirits were “begotten from material nobler than the Blessed Virgin Mary” (p. 223).
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