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 (23 page)
March 27 The confession and humble communion of Gilles de Rais
On Easter Sunday (March 27th), in the Sainte-Trinité church of Machecoul, Eustache Blanchet sees a priest, Monsignor Olivier des Ferrières, hearing Gilles de Rais’ confession. Soon after, the Marshal receives the Eucharist together with people of little means. The latter want to move aside for him, but Gilles orders them to remain where they are and partake in Communion as usual (p. 219).
March 27 to May 15 (between Easter and the Pentecost)
Between Easter and Ascension Day of 1440, the widow of Yvon Kerguen, a mason from Sainte-Croix, of Nantes, entrusts her nearly fifteen-year-old son, whom she will never see again (pp. 155 and 200), into the service of one of Lord de Rais’ men, named Poitou, who had asked her for him. Thomas Aisé and his wife, poor people who were still living in Port-Saint-Père around May 15, 1440, send one of their sons, who is about ten years old, to beg at the castle of Machecoul at a time when Lord de Rais is staying there. A little girl is supposed to have told her mother that alms were first given to the girls, and then she heard someone in the castle say to the young Aisé that if he has not received any meat, he will get some: the child is then made to enter. Since that day the mother no longer had any news of her son (pp. 260 and 265-266).
(
1440)May 15 The Soint-Étienne-de-Mermorte scandal
A company of about sixty men-at-arms lies in wait in the woods outside the church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte. They are armed, and Gilles de Rais is at the head. The moment they have been waiting for comes, the High Mass is finished; he brandishes a double-sided axe (terminating in a kind of pike, which one calls a “gisarme”), and rushes into the church. Inside the church he insults Jean Le Ferron, the brother of Geoffroy Le Ferron; Geoffroy is the treasurer of Brittany and the man to whom Gilles has sold the estate of Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte. “Ha, ribald,” he shouts. “You beat my men, and extorted from them; come outside the church or I’ll kill you on the spot!” Poor Jean Le Ferron, a tonsured cleric trusted by his brother to watch over the fortress, is called upon to return it to Gilles; he is imprisoned in this same fortress which Gilles’ men have invaded (pp. 240-244). Gilles has violated ecclesiastical privilege and encroached on the rights of the Duke of Brittany, his own sovereign.
In a short while, the reaction of the Duke and that of his chancellor, Jean de Malestroit (who possesses, insofar as he is the Bishop of Nantes, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the diocese to which the Saint-Étienne church belongs), will lead Gilles to the gallows. The outrage against Jean Le Ferron corresponds to the puerile excessiveness wherein Gilles founders. From here on out Gilles is a tragic energumen; he has lost his senses and nobody is around to support him. Remorse wracks him. The Holy Land haunts him; he would like to change his evil life and implore forgiveness of his sins.
He has already confided this intention the year before (p. 116). He repeats it at least once, evidently prior to the outrage of Saint-Étienne (more than four months prior to the deposition on October 16th).
A hope of faraway travel and devotion uplifts his spirits (pp. 177, 202- 203, 216 and 222). But everything suggests that it is too late. Like a dog, he returns to his vomit. In any case, he struggles with himself in vain.
June
Gilles tries to escape from the Duke of Brittany, who has slapped him with a fine of 50,000 gold crowns (a considerable amount of money, representing half the value of his fortresses at Ingrandes and Champtocé). He transfers his prisoner Jean Le Ferron to Tiffauges, with Poitou, in the royal domain.
After June 24
Seven witnesses from Saint-Étienne-de-Montluc, including a clergyman, had known the orphaned son of a certain Guillaume Brice, a poor man in their parish, for about three years. This Guillaume died around February 1439. Since Saint John’s Day of 1440 (June 24th), the witnesses have not seen this boy again; he responded to the name of Jamet, was quite beautiful, and approximately eight or nine years old (pp. 255-256). No doubt it is difficult to see the reason for seriously accusing Gilles of the disappearance of a child in Saint-Étienne-de-Montluc, north of the Loire estuary. But he will resume the course of his wanderings, at least after July.
July
One apparent means of escape remains: why doesn’t Gilles go looking for Jean V? Insofar as his interests dictated, Jean V had showed him kindness. Provided that Gilles was not totally ruined, the Duke could thereby hope to profit.
Gilles is in effect blind enough not to see that, in exchange for a favor which he needs more than anyone else, he has nothing left to offer Jean V
He ought to know: he is ruined. There is nothing he could expect from the King. Escape? He refuses. His whole nature balks at the idea; anyway, what cover exists for such a visible person?
He confronts the storm decisively. He will join the Duke at Josselin; he will explain himself there. But he measures the risk. It is impossible to know, before setting out, whether he will return from this trip. That is why, before setting out from Machecoul, he orders Prelati to interrogate the devil Barron; he wants to know whether he can meet the Duke safely; he wants to know whether he will return …
The devil says yes!
They leave Machecoul, and on the way Gilles asks the conjuror to pose the question again; it makes him restless. He has it posed again at Nantes and, upon arriving at Josselin, Prelati is requested to pursue the invocations. He has him pursue them in a field. Gilles does not attend. According to François, Barron appears this time clad in a mantle of violet silk. Once again he guarantees their return; Gilles de Rais will take the road to Machecoul (p. 215).
The vain and bloody journey to Josselin
We know nothing of the interview between Gilles and Jean V We also know nothing of the hospitality that the Duke must have shown the Marshal. Prelati must seek the devil in a field. It is also in a field that Henriet says he led three children, whom he kills. Poitou, who is ill, is absent. This is all we know.
Gilles tells his servants that he has come to see the Duke about the money he owes him. But they know the score; their master is from then on reduced to feigning.
(1440)Murder at Vannes
Presumably the stay at Josselin was painful for him, and for this reason Gilles wanted to leave as soon as possible for Vannes to find André Buchet, the choirboy he had introduced, at the latest in 1434, into his chapel. He knew what to expect. At Vannes, Gilles is lodged outside the walls of the city, near the episcopal manor in a place called La Mothe, in the house of a man named Lemoine. Evidently André Buchet belongs as of this period to the chapel of the Duke, which often resides at Vannes (at any rate he belonged to it some weeks later, at the time of the trial). Buchet leads Gilles to the son, nearly ten, of a neighborhood resident, Jean Lavary by name. But there is no place secret enough to kill a child at Lemoine’s. The child is led to a house relatively nearby, run by a man named Boetden. The head of the child is severed — then burned — in Gilles’ room. The body, tied with a belt, is carried to the latrines of this Boetden’s house and Poitou, apparently recovered from his illness, is supposed to descend into the pit; it is necessary to shove down and cover the corpse so that it will not be found. Henriet and Buchet are then supposed to help Poitou up out of the pit.
Poitou insists that Buchet, who belonged to the ducal chapel at the time of the trial, knew everything. Gilles himself states that Buchet was not ignorant of any of the children’s murders (pp. 231-232).
July 29 Results of the secret inquest by the Bishop of Nantes
The Bishop of Nantes and Chancellor of Brittany, Jean de Malestroit, publishes in the form of letters patent the results of the secret inquest that seems to have immediately followed the outrage of Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte. It establishes that Gilles de Rais, subject and justiciable of the Bishop, abused numerous children, whom he killed; moreover, he invoked demons and signed a pact with them; public rumor accuses him of all these crimes.
Around August 15 Last murder
Raoulet de Launay, a tailor in Nantes, makes a doublet for Éonnet de Villeblanche’s child. This child does not live with his parents then, but with Poitou. It is Poitou who pays Raoulet twenty sous for the doublet. Poitou, in his deposition, acknowledges that the child’s mother, who goes by the name of Macée, gave him the child as a page and that he had to clothe him himself. According to Poitou the child was killed and burned, and Raoulet de Launay, in his testimony, testifies that he never saw him again. This is the last alleged murder; it occurs after the letters patent issued on July 29th (p. 270).
August 24 Collapse: Constable de Richemont seizes Tiffauges
Although all that Jean V has ever done is hide when faced with Gilles de Rais, he now decides to be done with him. His chancellor, Jean de Malestroit, must have convinced him easily enough: public rumor is too strong; on the day of the Saint-Étienne affair, Gilles exceeded the limits; there are no opposing interests from here on out.
But the Duke is anxious at this moment to reconcile, at least tacitly, with the King. Jean V knows that Charles VII is no longer interested in the Marshal; however, it is not useful to give him the pretext for an intervention possibly motivated by the memory of the Duke’s hostile attitude at the time of the Praguerie. That is why he thinks of involving one of the crown’s principal officers, his brother Arthur de Richemont, the Constable of France.
Arthur is disposed to lend his brother the requested support. He has the greatest horror of sorcerers and undoubtedly never liked the Marshal, a creature of his worst enemy, La Trémoille. In exchange Arthur will receive two lands, completing the appanage of which the Duke, his brother, has not yet fulfilled. He will receive in particular Bourgneuf-en-Rais, a fief that Gilles still has in Brittany. Gilles is not dead, but the cards have been dealt — the Duke is already distributing the spoils.
44
44
On August 24th, the Duke confers with his brother at Vannes. Only his brother, the King’s officer, can take Tiffauges (and Poitou), where Gilles hoped to keep his prisoner from Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte, Jean Le Ferron, safe from a ducal action. Everything hastens when Arthur accepts the responsibility of seizing Tiffauges; Jean Le Ferron is freed. Gilles no longer has a hostage. He ought to know by now what awaits him. Nothing can save him. On hearing the news of the Constable’s entrance into Tiffauges, Gilles de Sillé and Roger de Briqueville decide to hit the road. They must have amassed a sufficient fortune in anticipation of this event … Only those who have no recourse to escape remain: the foreigner Prelati, the priest Blanchet, and the two valets-factotum, Henriet and Poitou. Gilles himself could have fled perhaps, if it were not for a constant, absurd hope. With enduring naïveté, he cannot believe that anyone would come to take him.
Prior to September 15
Emissaries of the secular court have in turn entered the region. They have led an inquest of their own. They have heard almost the same complaints as the ecclesiastical court (p. 249). They are the ones who have decided on Gilles’ arrest and have done whatever was necessary to effect it.
(1440)September 13 Gilles is indicted for the murder of children and invoking demons
Gilles is cited before the ecclesiastical tribunal of Nantes; he is indicted for the murder of children and sodomy, the invocations of demons, the offending of Divine Majesty, and heresy.
September 15 Arrest
The Duke of Brittany’s men appear at the portal of Machecoul with captain of arms Jean Labbé in the lead, assisted by notary public Robin Guillaument, in the name of the Chancellor and Bishop Jean de Malestroit.
Marshal de Rais is arrested.
François Prelati, Eustache Blanchet, Henriet and Poitou are arrested at the same time.
On the road to Nantes prison, Henriet, who is terrified, thinks of cutting his own throat (p. 276).
After September 15
Appearing before the secular court of Nantes, Gilles de Rais is supposed to answer for two chief counts: the murders of children and the Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte affair (the outrage against Jean Le Ferron and his detention; the occupation of the castle of Saint-Étienne, which he had transferred to Geoffroy Le Ferron, the treasurer-general of Brittany). All we have of the hearing is a semi-official report, which gives us only Gilles’ response to the second count. Absolutely no response to the murders. Had the accusation of the prosecuting attorney carried on that item, given Gilles’ attitude before the ecclesiastical judges on October 8th, he evidently would not have been so conciliatory about the Saint-Étienne affair. Apparently the civil judges maintained the same prudence that the ecclesiastical judges did, and from the beginning kept quiet on the very serious aspect of the affair. The author of the report could have seen it as an oversight, but he did not take it upon himself to introduce Gilles’ response concerning the children into his notes.
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