Trial of Gilles De Rais (14 page)
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
The English lift the Siege of Orléans. The entire city and army celebrate its liberation with an immense procession that, from then on and up to the present, is reenacted May 8th of each year.
June 12 Taking of Jargeau
Joan of Arc, with the army placed under the command of the Duke of Alençon, takes Jargeau, on the Loire, twenty kilometers upstream of Orléans. Nothing indicates that Gilles de Rais had any part in the seizure of Jargeau.
June 17 Taking of Beaugency
With Gilles de Rais present, the royal army takes Beaugency, twenty-five kilometers downstream of Orléans on the Loire.
June 18 Victory at Patay
Defeat of the English at Patay, north of Beaugency. Gilles de Rais fights alongside Joan of Arc.
June 19
The victorious army is at Orléans.
June 24
The army sets off again. It arrives at Gien that same day, but the departure for Reims gives way to equivocation.
June 29 Departure for Reims
Charles VII, Joan of Arc and, among other captains, Gilles de Rais, leave for Reims.
July 10
After several days, the town of Troyes surrenders to the royal army marching to Reims.
July 17 Consecration of Charles VII at Reims Gilles de Rais Marshal of France
Charles VII is solemnly consecrated at the Reims cathedral in the presence of Joan of Arc. Gilles de Rais is charged with transporting from the Saint-Rémy abbey, which he enters on horseback, the phial containing the Holy Chrism which serves in the royal unction. On this day he is made Marshal of France. He is not yet twenty-five years old. After the coronation, Joan embraces the King’s knees while crying. Charles VII himself and those around him are in tears. At this moment Gilles de Rais, who later laughs with his accomplices about the children whose throats they will have cut, probably cries with the heroine.
August 10
Charles VII and the royal army enter Compiègne. Beauvais, Creil, and Chatilly surrender.
August 23
Joan and the Duke of Alençon leave Compiègne in the direction of Paris. At the same time, Constable de Richemont invades Normandy. The regent Bedford, preoccupied with Normandy, has left a very feeble garrison in Paris.
August 26
Joan of Arc is at Saint-Denis.
August 29
Charles VII and the Burgundians, allied with the English, conclude a truce.
September 7
Charles VII himself arrives at Saint-Denis. The Bastard of Orléans, Marshals de Boussac and de Rais, La Hire, and Xaintrailles accompany him.
September 8 Gilles de Rais under the walls of Paris Joan of Arc is wounded
After having gathered around her those in agreement with her,
19
Joan of Arc leads the assault on the walls of Paris in the company of Marshal de Rais and Lord de Gaucourt. Together they take the boulevard protecting the Saint-Honoré gate (close to the Theatre Français square). It seems from within Paris that the city is about to fall. But near evening, Joan is shot through the thigh by a crossbow. The quarrel remains lodged; thinking she is close to death, she asks for Lord de Rais by her side, which indicates, at any rate, that she appreciates his military valor. According to Quicherat, Perceval de Cagny is the best informed and most reliable of all the chroniclers.
19
Joan of Arc leads the assault on the walls of Paris in the company of Marshal de Rais and Lord de Gaucourt. Together they take the boulevard protecting the Saint-Honoré gate (close to the Theatre Français square). It seems from within Paris that the city is about to fall. But near evening, Joan is shot through the thigh by a crossbow. The quarrel remains lodged; thinking she is close to death, she asks for Lord de Rais by her side, which indicates, at any rate, that she appreciates his military valor. According to Quicherat, Perceval de Cagny is the best informed and most reliable of all the chroniclers.
September 9
The Duke of Alençon and Joan of Arc, in spite of her injury, prepare for battle early. But the command returns to the King at Saint-Denis. Logically, La Trémoille is restless. The extraordinary prestige that the taking of Paris, which then seemed probable, would have accorded the Maid, would also have brought offense to the favorite. At the same time, he was probably fearing the Duke of Alençon’s glory. Without a doubt, La Trémoille is responsible for abandoning the Siege of Paris. A weary Charles VII has to approve. Whatever happened, the decision that same day to destroy a bridge that, thrown over the Seine, ought to have facilitated the attack is often attributed to the King himself. Gilles de Rais must, should the occasion arise, serve La Trémoille’s interests. On the 8th he fights, but on the 9th he follows orders.
September 13
Charles VII leaves Saint-Denis. He withdraws toward the Loire. This retreat compromises the liberation. The towns that surrendered to Charles VII now lie abandoned, and their situation is dangerous. The decline of Joan of Arc, followed by prison and torment by fire, begins with the order to retreat from Paris.
(1429)
September
Near the end of September, letters patent from Charles VII bestow on Marshal de Rais an “orle” of “gold lilies on an azure field,” supplementing his armorial bearings. These letters consider his “lofty and recommendable services” and the “great perils and dangers” to which the Marshal was exposed, “as in the taking of Lude and many other handsome deeds, the lifting of the siege that the English recently laid before the town of Orléans … and also on the day of the Battle of Patay when, the said siege raised, our said enemies were crestfallen; and, since then, the cavalcade made recently, as well in Reims, for our coronation and consecration, as elsewhere, beyond the Seine, for the repossession of many of our regions …” The fact that these letters are dated from Sully-sur-Loire, that is, from a castle belonging to Georges de La Trémoille, succeeds in underlining the accord between Gilles de Rais and Charles VII’s favorite. In any event, Joan of Arc is not mentioned. Some have spoken of Gilles’ affection for Joan, or Joan’s for Gilles. It is nothing but supposition, with no other foundation than the naïveté of certain authors, recent enough, who in speaking of Gilles de Rais wanted to contrast a seductive aspect to his odiousness. Some have said that he corrected his ways when fighting in Joan’s company: it is not likely; it is only likely that he showed some interest in the memory of Joan of Arc during his long stay at Orléans (1434 and 1435); the Maid was then enjoying a marvelous popularity among the people of Orléans, and Gilles benefited by recalling that he had fought at her side. But in September 1429, Charles VII’s offices could even insist, in the face of everything, on designating to the general sympathy this Marshal of lofty birth, who was not even twenty-five years old (but whose celebrity today is based on his unheard-of crimes). Joan of Arc was not immediately abandoned, but the leaders no longer wanted to allow her to have the primary role.
By the end of the year Birth of Marie, Gilles’ daughter
The birth, evidently at Champtocé, of Gille’s daughter, Marie.
Out of the blue First sale of the domain
We know that at the age of twenty-five (he was born in 1404), with the sale of the patrimonial estate of Blaison, Gilles starts liquidating his immense fortune. From 1434 on, this liquidation should accelerate and rapidly lead him to ruin.
1430Around 1430
At the beginning of 1430 (or the end of 1429), Gilles de Rais is captain of Sable, in Sarthe. Yolande D‘Aragon, regent of the duchy of Anjou, is now at war with La Trémoille; Gilles’ occupation of Sable is one of the episodes of the quarrel. Leaving Sable, Gilles attempts to take Châteaul’Hermitage, occupied by Jean de Bueil, a renowned captain, great lord, and author of a book which is both chronicle and fiction. This book,
Jouvencel,
without mentioning names, reports the events of this war in detail. Gilles cannot take Château-l’Hermitage. Jean de Bueil sounds the alarm in time; but, while sounding it, he falls into the hands of Gilles’ men. The prisoner is led to Sable. Gilles has him imprisoned “all alone in a great tower, in which he had the happy leisure to reflect, think, and imagine.” He prepares his revenge astutely. He pays his ransom and, free, carries out the taking of Sablé that he had meditated on in prison. Later on, Gilles de Rais retakes the town: the date is difficult to specify, but Abbot Bourdeaut reasonably estimates it to have been prior to the conspiracy against La Trémoille in July of 1433 that ends the career of his favorite and his quarrel with Yolande d’Aragon. Yolande d’Aragon’s man, Jean de Bueil, participates, incidentally, in this conspiracy.
Jouvencel,
without mentioning names, reports the events of this war in detail. Gilles cannot take Château-l’Hermitage. Jean de Bueil sounds the alarm in time; but, while sounding it, he falls into the hands of Gilles’ men. The prisoner is led to Sable. Gilles has him imprisoned “all alone in a great tower, in which he had the happy leisure to reflect, think, and imagine.” He prepares his revenge astutely. He pays his ransom and, free, carries out the taking of Sablé that he had meditated on in prison. Later on, Gilles de Rais retakes the town: the date is difficult to specify, but Abbot Bourdeaut reasonably estimates it to have been prior to the conspiracy against La Trémoille in July of 1433 that ends the career of his favorite and his quarrel with Yolande d’Aragon. Yolande d’Aragon’s man, Jean de Bueil, participates, incidentally, in this conspiracy.
The Ancenis’ plot against Yolande d’Aragon
It is necessary, moreover, to situate before July 1433, probably before February 1431 even, the armed attack to which Yolande falls victim, which Gilles de Rais or Craon — or the both of them — prepared: the Queen of Sicily riding peacefully in her own domain, in Anjou, entering the city of Ancenis on the Loire (at least forty kilometers upstream of Nantes); men from the Champtocé garrison (situated twenty kilometers farther upstream) arrest and imprison part of her escort and steal their horses and baggage. The great lords, in this epoch, are subject to banditry as well.
December 26 Gilles de Rais in Louviers
Gilles de Rais dates from Louviers an I.O.U. of two hundred and sixty gold crowns to one Rolland Mauvoisin, captain of Prince (in the land of Rais). These two hundred and sixty crowns are destined for the purchase of a horse for another of Gilles’ captains, Michel Machefer. Gilles’ presence in Louviers, at the moment when Joan of Arc is held prisoner at Rouen, appeared to be in preparation of an armed attack to spring her. The hypothesis appears badly founded. First of all, Charles VII did nothing in his power to gain the freedom of the woman to whom he owed his kingdom. Above all Gilles de Rais is bound to La Trémoille, Yolande d’Aragon’s enemy; but Yolande is, if necessary, the only one in the King’s entourage who shows an interest in Joan; Gilles, by all appearances, shares the general indifference of all those gravitating around Charles VII.
(1430)
1431February 22 to 24
Gilles de Rais and Jean de Craon mediate on La Trémoille’s behalf complex deals with Jean V of Brittany and Yolande d‘Aragon; they also mediate between Yolande and Jean V. The castle of Champtocé serves as a meeting place. As early as 1430, Constable Arthur de Richemont, Jean V’s brother, accompanied by another brother of the Duke (Richard, Count d’Étampes), meets Yolande herself, or her envoys, there; this has to do with preparations for an alliance between the houses of Anjou and Brittany.
20
In any case, during a conference that lasts from February 22nd to the 24th, Georges de La Trémoille meets Jean V. They exchange letters — completely theoretical — of eternal friendship. But the marriage of François de Bretagne, Jean’s son, to Yolande d’Aragon is then agreed upon (it takes place August 20th of the same year in Nantes); it will end a tension threatening to provoke war between Anjou and Brittany. We are not exactly sure of the role of Gilles de Rais and his grandfather in these arduous affairs. But their devious spirit was able to delight in them, in keeping with the spirit of La Trémoille.
20
In any case, during a conference that lasts from February 22nd to the 24th, Georges de La Trémoille meets Jean V. They exchange letters — completely theoretical — of eternal friendship. But the marriage of François de Bretagne, Jean’s son, to Yolande d’Aragon is then agreed upon (it takes place August 20th of the same year in Nantes); it will end a tension threatening to provoke war between Anjou and Brittany. We are not exactly sure of the role of Gilles de Rais and his grandfather in these arduous affairs. But their devious spirit was able to delight in them, in keeping with the spirit of La Trémoille.
May 30
Joan of Arc is burned at Rouen.
December 16
Young Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre-Dame in Paris. In spite of Joan of Arc’s execution, and however solemn the demonstration at Notre-Dame, England is in a bind. Only the pernicious influence of La Trémoille permits her to maintain her positions several years hence.
1432August 10 Battle of Lagny
The possession of Lagny assures French control over the lower Marne region, not far from Paris. The regent Bedford himself came to reinforce the siege of the city. Gilles de Rais, with the Bastard of Orléans, Lords de Gaucourt, Xaintrailles, and others, battle the English. The victorious royal army forces the English regent to lift the siege. Lagny and the Tourelles are the two great feats of arms that confirm the Marshal’s valiant reputation.
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