Trial of Gilles De Rais (15 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
November 15 Death of the grandfather
Jean de Craon dies, apparently alarmed at having understood what his oldest grandchild is capable of. Not only was he terrified by Gilles’ extravagance, but he must have foreseen where his vices and cruelty would lead. In Craon’s bitterness — it was to the younger grandson, to René, that he left his sword and cuirass! With the approach of death, he is profoundly troubled in other respects. He is bound to reexamine his pride and his freebooter brutality; he asks, therefore, for a humble funeral.
November 26
Gilles makes good the damage done to the chaplaincy of Louroux-Bottereau by his grandfather’s embezzlement of funds, which were allocated on behalf of this charitable foundation by his great-grandmother, Catherine de Machecoul, at the end of the 14th century.
Around 1432
Poitou, up until then Gilles de Rais’ page, becomes his “child valet,” but apparently he does not enter his master’s secrets before 1437.
1432-1433The first child murders
Here is what we draw from his confessions (p. 193) on the day Gilles’ crimes began: “Interrogated as to where he perpetrated the said crimes, and when he began … , he stated and responded: in the first place, at the Champtocé castle, in the year when Lord de La Suze, his grandfather, died.” We have just seen how this lord, Jean de Craon, died November 15, 1432; we should not forget that in the Middle Ages the new year began in spring.
The confession adds: “At which place he killed children and had them killed in large numbers — how many he is uncertain; and he committed with them the … sodomitic and unnatural sin; and at this time Gilles de Sillé alone knew …” (p. 197).
In his confession before the secular court, Poitou, who was clearly in Gilles de Rais’ service since 1427 at the age of the ten, affirms that Gilles committed murders in his room at Champtocé during the life of Jean de Craon. Poitou had heard him say this (p. 274), but it is not necessarily convincing. Poitou claims, in the bill of indictment, that Gilles had been killing since 1426. We ought to hold, it seems, to the date given by Gilles himself: he began killing in the year his grandfather died. However, he does not say
after his death
. He could have tranquilly killed in his room from the moment the old man was feeble enough that he was as good as dead. Keeping in mind that before this death Gilles could have killed elsewhere, the fact remains that on, or on the approach of, this death, a feeling of solitude, strength, and freedom managed to intoxicate him. Clearly his grandfather, the predatory old man, had an influence over him. He had initiated him into the life. He had assisted him, counseled him in the profession of arms, which rested on violence and disregard for human life. He had taught him how to act like a gangster. True, by 1424 Gilles refuses the administration of his finances. But, when in 1427 he begins to fight, it is as Jean de Craon’s lieutenant general, which puts him on a par with experienced captains in Anjou. He commands Craon’s troops in Maine; it is through Craon that he clings to his cousin Georges de La Tremoille. Georges de La Tremoille comes from Graon’s family. Apparently Gilles’ living example was his grandfather. The grandson was at ease with this unstoppable man. He was at home and fascinated! But the thought of sex crimes haunted him; and sex crime would have scandalized the old man. On the other hand, Graon would have been anxious to avoid those mad expenditures that gave Gilles a sort of vertigo that he could not resist. With the grandfather dead, the grandson found himself at the helm of an increased fortune; there was no longer anything to bridle the rage that tormented him. Only crime, that negation of every bridle, was to give him the unlimited sovereignty that the old man had possessed in Gilles’ adolescent eyes. Gilles was the rival of the man who raised him, whom he followed — and admired — and who was now dead, who had surpassed him in life. He was going to surpass him in turn. He would surpass him in crime. Even if he does not think in this fashion, the emancipation is no less intoxicating, no less liberating to unspeakable debaucheries.
after his death
. He could have tranquilly killed in his room from the moment the old man was feeble enough that he was as good as dead. Keeping in mind that before this death Gilles could have killed elsewhere, the fact remains that on, or on the approach of, this death, a feeling of solitude, strength, and freedom managed to intoxicate him. Clearly his grandfather, the predatory old man, had an influence over him. He had initiated him into the life. He had assisted him, counseled him in the profession of arms, which rested on violence and disregard for human life. He had taught him how to act like a gangster. True, by 1424 Gilles refuses the administration of his finances. But, when in 1427 he begins to fight, it is as Jean de Craon’s lieutenant general, which puts him on a par with experienced captains in Anjou. He commands Craon’s troops in Maine; it is through Craon that he clings to his cousin Georges de La Tremoille. Georges de La Tremoille comes from Graon’s family. Apparently Gilles’ living example was his grandfather. The grandson was at ease with this unstoppable man. He was at home and fascinated! But the thought of sex crimes haunted him; and sex crime would have scandalized the old man. On the other hand, Graon would have been anxious to avoid those mad expenditures that gave Gilles a sort of vertigo that he could not resist. With the grandfather dead, the grandson found himself at the helm of an increased fortune; there was no longer anything to bridle the rage that tormented him. Only crime, that negation of every bridle, was to give him the unlimited sovereignty that the old man had possessed in Gilles’ adolescent eyes. Gilles was the rival of the man who raised him, whom he followed — and admired — and who was now dead, who had surpassed him in life. He was going to surpass him in turn. He would surpass him in crime. Even if he does not think in this fashion, the emancipation is no less intoxicating, no less liberating to unspeakable debaucheries.
(1432-1433)
As to the date of his crimes, Gilles,’ confession is contrary to the bill of indictment: the latter states “fourteen years earlier.” This document, in advance of the confessions, has the first murders dating back to 1426, but without proof, and of a simply conjectural nature. Had he agreed with the indictment on this point, Gilles would not have aggravated his position when he confessed. Elsewhere there is a concordance between the date given in the confession and that of the first testimonies on the disappearances of children.
These testimonies, it is true, do not concern Champtocé, which comes under the duchy of Anjou: the judges in Nantes were inquiring within the limits of their jurisdiction, in the duchy of Brittany alone.
The five following testimonies relate to Machecoul, but the approximate date to which they refer is 1432-1433, that is to say, in the old style, in the year when “Lord de La Suze died”:
1. Around 1432, a child of Jean Jeudon, of Machecoul, aged twelve, was apprenticed to Guillaume, Hilairet, a furrier, himself living at Machecoul. Guillaume Hilairet, who testifies along with his wife, Jeanne, declares that he gave the child to Gilles de Sillé under the pretext of the child carrying a message to the castle. Much later that same day, Guillaume Hilairet asks Ciilles de Sillé and Roger de Briqueville what has happened to his apprentice. They do not know a thing, they say, unless he left for Tiffauges; “a place,” relates the said Sillé, “where he thought that thieves had taken his said valet for a page.”
Jean Jeudon, subpoenaed as a witness, confirms Hilairet’s statements. These first witnesses’ affirmations are confirmed by André Barbe, a shoemaker; by Jeannot Roussin and Jeanne (Aimery Édelin’s widow); and, finally, by Mace Sorin and his wife, all of them from Machecoul. It will be seen how this last couple, just around the same period, had themselves complained of the disappearance of a child. Hilairet’s deposition dates from September 28, 1440 (or one or two days after); he sets the date of the disappearance of Jean Jeudon’s son at seven or eight years earlier. Hilairet’s memory, therefore, would agree with the years 1432 or 1433. Further on one will see other disappearances which shall follow quickly after, assigning an appreciable probability to this date of 1432- 1433 (pp. 258-261).
2. A child of Jeannot Roussin, aged nine, disappears while watching the animals in the countryside near Machecoul
(“es villages”
of Machecoul). He disappears, the witness remembers, precisely the day after the lamentations motivated by the disappearance of Jean Jeudon’s son. Actually, it is impossible not to associate the disappearances which, following one after another, clearly lend a feeling of terror. Gilles de Sillé is as closely connected to the disappearance of Jeannot Roussin’s child as to that of Jean Jeudon’s son. The child knew Lord de Rais’ accomplice well; someone had seen Gilles de Sillé speaking with him, wearing a long mantle and a veil over his face.
(“es villages”
of Machecoul). He disappears, the witness remembers, precisely the day after the lamentations motivated by the disappearance of Jean Jeudon’s son. Actually, it is impossible not to associate the disappearances which, following one after another, clearly lend a feeling of terror. Gilles de Sillé is as closely connected to the disappearance of Jeannot Roussin’s child as to that of Jean Jeudon’s son. The child knew Lord de Rais’ accomplice well; someone had seen Gilles de Sillé speaking with him, wearing a long mantle and a veil over his face.
As for the date, the testimony of Jeannot Roussin declares that it happened “about nine years ago.” We therefore ought to attribute this disappearance, and that of the first four known victims, to 1431 because the second is subsequent to the first and, as we shall see, the third and fourth follow closely after the second. But these extremely belated estimations are necessarily pretty vague; in addition, with Roussin’s son having vanished at the age of nine, the figure nine could have passed from the age of the child to the number of years since his disappearance. Finally, the number eight (and even seven once) is used for the date in other cases of missing children that testimonies define with relative precision as contemporaneous (pp. 259-261).
3. Aimery Édelin’s widow, Jeanne, formerly Jean Bonneau’s wife, complains of the loss of her son, who was living with the plaintiff’s mother opposite the castle of Machecoul. He was an eight-year-old schoolboy who “was very beautiful, very fair, and clever.”
His disappearance happened unexpectedly, some eight years earlier, fifteen days before that of Mace Sorin’s child, and after those of the children of Jean Jeudon and Jeannot Roussin. Mace Sorin and his wife are witnesses to the fact that this child was never seen again (pp. 260 and 261).
(1432-1433)
4. The disappearance of Mace Sorin’s child is not attested to by the father himself; he does, however, in concert with his wife, depose to the disappearances of children belonging to Aimery Édelin’s widow, Jeannot Roussin, Jean Jeudon (given then, apparently by mistake, as Guillaume Jeudon), and Alexandre Chastelier. Apparently, this is nothing but a gap in the documents handed down to us incomplete, since Jeanne (Aimery Edelin’s widow) herself specifies that, fifteen days after the disappearance of Mace Sorin’s child, Jeanne’s disappeared in turn; this is the most precise fact. We must, however, point out an oddity. Mace Sorin and his wife suggest that the child of Jeanne (Edelin’s widow) was not “of the said Sorin.” Whatever the case, there must be a gap here which could explain this anomaly (pp. 258, 260, 261).
5. The disappearance of Alexandre Chastelier’s son (pp. 257 and 259) is attested to by André Barbe, Guillaume Hilairet and his wife, and Macé Sorin and his wife. We are told that this disappearance took place “about that time” that the child of Édelin’s widow vanished, fifteen days before the loss of Mace Sorin’s son.
These first five testimonies indicate the considerable emotion generated by this series of abductions; such emotion that, eight years later, seven people remember what happened with sufficient precision. On the other hand, a short while after the abductions, people at Machecoul made very little effort to speak out for fear, said the shoemaker André Barbe (p. 257), of the men in Lord de Rais’ chapel or others in his hire; the inhabitants feared imprisonment or abuse if their complaints became known. All of a sudden there is a great clamor in the region. In response, Gilles de Sillé invents a story: the children were led away to ransom his brother Michel, a prisoner of the English; the English had demanded a certain number of young boys to make pages (p. 261). But, the lie revealed, fear swiftly commands silence. The tongues loosen only at the trial. And at the trial eight years later, all the testimonies agree. The role bestowed upon Gilles de Sillé is the same in the parents’ testimony as in Lord de Rais’ confession. This Gilles de Sillé, a cousin of Gilles de Rais, belongs to the same family as Anne de Sillé, who belatedly married Jean de Craon. Gilles de Sillé is the companion of the monster of Machecoul, at the very latest from 1432 up until 1440, when the trial occurs, whereupon he successfully slips away in time. He leads the children to Gilles de Rais, and often kills them before his eyes. This latter never seems to experience difficulty turning his companions — later, his servants — into accomplices. Gilles de Sillé is the first. Then comes Roger de Briqueville, whom Lord de Rais cites immediately in his confession and whom the testimony of Guillaume, Hilairet already mentions, bearing witness to the first attested abduction.
By order of Charles d‘Anjou, the son of Queen Yolande d’Aragon, and the nephew of Charles VII through marriage, Jean de Beuil (a captain in Yolande’s service), Pierre de Brézé, and Prégent de Cöetivy (an important lord who will marry Gilles de Rais’ daughter after 1440) abduct Georges de La Trémoille during the night and from a castle full of people. They kidnap him despite the presence of Charles VII in the castle; La Trémoille was his favorite. “In great danger of death,” he is put up for ransom; he must swear never to return to court. Yolande d‘Aragon and Constable de Richemont’s party take the upper hand. Charles VII has an almost physical aversion to La Tremoille’s adversary, the Constable; by contrast, he evinces the tenderest sentiments for Charles d’Anjou, then twenty years old. From then on, Yolande d’Aragon virtually rules. Charles VII allows his mother-in-law to act, whose son steps forward. Under these conditions, the energetic Arthur de Richemont, the true enemy of La Trémoille, is ready to effectively support the burden of war against the English.
1433Around July 10 La Trémoille’s disgrace and the end of Gilles de Rais’ career
Joan of Arc secured victory for the French, but only Richemont knows how to organize the situation. He alone can repair a situation compromised by La Trémoille’s intrigues and personal politics. In any event,
his removal marks the end of Gilles de Rais’ career.
his removal marks the end of Gilles de Rais’ career.
1434March The Sillé-le-Guillaume affair
After La Tremoille’s disgrace, Marshal de Rais appears yet again in the royal army, in the Sille-le-Guillaume affair where the French and English are content to size one another up without fighting. Constable de Richemont commands the royal army this time. He leads “Marshals de Rais and de Rieux, Lord de Rostrenen, and several knights and squires from Brittany and Poitou.” Queen Yolande had sent her son, Charles d’Anjou, with men from the King’s retinue who wanted to follow. Lords de Bueil, de Brézé, de Cöetivy, de Chaumont, and Viscount Thouars responded to the call.
21
The Duke of Alençon, Lord de Lohéac, and still others are there. Very few of the captains present, save Gilles de Rais, are not enemies of La Trémoille. This day is merely a demonstration of power on both sides, a parade. Immobile, the enemies observe one another without attempting to attack. Finally, the English retire to a neighboring village where they fortify themselves. They yield by mutual agreement and return to Sablé whence they came. However, they attack the relatively unimportant city of Sillé a little later. Within three days the city capitulates. Richemont returns to court the day after.
21
The Duke of Alençon, Lord de Lohéac, and still others are there. Very few of the captains present, save Gilles de Rais, are not enemies of La Trémoille. This day is merely a demonstration of power on both sides, a parade. Immobile, the enemies observe one another without attempting to attack. Finally, the English retire to a neighboring village where they fortify themselves. They yield by mutual agreement and return to Sablé whence they came. However, they attack the relatively unimportant city of Sillé a little later. Within three days the city capitulates. Richemont returns to court the day after.
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