Trial of Gilles De Rais (19 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
1438February-March Murder of Guillaume Delit
Guibelet Delit’s son, Guillaume, frequented the Hotel de La Suze, where he helped Gilles’ chef, named Cherpy, roast meat. According to his mother, named Jeanne, a certain Master Jean Briand, who was staying at the hotel in Gilles’ service, told Cherpy that it was not a good idea to let the child help in this manner. Afterwards she never saw the child again, nor had any news of him.
That happened in February or March of 1438, as related at the trial of 1440 (“a year ago last Easter”). Three or four months later (around May), she complains to Jean Briand’s wife. “They say,” she affirms, “that Lord de Rais has small children caught to be killed.” No sooner said, Gilles’ men appear, the names of whom she does not know. Jean Briand’s wife speaks to them: according to Jeanne Delit, Lord de Rais had the children killed; she adds that Jeanne is wrong to speak like this, something bad could happen to her.
With that, the miserable Jeanne apologizes before Gilles’ men (p. 269).
Around June Gilles de Rais’ recovery of the Champtocé garrison and transportation to Machecoul of three coffers filled with children’s skeletons
At a date difficult to specify, René de La Suze abandons, as agreed, the Champtocé garrison to his wife, whom he had instructed accordingly. Twenty of Gilles’ armed men under Yves de Kersaliou, the captain of Pornic, put on an act of defending the garrison. Jean de Malestroit, the Bishop of Nantes and Chancellor of Brittany, who later indicts Gilles, will take possession of it in Jean V’s name. But before this can happen, Gilles has requested five of his manservants — Gilles de Sillé, Hicquet de Brémont, Robin Romulart, and the two valets Henriet and Poitou — to proceed to the tower of the fortress and remove the skeletons of some forty children. They place them in three coffers which they take “as secretly as possible” to Machecoul, partly by water. At Machecoul two singers in Gilles’ chapel, Jean Rossignol and André Buchet, whom we have mentioned above (p. 89), replace Hicquet de Brémont and Robin Romulart. It is at Machecoul where the bones are burned; they cannot be burned at Champtocé, the fortress about to be handed over without delay to the Duke. Henriet and Poitou’s testimonies inform us that “the bones were already desiccated … because of the length of time” they had spent in the tower. We do not know exactly when the children had been killed. We should only think they were made to leave as of autumn of 1432, after the death of Jean de Craon (pp. 82-83).
(1438)
Evidently Gilles was then supposed to return to Vannes under the pretext of receiving from the Duke what was his due, which, we can be sure, came to nothing; as a matter of fact he held on to his Breton domains, which he had previously pawned for money. Apparently the advances he received on these domains were equivalent to the value of Champtocé. But it is perhaps on this occasion that André Buchet, who, as we have seen, belonged to Lord de Rais’ chapel, sent a child, nearly nine, dressed as a page from Vannes to Machecoul through a certain Raoulet. In principle, the settlement of accounts should have followed upon the recovery of Champtocé (pp. 228, 236, 277). We know from Henriet’s testimony that André Buchet sent the child when Gilles received money from the Duke for Champtocé; but Gilles could have pretended to receive it.
Around June 16 Murder of Jean Jenvret’s son
Jean Jenvret and his wife complain of the disappearance of their son, a schoolboy of nine, who occasionally frequented the house of La Suze. Lord de Rais was at Nantes, in that house, at the moment of this disappearance “two years ago, eight days before Saint John the Baptist’s Day,” (around June 16, 1438). Jean Jenvret was staying with Monsieur d’Étampes, that is to say that he was a domestic for Richard, Count d’Étampes, the brother of the Duke of Brittany.
Before dying in the prison at Nantes, Perrine Martin, the most famous of Gilles’ procuresses, confesses to having led the child to the castle at Machecoul. Poitou himself affirms that he could have killed him in the house of La Suze. Perrine Martin perhaps only took the cadaver to Machecoul. Four witnesses of the Sainte-Croix parish of Nantes knew this child; they heard his parents lamenting his disappearance and, since then, they have never seen him again (pp. 267, 268, and 281).
On or about June 24 Murder of Jean, Jeanne Degrepie’s son
A twelve-year-old schoolboy, Jean, the son of Jeanne Degrepie, Regnaud Donete’s widow, of the parish of Notre-Dame-de-Nantes, disappeared on or about Saint John’s Day (June 24, 1438); Gilles de Rais was then staying at Hotel de La Suze, where the child sometimes came. Perrine Martin is supposed to have led him to Gilles’ room; Gilles is supposed to have ordered her to lead him to the doorman at Machecoul, which she is supposed to have done. The mother and six people from the same parish testified to that disappearance (pp. 155, 161, 266, 269-270, and 273-274).
Around June 26 Murder of Jean Hubert
According to the testimonies, Jean and Nicole Hubert’s son, named Jean like his father, was killed by Gilles de Rais at Hotel de La Suze. Of all the presumed victims of Gilles de Rais, this Jean Hubert, age fourteen, is without a doubt the one which the depositions allow us to know the fate of the most precisely. In the spring of 1438 he still lives with his parents, Jean and Nicole, in the Saint-Leonard parish of Nantes. Later they move to the Saint-Vincent parish. The child continues going to school, at least until his parents entrust him to a certain Mainguy, with whom he lodges. But this Mainguy dies and Jean returns to his parents. We are approaching Saint John’s Day (June 24, 1438).
A man named Pierre Jacquet (or Jucquet), better known as Prince, is staying in Nantes at this time; he is the herald of arms in Gilles’ retinue.
He could have acquired the nickname Princé on account of his family’s origin: Prince, or Prinçay, was a village not far from Chéméré, where Lord de Rais had a castle and stayed occasionally.
Sometime around June 17th, this Prince “employs” the young and “very beautiful” Jean Hubert. He makes him fine promises; he will be his page, and not only the child but his parents will benefit greatly by this.
The child recounts to his parents how Prince, his master, is frightened of his own horse; he does not dare to mount it for fear of being killed …
The “employment” lasts eight days, until Saint John’s Day. But already the parents have reason to be disappointed. The child should have been better lodged, and the promises are not kept. Prince stops speaking of retaining him; the parents would like him to return to school. In fact, Prince hands the child over to Gilles’ valet Henriet Griart, who leads him to the Hotel de La Suze where he meets a gentleman, evidently a Scotsman, in Gilles’ military retinue. Little Jean speaks of him as a “proper gentleman,” and the parents’ testimony calls him Spadine (which probably corresponds to Spalding).
Little Jean expects to benefit from “Spadine” also; this “proper gentleman” is expected to leave with him for a distant land. We are forced to anticipate his approaching disappearance … Spadine is apparently charged with seducing the child who seems, to the master’s handymen, to agree with his tastes. Henriet, on the other hand, speaks of making the child into one of Gilles’ valets, in the place of Poitou, who was going to retire and go home. Promises cost nothing to smooth talkers; they knew his death was imminent …
(1438)
Whatever the case, the parents accept everything, having been reassured by Spadine. (In fact, in the capacity of both accomplice and killer, Spadine figures in the bill of indictment; but, apparently by escape, he seems to have avoided arrest).
Little Jean could have run into Spadine at La Suze as of June 18th. On the 17th he is still with Prince, whom he leaves the same day, provided with Spadine’s assurances. He spends the night with his parents, who give their consent; from then on he will take up quarters at Hotel de La Suze, where he lodges until his death eight days later, when he is violently slain with the Marshal’s
braquemard.
braquemard.
Moreover, during these last seven days the parents see him continually … This is when Gilles “was absent for four or five days,” leaving some of his men and the child at the Hotel de La Suze. Having returned, the great lord admits the valet into his room to clean and shows him kindness, gives him some white wine to drink, has Spadine provide him again … with a round loaf of bread especially baked for him. Again the child gives his mother the loaf, telling her that Spadine wants him to stay with him, to ride with him in the company of Lord de Rais, and the mother says that it is all right. The child said goodbye to his mother several times that day and, in fact, “left … the very next day,” and she never saw him again nor knew what became of him. This final separation would have taken place June 26th, 1438, the Thursday following Saint John’s Day.
If we can trust the parents’ testimony of what happened after June 26th, Lord de Rais stayed fifteen days at Nantes in his hotel. Then Spadine sends for the father, asking him what happened to the child. Stupefied, the father demands his child back from the “proper gentleman.” He entrusted little Jean to Spadine. Now the father, taken for a fool, is accused of having lost the child himself. The parents complain several times to Lord de Rais’ men. They are told that a Scotsman, who was very fond of him, led him away. Spadine gone, these men pretend to think that he had taken the child away! Desperate now, the father returns to Prince; Prince was to blame, he “had committed a mortal sin for not having really tended and governed the child.” Prince responds that it is not his problem and that “he was undoubtedly with a proper gentleman, who would do him much good.”
People from Nantes who know Hubert and his wife well come to testify; they say that before Saint John’s Day in 1438 they saw the child at home, but that after this date his parents were lamenting his loss, and that no one has seen him again.
Gilles de Rais himself, in his confession, acknowledged killing or causing to be killed two pages, one of them belonging to Pierre Jacquet, commonly called Prince, about eighteen months earlier (theoretically, in the spring of 1440).
The two valets’ testimonies corroborate their master’s. Poitou declares that he delivered him “to be a valet” in his place. Henriet specifies that Gilles abused the child “sexually and shamefully, in his unnatural lust,” until he finally killed him by his own hand (pp. 155, 161, 200, 227, 236, 267, 269, 272 and 273).
August
Jean Fougère’s son, from the Saint-Donatien parish near Nantes, is very beautiful; he is twelve years old; he is lost in the month of August 1438, and nobody knows what happened to him. True, nothing proves that Gilles de Rais was responsible for his disappearance. We do not even know whether he was at Nantes then (p. 269).
September Murder of Peronne Loessart’s son
Returning from Vannes, apparently on his way to Machecoul, Lord de Rais stops at Roche-Bernard, where he stays with a certain Jean Colin. Poitou obtains consent from Peronne Loessart to entrust her ten-year-old son to him. A schoolboy, he is one of the most beautiful children in the region. Poitou promises Peronne that he will continue sending the child to school, where he learns so well. Poitou was to provide the unfortunate child “with many advantages.” He adds that the child “would be the source of numerous benefits” for Poitou himself. Moreover, Poitou promises Peronne one hundred sous for a dress. But a little later, Poitou gives her four pounds. Peronne responds that one pound is missing, one hundred sous making five pounds. Poitou denies this; he never promised five pounds. Thereupon the valet escorts the young Loessart to Jean Colin’s house. He is charged with escorting him to Machecoul where, as Poitou himself testifies, he will have his throat cut.
The day after the child is delivered, Peronne sees her son and Lord de Rais leaving the house of Jean Colin together. Speaking to the great lord, the mother attempts to get her child back. But Gilles does not deign to respond. He turns to Poitou, who is there: “the child,” he says, was “well chosen” because he is “as beautiful as an angel.” “Not long after this,” he accompanies the murderer “on a pony that the said Poitou had bought from Jean Colin.”
(1438)
This last fellow and his wife ()live testify at the trial; they confirm that in the month of September 1438 Gilles de Rais, coming from Vannes, lodged with them, and that Poitou obtained consent from Peronne Loessart to entrust her son to him. Two or three months later, Colin comes across the pony ridden by another. To the women complaining of no news of the child, some of Lord de Rais’ men respond that he is at Tiffauges while others say that he is dead. He died, they say, crossing over the bridges of Nantes: “the wind had blown him into the river.” They pretend, finally, that Poitou left the region, that he went in the direction of Redon (pp. 253, 254).
Around September
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