Trial of Gilles De Rais (27 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
Unfortunately, the theoretician of totemism elaborated his thesis before attaining a sufficient understanding of the trial against which he had inscribed himself. He advanced his arguments before having read the civil trial, contenting himself with the ecclesiastical trial, just published in 1902. Consequently he had to contest Noel Valois’ argument, which was based on the precise testimonies received by the secular court. He should have been able to see his mistake when his principal arguments fell apart, but honesty is sometimes difficult, and evidently he became sincerely entangled. Let us recognize, on the other hand, that the hesitation of an authorized historian
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could have encouraged him. But he did not have the experience that familiarity with the documents would have given him. It seems pointless to me to enter into too-detailed of an argument here. It is difficult while reading the testimonies and confessions below not to be seized by emotions that a hoax could hardly provide. That emotion is compounded by a multitude of lively, striking, overwhelming details … Of course, it is not immediately conclusive; it is always possible to imagine a fabrication. But the reader, who can henceforth even here refer to the documents, will be the judge; if the testimonies provided in this publication are fabricated, the author or authors of the fraud merit admiration. In a nutshell, Salomon Reinach’s argument does not hold up in the light. It implies a sketchy familiarity, an ignorance, or a lack of prolonged contact. The texts and detailed analyses of the present publication were considered beforehand in such a manner that the opinion of the guarantor of Saïtapharnès’ tiara can finally — decisively — be forgotten.
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could have encouraged him. But he did not have the experience that familiarity with the documents would have given him. It seems pointless to me to enter into too-detailed of an argument here. It is difficult while reading the testimonies and confessions below not to be seized by emotions that a hoax could hardly provide. That emotion is compounded by a multitude of lively, striking, overwhelming details … Of course, it is not immediately conclusive; it is always possible to imagine a fabrication. But the reader, who can henceforth even here refer to the documents, will be the judge; if the testimonies provided in this publication are fabricated, the author or authors of the fraud merit admiration. In a nutshell, Salomon Reinach’s argument does not hold up in the light. It implies a sketchy familiarity, an ignorance, or a lack of prolonged contact. The texts and detailed analyses of the present publication were considered beforehand in such a manner that the opinion of the guarantor of Saïtapharnès’ tiara can finally — decisively — be forgotten.
I will only insist on one argument, in view of illuminating one surprising aspect of the documents provided here. We read on pages 277-278 of Salomon Reinach’s study: “The two most damaging depositions for the prosecution, those by Henriet and Poitou, Gilles’ servants, bear on facts already several years removed from very complex crimes; but they agree in the minutest details; there is not a single important contradiction among them; there is not, not in the one nor the other, any of the omissions which one would naturally expect.”
Let us add that Reinach could not have produced evidence at the moment he was writing these lines (when he had formed his opinion he was not aware, as we have said, of the civil trial documents): at least one of the confessions by these same Henriet and Poitou that the civil court received — Poitou’s — comes close, if not literally then just short of that, to the deposition before the ecclesiastical court. That this is bizarre, shocking even, goes without saying. But without going further, is it sensible to draw from such facts the proof of falsification? Would it be impossible to imagine that the interrogation of the two witnesses, known in advance to have witnessed the same scenes together, being conducted by the same judges — these judges proceeding in a patently censurable manner by framing the question according to the preceding deposition — theoretically in order to confirm? Likewise, to speed things up, the secular interrogation of Poitou must have proceeded with responses he had made earlier to the ecclesiastical judges. Salomon Reinach insists on one point in particular. Not only in Poitou and Henriet’s depositions before the ecclesiastical judges (dated October 17th: pp. 232 and 234), but in Gilles’ own confession (dated October 22nd: p. 196), it is told how Gilles, sitting on the bellies of the victims while they were dying, delighted in watching them die. The trouble taken by the same judge to repeat the question on such a point after the first response does not seem so strange to me. And that he would have reproduced the phrases he had before his eyes is explainable: could he have not helped himself to the phrases already put down, being satisfied with the respondent’s consistency in answering, and neglecting to find any new or different expression? The fact that the Latin phrases of the documents indirectly translate the responses made personally and directly in French suffices to account for Salomon Reinach’s surprise to the point of his writing: “… suspicion becomes (under these conditions) the certitude of fraud … !”
Such frivolity is, above all things, surprising. Let us add that the first statement on which his argument is based is not of a nature to give it much weight. According to Salomon Reinach, these depositions “bear on facts already several years removed.” It is enough to look at the documents: the crimes in which Henriet and Poitou are both recorded to have assisted multiplied from 1435 to 1440, and up to the day of the criminal’s arrest!
It would be easy to show how, in other areas, Salomon Reinach’s thesis involves mistakes and moot judgments.
I think it is pointless to insist.
I believe only that it is necessary to finish by stating the decisive reason I have for believing in the authenticity of the documents.
I have already said to what point these documents’ fabrication was, effectively, unthinkable. Unthinkable because of their coherence. The coherence only suffers secondary imperfections. Who could imagine a similar voluminous document where the logic never suffered? But it only suffers quite rarely, and essentially it is strikingly rigorous. Who in the 15th century, before Sade, before Freud, could have correctly depicted, without a false note, these horrible butcheries,
which would not be realistic in the absence of modern knowledge?
which would not be realistic in the absence of modern knowledge?
Salomon Reinach, in effect, lacked this knowledge; faced with these insane murders, he imagined them to simply be a classic case of Medieval indictments, artificially brought against those one wanted to ruin: Templars, Jews, heretics. He had no idea of the cesspool above which monstrous desires multiply. Gilles de Rais’ atrocities possessed no reality in his mind. He considered this trial an invention in the same way that he considered psychoanalytic hypotheses as ignominious. He was the opposite of a generation that sees with both eyes open, and that is today no longer surprised to learn that a female Gilles de Rais existed …
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that knows, above all, that child murders heightened by sexual desire are unfortunately frequent.
TWO BRETON LEGENDS: GILLES DE RAIS-BLUEBEARD61
that knows, above all, that child murders heightened by sexual desire are unfortunately frequent.
For a long time I have been anxious to cite (pp. 19-21) Abbot Bossard’s original inquiry into the local traditions relating the legend of Bluebeard to the story of Gilles de Rais. In tracing it, the author reproduces two texts
62
borrowed from the
Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX
e
siecle,
by Pierre Larousse.
63
I feel obliged to reproduce them here in turn. Above all, it is the first of them that succeeds in giving an indication that nothing is exactly situated, but is no less moving, in the formation of a legend based on frightening crimes. The following text is a Breton lament, obviously drawn up in old Breton, and given in translation in an anthology by Count Amezeuil.
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62
borrowed from the
Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX
e
siecle,
by Pierre Larousse.
63
I feel obliged to reproduce them here in turn. Above all, it is the first of them that succeeds in giving an indication that nothing is exactly situated, but is no less moving, in the formation of a legend based on frightening crimes. The following text is a Breton lament, obviously drawn up in old Breton, and given in translation in an anthology by Count Amezeuil.
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OLD MAN. — “Lasses of Pléeur, why so silent then? Why go you not to feasts and gatherings?”LASSES. — “Ask us why the nightingale keeps silent in the wood, and who causes the orioles and bullfinches to stop singing their sweetest songs.”OLD MAN. — “Pardon, lasses, but I am a stranger; I come from afar, from beyond the land of Tréguier and Léon, and I know not wherefore the sadness o’ershadowing your faces.”LASSES. — “We cry for Gwennola, the most beautiful and beloved amongst us.”OLD NAN. — “And what has happened to Cwennola? … You keep yourselves silent, lasses! … What has happened here then?”LASSES. — “Las! alas! the villain Bluebeard has done the gentle Cwennola in, as he did his wives in!”OLD MAN,
with terror:
— “Does Blucbeard live near here? Ah! escape, escape quickly, children! The wolf who ravishes be ne’er more terrible than the ferocious baron; the bear be gentler than the damned Baron de Rais.”LASSES. — “We cannot escape: we are serfs of the barony of Rais, and body and soul we belong to Lord Bluebeard.”OLD MAN. — “I will deliver you, I, for I am Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, and I have sworn to protect my flock.”LASSES. — “Gilles de Laval does not believe in God!” OLD MAN. — “He shall die a terrible death! I swear by the living God! …”
Here is the end of that plaint:
Today the lasses of Pléeur sing with open hearts and go dancing to feasts and pilgrimages. The nightingale’s sweet accents echo in the wood; the orioles and bullfinches resound their gentlest songs; all of nature has once again put on its festive attire: Gilles de Laval is no more! Bluebeard is dead!
You can see how this version of the legend tries to reconcile the story of the seven wives with the true story of Gilles de Rais, who, not being a murderer of his wives any more than of girls, killed young boys. However, he also did kill girls; and it is Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, who in fact has him condemned.
The great Larousse dictionary fails to give the source of the second legend known to him, which Bossard also reproduces, and which I shall cite now:
Weary of fighting against the English, Milord Gilles de Laval retired to his castle in Rais, between Elven and Questembert. He spent all his time “at celebrations, banquets and merry-making.” One evening there passed by the castle, on his way to Morlaix, a knight, Count Odon de Tréméac, Lord of Krevent and other places; beside him was riding a beautiful young lady, Blanche de L’Herminière, his fiancée. Gilles de Rais invited them to rest awhile and emptied a glass of hippocras with them. But Gilles de Rais became so pressing, and above all so friendly, that evening came before anyone had thought of leaving. Suddenly, with a signal by the lord, archers seized Count Odon de Tréméac, whom they threw into a deep prison; then Gilles broached marriage to the young girl. Blanche shed abundant tears, while the chapel lighted up with a thousand candles, and the clock tolled joyously, and everyone prepared for the nuptials. Blanche was led to the foot of the altar; she was pale like a beautiful lily and trembling all over. Monsignor de Laval, superbly dressed, and whose beard was a most beautiful red, came and stood beside her: — “Come, Milord Chaplain, marry us.” — “I will not take Monsignor for my husband!” cried Blanche de L’Herminière. — “And I, I want us to be married.” — “Do nothing of the kind, Milord Priest,” responded the young girl sobbing. — “Obey, I order you.” Then, as Blanche was attempting to escape, Gilles de Rais grabbed her in his arms. — “I will give you,” he says, “the most beautiful finery.” — “Let go!” — “To you my castles, my woods, my fields, my meadows!” — “Let go!” — “To you my body and my soul! …” — “I accept! I accept! do you hear me, Gilles de Rais? I accept; and from now on you belong to me.” Just then Blanche changed into an azure-blue devil, taking her place beside the baron. — “Curses” cried the latter. — “Gilles de Laval,” says the demon with a sudden, sinister laugh, “God has abandoned you for your crimes; you belong to Hell now and from this day forward you shall wear its livery.” At the same time he makes a sign and Gilles de Laval’s beard, from the red that it was, turned the darkest hue. And that is not all; the demon says again: “You shall no longer be Gilles de Laval in the future; you shall be Bluebeard, the most terrifying man, a bogeyman for young children. Your name shall be cursed for all eternity and after your death your ashes shall be scattered to the wind, while your villainous soul shall drop to Hell.” Gilles shrieked that he was repenting. The devil told him of his numerous victims, of his seven wives whose cadavers lay buried in vaults within the castle. He added: “Lord Odon de Tréméac, whom I accompanied in the disguise of Blanche de L’Herminière, rides at this very moment on the road from Elven in the company of all the gentlemen of Redon.” — “And what do they want?” — “To avenge the deaths of all those you’ve killed.” — “Then I’m done for?” — “Not yet, because your hour hasn’t struck yet.” — “Who’ll stop them then?” — “I, who have need of your help and aid, my good knight.” — “Would you do that?” — “Yes, I will; for, alive, you’re worth a thousand times more than dead. And as for now, see you later, Gilles de Rais, and remember, you belong to me body and soul.” He kept his word in stopping the gentlemen riders of Redon; but from then on, Gilles was always known by the name of the man with a blue beard.
Even though the writer of this version of the legend did not know that Rais’ body was not reduced to ashes after his execution, he did have a relatively precise knowledge of events. It appears he must have known that at some point the demonic Marshal, who had proposed a pact with the devil, would have been careful to refrain from promising his body and soul (“his life and his soul” to be exact), which the devil took possession of by way of a ruse.
The Trial Documents of Gilles de Rais
« PART ONE »
Verdict of the Ecclesiastical Court
July 29, 1440. Letters from the Bishop of Nantes. Information on the secret ecclesiastical inquiry and disclosure of Gilles de Rais’ infamy.
To those who may see the present letters, we, Jean, by divine permission and the grace of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Nantes, give Our Lord’s blessing, and ask that they lend credence to the present letters.
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