Trial of Gilles De Rais (28 page)

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Authors: George Bataille

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Let it be known by these letters that, on visiting the parish of Saint-Marie, in Nantes, where Gilles de Rais, designated below, often resides in the house commonly called La Suze, and is a parishioner of the said church, and on visiting other church parishes designated below, frequent and public rumor first reached us, then complaints and declarations by good and discreet people: Agathe, the wife of Denis de Lemion; the widow of the deceased Regnaud Donete, of the said parish of Notre-Dame; Jeanne, the widow of Guibelet Delit, of Saint-Denis; Jean Hubert and his wife, of Saint-Vincent; Marthe, the widow of the deceased Éonnet Kerguen, of Saint-Croix-de-Nantes; Jeanne, the wife of Jean Darel, of Saint-Similien, near Nantes; and Tiphaine, the wife of Éonnet Le Charpentier, of Saint-Clément-hors-les-murs, of Nantes; all parishioners of the aforesaid churches, supported by synodic witnesses of the said churches and other prudent, discreet, and trusted persons.
We, visiting these same churches according to our office, have had them diligently examined and by their depositions have learned, among other things of which we have become convinced, that the nobleman, Milord Gilles de Rais, knight, lord, and baron of the said place, our subject and under our jurisdiction, with certain accomplices, did cut the throats of, kill, and heinously massacre many young and innocent boys, that he did practice with these children unnatural lust and the vice of sodomy, often calls up or causes others to practice the dreadful invocation of demons, did sacrifice to and make pacts with the latter, and did perpetrate other enormous crimes within the limits of our jurisdiction; and we have learned by the investigations of our commissioners and procurators that the said Gilles had committed and perpetrated the abovementioned crimes and other debaucheries in our diocese as well as in several other outlying locations.
On the subject of which offenses, the said Gilles de Rais was and is still defamed among serious and honorable persons. In order to dispel any doubts in the matter, we have prescribed the present letters and put our seal upon them.
Given in Nantes, July 29, 1440.
By mandate of the said Lord Bishop of Nantes,
[Signed:]
j. Petit.
 
September 13, 1440. Letters from the Bishop of Nantes. Summons of Gilles de Rais before the ecclesiastic tribunal.
We, Jean, Bishop of Nantes, by the grace of God and the Holy Apostolic See, to each and every one of the rectors and their vicars of church parishes, chaplains, curates and non-curates, clerics, notaries and notaries public, constituents of our city and diocese of Nantes, and to each of them in particular, send Our Lord’s blessing and request their firm obedience to our mandates.
You should know that recently in our city and diocese of Nantes, and principally in the church parishes of Notre-Dame, Saint-Denis, Saint-Nicolas, Saint-Vincent and Saint-Croix of Nantes, Saint-Similien near Nantes, Saint-Clement-hors-les-murs of Nantes, and Saint-Cyr-en-Rais, in our said diocese, in the course of our visit to which we are bound by our pastoral office, we listened repeatedly to the shocking complaints made by as many good and discreet synodic witnesses of the said churches as by several other credible people of probity, at the same time as by many parishioners of these same churches, whose depositions we have directed our notaries public and scribes to draw up and publish in the registers of the said pastoral visits, and as well by the oft-repeated public rumor as by the preceding denunciations, we discovered that the nobleman, Milord Gilles de Rais, baron of the said lands in our diocese, had killed, cut the throats of, and massacred many innocent children in an inhuman fashion, and with them committed, against nature, the abominable and execrable sin of sodomy, in various fashions and with unheard-of perversions that cannot presently be expounded upon by reason of their horror, but that will be disclosed in Latin at the appropriate time and place; that he had often and repeatedly practiced the dreadful invocation of demons and took care that it be practiced; that he sacrificed and made offerings to these same demons, contracted with them; and wickedly perpetrated other crimes and offenses, professing doctrinal heresy in offense against Divine Majesty, in the subversion and distortion of our faith, offering a pernicious example unto many.
We, not intending that like crimes and a like heretical malady, which “spreads like a canker” if not immediately extirpated, should go unremarked because of dissimulation or heedlessness; moreover, desiring to apply suitable remedies swiftly, by the terms of the present letters, require and demand of you, each and every one, barring one’s relying on another, or exculpating himself through another, that you peremptorily summon, by a single peremptory edict, to appear before Us or our official in Nantes, on the Monday following the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, namely September 19th, the noble Lord Gilles de Rais, knight, our subject and justiciable in this case, whom We summon accordingly by the terms of the present letters before Us as well as before the case prosecutor of our court in Nantes, charged with proceeding in the affair, in order to answer for its protection in the name of faith, as well as law; and for this, it is Our wish that our present letters be duly executed by you or by another among you.
Given the previous Tuesday,
65
September 13th, in the year of the Lord 1440.
Signed as such: by mandate of the said Lord Bishop,
Jean Guiolé
who transcribed it.
 
Legal notice for the letters of September 13, 1440.
I, Robin Guillaumet, cleric, notary public in the diocese of Nantes, was careful to render executory as intended these letters promulgated against the said Gilles, knight, baron of Rais, named as principal in this same writ, and executed by me in my own right this September 14th, in the aforesaid year, according to the form and manner mandated by the same letters.
II
 
RECORDS OF THE HEARINGS
 
Monday, September 19, 1440.
Gilles de Rais’ first appearance.
 
The Monday following the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, in trial before the Reverend Father, Lord Bishop of Nantes, sitting on the bench to administer the law in the great hall of La Tour Neuve in Nantes, personally appeared the honorable Master Guillaume Chapeillon, case prosecutor of the said court, reproducing in fact the said summons inserted above, with the published execution, on the one side, and the said Milord Gilles, knight and baron, the accused, on the other.
Which Milord Gilles, knight and baron, after numerous accusations on the part of said prosecutor against the said Milord Gilles, to ascertain whether he would admit to doctrinal heresy, insofar as the said prosecutor affirmed, expressed a desire to appear personally before the said Reverend Father, Lord Bishop of Nantes, and before any other ecclesiastical judges, as well as before whatsoever examiner of heresy, to clear himself of the same accusations. Whereupon the said Reverend Father Bishop fixed and assigned to Milord Gilles, aforesaid knight and baron, and consenting thereto, the 28th of the said month, to appear also before the male religious, Friar Jean Blouyn, Vice-Inquisitor into Heresy in the aforesaid realm, to answer for the crimes and offenses brought against him by the said prosecutor, in order to proceed, with the aforesaid Reverend Father Bishop, Vice-Inquisitor, and prosecutor, in the name of faith as well as law and as it ought to be, and was assigned to the said prosecutor.
In the said place in the presence of discreet men, Master Olivier Solidé, of Bouveron, Milord Jean Durand, of Blain, church parish rectors in the Nantes diocese, witnesses specially called and requested.
[Signed in the margin:]
J. Delaunay, notary
,
J. Petit and G
.
Lesné.
 
Wednesday, September 28, 1440.
Hearing of complaints in Gilles de Rais’ absence, whose second appearance is adjourned to October 8.
 
In the name of the Lord, amen.
Wednesday, September 28, 1440, the tenth year of the pontificate of the Most Holy Father in God, Monsignor Eugène, by Divine Providence Pope, the fourth of that name, and during the general council of Basel, before the Reverend Father of God, Lord Jean de Malestroit, by the grace of God and the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Nantes, and before the male religious, Friar Jean Blouyn, of the Dominican Order, bachelor of Holy Writ, and Vicar of the male religious, Friar Guillaume Mérici, of the aforesaid Dominican Order, professor of theology, Inquisitor into Heresy in the realm of France, delegated by apostolic authority and by this same Friar Guillaume, specially appointed to the office of inquisitor in the city and diocese of Nantes, presently in the chapel of the episcopal manor of Nantes and in the presence of us: Jean Delaunay,
66
Jean Petit, Nicolas Géraud, and Guillaume Lesné, notaries public and scribes before the same in the case and the cases of this order, expected to write faithfully before these same Lords Bishop and Vice-Inquisitor aforesaid on each and every one of the things that occur in the said cases, and, finally, deputized and entrusted to draw this up in a public form, according as they deputized all and every one of us; and in the presence of the witnesses inscribed below, personally appeared the persons named below who exposed to the said Lords Bishop and the aforesaid Vice-Inquisitor, while complaining tearfully and grievously, the loss of their sons, nephews, and others, assuring that the said sons, nephews, and others had been treacherously seized and then inhumanly butchered and massacred by the said Gilles de Rais and certain of his accomplices, abettors, followers, and familiars; that the same had abused them shamefully and unnaturally and that they had wickedly committed the sin of sodomy on them; that they had many times both summoned evil spirits and rendered them homage; that they had perpetrated many other enormous and unusual crimes and offenses as far as ecclesiastical jurisdiction is concerned; which plaintiffs humbly supplicated the said Reverend Lords Bishop of Nantes and Friar Jean Blouyn, Vicar of the aforesaid Inquisitor, to deign to apply a swift, just, and timely remedy to the above appeal.
Agathe, the wife of Denis de Lemion, a parishioner of Notre-Dame-de-Nantes, complained that Colin, her nephew, the son of Guillaume Avril, aged about twenty, who was of small build and pale complexion, so she says, having a particular mark on one of his ears similar to a small ear, left one morning in August 1439, or thereabouts, for the house called La Suze, in Nantes, relatively near the church of Notre-Dame. Which house then belonged to Lord de Rais. And afterwards she never saw the said Colin again and had no more news, until the day when a certain Perrine Martin, known as La Meffraye, was arrested and imprisoned by the secular court of Nantes. After whose arrest, she heard it said by many, and this was the public rumor, that a number of children and young men had been taken and killed by the said Lord de Rais. She does not know for what end.
Item, the widow of the late Regnaud Donete, a parishioner of Notre-Dame-de-Nantes, also complained that Jean, her son, frequented the said house of La Suze and, since Saint John the Baptist’s Day in 1438, she had heard no more news of him, until Perrine Martin, known as La Meffraye, arrested and imprisoned as noted above, confessed that her son had been handed over to the same Lord de Rais and his men.
Jeanne, the wife of Guibelet Delit, a parishioner of Saint-Denis-de-Nantes, complained similarly that Guillaume, her son, frequented the same house of La Suze and that he had gone there during the first week of last Easter. And she heard Master Jean Briand say that he had seen Guillaume in the same house seven or eight days consecutively, and that then he no longer saw her son; moreover, he suspected that her son had disappeared in the same house.
Jean Hubert and his wife, parishioners of Saint-Vincent, of Nantes, complained that one of their boys, named Jean, aged about fourteen, two years ago last Saint John the Baptist’s Day, entered the house of La Suze and returned to his parents’ house; and he told his mother that he had cleaned the said Lord’s room in the house of La Suze, for which he was given a loaf of bread that he carried home and gave her; he told her also that he was in the good graces of the said Lord, who had made him drink some white wine. Once he returned to the house of La Suze, his parents never saw him again.
Jeanne, the wife of Jean Darel, a parishioner of Saint-Similien, near Nantes, complained that on the previous solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, she was returning home around eventide from Notre-Dame-de-Nantes, followed by her son, aged seven or eight, and in the proximity of Saint-Saturnin, of Nantes, she turned about, thinking that he had been following her all that way and was continuously in her company, but she did not see him any more and never has seen him again since.
The widow of Yvon Kerguen, stonecutter, a parishioner of Sainte-Croix, of Nantes, complained that she gave her son to a man named Poitou, a servant of the said Lord de Rais, who had asked her between Easter and last Ascension Day for him to be admitted into the latter’s service, as the same Poitou conformed, which son was about fifteen years old; and she has never seen him again since.
(Hearing of complaints in Gilles de Rais’ absence, whose second appearance is adjourned to October 8).

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