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
Trial of Gilles De Rais (41 page)
Interrogated as to the manner by which they determined the number of bodies, he responded that this would be by their head count; but he could not recall their true number, were it not that he knew for sure that there had been thirty-six, or forty-six, and he would have not otherwise recollected.
Item, he stated and deposed that the said bones were brought to Machecoul, into the room of said Gilles, the accused, and burned in the presence of the said Gilles, Gilles de Sillé, Jean Rossignol, André Buchet, Henriet Griart, and him, the witness.
Interrogated as to what was done with the ashes of the said burned bones, he responded that they were thrown into the pits or moats of the castle at Machecoul.
Interrogated as to by whom, he responded: by himself, the witness, and by the said Griart, Buchet, and Rossignol.
Interrogated as to why the bones were not burned at Champtocé, he responded that it could not be done, because after Gilles had recovered possession of the said place, he handed the castle over to the Lord Duke, or had it handed over to him in his name, or by his mandate.
Interrogated as to why the said bones were already desiccated, he responded: because of the length of time since they had been thrown into the said tower, before the taking of the castle, which after its capture Lord de La Suze held for as long as three years
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or thereabouts.
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or thereabouts.
Interrogated as to the person who killed the said children and deposited the bones in the tower, he responded that he did not know, but that before the capture of the castle Milord Roger de Briqueville, knight, and Gilles de Sillé called frequently on the said Gilles and knew his secrets, according to what he had heard, and he believed that they were well aware of it, but he does not know any more than that.
Moreover, the said witness stated and deposed that the said Sillé, Henriet, and he, the witness, found and led to the said Gilles de Rais, the accused, in his room, many boys and girls on whom to practice his lascivious debaucheries, as indicated below in greater detail, and they did so by order of the said Gilles, the accused.
Interrogated as to the number, he said very likely up to forty.
Interrogated as to the place or places to which the children were conveyed, he responded: sometimes to Nantes, sometimes to Machecoul, sometimes to Tiffauges, and elsewhere.
Interrogated as to the number of children that were given to the said Gilles, the accused, in each of the said places by him, the witness, and the said Sillé and Griart, he responded that in Nantes he saw fourteen or fifteen, and at Machecoul, the greater share of the said forty, otherwise he could not state the exact number.
Item, he stated and deposed that in order to practice his unnatural debaucheries and lascivious passions with the said children, boys and girls, the said Gilles de Rais first took his penis or virile member into one or the other of his hands, rubbed it, made it erect, or stretched it, then put it between the thighs or legs of the said boys and girls, bypassing the natural vessel of the said girls, rubbing his said penis or virile member on the bellies of the said boys and girls with great pleasure, passion, and lascivious concupiscence, until sperm was ejaculated on their bellies.
Item, he stated and deposed that before perpetrating his debaucheries on the said boys and girls, to prevent their cries, and so that they would not be heard, the said Gilles de Rais sometimes hung them by his own hand, sometimes had others suspend them by the neck, with ropes or cords, on a peg or small hook in his room; then he let them down or had them let down, cajoled them, assuring them that he did not want to hurt them or do them harm, that, on the contrary, it was to have fun with them, and to this end he prevented them from crying out.
Item, that when the said Gilles de Rais committed his horrible debaucheries and sins of lust on the said boys and girls, he killed them or had them killed thereafter.
Interrogated as to who killed them, he responded that occasionally the said Gilles, the accused, killed them by his own hand, occasionally he had them killed by the said Sillé or Henriet or him, the witness, or by anyone among them, together or separately. Interrogated as to the manner, he responded: sometimes beheading or decapitating them, sometimes cutting their throats, sometimes dismembering them, and sometimes breaking their necks with a cudgel; and that there was a sword dedicated to their execution, commonly called a
braquemard
.
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braquemard
.
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Interrogated as to whether the said Gilles de Rais perpetrated his lusts only once or more often on the said children, boys or girls, he answered only once, or twice at most, on each of them.
Item, moreover, he stated and deposed that the said Gilles de Rais sometimes practiced his lusts on the said boys and girls before injuring them, but rarely; other times, and often, after their suspension or before other injuries, sometimes after cutting into a vein in their neck or throat, the blood spurting, or having others make the cut, and other times after their deaths and when their throats had been cut, as long as the bodies were warm.
Item, he stated and deposed that the said Gilles de Rais practiced his lascivious debaucheries on the girls in the same way as he abused the boys, disdaining and bypassing their sex, and that he had heard several people say that he took infinitely greater pleasure in becoming debauched on the said girls thus, as abovesaid, than in using the appropriate vessel in a normal manner.
Interrogated as to what was done with the said boys and girls after their deaths, or with their cadavers, he responded that they were burned with their clothes.
Interrogated as to who made the fire, he responded that he, the witness, and Henriet often did.
Interrogated as to the manner, he responded that it was done on andirons in the room of the said Gilles, with thick pieces of wood, thereafter arranging faggots on the dead bodies, and kindling a large fire; they laid the clothes piece by piece on the fire, where they were consumed, so that they burned more slowly and no one would smell the nasty odor.
Interrogated as to the place where they threw the ashes or dust, he responded: sometimes in the sewers, other times in the pits or
moats
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or other hiding places, according to the various spots.
moats
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or other hiding places, according to the various spots.
Interrogated as to the place of the murders, he responded as above: sometimes at Machecoul, for the largest share of them, and sometimes at Tiffauges and elsewhere.
Item, he stated and deposed that the largest part and number of the said boys and girls who had been lasciviously abused by the said Gilles de Rais and killed during the time when he, the witness, was in his service, were taken among the poor asking for alms, as much by the said Gilles as otherwise; that occasionally the said Gilles chose according to his pleasure, and occasionally he had the said Sillé, Henriet and him, the witness, choose, who then brought them secretly to the said Gilles in his room.
Item, he stated and deposed that Catherine, the wife of a painter named Thierry, then living in Nantes, entrusted the said Henriet with her brother, to bring him to the said Gilles de Rais and get him admitted among the children in his chapel, or at least with this hope, according to what the witness had heard this same Henriet claim; the said Henriet led the child to the said Gilles and delivered him to Machecoul. And not long afterwards, the said Gilles carnally and lasciviously soiled the said child and killed him by his own hand.
Interrogated as to how he knew this, he responded that he was there and saw Gilles do it.
Item, the present witness stated and deposed that, by order of the said Gilles, and thinking to merit his recognition thereby, he conducted a young and beautiful boy from La Roche-Bernard, in the diocese of Nantes, to Machecoul and handed him over to the said Gilles, who committed on him his abominable, lascivious crimes; until finally the young boy had his neck cut like the aforesaid others.
Item, he stated and deposed that the said Gilles took possession of a young boy who was the page of Master François Prelati, who was also very beautiful himself; and the said Gilles de Rais, after having abused him lasciviously, killed him or had him killed in the abovesaid manner.
Item, he stated and deposed that during Pentecost in 1439,
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he, the witness, together with the said Henriet, took from Bourgneuf, in the parish of Saint-Cyr, in the diocese of Nantes, a very beautiful adolescent, approximately fifteen years old, who was staying with a man named Rodigo; and they led him to the said Gilles who was then lodging with the Cordeliers of the same place, where the said Gilles committed and exercised his lusts on the said child, in the aforesaid execrable manner, and the said witness and Henriet, by order of the said Gilles, killed the said child and brought him to the castle at Machecoul where they burned him in the room of the said Gilles, the accused.
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he, the witness, together with the said Henriet, took from Bourgneuf, in the parish of Saint-Cyr, in the diocese of Nantes, a very beautiful adolescent, approximately fifteen years old, who was staying with a man named Rodigo; and they led him to the said Gilles who was then lodging with the Cordeliers of the same place, where the said Gilles committed and exercised his lusts on the said child, in the aforesaid execrable manner, and the said witness and Henriet, by order of the said Gilles, killed the said child and brought him to the castle at Machecoul where they burned him in the room of the said Gilles, the accused.
Item, he stated and deposed that two and a half years before, as it seems to him,
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a certain inhabitant of Nantes and native thereof, named Pierre Jacquet, commonly called Prince, who had a young, extremely suitable page of approximately fourteen living with him, gave this young boy to the said Gilles, the accused, to be his valet and his servant in place of him, the witness, who was then proposing to retire from service and had many times asked permission of the said Gilles de Rais; who, after having made use of the said adolescent in his lascivious debaucheries, as he had done with the others, killed him by his own hand.
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a certain inhabitant of Nantes and native thereof, named Pierre Jacquet, commonly called Prince, who had a young, extremely suitable page of approximately fourteen living with him, gave this young boy to the said Gilles, the accused, to be his valet and his servant in place of him, the witness, who was then proposing to retire from service and had many times asked permission of the said Gilles de Rais; who, after having made use of the said adolescent in his lascivious debaucheries, as he had done with the others, killed him by his own hand.
Item, he deposed and stated that a certain André Buchet, who was first in the chapel of the said Gilles de Rais and then in that of the Lord Duke, had led a child of approximately nine from the vicinity of Vannes all the way to Machecoul to the said Gilles, who received him, through one of his servants, named Raoulet; and the said child was dressed as a page, and to pay him back, the said Gilles gave the said Buchet a horse that Pierre Heaume had given him, which was valued at sixty gold royals; and the said Gilles practiced his lascivious debaucheries on the said child, who was then killed like the aforesaid others.
Item, the witness, present and hearing, stated and deposed that the said Gilles de Rais sometimes boasted of taking greater pleasure in killing and cutting the throats of the said boys and girls or having them killed, in seeing them languish and die, and in cutting off their heads and members and in seeing their blood, than in practicing his lust on them.
Item, he stated and deposed that when the said Gilles de Rais found or saw two boys or girls, brothers or sisters, or otherwise related, if one of them were not to his liking, and if he only wanted to practice his lust and become debauched on one but not the other, in order not to alert the displeasing one the other’s having been taken, the said Gilles, the accused, took both of them, or had both taken, and practiced on him who was to his liking his carnal abominations in the manner expressed above, then cut both their throats or had them cut, one and the other.
Item, he said and deposed that the said Gilles, the accused, once performed the said carnal act on him, the witness, in the manner described above, as soon as he, the witness, came to stay with the said Gilles, and he said that he was afraid of being killed by him; and he thinks that he would have been, with a dagger, if the said Sillé had not prevented the said Gilles from doing so, saying that he was a pretty lad and that it was better that the said Gilles make him his page; and the said accused became enamored of him, the witness, and demanded that he take an oath not to reveal any of this or of his other secrets in any fashion.
Item, he stated and deposed that he heard it said by Master Eustache Blanchet, priest, who frequently saw the said Gilles de Rais, that he could not accomplish what he was intending to do and had undertaken, without giving or offering the devil a child’s foot, hand, or other member.
Interrogated as to whether he saw or knew that some of the said members were given or offered to demons by the said Gilles, he responded no. But when in the company of others, he had once seen the said Gilles, after having taken the hand (he does not know whether it was the right or left) and heart of a child killed by his order in the castle at Tiffauges, put the said hand and heart in a glass chalice
on a cyma
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of the fireplace in his room, and cover them with a linen cloth, telling the witness and the said Henriet to close and lock the said room.
on a cyma
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of the fireplace in his room, and cover them with a linen cloth, telling the witness and the said Henriet to close and lock the said room.
Interrogated as to what was done with the said members, he responded that he did not know, but he believed that the said Gilles, the accused, subsequently gave them to the said Master François Prelati to be offered to the Devil.
Item, he stated and deposed that the said Gilles de Sillé reported to him, the witness, and the said Henriet, that a fortnight or three weeks before Lords de La Suze and Lohéac arrived at the castle at Machecoul, the said Sillé, according to what he told him, the witness, and the said Henriet had removed and taken away from a tower near the lower hall of the said castle the bones of approximately forty children, and had them burned; and on that subject the same Sillé said that it happened in the nick of time for the said Gilles, the accused, Sillé himself, and all others who loved, and were loved by, the same Gilles, the accused. Thereupon, talking about these things to the witness and the said Henriet, the aforenamed Sillé told them, in French: “Wasn’t Milord Roger de Briqueville a traitor to have asked Robin Romulart and me to watch Lady Jarville and Thomin d’Araguin through a slit when we removed the said bones? and his knowing full well everything that had been done?”
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