Trial of Gilles De Rais (6 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
In the first place, during his childhood, inasmuch as it seems on account of the bad management of the grandfather, the grandson must have practiced the various illicit acts that were accessible to him slyly and unchecked. As we have seen, he was eleven years old in September 1415 upon the death of his father (which followed several months after the death of his mother). Still, the tutelage of the grandfather had a sense of total freedom for the child. But it was then a question of reprehensible acts — of unquestionably sexual, perhaps sadistic, perversions — but not of crimes.
The crimes, properly speaking the “high and enormous crimes,” date from the “beginning of his youth.”
On this point we cannot be more specific.
On the date of the first child murders, the trial gives two contradictory indications.
According to the bill of indictment, it all began around 1426, fourteen years before the trial: invocations of demons and murders of children. But according to the guilty party’s confessions, which coincide with the first testimonies of the victims’ parents, the first murders dated only from the year of the grandfather’s death, that is from 1432.
The year 1426 would correspond to the beginning of his youth: twenty-two years old. This is the date, moreover, when the campaign into the Maine region begins. Gilles has asked, as of 1424, to take control of the administration of all his goods. In 1426, taking the field, he revels in an increased freedom in addition to his complete personal power.
One conjecture would resolve the difficulty; the “high and enormous crimes” of the beginning of his youth would be separate from the series of child murders that, as of 1432, must have had a certain continuity and given way to a sort of “fixation”: the same procedure, same ceremony, finally, more and more, the same participants. As early as the “beginning of his youth” there would have only been, regarding the words
crime
and
enormity,
the conjury of demons and maybe those cruel brutalities that could then be associated with war.
crime
and
enormity,
the conjury of demons and maybe those cruel brutalities that could then be associated with war.
It is doubtful in my opinion that this reveler who took so much pleasure in spilling blood would not, from the first campaign, have profited from war.
We ought not to lose sight of precisely what we know of Gilles de Rais, or what we know of the wars of this period.
We ought never to forget that in this period of incessant wars, the scenes of slaughter in towns and burning villages had a sort of banality to them. Pillage was then the inevitable means of feeding a voracious soldiery. In every sense, it is certain that war stimulated greed …
I cannot evoke
these fundamental aspects of human life
any better than by recalling how the King of Spain, Philippe II, vomited from his horse during the pillage of Saint-Quentin. But far from vomiting, Gilles evidently found some pleasure in watching the wretches be disemboweled. Faced with the spectacles of war, this pederast must have had occasions to bind his sexual excitement to these butcheries.
these fundamental aspects of human life
any better than by recalling how the King of Spain, Philippe II, vomited from his horse during the pillage of Saint-Quentin. But far from vomiting, Gilles evidently found some pleasure in watching the wretches be disemboweled. Faced with the spectacles of war, this pederast must have had occasions to bind his sexual excitement to these butcheries.
As for these butcheries, and the banality of these butcheries, we can refer to the text of the Archbishop of Reims, Juvénal des Ursins (in his
Epistles
of 1439 and 1440). The prelate contends that not only were such offenses an act of the enemy, but of “no one allied to the King”; locating their indispensable provisions in a village, the soldiers “seized men, women, and children, without distinguishing between age or sex, raping the women and girls; they killed husbands and fathers in the presence of their wives and daughters; they took wet nurses, leaving their babies who died for lack of nourishment; they seized and shackled pregnant women who, in their chains, gave birth to their offspring, which were left to die unbaptized, and they were then going to throw mother and child into the river; they took priests, monks, men of the Church, laborers, shackled them in various manners and thus tormented, beat them, by which certain of them died mutilated, others enraged or out of their senses … They … imprisoned them … , they put them in irons … , in pits, in disgusting places full of vermin, they left them … to die of hunger. Many died of it. And God knows the tyrannies that they did! They roasted one another; they pulled each other’s teeth out, others were beaten with big sticks; they were never set free before having given more money than they possessed …”
9
In 1439, one of Gilles de Rais’ captains just missed being hanged for acts of this very nature. But after 1427 Gilles himself probably had very few occasions in which to participate in these sadistic scenes; after the first campaign, he could have only fought two times: first, beside Joan of Arc, who was violently opposed to lawlessness; and second, in 1432 at Lagny, where it is probable that things did not drag on.
Epistles
of 1439 and 1440). The prelate contends that not only were such offenses an act of the enemy, but of “no one allied to the King”; locating their indispensable provisions in a village, the soldiers “seized men, women, and children, without distinguishing between age or sex, raping the women and girls; they killed husbands and fathers in the presence of their wives and daughters; they took wet nurses, leaving their babies who died for lack of nourishment; they seized and shackled pregnant women who, in their chains, gave birth to their offspring, which were left to die unbaptized, and they were then going to throw mother and child into the river; they took priests, monks, men of the Church, laborers, shackled them in various manners and thus tormented, beat them, by which certain of them died mutilated, others enraged or out of their senses … They … imprisoned them … , they put them in irons … , in pits, in disgusting places full of vermin, they left them … to die of hunger. Many died of it. And God knows the tyrannies that they did! They roasted one another; they pulled each other’s teeth out, others were beaten with big sticks; they were never set free before having given more money than they possessed …”
9
In 1439, one of Gilles de Rais’ captains just missed being hanged for acts of this very nature. But after 1427 Gilles himself probably had very few occasions in which to participate in these sadistic scenes; after the first campaign, he could have only fought two times: first, beside Joan of Arc, who was violently opposed to lawlessness; and second, in 1432 at Lagny, where it is probable that things did not drag on.
In any case, nothing proves that Gilles took part in actual butcheries. We only know that, at Lude, he insisted on hanging French prisoners who had fought with the English and who could have passed for having betrayed their country. It is likely that other captains, more anxious for money, would have preferred a ransom. In his own way Gilles also appreciated money, but he refused to appear to prize it.
Whatever the case, it is difficult to believe that, while he was making war in 1427, the “high and enormous crimes” of the “beginning of his youth” were far removed from the bedlam that the passing men-at-arms brought on. We will see that the sight of human blood and bodies cut open fascinated him. Later he must have only been interested in privileged victims, in children. His curiosity and excitement, however, could have been exhibited earlier on coarser occasions. He would have not spoken of crime, if crime itself had not cruelly intervened; if at that time he had done his killing with a taste for cruelty. It is not certain, but it is believable, and after everything has been said on the subject, it is probable. Doubtless he could have been speaking of crime when referring to invocations of the demon; without a doubt, these began during this period. But the murders which followed from 1432 on, did they have no antecedent? The abuse of children, it seems to me, had a greater chance of degenerating into murder if Rais at some point had had the opportunity to begin amusing himself with blood.
In speaking of this period (he is speaking of this period, apparently, if he is speaking of his youth), he says that he, “for his pleasure and according to his will, had done whatever evil he could”; he also says that at that time he had put “his hope and intention into the illicit and dishonest acts and things that he did.” The opportunity to take pleasure in butchery was too good to pass up. What later became relatively dangerous was absolutely not inconvenient in the field.
Sexual Life: The Child MurdersA description of the monster’s sexual deviations does not, by itself, constitute the hallucinatory aspect of Gilles de Rais’ life; it is, at the same time, the best known aspect. We are familiar with it not only by Lord de Rais’ confessions, but by his valets’ depositions. From various sides, the trial accumulates an abundance of suffocating details. Twice rather than once, what we come to know only rarely — the tastes, the fantasies, the caprices, the preferences of the monster — were noted with a meticulousness which defies decency.
From 1432 on, each of Rais’ residences had a room worthy of the cruel imaginings of Sade, where pleasure was fused to the jerks of dying bodies. There was such a room reserved for horror in the enormous fortress at Champtocé. Maybe his grandfather had just died there? Maybe he finished dying a little later on? The practice of murdering began the year that this grandfather died. Right from the start, surrounded by his companions, Gilles abandoned himself to sensual pleasure. Things were arranged so that if he wanted to do the killing, he could do so himself. Or if he preferred, he prevailed upon Guillaume de Sillé or Roger de Briqueville, his accomplices and cousins, who came from noble families ruined by the war. Often Gilles did the killing himself, in the presence of Sillé and Briqueville; but if it was needed, one of these brigands would lend a hand. All of them lived at the master’s expense; the master paid, but first they procured for him that which he desired.
To begin with, the company gave themselves up to excess; they gorged themselves on fine food and strong drink — but it seems the fanatics never abandoned Gilles to the solitude of blood.
After 1432, Champtocé probably had stopped being used; the house of La Suze at Nantes, the castles at Tiffauges and at Machecoul very quickly took over. Later the participants of these feasts were also completely changed; others entered into the secrets. At first there apparently were singers from the chapel: André Buchet from Vannes and Jean Rossignol of La Rochelle, both of whom apparently had the voices of homosexual angels, and both of whom Gilles made into canons of Saint-Hilaire-de-Poitiers. There was Hicquet de Brémont and Robin Romulart (or “Petit Robin”), who apparently died at the end of 1439. Finally, two valets going by the names of Poitou and Henriet made it into these bloody barracks. Other, younger singers, spared by the master, were used on the days when new victims could not be found; persuaded to keep quiet, they were probably introduced into the secrets … These libidinous abodes at Machecoul and Tiffauges were terrifying … Filled with people, they were terrifying. Even if we forget the frivolity of sorcerers who sought the Devil and priests who sang the Office, they were terrifying … These fortresses had the feeling of diabolical traps. They closed around those children imprudently waiting for alms at their portal. The greatest number of the juvenile victims were taken by this trickery. In this monstrous lawlessness was a suffocating preparation for the worst. Occasionally Gilles himself chose, sometimes he requested Sillés or others to choose. Once the child was brought into Gilles’ room, things abruptly began. Taking his “virile member” in hand, Gilles “rubbed” it, “erected” it, or “stretched” it on the belly of his victim, introducing it between his thighs. He rubbed himself “on the bellies of the … children … , he took great delight, and got so excited that the sperm, criminally and in a way it ought not, spurted onto the bellies of the said children.” With each child Gilles only came once or twice, whereupon “he killed them or had them killed.”
But it was rare for the orgy to begin without the child first being abused. To begin with, there was a sort of strangling: the poor wretches were put on an abominable apparatus. Gillies wanted to “prevent their cries” and avoid their being heard. “Sometimes he suspended them by his own hand, sometimes he had others suspend them by the throat with cords and rope, in his room, on a peg or small hook.” Thus, with their necks extended, they were reduced to death rattles.
At this moment, a comedy could intervene. Gilles, halting the suspension, had the child let down; then he caressed and cajoled him, assuring him that he had not wanted to “harm” him or “hurt him,” but that, on the contrary, he only wanted “to have fun” with him. If he had at last silenced him, he could then have his way with him, but the appeasement did not last.
Having drawn violent pleasure from the victim, he killed him or had him killed. But often Gilles’ enjoyment combined with the child’s death. He might cut — or cause to be cut — a vein in the neck; when the blood spurted, Gilles, would come. Occasionally, at the decisive moment, he wanted the victim to be in the languor of death. Or further, he had him decapitated; from then on the orgy lasted “as long as the bodies were warm.” Occasionally, after decapitation, he sat on the belly of the victim and delighted in watching him die like this; he sat at an angle, the better to see his last tremblings.
He occasionally varied the method of killing. Here is what he himself said on the subject: — Sometimes he inflicted, sometimes the accomplices inflicted “various types and manners of torment; sometimes they severed the head from the body with dirks, daggers, and knives, sometimes they struck them violently on the head with a cudgel or other blunt instruments.” He specifies that the punishment of suspension was added to these torments. When interrogated, the valet Poitou enumerates the manner of killing as follows: “Sometimes beheading or decapitating them, sometimes cutting their throats, sometimes dismembering them, and sometimes breaking their necks with a cudgel.” He said also that there was a “sword dedicated to their execution, commonly called a
braquemard”
(p. 226).
braquemard”
(p. 226).
But we are not at the end of this voyage to the limits of the worst.
Here is what we know from Henriet the valet. Gilles boasted in his presence of taking “greater pleasure in murdering the … children, in seeing their heads and members separated, in seeing them languish and seeing their blood, than he did in knowing them carnally” (p. 237). Thus he expressed, before the Marquis de Sade, the principle of libertines inured in vice.
What we know of the search for the “most beautiful heads” leads us to the aberration. We learn of it from the monster himself: when at last the children were lying dead, he embraced them, “and he gave way to contemplating those who had the most beautiful heads and members, and he had their bodies cruelly opened up and delighted at the sight of their internal organs” (p. 196). Henriet, who, of the two valets, reports it with the minutest of details, is for his own part not ignorant of this delirious aspect.
According to him, Gilles “delighted” in looking at the severed heads, and he showed them to him, the witness, and to Étienne Corrillaut … , “asking them which of the said heads was the most beautiful of those he was showing them, the head severed at that very moment, or that from the day before, or another from the day before that, and he often kissed the head that pleased him most, and delighted in doing so” (p. 237). In Gilles’ eyes, mankind was no more than an element of voluptuous turmoil; this element was entirely at his sovereign disposal, having no other meaning than a possibility for more violent pleasure, and he did not stop losing himself in that violence.
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