The Trial of Gilles De Rais Page 15
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.
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
* * *
The son of Jean Bernard, of Port-Launay, on the right bank of the estuary near Coueron, is about twelve years old; he leaves for Machecoul around September 1438 to ask for alms. The four witnesses from Port-Launay who remember him cite “the charity that was customary there” In fact Port-Launey is fifteen kilometers from Nantes, where one must cross the Loire; from there, Machecoul is another forty kilometers. That implies, in any case, the notoriety of alms-giving by the prodigal of Machecoul. Jean Bernard’s child does not reappear; another child, with whom he went begging, waits for him in vain more than three hours, even though they were supposed to meet at an appointed spot in the Machecoul borough. Nobody had any more news of him and the witnesses heard the mother, who could not come to the tribunal because of the grape harvest, “complaining bitterly” (p. 256).
* * *
October Murder of Perrot Dagaye
* * *
Perrot Dagaye, aged about ten, the son of Éonnet Dagaye and the nephew of Éonnet Le Charpentier, a butcher in the parish of Saint-Clément-hors-les-murs of Nantes, disappears in October 1438. Two witnesses from the parish of Saint-Clément attest to the mother’s laments and to the fact that the child was never seen again after this. Tiphaine, Éonnet Le Charpentier’s wife, declares that her nephew Perrot “was lost about two years ago and that since this time, she has had no news of him until Perrine Martin, also known as La Pellissonne, admitted, as has been said, that she had delivered him over to Lord de Rais’ men” (p. 270).
* * *
1437-1438
* * *
Jeanne, Aimery Édelin’s widow, of Machecoul, who had previously lost her own son (p. 260), reports that “about two or three years before, she saw at Machecoul a man named Oran, who lived in the direction of Saint-Mesme, lamenting piteously and crying over the loss of a child; he was asking about him in the said place of Machecoul but so far as the
said Jeanne knows, had no news of him” (p. 260).
* * *
Around year’s end
* * *
Contrary to the promise made when his brother René let him retake Champtocé, Gilles refused to release La Mothe-Achard to him. Moreover, he seizes the Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte castle, which he had given him in 1434.
* * *
1439
January 15
* * *
An amiable settlement is concluded at Nantes between the two brothers who, after the Saint-Étienne-de-Mermorte affair in 1438, have gone to court. Gilles definitively transfers La Mothe-Achard to his brother while keeping Saint-Étienne for himself.
* * *
April 12
* * *
The eight-year-old son of Micheau and Guillemette Bouer, of Saint-Cyr-en-Rais, a village adjoining Bourgneuf-en-Rais, goes begging at Machecoul on Low Sunday (April 12) of 1439. He does not return and from then on his mother will have no more news of him, even though the child’s father “had made inquiries after him in various places.” There is no implicit connection to an event that Guillemette Bouer reports later, namely: “on the following day, the day they distributed alms at Machecoul for the deceased Mahé Le Breton, as she was watching the animals, a large man dressed in black, whom she did not know, came to her and asked, among other things, where her children were, why they were not watching the animals. To which she responded that they had gone begging at Machecoul. Whereupon he left her and vanished.” The story reconstructs, however, the fairy-tale atmosphere in which the disappearances occurred, one which does not always permit calling Lord de Rais into question with certainty.
Ysabeau, Guillaume Hamelin’s wife, of Fresnay, who herself loses two children at the end of the year (p. 263), learns of the above disappearance on December 16, 1439. There is a good case, therefore, for Low Sunday of 1439 and not 1440 (p. 263).
Gilles de Rais is living at Tiffauges during this period, so his connection with the disappearance is at best doubtful.
* * *
End of April François Prelati’s arrival in France
* * *
Prelati and Blanchet arrive together at Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, on the right bank of the Loire. They spend several days there. Gilles, informed by Blanchet of their arrival, dispatches two squires, accompanied by Henriet and Poitou, in order to lead them to Tiffauges (pp. 210 and 210).
* * *
(1439)
May 14 Prelati at Tiffauges
* * *
Later, on Ascension Day (May 14, 1439), François Prelati arrives at Tiffauges, accompanied by Blanchet and others. Gilles de Rais exuberantly rejoices at what Blanchet tells him.
Prelati and Blanchet are installed in the castle, in the same room with an alchemist (a goldsmith from Paris named Jean Petit) and an old woman named Perrote. They are supposed to lodge in the castle together. In fact, a little later there is a problem with a cold wind that, coming from a neighboring hall (the lower hall of the fortress), passes through “the said castle” (p. 217).
* * *
Around May
* * *
Guillaume Sergent and his wife Alyette, of La Boucardière, a hamlet neighboring on Machecoul, connected to the Saint-Croix parish of Machecoul, who around Pentecost (May 24) of 1439 went digging in a field in order to plant hemp, did not find their eight-year-old son again, whom they had left at home to watch over their infant daughter of eighteen months. They had no more news of him in spite of their inquiries in the Machecoul parish and other parishes (p. 258). Gilles de Rais is presently installed at Tiffauges; this testimony therefore is of little interest.
* * *
June 29
* * *
Olivier Darel, the son of Jean and Jeanne Darel, of the Saint-Saturnin parish of Nantes, aged seven to eight, disappears on Saint Peter’s Day. He disappears into the crowd, on Rue du Marché or in front of Saint-Saturnin church, while he is with his maternal grandmother. The father, ill that day, declares that he inquired about him in several regions; his wife and her mother testify with him. Éonnette, Jean Bremant’s wife, living in the marketplace of Nantes, knew the child well and declares that, since the time when his parents were complaining of his disappearance, he never returned home (p. 272).
Gilles de Rais being, so far as it seems, at Tiffauges, this testimony is no more important than the previous one.
* * *
Around June The phony Joan of Arc in Gilles de Rais’ service
* * *
On a date difficult to specify, but evidently before the spring of 1439, Gilles receives a phony Joan of Arc, a double, who since 1436 is seeking to make people believe that, having escaped the executioner’s flames in Rouen, she is truly “The Maid.”38 This phony Joan of Arc is, like the original, able to ride a horse and command armies; Gilles entrusted her with a part of his men-at-arms, with a view towards an enterprise in the direction of Mans. But in the course of 1439 it seems this phony Maid is unmasked by Charles VII, who wanted to meet her. The King quizzes her about the secret they had between them. Thereupon the impostor, who meanwhile has married and after her marriage goes by the name of Lady des Armoises, kneels before Charles VII and confesses her deceit.39 Gilles, having no doubt found out, sends one of his men, the Gascon captain Jean de Siqueville, to take her place, instructing him to operate in the expectation of his arrival and, if he can, seize the Mans garrison. It is probable that the Marshal does not even try to join him. Mans remains in the hands of the English until 1448.
* * *
Around June-July The great invocation in the lower hall of the castle at Tiffauges
* * *
Gilles de Rais and François Prelati, aided by Gilles de Sillé, Eustache Blanchet, Henriet and Poitou, prepare the large lower hall of the castle at Tiffauges for an invocation of the demon. After dinner, before midnight, they trace several circles with the tip of a sword on the ground where they inscribe crosses, characters, and signs “in the manner of armories.” Then Eustache Blanchet and Henriet carry in incense, myrrh and aloes, a lodestone, earthen pots containing a great quantity of coal, which they light, torches, candles, and candlesticks. They also carry in a book in which one can find the names of many demons, and formulas of conjuration and invocation. Gilles and François arrange these various objects; François adds certain signs, then has the four windows of the hall opened.
Thereupon Eustache Blanchet, Henriet, and Poitou are asked to retire to Lord de Rais’ room. From then on Gilles and François, left alone, remain — sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, and sometimes kneeling — while adoring the demon and reading from the book that they have brought. However the demon does not appear, and two hours after having been left alone, Gilles and François rejoin the others in the room where they wait. It is about one o’clock in the morning (pp. 173, 217, 219, 230, 238, 239, 278 and 280).
It is apparently at this invocation that Gilles holds in his hand a note that he has signed, ready to give it to the devil should he appear. Since the latter does not appear, the note is not delivered (p. 198). We do not have the text of that note, but it is doubtless the same as what, on the following evening, Prelati prepares to offer to Barron if he appears. (We are familiar with the second note’s text, several lines of which we will cite later.) The note is still undelivered the following day, but since Gilles in his confession acknowledges having had one delivered to the devil (p. 194), we are forced to conclude that Prelati pretended to deliver it during one of the ten or twelve invocations that he did for Gilles, and where Barron, according to him, appeared (p. 213).
* * *
(1439)
* * *
* * *
Nocturnal invocation in a field under adverse weather
* * *
Rather late the following evening, by Gilles’ order, François Prelati and Poitou make their way to a field not far from an uninhabited old house, about a kilometer from Tiffauges in the direction of Montaigu. They carry incense, a lodestone
, and a book. They make a circle and signs out of the book with the aid of a knife. They themselves enter the circle that they evidently have traced in the soil. In spite of François’ interdiction, Poitou secretly crosses himself. Oral invocations having begun, the valet hears Prelati pronounce the name of “Barron” several times in a loud voice. They stay about half an hour, but nothing appears.
From the start, the moment they enter the circle it rains profusely; a violent wind then starts up, and so great a darkness falls that they have difficulty returning once finished (pp. 198, 212 and 231).
What is more, we know from Prelati’s testimony (p. 213) that before this invocation, Gilles had given him this letter (or note) for the devil written in French in his own hand, of which this is the text: “Come at my bidding, and I will give you whatever you want, except my soul and the curtailment of my life.” The devil did not come, and François, that same day, returns the note to Gilles.