One of the most striking oddities in the trial of Gilles de Rais is the deafening silence from members of his household. We are given the forced confessions of his body servants and the self-extenuating words of Prelati and Blanchet, but of his two hundred-strong army, the members of his chapel (including the allegedly abused boys in the choir) and the various other pages, squires and sundry domestics who lived at close quarters with him, we hear nothing. Surely somebody would have noticed something incriminating? Surely, for instance, the porter at Machecoul could have been summoned to court and asked to explain exactly what he imagined was going on when an elderly crone handed young boys into his care? And, although he was no longer in Gilles' choir, it would have been interesting to hear from André Buchet, who could have told us if he was sexually assaulted and might even have answered questions about whether, when Gilles was at Vannes, he supplied him with a boy for purposes he knew all too well. Buchet would have been easy to find, as he was employed by the Duke of Brittany...
The one voice speaking up for Gilles' entire household is that of a certain André Brechet, a soldier in the garrison at Machecoul. But Brechet has nothing to say about lost children, strange sounds or foul-smelling smoke. Instead we are treated to a completely irrelevant anecdote about standing sentry duty on the ramparts at Machecoul. He was clearly not a good watchman, as he fell asleep. He was woken by a small man, a stranger to him, who threatened him with a dagger & told him "You're dead." However, the stranger did him no harm and went on his way, leaving the hapless sentry in a muck sweat. The next day, Brechet met Gilles de Rais on his way to Machecoul. And, he tells us, he no longer dared keep watch at Machecoul, which must have been an easygoing kind of garrison where soldiers could pick and choose their duties.
What are we to make of this tale? It sounds as if somebody played a prank on the sleeping soldier and frightened him badly. It has no relevance to Gilles or to the charges against him - he was not even at Machecoul, since he arrived the next day. The small man with the dagger was unlikely to be one of Gilles's friends, as Brechet would have known them by sight and his testimony is firm that the man who threatened him was not known to him.
The only purpose this slight anecdote serves is to give the impression that Machecoul was a sinister place where uncanny & quasi-supernatural events were commonplace. And also, of course, to pad out the testimony with more meaningless and unsubstantiated verbiage.
The one voice speaking up for Gilles' entire household is that of a certain André Brechet, a soldier in the garrison at Machecoul. But Brechet has nothing to say about lost children, strange sounds or foul-smelling smoke. Instead we are treated to a completely irrelevant anecdote about standing sentry duty on the ramparts at Machecoul. He was clearly not a good watchman, as he fell asleep. He was woken by a small man, a stranger to him, who threatened him with a dagger & told him "You're dead." However, the stranger did him no harm and went on his way, leaving the hapless sentry in a muck sweat. The next day, Brechet met Gilles de Rais on his way to Machecoul. And, he tells us, he no longer dared keep watch at Machecoul, which must have been an easygoing kind of garrison where soldiers could pick and choose their duties.
What are we to make of this tale? It sounds as if somebody played a prank on the sleeping soldier and frightened him badly. It has no relevance to Gilles or to the charges against him - he was not even at Machecoul, since he arrived the next day. The small man with the dagger was unlikely to be one of Gilles's friends, as Brechet would have known them by sight and his testimony is firm that the man who threatened him was not known to him.
What are we to make of this tale?
ReplyDeleteIf I was owner of a castle in a war zone, I'd have a man keeping guards on their toes.
Who didn't dare have this man on guard duty. Him, or his superiors?