Gilles de Rais
Etienne Corillaut
Henri Griart
I will be their advocate till I die.
Illustration by Quentin Faucompré
Thursday, 26 October 2023
Monday, 28 August 2023
New Page
My two short essays on the case for the defence are now available together on a new Page.
http://www.gillesderaiswasinnocent.co.uk/p/gilles-de-rais-case-for-defence-parts-1.html
Sunday, 30 April 2023
Truth knows no season: in memory of Kathleen Lehman
On June 27th 2022, Team Gilles (as I call it) lost an illustrious member with the death of Kathleen Lehman.
I exchanged emails with her for a while in the late nineties and will always regret that we lost touch. She was an original thinker and I wish that the book she planned to write had reached fruition. For a long time, she was the only person I knew of who shared my crazy notions about Gilles de Rais.
Her dense and thoughtful essay, which graced the internet for two or three years at the turn of the century, will probably have been seen by few. I feel privileged to have read it, and still lament its loss, although if it had remained online I would possibly not have felt the need for this blog, which led directly to my book. Lehman struck a chord in me; she had discovered Gilles at fifteen, as I had, and developed a similar conviction of his innocence. On the other side of the Atlantic, she had uncovered the same flaws in the traditional narrative that I had, and drawn the same conclusions. I felt less alone. Her closing words had a particular resonance -
It may be argued that the details of the life of Gilles de Rais are of no importance to the modern day, but they will always ultimately be important to Gilles de Rais, and truth knows no season. To bring him in death the justice which he did not receive in life is my pre-eminent goal.
Rest In Power, Kathy.
Saturday, 4 February 2023
The Martyr - an update
In 2020 I announced that The Martyr, a short film by Edmund Stenson, would be "coming soon". On reflection, "soon" was a bit optimistic. Before it could have a permanent home on the internet, it had to do the rounds of the film festivals, most of which it was a tad too weird for. However, it did win Best Short Documentary at both Atlanta Shortsfest and FilmQuest.
It will take up 15 minutes of your time and is well worth it. You get to see me, and my dolls, and my Collyer brothers style home. And there are delightful illustrations by Robbie Ward, like the one below.
It is available free-to-view in two places -
YouTube https://youtu.be/LBYgr7L-NSk
and Vimeo https://vimeo.com/717518870
from February 4th 2023.
Do watch, enjoy, and share. Reviews and comments welcome.