FAQs #2

Well, if Gilles de Rais didn't kill the children, who did?

Nobody did. There is no evidence to indicate that more children than might be expected went missing in his vicinity. The country was in a state of upheaval, with bands of soldiers living off the land, and the years when Gilles was supposedly pursuing his murderous career were a kind of mini Ice Age, with long and bitter winters. The attrition rate would have been high, especially among homeless beggars. Around forty children over eight years in a wide area would not have been an alarming or unusual number. A close examination of the evidence shows that children were going missing from areas he had no reason to visit, from Machecoul when he is recorded as living at Tiffauges, and that many of the children had no link to Gilles or his entourage at all. The attempt to explain this by positing the existence of two or more female procurers ranging the countryside is unconvincing, especially as none of Gilles' friends mentions them, not even Poitou and Henriet.

Further reading:
The Beast of Extermination: a numbers game
La Meffraye

So was it all a plot by the Church?

Now that the theory of Gilles' innocence has reached a wider audience, it is quite common for internet commentators to blame the Catholic Church. But this popular scapegoat was not responsible in his case, although the ecclesiastical court was certainly weaponised against him. His judge, Jean de Malestroit, was Bishop of Nantes but he plotted against Gilles in his capacity as Chancellor of Brittany. He was a lifelong Anglophile and felt that the Duchy would be more likely to keep its independence if it allied with England rather than with France. Ironically, in 1488 Brittany was handed over to French governance by the Lavals, Gilles' family.

The Church did not profit from Gilles' demise: his estates went to the sons of Jean V.

Further reading:
L'évêque diabolique - ?

Bluebeard and the blood libel

Joan perished in her innocence, but the laws against 

Magic were vindicated soon after in the case of one who

was chief among the guilty. The personage in question

was one of the most valiant captains under Charles VII,

but the services which he rendered to the state could not

counterbalance the extent and enormity of his crimes.

All tales of ogres and Croquemitaine were realised and

surpassed by the deeds of this fantastic scoundrel, whose

history has remained in the memory of children under

the name of Blue Beard. Gilles de Laval, Lord of Raiz,

had indeed so black a beard that it seemed to be almost

blue, as shewn by his portrait in the Salle des Maréchaux,

at the Museum of Versailles. A Marshal of Brittany,

he was brave because he was French; being rich, he was

also ostentatious; and he became a sorcerer because he

was insane.

The mental derangement of the Lord of Raiz was

manifested in the first instance by sumptuous devotion

and extravagant magnificence. When he went abroad,

he was preceded invariably by cross and banner; his

chaplains were covered with gold and vested like prelates;

he had a college of little pages or choristers, who were

always richly clothed. But day by day one of these

children was called before the marshal and was seen no

more by his comrades; a newcomer succeeded him who

disappeared, and the children were sternly forbidden to

ask what became of the missing ones or even refer to

them among themselves. The children were obtained

by the marshal from poor parents, whom he dazzled by

his promises, and who were pledged to trouble no further

concerning their offspring, these, according to his stories,

being assured a brilliant future.

The explanation is that, in his case, seeming devotion

was the mask and safeguard of infamous practices.

Ruined by imbecile prodigality, the marshal desired at

any cost to create wealth. Alchemy had exhausted his

last resources and loans on usurious terms were about to

fail him; he determined therefore to attempt the last

and most execrable experiments of Black Magic, in the

hope of obtaining gold by the aid of hell. An apostate

priest of the diocese of Saint-Male, a Florentine named

Prelati, and Sille, who was the marshal's steward, became

his confidants and accomplices. He had espoused a

young woman of high birth  and kept her practically

shut up in his castle at Machecoul, which had a tower

with the entrance walled up. A report was spread by

the marshal that it was in a ruinous state and no one

sought to penetrate therein. This notwithstanding,

Madame de Raiz, who was frequently alone during the

dark hours, saw red lights moving to and fro in this

tower ; but she did not venture to question her husband,

whose bizarre and sombre character filled her with extreme

terror.

On Easter Day in the year 1440, the marshal, having

communicated solemnly in his chapel, bade farewell to

the lady of Machecoul, telling her that he was departing

to the Holy Land ; the poor creature was even then afraid

to question, so much did she tremble in his presence;

she was also several months in her pregnancy. The

marshal permitted her sister to come on a visit as a

companion during his absence. Madame de Raiz took

advantage of this indulgence, after which Gilles de Laval

mounted his horse and departed. To her sister Madame

de Raiz communicated her fears and anxieties. What

went on in the castle? Why was her lord so gloomy?

What signified his repeated absences? What became of

the children who disappeared day by day? What were

those nocturnal lights in the walled-up tower? These

and the other problems excited the curiosity of both

women to the utmost degree. What all the same

could be done? The marshal had forbidden them

expressly even to approach the tower, and before leaving

he had repeated this injunction. It must assuredly have

a secret entrance, for which Madame de Raiz and her

sister Anne proceeded to search through the lower

rooms of the castle, corner by corner and stone after

stone. At last, in the chapel, behind the altar, they

came upon a copper button, hidden in a mass of sculpture. 

It yielded under pressure; a stone slid back and

the two curiosity-seekers, now all in a tremble, distinguished

 the lowermost steps of a staircase, which led

them to the condemned tower.

At the top of the first flight there was a kind of

chapel, with a cross upside down and black candles; on

the altar stood a hideous figure, no doubt representing

the demon. On the second floor they came upon furnaces,

retorts, alembics, charcoal — in a word, all the

apparatus of alchemy. The third flight led to a dark

chamber, where the heavy and fetid atmosphere compelled 

the young women to retreat. Madame de Raiz

came into collision with a vase, which fell over, and she

was conscious that her robe and feet were soaked by

some thick and unknown liquid. On returning to the

light at the head of the stairs she found that she was

bathed in blood.

Sister Anne would have fled from the place, but in

Madame de Raiz curiosity was even stronger than disgust

 or fear. She descended the stairs, took a lamp

from the infernal chapel and returned to the third floor,

where a frightful spectacle awaited her. Copper vessels

filled with blood were ranged the whole length of the

walls, bearing labels with a date on each, and in the

middle of the room there was a black marble table, on

which lay the body of a child murdered quite recently.

It was one of these basins which had fallen, and black

blood had spread far and wide over the grimy and worm-

eaten wooden floor.

The two women were now half-dead with terror.

Madame de Raiz endeavoured at all costs to efface the

evidence of her indiscretion. She went in search of a

sponge and water, to wash the boards; but she only

extended the stain and that which at first seemed black

became all scarlet in hue. Suddenly a loud commotion

echoed through the castle, mixed with the cries of people

calling to Madame de Raiz. She distinguished the awe-

striking words: "Here is Monseigneur come back."

The two women made for the staircase, but at the same

moment they were aware of the trampling of steps and

the sound of other voices in the devil's chapel. Sister

Anne fled upwards to the battlement of the tower;

Madame de Raiz went down trembling and found herself

face to face with her husband, in the act of ascending,

accompanied by the apostate priest and Prelati.

Gilles de Laval seized his wife by the arm and

without speaking dragged her into the infernal chapel.

It was then that Prelati observed to the marshal:  "It

is needs must, as you see, and the victim has come of

her own accord." . . . ''Be it so," answered his master.

"Begin the Black Mass." . . . The apostate priest went

to the altar, while Gilles de Laval opened a little cupboard 

fixed therein and drew out a large knife, after

which he sat down close to his spouse, who was now

almost in a swoon and lying in a heap on a bench against

the wall. The sacrilegious ceremonies began.

It must be explained that the marshal, so far from

taking the road to Jerusalem, had proceeded only to

Nantes, where Prelati lived; he attacked this miserable

wretch with the uttermost fury and threatened to slay him

if he did not furnish the means of extracting from the

devil that which he had been demanding for so long

a time. With the object of obtaining delay, Prelati

declared that terrible conditions were required by the

infernal master, first among which would be the sacrifice

of the marshal's unborn child after tearing it forcibly

from the mother's womb. Gilles de Laval made no

reply but returned at once to Machecoul, the Florentine

sorcerer and his accomplice the priest being in his train.

With the rest we are acquainted.

Meanwhile, Sister Anne, left to her own devices on

the roof of the tower and not daring to come down, had

removed her veil, to make signals of distress at chance.

They were answered by two cavaliers accompanied by a

posse of armed men, who were riding towards the castle;

they proved to be her two brothers who, on learning the

spurious departure of the marshal for Palestine, had come

to visit and console Madame de Raiz. Soon after they

arrived with a clatter in the court of the castle, where-

upon Gilles de Laval suspended the hideous ceremony

and said to his wife: "Madame, I forgive you, and the

matter is at an end between us if you do now as I tell

you. Return to your apartment, change your garments

and join me in the guest-room, whither I am going

to receive your brothers. But if you say one word, or

cause them the slightest suspicion, I will bring you hither

on their departure; we shall proceed with the Black Mass

at the point where it is now broken off, and at the consecration 

you will die. Mark where I place this knife."

He rose up, led his wife to the door of her chamber

and subsequently received her relations and their suite,

saying that his lady was preparing herself to come and

salute her brothers. Madame de Raiz appeared almost

immediately, pale as a spectre. Gilles de Laval never

took eyes off her, seeking to control her by his glance.

When her brothers suggested that she was ill, she answered 

that it was the fatigue of pregnancy, but added

in an undertone: "Save me; he seeks to kill me." At

the same moment Sister Anne rushed into the hall, crying: 

"Take us away; save us, my brothers: this man is

an assassin" — and she pointed to Gilles de Laval. While

the marshal summoned his people, the escort of the two

visitors surrounded the women with drawn swords; and

the marshal's people disarmed instead of obeying him.

Madame de Raiz, with her sister and brothers, gained the

drawbridge and left the castle.

On the morrow, Duke John V invested Machecoul,

and Gilles de Laval, who could count no longer on his

men-at-arms, yielded without resistance. The parliament 

of Brittany had decreed his arrest as a homicide,

the ecclesiastical tribunal preparing in the first place to

pronounce judgment upon him as a heretic, sodomite

and sorcerer. Voices of parents, long silenced by terror,

rose upon all sides, demanding their missing children:

there was universal dole and clamour throughout the

province. The castles of Machecoul and Chantocé were

ransacked, resulting in the discovery of two hundred

skeletons of children; the rest had been consumed by fire.

Gilles de Laval appeared with supreme arrogance

before his judges.  To the customary question: " Who

are you ? " he answered: "I am Gilles de Laval, Marshal

of Brittany, Lord of Raiz, Machecoul, Chantocé and

other fiefs. And who are you that dare to question

me ?" He was answered : "We are your judges,

magistrates of the Ecclesiastical Court." — "What, you

my judges! Go to, I know you well, my masters. You

are simoniacs and obscene fellows, who sell your God to

purchase the joys of the devil. Speak not therefore of

judging me, for if I am guilty, it is you, who owed me

good example, that are my instigators." — "Cease your

insults, and answer us." —   "I would rather be hanged by

the neck than reply to you. I am surprised that the

president of Brittany suffers your acquaintance with

matters of this kind. You question that you may gain

information and afterwards do worse than you have done."

But this haughty insolence was demolished by the

threat of torture. Before the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc

and the President Pierre de L'Hopital, Gilles de Laval

made confession of his murders and sacrileges. He pretended 

that his motive in the massacre of children was

an execrable delight which he sought during the agony

of these poor little beings. The president found it difficult 

to credit this statement and questioned him anew.

 "Alas!" said the marshal abruptly,  "you torment both

yourself and me to no purpose."  "I do not torment

you," replied the president, "but I am astonished at

your words and dissatisfied. What I seek and must have

is the pure truth." The marshal answered : "Verily

there was no other cause. What more would you have ?

Surely I have admitted enough to condemn ten thou-

sand men."

That which Gilles de Laval shrank from confessing

was that he sought the Philosophical Stone in the blood

of murdered children, and that it was covetousness which

drove him to this monstrous debauchery. On the faith

of his necromancers, he believed that the universal agent

of life could be suddenly coagulated by the combined

action and reaction of outrage on Nature and murder.

He collected afterwards the iridescent film which forms

on blood as it turns cold;  he subjected it to various

fermentations, digested the product in the philosophical

egg of the athanor, combining it with salt, sulphur and

mercury. He had doubtless derived his recipe from

some of those old Hebrew Grimoires which, had they

been known at the period, would have been sufficient to

call down on Jewry at large the execration of the whole

earth. Persuaded, as they were, that the act of human

impregnation attracts and coagulates the Astral Light in

its reaction by sympathy on things subjected to the magnetism 

of man, the Israelitish sorcerers had plunged into

those enormities of which Philo accuses them, as quoted

by the astrologer Gaffarel.  They caused trees to be

grafted by women, who inserted the graft while a man

performed on their persons those acts which are an outrage 

to Nature. Wherever Black Magic is concerned

the same horrors recur, for the spirit of darkness is not

one of invention.

Gilles de Laval was burned alive in the pre de la Magdeleine

near Nantes; he obtained permission to go to

execution with all the pageantry that had accompanied

him during life, as if he wished to involve in the ignominy

of his punishment the ostentation and cupidity by which

he had been so utterly degraded and lost so fatally.

Eliphas Levi

This text is taken from The History of Magic by Eliphas Levi (English translation by A E Waite). It dates from 1860 and is very much of its time; aficionados can go through it picking out the myths and errors like so many succulent plums. One mistake that is not quite so obvious is that nobody in the 15th century ever referred to the Black Mass. The expression was not used before the late nineteenth century; indeed Levi is thought to have originated it himself.

This text is a classic, and particularly egregious, expression of the blood libel - the belief that Jews killed Christian children for their blood, in order to use it in mysterious rituals. Salomon Reinach was the first to note the links between the accusations against Gilles de Rais and the blood libel, accusations which were also made against other outsiders, including the Gypsies and the Knights Templar. Gilles was said to have been writing a grimoire in the blood of children, although Henriet, who saw it, artlessly remarked that it might, after all, simply have been written in red ink.

The most striking aspect of this account is that it begins with Gilles de Rais, abruptly segues into the tale of Bluebeard part way through, and then back again. This was a quirk on Levi's part, but an interesting twist in publishing history made it more influential than one might expect. In 1970s Britain there was a vogue for all things to do with witchcraft and black magic, and many old texts were republished, including the translation of Levi's opus. As a consequence, undiscerning editors copied this uniquely wrong-headed account in various encyclopaedias and compendiums, and the Bluebeard myth was reinforced in English-speaking countries. It is still possible to find apparent summaries of Gilles' life where this bizarre and complete transmogrification into a literal Bluebeard is exhibited, so it is interesting to read the original text from which it derives.

The Algebra of Need: was Gilles an alcoholic?

According to Prouteau in Gilles de Rais ou la gueule du loup, Gilles was an alcoholic who drank five litres of hippocras per day. This was wine fortified with spices and herbs and, at 20% by volume, twice the strength of ordinary wine. When he was imprisoned, his supply of alcohol was cut off and he was given nothing but water to drink, thus precipitating him into an attack of delirium tremens and rendering him highly susceptible to suggestion. It also meant that the court had in its gift the two things that Gilles could not live without: alcohol and the consolation of the Church. As soon as he admitted to the offences he had been charged with, he would be given hippocras and his excommunication would be revoked.

This is a seductive theory; if Gilles was an addict deprived of his drug, he would have admitted to anything to have it restored to him. As William S Burroughs described the Algebra of Need: "In the words of total need: 'Wouldn't you?' Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way."  Also, a man in the throes of the DTs and hallucinating would be easy to convince that he had, in fact, done the most outrageous things. However, one has to treat it with caution. Apart from the script that Gilles was made to read about the excesses of his life and the exaggerations of the Mémoire des Héritiers, both highly suspect documents, there is no real indication that Gilles was dependent on alcohol. He may have been a fairly heavy drinker who suffered from forced abstinence in prison, but there is no proof that his gaolers deliberately withheld wine from him in order to break his will, although they certainly would have done if they had thought it would help to brainwash him.

This theory has to be regarded as unproven, but it is hardly needed to explain why Gilles de Rais, after refusing for so long to submit to the will of the court, underwent a complete change of character overnight. He had seen the evidence against him. He knew that it had been extracted by torture and that, subjected to the same torture, he would inevitably break and recite the same litany of atrocities. He knew that he would be condemned and executed. He believed that if he went to his death contumacious and excommunicate, he would be plunged into Hell forever. And so he took the only option that would minimise his pain both in this world and the next; he ate humble pie and read the confession that had been prepared for him and that is so clearly based on the forced testimony of Henriet and Poitou, even though that would inevitably lead to shame and death, because shame and death were infinitely preferable to torment on earth that would continue for eternity in Hell.

Illustration from La trilogie Gilles de Rais by Jacques Martin/Jean Pleyer.

(Interestingly, although it is not too difficult to find images of Gilles feasting, representations of him drinking are vanishingly rare.) 

.

The Bibliophile Jacob

Anybody who has read about Gilles de Rais in a biography or on a website and later gone on to read the trial records will have wondered why the latter seem so pallid in comparison. The small details that so enliven other accounts are simply absent. In particular, anybody who has read The Bloody Countess by Valentine Penrose, with its counterpointed story of Gilles de Rais, will have marvelled at the first person quotes and the colourful anecdotes and descriptions.

The reason is that Penrose and other biographers leaned heavily upon a "more circumstantial" record of the trial, penned by Paul Lacroix, The Bibliophile Jacob, in the mid-nineteenth century. It is a very strange document, entirely bogus. M. Lacroix claimed to have had access to a far more detailed copy of the record than the one kept in the archive at Nantes. Instead of being written in a distancing third person, he uses first person speech throughout. Henriet and Poitou come out best in this account, they are clearly distinguished as personalities and their motives for confessing are explained. These do not include torture, the Bibliophile is far from a revisionist. On the down side, we do lose Prelati's testimony as he has unfortunately died before coming to trial. There is a prototype for the veiling of the cross, but it is done by Pierre de l'Hôpital before Henriet gives his evidence; J-K Huymans much improved upon and dramatised the scene.

It is, in short, a piece of fantasy loosely based on Gilles' trial. But it is highly entertaining and of interest, so a link to the full text is given here. Only in French, unfortunately, but not difficult to decipher if you have a little French from school days. If not, you can get the flavour of it from Penrose's book (which deals mainly with Elisabeth Bathory) or from the extracts from that book in Dark Star: the Satanic Rites of Gilles de Rais, edited by Candice Black.

And is the Bibliophile Jacob's work of fiction relevant to our theme? Yes, because it is so obviously and consistently in error throughout that anybody reading it in parallel with a genuine account of the trial would immediately realise that it is unreliable. Yet several reputable biographers, including Bossard, borrow from it to add a bit of colour to their story; and that is how Gilles de Rais has come to be surrounded by myths and untruths, and why a truly authoritative biography does not exist. 

Alias Poitou

Considering that their forced confessions put the rope round both Gilles de Rais' neck and their own, Henri Griart and Etienne Corillaut (alias Poitou) are given short shrift in most accounts. If they are distinguished at all, Henriet was possibly Gilles' librarian and Poitou possibly his lover.

Their evidence is identical in almost every respect, a sure sign that they were tortured into telling the story that the prosecution wanted to hear. Poitou, however, is distinct from Henriet in one crucial respect. He had, he said, survived Gilles' allegedly murderous sexual attentions once. Or twice...

The story he told the ecclesiastical tribunal was that he was assaulted as soon as he came to be Gilles' page, at the age of ten. He was threatened with a dagger, he said, but spared because of his good looks. This would be around 1427, which accords perfectly with the prosecution case that the murders began in 1426, when Gilles was still Jehanne's companion and protector. This timing was critical to Jean de Malestroit's plot to smear the Pucelle by implying that she knowingly consorted with a sodomite and murderer.

Gilles' confession, given under threat of torture and excommunication, not surprisingly follows the template of his servants' statements in every detail - except one. For whatever reason, he insisted that his supposed crimes began in the year of Jean de Craon's death, that is around 1432, five years after Poitou claimed to have been assaulted and almost killed. The discrepancy is glaring.

Apparently the judges were content to let this pass. Magnanimously, they allowed Gilles de Rais to decide the exact timing of the crimes he never committed. An obvious attempt to tidy the matter up was made, however, at the civil trial. Under interrogation for the second time, Poitou once more divulged that he had been raped and threatened. This time, however, it was not when he was a child and new to Gilles' service, but as a young man of twenty, after he had seen incriminating evidence in the form of two dead children. In this case, the sex was a form of initiation into the sport of Caesars.

Almost all biographers ignore or conflate these incidents. Jean Benedetti makes a game effort to square the circle by theorising that there might, in fact, have been two attacks on Poitou, so similar that he confused them. This seems highly unlikely. Rape at knifepoint as a child of ten would have left a profound impression, not likely to be muddled with something, however traumatic, that happened less than three years before.

The best explanation is the simplest one. Poitou was tortured into reciting the words that were put into his mouth. When those words did not fit with his master's "confession", his torturers merely changed the script.