The Elephant in the Room (postscript)

Although many witnesses suspected that Gilles de Rais had abducted their children, they did not know for what reason he had seized them. One reads that there were numerous rumors, all false, about the abductions: it was reported that Gilles abducted boys in order to turn them over to the English as ransom for one of his soldiers [sic], Michel de Sillé, that he ate children, and that he was writing a magical book with the blood of infants. There is no evidence in the testimony of witnesses that it was rumored that Gilles sodomized the missing children. Indeed, only a very few of Gilles' chosen servants, sworn to secrecy, were aware of how he abused children. It is surprising, therefore, that the first document relative to the prosecution, dated 30 July, refers specifically to declarations by these same witnesses that Gilles “committed the sodomitical vice” with children. It is apparent that this document and a number of others were emended after the truth of the crimes was divulged by Gilles' accomplices Etienne Corrillaut on 17 October. It is doubtless, too, that the prosecutor's articles of accusation, dated 13 October, were emended after the confessions of Corrillaut and Griart, for the accusations contain many details about the crimes, such as the number of victims, the circumstances of the murders and the secret cremation of the corpses, that only Gilles and his accomplices could have known. It is probable that these articles were emended years after the trial, since they consistently date Gilles de Rais' crimes between one and a half and four years earlier than they occurred. The emendation of the legal documents was a right which the inquisitorial court reserved for itself, as stated in the last paragraph of the articles of accusation. 

Reginald Hyatte, Laughter For The Devil, introduction

When I wrote about this discrepancy in a blog post from 2012, The Elephant in the Room, I put forward various suggestions as to how it might have arisen. Reginald Hyatte, writing in 1984, was more radical, although he may not have realised it. Anxious to avoid any implication that the trial testimony was a tissue of lies from start to finish, he advanced the theory that the minutes of the trial might simply have been altered after the event. This is a highly controversial but plausible theory; it does explain some of the odd chronological errors, such as the misdating of the incident at Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte to 1439.

Professor Thomas Fudgé, a scholar of mediaeval history, feels that it is most unlikely that the records were tampered with in this way - "There is the possibility that notaries or other court officials fraudulently manipulated the legal record of the trial of Gilles de Rais. I can find no grounds for sustaining this possibility." Hyatte differs, and for once I find myself agreeing with him. It is perfectly true that a rubric at the end of the articles of accusation reserves the right to edit the document: in Hyatte's own translation, without violation of of the rights of correction, expansion, emendation, diminution, objection, amelioration and further presentation and proof, if need be, at the opportune place and time. 

It is also true that, if the documents were edited, it poses an enormous problem for the traditionalists. The record of the trial is the only contemporary document we have concerning the supposed crimes of Gilles de Rais. If it was partially rewritten afterwards, that compromises its authority enormously. Put bluntly, if it was altered to update the charges against Gilles, which other sections may have been tinkered with? Which parts, if any, can we trust?

Excellent questions, of course, and ones that revisionists are happy to see asked. Reginald Hyatte, I suspect, not so much. 

The Trials of Gilles de Rais: short passage from new biography

The first thing to stress is that the trial record is not a reliable nor, obviously, an impartial document. Little attempt has been made to conceal the fact that it was amended after the event; how long after is not known. It is not complete: we see Perrine Martin and Tiphaine Branchu brought into court and hear other witnesses refer to what they had to say, but we cannot read their own words. Their confessions, we are told, have not come down to us. It seems unlikely that this is accidental. We will see witnesses contradict each other and themselves, and allegations of impossible deeds. We will examine clear signs that the most damning evidence was extracted by torture, or at the very  least by the threat of torture. We will see Gilles de Rais harassed, antagonised, threatened and eventually broken.


What we will not see is the Bishop of Nantes rising up in outrage to veil the face of the crucifix when Gilles' testimony is at its most lurid; this was a flight of fancy by J-K Huysmans in his popular novel Là-Bas, elaborating on a less dramatic invention by none other than the Bibliophile Jacob. Nor, sadly, do we read “Pale grey starred with gold; and if he opened his doublet, a belt of scarlet with a dagger of grey steel hidden in a red sheath” or “Gilles appeared all in black, with a hood of velvet and a doublet of black damask trimmed with fur of the same colour”, as Valentine Penrose would have it. All these symbolic couture details are fictional and come from the fevered pen of Paul Lacroix, the Bibliophile. Nor will we see Gilles' beard with the bluish highlights, nor the lycanthropic grimaces of his handsome face: all this, likewise, was Lacroix's work. It is fair to say that nobody, probably not even Bossard, has so profoundly influenced Gilles' image. The trial record, in spite of the shocking nature of its content, is a dry and difficult read, which is why so few people have read it attentively. As a rule of thumb, whenever the accused is described, or the crowd's reaction is indicated, this is the hand of the Bibliophile. We are not told what Gilles wore or how he appeared; we do not even, surprisingly, have any explicit indication that the ecclesiastical trial was open to the public.

Translations of the documents are freely available in both English and French and there is no substitute for a careful study of them. The intention of this chapter is to explain clearly and chronologically what happened, to clarify any obscure points, and to examine in particular detail the passages that biographers tend to gloss over. Most commentators agree that it was a conspicuously fair trial for that period; although Reginald Hyatte, no revisionist, says “It is possible to interpret the legal action initiated against Gilles de Rais in both courts as the legitimate means by which the Duke of Brittany managed to acquire Gilles' possessions without arousing suspicion or causing a revolt among his other vassals.”  E A Vizetelly, the only English writer with a revisionist slant, remarks that “the proceedings of the court were scarcely lawful”. As we shall see, Gilles seems to have agreed with him, and for much the same reasons.

[Second brief taster of my new Gilles de Rais biography, which should be completed in 2017. The first snippet is here.]