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.]

Chinese whispers

In the year 1440, all France was shocked to learn that one

of the greatest nobles in the land, Gilles de Rais, had 

participated in the rites of devil worship, in the course of which

he had sacrificed no less than a hundred and fifty victims in

homage to Satan.

De Rais was one of the élite of the Breton nobility, a man

in whom ritualism had developed into an obsession. He

never ventured abroad unless preceded by a great cross and

banner, and his retinue was invariably dressed in raiment

richly ornamented with gold. As was customary in feudal

days, he possessed a number of pages and these children began

to disappear one by one and were never heard of again. De

Rais forbade any mention of the subject, and so great was the

fear that he inspired that none cared to investigate the mystery. 

His own wife was aware that something dreadful was

taking place but was too terrified to question her husband,

and it was only when he was absent from the castle, that she,

together with her sister, dared explore for themselves. Their

curiosity was soon, terribly satisfied, for they discovered a

room in the castle entirely dedicated to the Satanic Mass, and

containing copper kettles filled with human blood. Unfortunately 

de Rais returned to the castle without warning and

entering the 'chapel' surprised the two women in the very act

of penetrating his darkest secrets. Overwhelmed with terror,

one sister fled to the roof of the tower and in desperation

signalled for help to a small party of horsemen who could be

seen approaching the castle. By a stroke of fortune the two

leaders happened to be her own brothers, who had decided to

visit their sisters during the absence of de Rais.

The horsemen entered the castle and soon learned the terrible 

secrets of the satanic chapel. De Rais's own men turned

against him and the matter was reported to the authorities.

This was an age when there was virtually no limit to the

power of the feudal lords, who might torture or kill their

subordinates as the mood took them, without fear of 

intervention by the State. It was a situation tolerated by the

Church just so long as heresy was not involved, for this 

constituted a threat to its own power, and had therefore to be

opposed with all the force at its command.

To the disgust of the nobles of Brittany, Gilles de Rais was

brought to trial before the Parliament where the whole horrid

business was brought into the light of day. It appeared that

the chapel had been used as a torture chamber, where young

children were decapitated or beaten to death to the 

accompaniment of incredible sexual perversions by de Rais, who

had liked nothing better than to sit upon the stomachs of his

victims and watch them die. The severed heads of over forty

children were discovered in the castle, together with more

than two hundred small skeletons. De Rais admitted his guilt,

under torture, and was put on trial accused of apostasy, heresy

and the invocation of demons, and sentenced to death. He was

granted the privilege of strangulation before his body was

committed to the flames on October 26th, I440.

Later historians have detected signs of some sinister 

conspiracy in the trial, torture and death of Gilles de Rais, for

this occurred at a time when new forces were developing in

the state led by new men of humbler birth to whom the 

unchecked power of the great nobility presented something of an

obstacle. The Noble Order with its vast wealth was largely

a law unto itself and this excited the jealousy of the emerging

political state, which was both impecunious and hungry for

real authority, which could only be secured by inroads into

the vested interests of the Nobility.

Eric Maple, The Domain of Devils (1966)

A Victorian illustration of Gilles de Rais, 

showing a completely imaginary scene. 

No text about Gilles de Rais is one hundred percent reliable. Before Bossard partially reclaimed him for history, while retaining certain favourite myths and adding the unwarranted Bluebeard connection, Gilles was the subject of many fictionalised biographies which extemporised loosely on the known facts, such as they are. After Bossard, other writers copied extensively from his book, believing it to be authoritative, and therefore drank in the errors that the good Abbé had adopted from the bogus historian Paul Lacroix, "The Bibliophile Jacob". A process of Chinese whispers ensured that such myths as the veiling of the cross and the corrupting influence of an illustrated Suetonius are cited as fact in the most surprising places: even the meticulous scholar Emile Gabory claims that "it has been said" that the Bishop of Nantes covered the cross, without for a moment questioning why such a dramatic moment would go unmentioned in the record of the trial. Although this story originates with Lacroix, his version is a pale prototype: Pierre de l'Hôpital

performs the symbolic gesture so that Henriet can speak without inhibition. It was a novelist, J-K Huysmans, who improved on the Bibliophile's version and gave us the dramatic account we are familiar with today. Huysmans muddied the waters by publishing the Gilles de Rais sections of his work of fiction, Là-Bas, as a factual book, which it most certainly is not, and thus introduced a few myths of his own. He was more influential in the English-speaking world than Bossard, since his succès de scandale was widely translated whereas Bossard, for some reason, never has been. 

Another misleading influence is The Bloody Countess by Valentine Penrose, which employs Gilles de Rais as a counterpoint to the story of Erzsébet Báthory. This rather trashy opus had the good fortune to be translated from the French by cult author Alexander Trocchi, and so became popular in the 1970s. The original author had merely plagiarised the most lurid and homoerotic anecdotes from the Bibliophile Jacob and generously given them a whole new audience. Not only individual incidents but the atmosphere created by Lacroix/Penrose permeated later accounts and every writer who quotes the imaginary exchange where Pierre de l'Hôpital compares the burning of bodies to the fat from a Sunday roast dripping onto the fire, or depicts Poitou as Gilles' lover and Henriet as his librarian, is in their debt. 

Given that even serious biographers have been led astray and made grave factual errors, the writers who deal with Gilles de Rais as a small part of a larger theme or as an encyclopedia entry have no chance of avoiding inaccuracy. They do not research individual topics in depth, but depend on the accuracy or otherwise of existing texts. A case in point is this passage from The Domain of Devils by the esteemed folklorist Eric Maple, where we can see the process of Chinese whispers in action. He begins well, but at a certain point in the narrative he segues quite bizarrely into the Bluebeard story, complete with plucky sister. This is a fairly common trope for the period, and betrays the author's source - Eliphas Lévi's fantasy account, which follows the exact same trajectory, from Gilles to Bluebeard and back to Gilles again. Lévi also included the Gothic detail that Gilles was planning to sacrifice his unborn son, which comes straight from an 1830's novel by Hippolyte Bonnelier and has no basis whatsoever in contemporary documents. Maple omits this &, sweetly, ends with a small gesture towards revisionism. Clearly, he was aware of the événements of the 1920s and of Reinach and Fleuret/Hernandez; it is a shame that he did not actually read them. But why would he? He had read Lévi, and Lévi was a popular author in his day: surely he would not mislead his readers...

(The History of Magic by Eliphas Lévi was originally written in French: original version here.)

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.