FAQs #7

The 1992 retrial was just a publicity stunt, right? After all, no mediaeval historians were involved.

Yes and no. Gilbert Prouteau was a mischief -maker, but he seems to have been sincere. He did no original research, but based his case on the writings of his predecessors, Salomon Reinach and Fernand Fleuret. There was much that was wrong with the retrial – for instance, overtly fictional material from Prouteau's novel was admitted as evidence. Also, it carried no formal weight: it did not officially overturn the verdict of the 1440 trial, as some accounts imply. However, the lack of historians was not particularly a flaw. Few historians have written about Gilles. His first biographer, on whom all subsequent biographies lean heavily, was not a historian. There is no indication that any writer has paid due attention to the contemporary documents since Bossard's day. In order to have a more informed opinion, any historian would have to have specialised in Gilles' period and to have looked closely at the trial record. It is unlikely that such a person existed in 1992; there are precious few even now. Mediaeval historians had nothing to do with creating the myth of Gilles de Rais and nothing to do with this attempt at unravelling it.

Further reading -
1992 news reports
"History is something that never happened, written by a man who wasn't there."

You say he was tortured? But he wasn't tortured, he was spared that in return for a confession.

This myth is based on a universal misreading of the trial record. At no point did his judges offer to waive the torture altogether, merely to defer it until the next day if he cooperated. He was given a few hours to think about it, and made his first (out of court) confession that same day. His second (in court) confession was given the next day, in a rare evening sitting. There is every reason to suppose that he was tortured in the morning. That would have been the norm; torture was routinely applied merely to confirm a confession.

Not much more than two years after Gilles de Rais' execution, the King wrote letters  asserting his innocence, using highly emotive language and claiming that he suffered "attentats" - outrages - in prison. Clearly Charles, too, believed that he was put to the Question. 

It is vital to correct this error, since it is often stated that Gilles confessed voluntarily, at the mere threat of torture. This has the double effect of making him seem a coward and his forced confession a spontaneous effusion of guilt.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Further reading -
Was Gilles de Rais tortured?
Wrongly, unduly and without cause

Was Gilles de Rais tortured?

We are told that Gilles de Rais confessed "voluntarily and without coercion", but this was merely an Inquisition formula; the same is said of his servants, and it is quite clear that their testimony was extracted forcibly. Most biographers state that Gilles' confession was produced merely by the threat of torture, and often there is an implication that he was a coward. It seems unlikely that he was allowed to escape physical interrogation, however, since at that period torture was used routinely, often merely to confirm a confession that had already been made.

On October 20th, after Gilles had made a rudimentary confession in court, in which the only crime he admitted to was alchemy, the prosecutor announced that he had established the case for the prosecution with this confession and the production of witnesses and their evidence. However, “in order that the truth might be further scrutinised and elucidated”, he asked the judges to have Gilles tortured. Malestroit and Blouyn then consulted with experts and concluded that Gilles should be put to the Question.

The court assembled at terce the next day and the previous day's events were recapped. Although the next day was already fixed for Gilles to present his argument, the judges decided to proceed with the torture immediately. The accused was then brought in and “humbly begged” for the torture to be deferred until the next day, reasonably pointing out that this was the day they had set aside for the purpose. He promised to deliberate on the transgressions he stood accused of, in the hope that he could satisfy them and so make torture unnecessary. He asked that the Bishop of St-Brieuc and Pierre de l'Hôpital – representing respectively the ecclesiastical and secular courts – should hear what he had to say. He made two stipulations: that this must be done somewhere away from the torture chamber, and that he would not talk to Malestroit and Blouyn, only to their representative. The judges readily assented, but would only delay the torture until 2pm of that same day. They conceded that if Gilles were to confess to all or even some of the charges, perhaps they might postpone the torture until the next day “because of their great affection for him”.  Note that at no point did they promise that he would not be tortured at all.

It is noticeable that apart from two passages of direct speech, there is very little in this so-called “out-of-court confession” that could not have been extracted from the articles of accusation, the statements of complainants, or various other points during the course of the trial; all of which were based on  Malestroit's secret letter of the 30th July. The only new information is the dating of the crimes, and even there Gilles refers only to sodomy and differs from the articles by six years. The rest is a mere formula, which Gilles was required to assent to in order to avert the threat of torture.

Gilles' public confession took place the next day, October 22nd, not in the morning, but in the evening; only one other sitting took place at vespers rather than terce, on October 17th, after the interrogation of Gilles' friends. It is almost certain that he was tortured in the interim. His judges had only promised that the torture would be deferred if he confessed, not waived. The most likely method would have been the water torture, an early form of waterboarding in which water was forced into the victim's body through a funnel in the mouth.

Gilles' rank did not spare him from being put to the Question. The confirmation comes in an unexpected form in Charles VII's letters patent of January 1443.  These documents are often dismissed as insincere, but the King expressed himself with great forcefulness for a man making a cynical political gesture. The key word in his letters is attentats, outrages, meaning that Gilles was subjected to severe ill treatment while in prison. This is the strongest possible implication that he was tortured.

Dead man walking

Gilles de Laval, Lord of Rais 1404-1440, Arrested for his Strange Crimes by Lucien Napolean Francois Totain, 1838-1900 

Gilles de Rais was arrested on September 15th 1440.

He was at Machecoul. He could have resisted almost indefinitely behind its fortifications, but he gave himself up for arrest. This was not the action of a guilty man. In all probability he thought that his arrest was a mere formality in connection with the affray at St-Etienne-de-Mer-Morte - he had had a meeting with Jean V in July to discuss the fine he had been given for this matter. Clearly the meeting had given him no reason for serious misgivings. 

Initially, Gilles accepted his judges, but at this point he did not know the true nature of the charges against him. It was not until October 8th - a full three weeks after his arrest - that it was revealed to him that he stood accused of murder and sodomy. And it was at this point that he railed against his judges, calling them simoniacs and ribalds. This has always been taken to be another example of the madness of Gilles de Rais; in context, it would appear to be the shocked and frustrated outburst of a man who realises that he has fallen into a trap. He was now in the clutches of the Inquisition. He had no counsel for the defence. He was denied the right of appeal because he had necessarily, because unforewarned, attempted to appeal orally instead of in writing. He denied these charges until the point when he was shown the forced confessions of his servants and threatened with torture himself. 

Jean V had already confiscated and disposed of Gilles's property on September 3rd, twelve days before he was arrested. 

The cynicism is breathtaking.

Long before he was arrested, Gilles de Rais was a dead man walking.

From The Story of Joan of Arc by Andrew Lang (1906)

There was a Marshal of France, Gilles de Rais, a nobleman who fought beside Joan at Orleans, at Les Tourelles, at Jargeau, at Pathay, and at Paris, and who carried the sacred vessel which the Angel brought, long ago, with holy oil, at the King's coronation. Later this man was accused by the Inquisition of the most horrible crimes. Among other things, he was said to have sacrificed children to the devil, and to have killed hundreds of little boys for his own amusement. But hundreds of little boys were not proved to be missing, and none of their remains were ever found. Gilles de Rais denied these horrible charges; he said he was innocent, and, for all that we know, he was. But they took him to the torture vault, and showed him the engines of torment, and he confessed everything, so that he might be put to death without torture, which was done

The whole book is online, this is the relevant page: