The Monsterisation of Gilles de Rais (postscript)

On the face of it, just a particularly ingenious uglification of the Feron portrait of Gilles de Rais, by Joseph A Smith.

However, it illustrates the book Witches by Erica Jong, and what Jong has to say about Gilles de Rais is borderline revisionist -

Most history books slavishly repeat the charge that Gilles de Rais was a sexual deviate who murdered young boys in satanic rites. It is rumored that he practiced black magic in the hopes of restoring a squandered fortune.

Like Joan's, his story serves many purposes. A valiant soldier and nationalist hero, he was instrumental (with Joan of Arc) in bringing about the victory of Charles VII. He was Joan's protector in battle and shares with her the glory of having turned the tide in the Hundred Years' War.

Yet, ten years after Joan's trial for heresy, he too was charged with heresy. When he determined to refute that charge, he found himself charged with sodomy and murder. In the language of the accusation against him by the ecclesiastical authorities, Gilles de Rais was said to be "heretic, sorcerer, sodomite, invocator of evil spirits, diviner, killer of innocents, apostate from the faith, idolator."

He was threatened with torture, but it is not clear whether torture was used or not. (Joan of Arc was not physically tortured, though she was chained, confined, and subjected to mental anguish.) In any case, it is notable that not long after being charged, he made a complete about-face from hauteur to humility, confessed to having killed at least eight hundred children, and went to his death in great penitence, having twice been excommunicated as a heretic and apostate.

Margaret Murray claims that the evidence against Gilles de Rais was clearly trumped up, and that he, like Joan, was simply a member of the Old Religion, a leader of the Dianic cult. She suggests that his death was again the ritual sacrifice of one whom the people saw as the incarnate god or Divine King. According to Murray, the deaths of Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais were substitute sacrifices that ensured the continued reign of the French kings: the deaths of two token kings in lieu of the real ones. This is an attractive theory, but we do not have enough clear evidence either to accept or deny it. What is interesting, however, is what these two examples teach us about the nature of received historical wisdom. Since all the contemporary chroniclers told the stories of Joan and Gilles from an ecclesiastical point of view, we can only speculate about a possibly pagan interpretation of the facts, and consequently we will probably never really know the truth about these figures.

Murray writes with an antiecclesiastical bias; the histories err in the other direction. From the stories of both Gilles and Joan, we learn only that what is usually called "history" is merely what the rulers of society have deemed to be true. In order to find out what really happened, we must go to other sources - census figures, account books - data set down with relative neutrality, if these indeed still exist. With Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais, even the bare facts are in dispute. But the historian's loss is the poet's or playwright's or novelist's gain. Joan and Gilles are ideal figures for poetic interpretation because their stories can be made to serve a variety of imaginative ends.

Erica Jong - writing in the early 1980s, before the contentious 1992 rehabilitation of Gilles de Rais - allows the reader to make up his or her own mind. What a pity her illustrator felt unable to do likewise.

The Monsterisation of Gilles de Rais

This is the whole of the cartoon by Steve Vance/Eddie Newell that I referred to in the Common errors post at the end of last month. It is an excellent example of how Gilles de Rais is monsterised throughout the media. Note how, after the first page, he appears to be in his forties or fifties, in spite of having died in his thirty-sixth year. Even the excellent Paul Gillon falls prey to this fallacy, making Gilles look much older than Jehanne, when in fact there was only seven years between them. He is also shown as gluttonous and grossly overweight, although the only evidence we have for this are the pious platitudes attributed to him at his trial. Monsters have to be as ugly outside as they are inside, otherwise how would we recognise them? A handsome ogre would turn the moral universe upside-down.

Gilles de Rais was no ogre, as this blog tries to demonstrate. We have no portrait of him. But  Eugène Bossard  writes: Les historiens le représentent comme un des hommes le plus instruits de son temps. Ils s'accordent à voir en lui une des plus belles intelligences du siècle.

Does that sound like a monster?

[But do click on the link to the cartoon, anyway. If you missed it, here it is again.]

Curious

This article was published anonymously in Curious, a sex magazine, in the early 1970s. At that period, just after Pierre Klossowski translated the full trial records into French for the first time, scepticism was growing about the validity of the charges against Gilles, and the anonymous author reflects this. It is an excellent article overall; there are a few errors, but it is a better account than the average rawhead and bloody bones web page.

Because this is a photocopy of a magazine article it is not easy to present online in a readable form. This link is to Dropbox.

Curious

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.

Common errors

There are literally hundreds of web pages about Gilles de Rais and more are being made every day. Many of them are lurid and inaccurate, cutting and pasting phrases from other sources which may or may not be reliable. How can you tell the good ones from the bad?

There are certain errors which are frequently made by cut-and-paste web sites. For some reason, the date of Gilles's death is commonly given as October 25th - actually the day he was sentenced. Presumably one person initially made this slip and others copied it without researching the facts. 

It is claimed that he had a blue beard, which is a myth - there is no contemporary portrait of him and descriptions are vague and general. An unusually-coloured beard would certainly have been remarked upon!

Often his date of birth is given - usually as November 15th, which was when his brother was born. Weirdly, although the month can vary, the date is always given as the 15th. In fact, the date of Gilles de Rais's birth is not known.

But by far the commonest error is that he was hanged and burned, or often just burned. He was not. His body was removed from the flames and laid to rest with full honours in the church of Notre Dame des Carmes in Nantes, among the heroes of Brittany. 

This post is illustrated with the final frames of an Eddie Newell cartoon, written by Steve Vance. In this case the error was not accidental, as the bibliography for the cartoon cites biographies by  Jean Benedetti  and Leonard Wolf. Giving Vance the benefit of the doubt, it seems probable that this change was made for dramatic effect. As a rule, however, it is an attempt to gloss over the final privileges granted to Gilles - the grand procession to the gallows with the people praying for his soul, the entombment in sanctified ground - because these sit uneasily with his reputation as evil child-killer. It was a cynical gesture on the part of his judges to allow his body to be removed from the flames because as a convicted practitioner of black magic he should have been burned to ashes in order to destroy the physical integrity of his body. He should certainly not have been allowed to rest in a tomb inside a church. But then, neither his judges nor the people who wept and prayed for his salvation ever believed him to be a heretic, a sorcerer or a murderer.

Why did Gilles not proclaim his innocence in the moments before dying?

This press cutting is extracted from the Milwaukee Sentinal, 12th April 1936. It deals with an attempt to rehabilitate Gilles de Rais in the mid 1920s, on rather strange grounds. What concerns us here is the final paragraph, which dismisses the claims of Gilles's innocence because he failed to speak the truth at the foot of the gallows.
So did Gilles have nothing more to fear from telling the truth? Not at all. He had made a deal with his judges and if he had gone back on his word and retracted his confession, the consequences for him would have been appalling. He would have been excommunicated on the spot, which to his mind would have consigned him to Hell. Instead of dying the swift death of a cooperative prisoner, his neck broken instantly, he would have been allowed to strangle slowly over the flames which would consume him. Then his ashes would have been thrown into the Loire instead of resting in the cathedral of Notre Dame des Carmes alongside other Breton heroes. From his point of view, as a mediaeval Christian, if he remained silent he would die relatively painlessly and be received into Heaven; if he spoke out he would suffer a prolonged and agonising death that would plunge him into Hell. A last-minute profession of innocence was not an option that a sane man would take.

Quotes about Gilles de Rais

The wizard or warlock is on a higher plane. Often he is scientifically far in advance of his generation; as we may suspect that Gilles de Laval, usually known as de Rais (or Retz) really was, though the Church made him out to be an inhuman, Devil-worshipping monster, and burnt him as such. - Philip W. Sergeant: Witches and Warlocks, 1936

 At least two lobbies also have no interest in seeing this [the traditional] version revised. Some French newspapers reported that, unwilling to reopen a ruling by the Inquisition, the Roman Catholic Church sees the hand of Freemasons behind the creation of the 'arbitration court.'
For the villagers who live off tourists visiting the ruined castles at Tiffauges, Machecoul and Champtocé, on the other hand, the very notion of transforming Gilles de Rais from monster to martyr poses a threat to their trade. "We're not interested in reopening the affair," Georges Gautier, a guide to Tiffauges castle, proclaimed. - N Y Times, November 1992

I think, then, it is not altogether unfair to assume that Gilles de Rais was to a large extent the victim of Catholic logic. Catholic logic: and the foul wish-fantasms generated of its repressions, and of its fear and ignorance. He wanted to confer a boon on humanity; therefore he consorted with the learned; therefore he murdered little children. - Aleister Crowley: The Banned Lecture

The overwhelming probability, of course, is that Gilles de Rais was innocent; like all the other famous victims of sorcery trials he was framed by his enemies, who used the same vicious slanders to discredit and destroy him as the English had used to discredit & destroy his companion-in-arms Joan of Arc. Because his trial was a domestic affair, later generations of Frenchmen were content to let his conviction stand so that the Church might use it as a terrible example to those who faltered in the faith. - Brian M Stableford

...The presence of Rais at Louviers - less than sixteen miles from Rouen, where Joan was imprisoned - is a very significant circumstance. Some writers have suggested that, being a mere spy employed by La Trémouille, Rais abandoned the cause of the Maid after the failure of the attempt on Paris. We think otherwise, and are inclined, moreover, to give Charles VII credit for some desire to save the unfortunate Joan. - E A Vizetelly
(Gilles was at Louviers, with an army, while Jehanne was on trial, & he was later joined by Dunois, also at the head of an army. It is inconceivable that a rescue attempt was not being plotted. This is something that has been suppressed in later biographies in order to separate de Rais from Jehanne & make him a spy & a villain from the start.)

Le 3 janvier 1443... le roi de France dénonçait le verdict du tribunal piloté par l'Inquisition.
Charles VII adressait au duc de Bretagne les lettres patentes dénonçant la machination du procès du maréchal: "Indûment condamné", tranche le souverain. Cette démarche a été finalement étouffée par l'Inquisition et les intrigues des grands féodaux.  - Gilbert Prouteau: Gilles de Rais ou La Gueule du Loup, 1992

...Voltaire classes Gilles de Rais with the Princess of Gloucester and and Baron Cobham as an unfortunate victim of fanaticism compounded of ignorance and superstition.
En Bretagne, on fit mourir le maréchal de Rais, accusé de magie et d'avoir égorgé des enfants pour faire avec leur sang de prétendus enchantments. [In Brittany, the Maréchal de Rais was put to death, accused of magic and of having slit the throats of children to use their blood, allegedly, in casting spells.]
As one who had reason to doubt the validity of the judicial system of his own day, Voltaire had even less reason to imagine that the medieval Inquisition would have delivered a reasonable judgement. - Val Morgan: The Legend of Gilles de Rais...

The expiatory monument erected by Marie de Rais at the site of her father's execution. "...miraculous powers were ascribled to the Virgin in the niche, she became known as the 'Bonne Vierge de Crée-Lait,' 'the Milk-Giver'; and until the Reign of Terror mothers and nurses flocked to the spot to pray her for an abundance of milk..."  - E.A.Vizetelly

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. - Andrew Lang: The Story of Joan of Arc, 1906

Qu'ont-ils détecté, déniché, découvert au cours de leurs exploration? Rien, pas un indice. Pas une dent. Pas un vestige, pas un cheveu. Pas un témoin qui puisse dire: «J'ai vu». Pas une mère en pleurs qui clame: «Voilà la robe souillée de sang de ma fille morte.» Pas un père qui vienne apporter un coeur d'enfant arraché de la poitrine et enveloppé dans un linge maculé. [What did they find, unearth, discover during their exploration? Nothing, not a clue. Not a tooth. Not a trace, not a hair. Not one witness who can say: "I have seen." Not a weeping mother who claims: "There is the dress stained with the blood of my dead daughter" Not a father who brings a child's heart ripped from its chest and wrapped in a spotted cloth.] -  Gilbert Prouteau

Sentenced to be hanged, his repentance and the resignation with which he went to the gallows were acclaimed at the time as an example of Christian penitence, although it is equally possible that Rais simply wished to avoid being tortured to death by the ever-busy French torturers. The fact is that the Duke of Brittany, who instigated the proceedings against Rais, had a significant financial interest in Rais' ruin: it seems that accusations of witchcraft were a convenient method of getting rid of awkward people, and that Rais' reputation, passed down the centuries, is a gross slander. - Nigel Cawthorne: Witches, History of a Persecution
[A fairly standard point of view. The interesting part is that a year earlier a different edition of this book was published in which this passage ended with the word "penitence". Cawthorne clearly had a change of heart between 2003 and 2004, which is encouraging...]

An hypothesis no better founded is that which consists in identifying Bluebeard with the Marshal de Rais, who was strangled by the arm of the Law above the bridges of Nantes on 26th of October, without inquiring, with M. Salomon Reinach, whether the Marshal committed the crimes for which he was condemned, or whether his wealth, coveted by a greedy prince, did not in some degree contribute to his undoing, there is nothing in his life that resembles what we find in Bluebeard's; this alone is enough to prevent our confusing them or merging the two individuals into one. - Anatole France