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 - ?

FAQs #1

Surely there's so much evidence against Gilles de Rais that his guilt is beyond doubt?

Not at all. In fact, the first hint that he may have been unjustly condemned came in January 1443, when the King made a gesture towards acquitting him. Although most of the writers who produced sensationalised versions of his life over the centuries had no interest in questioning the orthodox narrative, there have always been dissenters. In the twentieth century the trial record became easily available, first in 1921 (in a version produced by Fernand Fleuret) and then in 1965 (in Pierre Klossowski's translation). It is no coincidence that these dates marked sudden upswings in revisionist thought. Once it was possible to buy and read a modern French translation of the trial, it became abundantly clear that considerable chicanery took place. Even traditionalist writers were forced to accept that it is undeniable that there was a plot to bring about Gilles' downfall. Their case now rested on the notion that the Duke and the Bishop had conspired against a man who was a dreadful villain, and just happened to own the estates that the Duchy had coveted since before he was born. The many discrepancies and contradictions in the evidence, which had been ignored by biographers, were now exposed, although few bothered to look for them. All existing biographies contain monstrous errors and promulgate non-historical myths such as the veiling of the cross and the illustrated Suetonius.

Further reading:
An Overview:The Truth About Gilles de Rais

The Veiling of the Cross

But what about the bones that were found in some of his castles? 

There were no bones. At several points during the trial, there are claims about human remains – mass cremations at Machecoul, a conduit full of children's bones at Champtocé, a couple of skeletons found at Machecoul. These, however, are unsupported allegations; no forensic evidence was produced in court. In more recent times, there have been several rumours of bones found at one or other of Gilles de Rais' castles, but these always prove to be just that – rumours. The most recent was supposedly located at  La Suze-sur-Sarthe, which was not even part of Gilles' estates.

Further reading: 
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones...
The Beast of Extermination: a numbers game

The door opens...

Your intrepid blogger, aged seventeen, at Champtocé.

A likely story #5

Guillaume le Barbier, eighteen years old and therefore an unlikely victim, is one of a mere dozen vanished boys who is given a full name. The details of his case are contradictory, however. His father was Georget, a tailor – or, according to Blanchet, a pastrycook.  The former seems more likely, as the lad was apprenticed to Jean Peletier, the tailor to Lady de Rais and the rest of the household. A minor oddity is that the presence of her tailor implies that Catherine, who supposedly lived apart from her husband, was in residence at Machecoul while he was engaged on a murder spree. Although we are consistently told that his wife and daughter lived at Pouzauges, Abbé Bourdeaut calmly asserts that young Marie was brought up at Tiffauges où Gilles de Rais et sa femme demuraient habituellement. The presence of his family at both his favourite castles would rather mar their testosterone-soaked Sadean splendour.

The only suspicious circumstance surrounding this particular disappearance was that Blanchet saw the boy entering the castle of Machecoul – where, after all, he was employed – in the company of the automatically sinister Poitou. Nor is the date of his disappearance clear-cut; his father was firm that it was St Barnabas' Day, June 11th, whereas two other witnesses mentioned Easter. Both dates clash with Blanchet's evidence; he claimed that it happened while he was lodging with Etienne Ferron, but he only stayed there briefly and left in late February or early March. Poitou, however, affirmed before the civil court that Guillaume le Barbier was among the victims.

Blanchet asserted that the boy's possessions, including a silver coin, were returned to his father, which seems to indicate that he had died a natural death, since this would hardly have been done if he had been murdered. Although he must have come and gone from the castle at will, the descriptions of  his disappearance imply that he was abducted, which would hardly have been necessary. Even here, accounts clash: his father said that he vanished while playing with a ball of thread; the omnipresent witness André Barbe had him picking apples, which is a good trick in June, let alone at Easter.

Bluebeard fellators vs Troll

A little light relief, on the basis that I like my revenge served icy cold. This happened a year ago and I held back from posting it at the time. Now I shall just add ice cubes, anonymise the guilty party (while making sure he can find this when he self-googles, and believe me he is big on self-googling) and post. I'm doing this not entirely out of malice -  he makes several bogus points that can be answered in a more appropriate forum. And it will be an object lesson in what happens to trolls who are stupid enough to abuse strangers in public.

On the whole, I have been very lucky on the internet, given that I'm loudly proclaiming a minority view which a few people find outrageous. Most people are polite and engage in reasoned debate. All that was to change when I saw the above Facebook post. Really? My blog is the third most stupid thing on the internet this year? Somebody's not really trying.

Now, I have a rule about commenting on Facebook posts. If it's on a Page, then it's fair game and I can try and start a discussion. If it's on an individual's wall as a public post, I sit on my hands, because it seems rude to barge in, however ill-advised I may think that public posting on controversial themes is. This was different, though. This was somebody insulting me in public and I couldn't let that go. After some thought, I decided on a lighthearted approach -

All quite civilized so far. I really didn't expect a reply; I was just advising him that I'd seen his post. He did reply, however, and from then on it all went downhill fast. He posted a long screed asserting his belief that Gilles was guilty, showing no specialist knowledge or any sign that he had read deeply into the subject or was even especially interested. I replied at half the length, essentially reiterating the arguments I have made repeatedly, on this blog and elsewhere. At this point nobody insulted anybody: we simply disputed the facts.

And then this happened -

He blocked me! Apparently he couldn't argue with all those "nitpicky little uncited and out-of-context assertions" which build up to make a strong case for Gilles de Rais' innocence. I have never been asked to give citations on a Facebook discussion (and wasn't here) and, in any case, I was only quoting evidence from the trial. Which he's surely read, right? (The ice age? It's in the book, with full citation). I have no idea what he meant by "out-of-context"; he gave his argument, I replied to the point he made in that first sentence.

This should have been the end of the matter, but Mr X had failed to take into account the vagaries of Facebook and the dangers of public posting. Several of my friends had seen the exchange and decided to pile into the thread in my defence. And a lot of them took screen-grabs for me. 

This is how he replied to one of them -

There are some perfectly crazed allegations in there. My "bizarrely hostile behavior", for one. "Going full attack dog" - not my style at all, as a simple Google search will establish. And hardly self-promoting, as I use a pseudonym much of the time - the same one I use for this blog, Morbid Morag. Research? Well, if he read the blog he'd know about that.

He just carried on getting weirder. Werewolves now! And sockpuppets - he couldn't believe that I might have friends who have been following my researches.

Note that - whole minutes of research on his part!

I think this may be my favourite insult (the innocent have been anonymised). 

"A non-trivial number of people who crave the dick of long-dead serial killers". Clearly the laws of libel hold no fear for this brave keyboard warrior.

Bluebeard-fellating! (He hasn't read what I have to say about the Bluebeard myth, obviously). By this point he was already blocking everyone who supported me. 

You may be feeling sorry for him by now. Why is this nasty lady persecuting what is clearly a precocious fifteen-year-old? Unfortunately, this foul-mouthed troll hunched over his laptop in his bedroom playing computer games and hurling libellous abuse at strangers on Facebook is actually a well-known lawyer in his late thirties.  

A Gilles de Rais Christmas Card

Gilles de Rais by Olly Flanagan

This picture, a mash-up of several depictions of Gilles de Rais, was made for me as a Christmas card by a good friend and is shared with her permission. Enjoy! 

You've read the blog, now buy the book

I never meant to write a biography of Gilles de Rais. All I intended to do was bring the ideas of Reinach, Fleuret, Bayard and Prouteau to an English-speaking audience. I assumed there were plenty of decent biographies out there and all I would need to do was provide an outline of his life.

Then I read (in some cases re-read) those biographies, both English and French... Oh, dear. Even the best were inaccurate, the worst were compendiums of myth and fiction. This is what I said back in spring 2014: "There is no one book about Gilles de Rais, either in English or French, that gives all the known facts free of myth and with no agenda. All accept Bossard as an authority, and Bossard knowingly used the forged trial account by "The Bibliophile Jacob", Paul Lacroix, and invented a Bluebeard folklore that simply did not exist at that time. Also, there is no revisionist biography in English."

I touched upon the works of Prouteau and his predecessors and issued the first hint of what I was planning: "However, I do feel that they only scratch at the surface of the case for Gilles' innocence. If this blog is less regular than it might be, that is because there is a book to be written..."

Four years later (and eight years after I began my research) that book is finally complete. I have tried to be as inclusive as possible and to give a taste of various biographers and novelists. There is a detailed chronology, a couple of maps, an appendix that contains all the trial evidence, translations of Bossard's Bluebeard myths (including the lengthy anonymous poem that has never, to my knowledge, been rendered into English), my own version of the tale of Comorre the Cursed, various short essays and much, much more. 

Some of the material first saw daylight in this blog. A lot more is new. If you want to know the identity of the spy in Gilles' household who took bribes from the Duke and was instrumental in spreading the "public rumour", for example, you must either read the book or research it for yourself. Also, it is fascinating how the life of Gilles de Rais takes on a completely new shape if it is not viewed through the filter of an unquestioning belief in his guilt. 

The book tells the story of Gilles de Rais' life and death, but goes beyond that to give an account of his afterlife in fiction, culture and legend. If you want all the truth, plus an examination and debunking of the lies and myths, you need to read it. 

The Martyrdom of Gilles de Rais is on sale here, price £12 + P&P.

Portrait of the author
as a much younger woman

And now the book is written, what next? 

Watch this space... 

There will be more developments.