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Gilles de Rais
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Gilles de Montmorency-Laval, Baron of Rais, Count of Brienne, also known as Gilles de Rais (or Gilles de Retz, or Gilles de Rays), nicknamed Bluebeard (Barbe-Bleue), was Marshal of France and one-time companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, but is perhaps best known as a prolific serial killer of the Middle Ages.
as born in September or October 1404 at the château of Machecoul, just within the border of the Duchy of Brittany, according to some sources, or at the château of Champtocé, according to others.
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Gilles de Montmorency-Laval, Baron of Rais, Count of Brienne, also known as Gilles de Rais (or Gilles de Retz, or Gilles de Rays), nicknamed Bluebeard (Barbe-Bleue), was Marshal of France and one-time companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, but is perhaps best known as a prolific serial killer of the Middle Ages.
Biography
He was born in September or October 1404 at the château of Machecoul, just within the border of the Duchy of Brittany, according to some sources, or at the château of Champtocé, according to others. He died on 26 October 1440 at Nantes.
He was related to the family of Montmorency-Laval and he was executed by hanging for sodomy, murder and witchcraft.
Lord of Rais, of Ingrandes and Champtocé-sur-Loire, his vast income, his alliances with big noble families, his kinship with the royal family of France and the ducal dynasty of Brittany, made him one of the most prominent lords for his time.
Early years
His father was Guy de Montmorency-Laval, who had inherited, via adoption, the fortunes of Jeanne de Rais and Marie de Craon. Gilles inherited the barony of Rais in the peerage-duchy of Rais (now spelled Retz). He was an intelligent child, learning fluent Latin. After the death of his father, circa 1415, his mother remarried and Gilles and his brother René were put under the tutelage of his grandfather, Jean de Craon.
In 1420, he found himself at the court of the Dauphin, claimant to the crown of France. Jean de Craon sought to marry de Rais off to the heiress Jeanne de Paynol, but this was unsuccessful. Jean de Craon then attempted to join his young charge with Beatrice de Rohan, niece of the Duke of Brittany, again with no success. Eventually he was able to substantially increase de Rais' fortune by marrying him off to Catherine de Thouars of Brittany, heiress of La Vendée and Poitou, but only after first kidnapping her. Later stories connecting Rais with the mythical wife-murderer Bluebeard may have stemmed from the fact that two of several previous marriage schemes were thwarted by the death of the intended bride.
In the years following the Breton War of Succession, Gilles de Rais took the side of the Montfort Dukes of Brittany against a rival house led by Olivier de Blois, Count of Penthièvre (grandson of Charles de Blois). The Blois faction, who still refused to relinquish their rule over Brittany, had taken the Montfort Duke John V prisoner. De Rais was able to secure the Duke's release, and was rewarded with generous land grants which the Breton parliament converted to monetary gifts.
Military career during the Hundred Years' War
From 1427 to 1435, de Rais served as a commander in the Royal Army, and in 1429 fought along with Joan of Arc in some of the campaigns waged against the English and their Burgundian allies during the Hundred Years' War. Although a few authors have tended to exaggerate the position he held during the latter campaigns, surviving bursary records show that he only commanded a personal contingent of some 25 men-at-arms and 11 archers, and was one of many dozens of such commanders. Nor did he serve as Joan of Arc's bodyguard or sword-bearer, a position actually held by Jean d'Aulon. De Rais's greatest honor during these campaigns came when he joined three other commanders in holding the quasi-ceremonial title of Maréchal, a subordinate position under the Royal Connétable. This honor was granted him at the coronation of Charles VII on July 17, 1429.
In 1435, de Rais retired from military service to his estates, promoting theatrical performances and exhausting the large fortune he had inherited. It was during this period that, according to trial testimony given by de Rais and his accomplices, he began to experiment with the occult under the direction of a man named Francesco Prelati, who promised de Rais that he could help him regain his squandered fortune by sacrificing children to a demon called "Barron." However, this story may have been encouraged at his trial as an attempt to find a explanation for the crimes he committed.
Investigation and execution
On May 15, 1440, de Rais kidnapped a clergyman named Jean le Ferron during a dispute at the Church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte. This prompted an investigation by the Bishop of Nantes, during which the investigators uncovered evidence of de Rais' crimes. On July 29, the Bishop released his findings, and subsequently obtained the prosecutorial cooperation of de Rais' former protector, the Duke of Brittany. On August 24, Jean le Ferron was freed by ducal troops led by Arthur de Richemont. De Rais and his accomplices were arrested on September 15, following a secular investigation which paralleled the findings from the investigation from the Bishop of Nantes. De Rais' prosecution would likewise be conducted by both secular and ecclesiastical courts, on charges which included murder, sodomy, and heresy.
The extensive witness testimony convinced the judges that there were adequate grounds for establishing the guilt of the accused. After de Rais admitted to the charges on October 21, the court canceled a plan to torture him into confessing. Peasants of the neighboring villages had earlier begun to offer up accusations that since their children had entered Rais' castle begging for food they had never been seen again. The transcript, which included testimony from the parents of many of these missing children as well as graphic descriptions of the murders provided by de Rais' accomplices, was said to be so lurid that the judges ordered the worst portions to be stricken from the record.
The precise number of de Rais' victims is not known, as most of the bodies were burned or buried. The number of murders is generally placed between 80 and 200; a few have conjectured numbers upwards of 600. The victims ranged in age from six to eighteen and included both sexes.
On October 23, 1440, the secular court condemned de Rais' accomplices, Henriet and Poitou. On October 25, the ecclesiastical court handed down a sentence of excommunication against him, followed on the same day by the secular court's own condemnation of the accused. After tearfully expressing remorse for his crimes, de Rais obtained rescindment of the Church's punishment and was allowed confession, but the secular penalty remained in place. Gilles de Rais, Henriet, and Poitou were hanged at Nantes on October 26, 1440.
The murders
The first child-snatching attributed to Gilles de Rais occurred, historians believe, sometime in 1432, when Gilles de Sille, a cousin of de Rais, reportedly abducted a young apprentice whom de Sille wanted to carry a message to the castle at Machecoul. The anonymous 12-year-old boy, apprenticed to Guillaume Hilairet, a furrier, was the son of Jean Jeudon. When the boy disappeared and Hilairet sought out the nobleman de Sille, he was told the boy had been kidnapped by thieves in the village of Tiffauges. In Gilles’ trial, the events were testified to by Hillairet and his wife, Jean Jeudon and his wife, and five others from Machecoul. There is no evidence linking Gilles de Rais to this kidnapping, but he was charged with the boy’s death.
In Jean Benedetti’s biography of Gilles de Rais, he explains what happened to the children - both boys and girls:
The child was pampered and dressed in better clothes than it had ever known. The evening began with a large meal and heavy drinking, particularly hippocras, which acted as a stimulant. The child was taken to an upper room to which only Gilles (de Rais) and his immediate circle were admitted. The child would then be confronted with the true nature of its situation. The shock thus produced on the child was an initial source of pleasure for Gilles.
An accomplice in many of the crimes, Etienne Corrillaut, known as Poitou, testified that de Rais then raped the child as it was hanged from a hook by the neck. Before the victim died, Gilles took the child down, comforted it, repeated the rape and either killed the child himself or had it slain.
Poitou testified that the child victims were murdered “sometimes by decapitating them, sometimes by cutting their throats, sometimes by dismembering them, sometimes by breaking their necks with a stick, and that there was a weapon specifically for their execution, known as a braquemard.”
Gilles de Rais rarely left a child alive for more than one evening’s pleasure, Poitou claimed. Many times they were dealt mortal wounds before de Rais sodomized them. He would then take his pleasure as the child died. Occasionally, he would perform a sex act with a dead child.
In his own confession, Gilles testified that “when the children were dead he kissed them and those who had the most handsome limbs and heads he held up to admire them, and had their bodies cruelly cut open and took delight at the sight of their inner organs; and very often when the children were dying he sat on their stomachs and took pleasure in seeing them die and laughed…”
Bodies were cremated in the chamber of horrors. The fires burned slowly over time so as to minimize the smell, testified Henriet Griart, another co-conspirator. Poitou also claimed the ashes were then dumped in the cesspool or moat.
Controversy
Some believe that Gilles de Rais was framed for murder and heresy by elements within the Church as part of an ecclesiastic plot to expropriate his lands. This theory is considered doubtful by most historians, since the Church itself stood little chance of acquiring the properties. Title to the lands was ultimately transferred to the Duke of Brittany, who in turn divided them among nobles including Arthur de Richemont. Moreover, the guilty verdict was based on the detailed eyewitness accounts of his confederates and the testimony of his victims' parents.
Anthropologist Margaret Murray and occultist Aleister Crowley are among those who have questioned the account of the ecclesiastic and secular authorities involved in the case. Murray, in her book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (pp. 173-74), speculated that de Rais was a witch and adherent of a fertility cult centered on the pagan goddess, Diana. According to Murray, "Gilles de Rais was tried and executed as a witch and, in the same way, much that is mysterious in this trial can also be explained by the Dianic Cult."
Many historians reject Murray's theory. Norman Cohn, They argue that her theory does not agree with what is known of de Rais's crimes and trial. Historians generally do not regard de Rais as a martyr to an antiquated religion; recent scholars tend to view de Rais as a pious Catholic who descended into crime and depravity.
In popular culture
- Gilles de Rais (under the name Gilles de Retz) is the villain in the 1899 novel The Black Douglas by S.R. Crockett.
- The novels The Life and Death of my Lord Gilles de Rais by Robert Nye and The Trial of Gilles de Rais by Georges Bataille are amongst the works which retell the de Rais legend.
- Swiss avant-garde metal band Celtic Frost based their 1984 song "Into the Crypt of Rays" from the Morbid Tales ep on the atrocities committed by de Rais.
- Belgian black metal band Ancient Rites based their 1994 song "Morbid Glory (Gilles de Rais 1404-1440)" from Diabolic Serenades on the life of Gilles de Rais.
See also
Bibliography
- Bataille, Georges. The Trial of Gilles de Rais. Amok Books. ISBN 978-1-878923-02-8.
- Benedetti, Jean. Gilles de Rais. Stein and Day. ISBN 978-0-8128-1450-7.
- Bordonove, Georges. Gilles de Rais. Pygmalion. ISBN 978-2-85704-694-3.
- Cebrián, Juan Antonio. El Mariscal de las Tinieblas. La Verdadera Historia de Barba Azul. Temas de Hoy. ISBN 978-84-8460-497-6 (Spanish).
- Genet, Jean. The Thief's Journal. p.45. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3014-3.
- Huysmans, Joris K. La Bas (Down There). Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-22837-2.
- Hyatte, Reginald. Laughter for the Devil: The Trials of Gilles De Rais, Companion-In-Arms of Joan of Arc (1440). Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3190-4.
- Lampo, Hubert. De duivel en de maagd. 207 p., Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1988 (11e druk), ISBN 9029004452. (1e druk: ’s-Gravenhage, Stols, 1955).
- Lampo, Hubert. Le Diable et la Pucelle. 163 p., Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2002, ISBN 2-85939-765-5. (traduction française de De duivel en de maagd).
- Morgan, Val. The Legend of Gilles De Rais (1404-1440) in the Writings of Huysmans, Bataille, Plancon and Tournier (Studies in French Civilization, 29). Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-7734-6619-7.
- Nye, Robert. The Life and Death of My Lord, Gilles de Rais. Time Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-349-10250-4.
- Wolf, Leonard. Bluebeard: The Life and Times of Gilles De Rais. Potter. ISBN 978-0-517-54061-9.
External links
- (Chapters XI to XIII contain an abridged, yet somewhat detailed version of de Rais's trial.)
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