[Signed:] J. Delaunay, G. Lesné.
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(I. Gilles humbly begs his judges to postpone the application of torture to the following day: they delegate the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc and the “President of Brittany” to hear the confessions of the accused.)
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2. Gilles de Raisʹ ʺout-of-court confession.ʺ
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What follows is the oft-mentioned out-of-court confession of Gilles de Rais, the accused, made in the presence of the said Lords Bishop of Saint-Brieuc, appointed by the said Lords Bishop and Vicar, so far as concerns ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and Master Pierre de L’Hôpital, President, Jean Labbé, Yvon de Rocerf, squire, Jean de Touscheronde, cleric, and me, Jean Petit, aforesaid scribe and notary public, specially convoked for this in the convenient room given in La Tour Neuve castle in Nantes to the said Gilles, in which to stay, repose, and sleep during the trial. As said above, the said confession was made voluntarily, freely, and under no constraint, on the afternoon of Friday, October 21st, in the aforesaid year.
And first, on the subject of the abduction and death of many children; the libidinous, sodomitic, and unnatural vice; the cruel and horrible manner of killing; at the same time, the invocations of demons, oblations, immolations or sacrifices; the promises made or the obligations contracted with them by him or other things mentioned in the first or subsequent articles; the said Gilles de Rais, interrogated by the said Lord Bishop of Saint-Brieuc and the said President, in their presence and in the presence also of several other people, voluntarily, freely, and grievously said and confessed that he had committed and maliciously perpetrated on numerous children the crimes, sins, and offenses of homicide and sodomy; he confessed also that he had committed the invocations of demons, oblations, and immolations, and made promises and obligations to demons, and done other things that he had confessed recently in the presence of the said Lord President and other people.
Interrogated by the said Reverend Father and President as to the place where and time when he began perpetrating the crime of sodomy, he responded: in the Champtocé castle; he professed not to know when or in what year, but to have begun doing it the year his grandfather, Lord de La Suze, died.
Item, interrogated by the said Lord President as to who had persuaded him to the aforesaid crimes and taught him how to commit them, he responded that he did and perpetrated them according to his imagination and idea, without anyone’s counsel and following his own feelings, solely for his pleasure and carnal delight, and not with any other intention or to any other end.
And the said Lord President being surprised, as he said, that the said accused would have accomplished the said crimes and offenses of his own accord and without anyone’s instigation, summoned the said accused again to tell from what motives, with what intent, and to what ends he had the said children killed and committed on them the said sins and had their cadavers burned, and why he gave himself up to other aforesaid crimes and aforesaid sins, adjuring him to be willing to declare these things thoroughly, in order to disburden his conscience, which most likely was accusing him, and to secure more easily the favor of the most clement Redeemer; whereupon the said accused, indignant at being solicited and interrogated in this manner, spoke in French to the said Lord President: “Alas! Monsignor, you torment yourself and me along with you.”89 Which Lord President responded to him in French: “I don’t torment myself in the least, but I’m very surprised at what you’ve told me and simply cannot be satisfied with it. I desire and would like to know the absolute truth from you for the reasons I’ve already told you often.”90 To which Lord President the said accused responded: “Truly, there was no other cause, no other end nor intention, if not what I’ve told you: I’ve told you greater things than this and enough to kill ten thousand men.”91 With this, the said President ceased interrogating the said accused and ordered that François Prelati be brought into the said room. And François was brought forth in person before the said Gilles, the accused, and other people present, and he and the said Gilles, the accused, were interrogated together by the said Lord Bishop of Saint-Brieuc, on the invocation of demons and the oblation of the blood and members of the said small children — which the said Bishop said that the said Gilles and François had just confessed — and the places where they performed the said invocations and oblations already confessed by them.
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(2. Gilles de Raisʹ ʺout-of-court confession.ʺ)
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Which Gilles, the accused, and François responded that the said François performed several invocations of demons, and of one named Barron specifically, by order of the said accused, as much in his absence as in his presence; and moreover, the said accused said that he was present at two or three invocations, especially at the said places of Tiffauges and Bourgneuf-en-Rais, but that he was never able to see or hear any demon, even though the said accused, as they both said, had conveyed an obligatory note written and signed in his own hand to the same Barron by way of the said François, by which the said Gilles submitted to the said Barron and to his mandate, and promised to obey his orders, while retaining his soul, however, and his life; and that the said accused promised the said Barron the hand, eyes, and heart of a child, which François was supposed to offer him, as he said, but the aforesaid François did not do it, of which the aforesaid accused and François said that they had given a full statement in their recent confession; insofar as it was concerned, the said François agreeing with the said confessions.
Which Lord President then ordered the said François to return to his room or wherever he was being guarded. Whereupon the said accused, turning to the said François, spoke in tears and gasps to him in French: “Goodbye, François, my friend! never again shall we see each other in this world; I pray that God gives you plenty of patience and understanding, and be sure, provided you have plenty of patience and trust in God, we will meet again in the great joy of paradise! Pray to God for me, and I will pray for you!”92 upon which saying, he embraced the same François, who was taken away immediately.
[Signed:] Jean Petit.
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Gilles de Raisʹ ʺin-court confession.ʺ
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Saturday, October 22, 1440.
Saturday, October 22nd, arraigned before the said Lord Bishop of Nantes and Friar Jean Blouyn, Vicar of the Inquisitor, sitting on the bench to administer the law in the place designated above, at the hour of Vespers, the said Master Guillaume Chapeillon, prosecutor and plaintiff, on the one hand, and the said Gilles de Rais, the accused, on the other, appeared in person.
In conformity with the appointed term, the prosecutor asking that the said Lords Bishop of Nantes and Friar Jean Blouyn, Vicar of the Inquisitor, interrogate the said accused to know whether he intended to say anything else against or object to what had been said in the case, the accused said and responded that he did not intend to say anything, but voluntarily and freely, with great contrition of heart and great grief, according as it appeared at first sight, and with a great effusion of tears, confessed what he had confessed out of court in his room in the presence of the Reverend Father, Lord Bishop of Saint-Brieuc, Master Pierre de L’Hôpital, President of Brittany, Jean de Touscheronde, and Jean Petit. And he acknowledged that each and every one of the things contained and published in the said articles were and are true. And the accused himself adding to his other out-of-court confession without straying, wanted to repeat and recite it here, and to remedy its faults in the event that he had omitted anything, and to make more thorough declarations of the points developed summarily in the aforesaid articles; he voluntarily confessed and declared that he had committed and perpetrated iniquitously other high and enormous crimes, since the beginning of his youth, against God and His commandments, and that he had offended our Savior on account of the bad management he had received in his childhood when, unbridled, he applied himself to whatever pleased him, and pleased himself with every illicit act, and he urg
ed those present who had children to instruct them in good doctrines and instill in them the habit of virtue during their youth and childhood.
After this confession made in arraignment by the said Gilles de Rais, the accused, as has been recorded, on the subject of the content of the aforesaid articles, and once the out-of-court confession had been repeated and recited — seeing as he affirmed that, among the crimes and offenses, there figured enormous crimes, e.g., the sin against nature not as fully stated in the articles, already voluntarily acknowledged as true by him and whose secret confession he had made before the Reverend Father in God, Lord Jean Prégent, Bishop of Saint-Brieuc, and noblemen Pierre de L’Hôpital, President of Brittany, and Jean Labbé, squire, and me, Jean Petit, notary public, general examiner of witnesses for the ecclesiastical court of Nantes, and Jean de Touscheronde, scribe also to the secular court of the same place — so that the said secret confession would be committed the best way possible to the memory of men, it pleased the same Gilles, the accused, not to diminish but rather to fortify and reinforce it; and he asked that the aforesaid confession be published in the vernacular language for any and all of the people present, the better part of whom did not know Latin, and that the publication and confession of perpetrated offenses be set forth for his shame, in order for him to attain more easily the forgiveness of his sins and God’s grace in absolving them; he said that in his youth he had always been of a delicate nature and for his pleasure and according to his will had done whatever evil he could, and that he had put his hope and intention in the illicit and dishonest acts and things that he did; he most tenderly besought and exhorted the fathers, mothers, friends, and neighbors of every young boy and every child to raise them with good manners, by good examples and doctrines; and to instruct them in these things and chastise them lest they fall in the trap wherein he himself had fallen. By which secret confession that in the said Gilles’ presence was read in trial and published, and approved by him, the said Gilles de Rais, the accused, voluntarily and publicly, before everyone, confessed that, because of his passion and sensual delight, he took and had others take so many children that he could not determine with certitude the number whom he’d killed and caused to be killed, with whom he committed the vice and sin of sodomy; and he said and confessed that he had ejaculated spermatic seed in the most culpable fashion on the bellies of the said children, as much after their deaths as during it; on which children sometimes he and sometimes some of his accomplices, notably the aforesaid Gilles de Sillé, Milord Roger de Briqueville, knight, Henriet and Poitou, Rossignol and Petit Robin, inflicted various types and manners of torment; sometimes they severed the head from the body with dirks, daggers, and knives, sometimes they struck them violently on the head with a cudgel or other blunt instruments, sometimes they suspended them with cords from a peg or small hook in his room and strangled them; and when they were languishing, he committed the sodomitic vice on them in the aforesaid manner. Which children dead, he embraced them, and he gave way to contemplating those who had the most beautiful heads and members, and he had their bodies cruelly opened up and delighted at the sight of their internal organs; and very often, when the said children were dying, he sat on their bellies and delighted in watching them die thus, and with the aforesaid Corrillaut and Henriet he laughed at them, after which he had the children burned and their cadavers turned to ashes by the said Corrillaut and Henriet.
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(Gilles de Raisʹ ʺin-court confession.ʺ)
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Interrogated as to where he perpetrated the said crimes, and when he began, and the number of deaths, he stated and responded: in the first place, at the Champtocé castle, in the year when Lord de La Suze, his grandfather, died, at which place he killed children and had them killed in large numbers — how many he is uncertain; and he committed with them the said sodomitic and unnatural sin; and at this time Gilles de Sillé alone knew, but then Roger de Briqueville, then Henriet, Étienne Corrillaut, also known as Poitou, Rossignol, and Robin successively became his accomplices; and he said that he had the bones of the children killed at Champtocé removed, heads as well as bodies, which had been thrown into the base of the tower; and he had them put in a coffer and transported to the castle of Machecoul, where they were burned and reduced to ashes; and that in the said place of Machecoul he had taken and killed other children, and caused them to be taken and killed — a large number of them, how many he did not know — and in the house named La Suze, in Nantes, which he possessed at that time, he killed, caused to be killed, burned, and turned to ashes many children, whose number he could not remember, whom he abused and defiled, committing with them the unnatural vice of sodomy, as above. Which crimes and offenses he committed solely for his evil pleasure and evil delight, to no other end or with no other intention, without anyone’s counsel and only in accordance with his imagination.
Moreover, the said Gilles said and confessed that a year and a half ago the said Milord Eustache Blanchet brought to the said Gilles, the accused, from Florence,93 in Lombardy, the said Master François Prelati, with the intention of practicing the invocation of demons; and that the said François told him that in the country he came from he had found the means by which to conjure a spirit who promised this same François that he himself could conjure a certain demon who called himself Barron as many times as the same François wanted.
Item, the said Gilles said and confessed that the said François performed many invocations by his order, as much in his absence as in his presence, and that he, the accused, had assisted François at three invocations performed by the latter: once at Tiffauges castle; again at Bourgneuf-en-Rais; he does not remember where the third one took place; he adds that the said Eustache Blanchet knew well that the said François was performing the aforesaid invocations, but that he was not present at them, because neither he, the accused, nor François would have tolerated it, seeing as the said Eustache was a vicious gossip, fertile with idle remarks.
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(Gilles de Raisʹ ʺin-court confession.ʺ)
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Item, the said Gilles, the accused, stated and confessed that in order to perform the said invocations they traced signs in the form of a circle or of a cross, and of characters in the earth; and that the said François possessed a book that he had brought from Italy, so he said, in which there were the names of many demons and words to conjure and invoke them by, which names and which words he does not remember; which book the said François held and read for nearly two hours during the said conjurations and invocations; and that he, the accused, during none of these invocations saw or perceived any devil to speak to, which greatly irritated and disappointed him.
Item, the said accused stated and confessed that he was told on his return that at one invocation of the said François’ in his absence, François had seen the demon named Barron and spoken with him, who said that he would not approach the accused because of his having fallen short of his promise and because he didn’t fulfill it; and he, the accused, upon learning this, charged the said François to ask that same devil what he wanted of him and to assure him that whatever the devil wanted he would give, with the exception of his life and soul, provided that in this way, the devil conceded and gave to him what he asked for; the said accused adding that he intended to ask for knowledge, power, and riches, in order to recover the original state of his lordship and power; and that not long after this, the said François said that he had spoken with this same devil who, among other things, demanded that Gilles de Rais give him some members of a child; whereupon the said Gilles gave the said François the hand, heart, and eyes of a young boy to offer to the devil on behalf of Gilles, the accused.
Item, the said Gilles, the accused, said and confessed that before going to one of three invocations that he attended, he wrote a note in his own hand, which he signed with his own name in French: “Gilles”; but he does not remember the content of the said note, which he wrote intending to give it to the devil should he appear
at the invocation performed by the said François; which he had done on the advice of the said François, who had told him that it was important to deliver the said note to the devil as soon as he appeared; and during the invocation he held the note constantly in his hand, awaiting the pacts or promises that the said François and the devil would formulate and their agreement as to what the said Gilles, the accused, would promise to accomplish for the devil; but the devil did not appear and did not speak with them.
Item, the accused stated and confessed that one night he sent the said Étienne Corrillaut, also known as Poitou, with the said François to perform an invocation; both of whom returned completely drenched and soaked, telling him that nothing had come of the aforesaid invocation.
Item, the said accused stated and confessed that he wanted to be present at an invocation that the same François was to perform, but that the latter did not want his presence; and that on his return from the said invocation, he assured the said Gilles that if he had been present at that invocation, he would have been in great danger, because a serpent appeared that François was greatly afraid of; on hearing this, the said Gilles took hold of a splinter of the Holy Rood, which he possessed, and thought of going to the said place of invocation where the said François said he had seen the snake; which he did not do, because the same François dissuaded him.
Trial of Gilles De Rais Page 27
