Confession of Gilles de Rais Before the Ecclesiastical Court Meeting in Nantes (October 22, 1440)
Source: Georges Bataille. The Trial of Gilles de Rais (Amok Books, 2004)(pp. 195-203.)(translation by Richard Robinson).
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'Höpital, 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 urged 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 m 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'Höpital, President of Brittany, and Jean Labbé, squire, and me, Jean Petit, notary public, general exammer 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.
Interrogated as to where he perpetraed 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, Etienne 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 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, in Lombardy, the said Master Francois Prelati, with the intention of practicing the Invocation of demons; and that the said Francois told him that in the country he came from he had found the means by which to conjure a spirit who promised this same Francois that he himself could conjure a certain demon who called himself Barron as many times as the same Francois wanted.
Item, the said Gilles said and confessed that the said Francois performed many invocations by his order, as much in his absence as in his presence, and that he, the accused, had assisted Francois 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 Frangois was performing the aforesaid invocations, but that he was not present at them, because neither he, the accused, nor Francois would have tolerated it, seeing as the said Eustache was a vicious gossip, fertile with idle remarks.
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 Francois 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 Francois 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 Francois' in his absence, Francois 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 Francois 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 origmal state of his lordship and power; and that not long after this, the said •Francois 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 Francois 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 Francois; which he had done on the advice of the said Francois, who had told him that it was Important to deliver the said note to the devil as soon as he appeared; and durmg the invocation he held the note constantly in his hand, awaiting the pacts or promises that the said Francois 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 Etienne Corrillaut, also known as Poitou, with the said Francois 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 Francois 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 Francois 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 Francois said he had seen the snake; which he did not do, because the same Francois dissuaded him.
Item, the same Gilles de Rais, the accused, stated and confessed that at one of the three invocations he attended, the said Francois related to the said accused how he himself had seen the demon named Barron, who had shown him a large quantity of gold, and among other things a gold Ingot; but the said accused declared that he did not see the devil or the ingot but only a sort of foil in the form of a sheet or sheets of gold, which he did not touch.
Item, the accused stated and confessed that the last time he was at Josselin, in the Saint-Malo diocese, close to the Illustrious Prince and Lord Duke of Brittany, the same accused had several children killed who had been procured for him by the aforesaid Henriet; and that he committed and exercised on them the vice and sin of sodomy in the aforesaid manner.
Item, the same accused stated and confessed that the said Francois, by his order and in his absence, performed many invocations of the devil at Josselin, which nothing came of or appeared at.
Item, he said that before leaving for Bourges he sent the said Francois to Tiffauges, entreating him to conjure in his absence and to notify him of what he did and knew, and to write to him in guarded terms that his work was going well; which Francois wrote to him and sent a sort of unguent in a silver tube, placed in a purse and a box made of silver also, writing to him that this here was a precious thing and that he ought to guard it carefully; and he, trusting the said Francois' affirmation, hung the said purse about his neck for several days; but shortly thereafter he threw it away, discovering that it was not doing him any good.
Item, the same accused stated and confessed that the said Francois once told him that the said Barron had ordered him to give a dinner to three poor people in his name on three important feasts of the year; which he, the accused, did only once, on All Saints' Day.
Interrogated as to the motive that made him keep the said Francois close to him and among his family, he responded that the said Francois was exceptionally gifted and agreeable to converse with, speaking Latin eloquently and learnedly, and that he applied himself zealously to the affairs of the said Gilles, the accused.
Item, the same accused stated and confessed that after last Saint John the Baptist's Day a beautiful young man who was living with a certain Rodigo, at Bourgneuf-en-Rais, where the accused himself was then staying, was brought to him one certain evening by the said Henriet and Corrillaut, and during the night he practiced the said unnatural and sodomitic vice with him in the aforesaid manner, then killed him and had him transported to Machecoul to be burned.
Item, he stated and confessed that having been alerted that the men of the castle at Palluau were planning to lay hands on the captain of the castle at Saint-Etienne-de-Mermorte, and for this reason indignant with them, one morning, what day he cannot remember, he left on horseback with his men-at-arms intending to surprise the men of the castle at Palluau, make them prisoners, and punish them; and at the outset of the expedition, the said Francois, being among his company, told him that he would not find them; and in fact, the said accused did not find them and his project was frustrated.
Item, the said Gilles de Rais, the accused, stated and confessed that he had killed two young pages, one of Guillaume Daussy's, and another of Pierre Jacquet's, called Princé, on whom he committed and exercised the said unnatural lust.
Item, the same accused stated and confessed that when he last went to Vannes, last July, André Buchet delivered a young boy to him, at his lodgings in the house of a man named Lemoine, with whom he committed the unnatural vice, as above-noted. And having killed him, Gilles had him thrown by the said Poitou into the latrines of an inn owned by a man named Boetden, near the aforesaid Lemoine's house; the said friends of the accused lodging In Boetden's Inn or house, near the marketplace of Vannes; which Poitou descended into the latrines, in order to sink the cadaver and cover it, so that no one might discover it.
Item, the aforesaid Gilles de Rais, the accused, stated and confessed likewise that before the said Francois' arrival, he had employed other conjurors, namely a trumpeter named Dumesnil, Master Jean de La Reviere, a man named Louis, Master Antoine de Palerne, and another whose name he does not remember. Which conjurors by his command performed many invocations, some of which he attended, as much at Machecoul as at other places; and, in particular, to see drawn in the soil a circle or figure in the form of a circle, which is necessary in that sort of invocation where the intention is to see the devil and to speak and make a pact with him. But the said accused said that he was never able to see the devil or speak with him, although he did everything he could, to the point that it was not his fault if he could not see the devil or speak with him.
Item, the same Gilles de Rais, oft-named, stated and confessed that the aforesaid Dumesnil, conjuror, told him once that the devil, in order to do and accomplish what the said accused intended to solicit and obtain from this same devil, expected to see done and to receive from him a: note signed in the hand of the accused himself with blood from his finger, by which the latter promised to give the said devil, when he appeared at his Invocation, certain things which he did not remember; and for that reason and to that end he signed his name, Gilles, to the said note with blood from his little finger. As to what was written in the said note he did not remember, except that he promised the devil what was mentioned there, on condition that the devil give to him and procure knowledge, power, and riches. But he is absolutely certain that as he has affirmed, whatever he might have promised the devil he had always retained his soul and life, and he said that the aforesaid note was not delivered, the devil not appearing to him and not having responded to that same Invocation.
Item, the said accused confessed that at an invocation by the aforesaid Master de La Rlviere, In a wood not far from the garrison or the city of Pouzauges, the said La armed himself beforehand with weapons and gear, and then entered the aforesaid wood to perform the said invocation; and that he, the accused, with his servants and especially Eustache Blanchet, Henri, and Etienne Corrillaut, also known as Poitou, upon entering the wood, discovered the said La returning, who told him that he had seen the Devil in the guise of a leopard coming toward him, which passed by him without saying a word; and he, the accused, was frightened and terrified by what he said. And the accused added to his narration that the said La Riviöre, to whom he had paid the sum of twenty gold royals, promised to return, which he did not do.
Item, the same accused stated and confessed that at another Invocation of demons practiced by him and a conjuror whose name he does not remember, with Gilles de Sillé as well, in a room of the aforesaid Tiffauges castle, while he was in the said room, the said Sillé did not dare to enter the circle to perform the invocation, but retired to a window with the intention of throwing himself out of it if he perceived something fearful approaching, and he held in his arms an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the said accused himself was afraid in the circle, because the invoker had forbidden him to cross himself, because if he did, they would all be in great danger; but he remembered a prayer to Our Lady that begins with Alma, and at once the conjuror ordered him to leave the circle, which he immediately did while crossing himself; and he left the room promptly, leaving the invoker and locking the door behind him; then he discovered the said Gilles de Sillé, who told him that someone was beating and striking the invoker left alone in the room, which sounded as if someone were beating a featherbed; which he, the accused, did not hear, and he had the door of the room opened and at its entrance he saw the conjuror wounded in the face and m other parts of his body, and among other things, having a bump on his forehead so large he could barely stand up; and for fear that he might die in consequence of the said wounds, Gilles wanted him to be confessed and have the sacraments administered; but the coryuror did not die, and recovered from his wounds.
Item, the said Gilles de Rais, the accused, stated and confessed that he sent the said Gilles de Sillé into a region farther north, to find conjurors of demons or evil spirits. Which Gilles de Sillé, having returned, told him that he had found a woman who busied herself with like invocations: which woman had said to Sillé that if Gilles de Rais did not turn his soul away from the Church and his chapel, he would never accomplish what he desired; and that Sillé had met In the same region another woman who told him that if the said accused did not abandon a work begun by him or that he intended to pursue, or have it stopped, nothing good would ever come to him.
Item, that the said Gilles de Sillé had found m the same region an invoker whom he proposed sending to the said accused, which conjuror, who was preparing to join the said accused, drowned while crossing a river or stream.
Item, the said Gilles, the accused, stated and confessed that the said Sillé brought him another conjuror who also died immediately. And because of these unlucky deaths and the difficulties counterpoised to his guilty intentions in the aforesaid invocations or the like he said he believed that divine clemency and the intercession of the Church, from which his heart and his belief have never strayed, had mercifully arrived and prevented him from succumbing to so many tests and perils; and for this reason he Intended to renounce his evil life, and make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the sepulcher of Our Lord and other places included in the Passion of his Redeemer and to do all that he could to obtain forgiveness for his sins, through the mercy of his Redeemer.
And then, after the said confession in arraignment, given freely and voluntarily, he exhorted the people there, and principally the ecclesiastics, there in considerably larger numbers, to always venerate our Holy Mother Church, and to honor her greatly and never to separate from her, adding expressly that if he himself, the accused, had not directed his heart and his affection toward that same Church, he never would have escaped the devil's malice and intention; moreover, he believed that had he not, because of the enormity of his villainies and crimes the devil would have long since destroyed his body and carried off his soul; exhorting, moreover, the fathers of families to watch that their children be not too finely dressed, and to tolerate no laziness, noting and asserting that many ills are born of laziness and of the excesses of eating and drinking, and declaring more expressly still that with him laziness, an Insatiable desire for delicacies, and the frequent consumption of mulled wine, more than anything else, kept him in a state of excitement that led to the perpetration of so many sins and crimes.
On the subject of which crimes and offenses perpetrated by him, Gilles de Rais, the accused, humbly and tearfully implored the mercy and pardon of His Creator and most blessed Redeemer, as well as that of the parents and friends of the children so cruelly massacred, as well as that of everyone whom he could have injured in regard to whom he was effectively guilty, whether they were present there or elsewhere, and he asked all Christ's faithful and worshipers for the assistance of their devout prayers.
And this is why the aforesaid Master Guillaume Chapeillon, prosecutor, in the presence of the aforesaid Gilles de Rais, the accused, considering the voluntary confession of the said accused, and other proofs lawfully brought against him, requested instantly that a timely day and term be appointed to the accused in order to conclude — and at the same time, on the other hand, to see concluded — the sentence and definitive sentences by the said Reverend Father in God, Lord Bishop of Nantes, and Friar Jean Blouyn, Vicar of the said Inquisitor, and by each of them, or by those whom they would charge with this responsibility, sentences to be written and promulgated in the case and the cases of this order, unless the aforesaid Gilles de Rais, the accused, could give any valid reason this should not be done. Thereupon the said Lords Bishop of Nantes and Vicar of the Inquisitor assigned the following Tuesday to the prosecutor and Gilles de Rais, the accused, who did not object, in order to proceed as by law, as was necessary in the case and the cases of this order.