Confession of Poitu (a.k.a Etienne Corrillaut) in the Secular Trial of Gilles de Rais at Nantes (October 23, 1440)
Source: Georges Bataille. The Trial of Gilles de Rais (Amok Books, 2004)(pp. 279-282)(translation by Richard Robinson)
And as to that which concerns the said Etienne Corrillaut, also known as Poitou, he acknowledged and confessed the following without torture:
Firstly, that nearly ten years after he had come to stay with the said Lord de Rais — whose page he was for the first five years, when Milord Roger de Briqueville, knight, was looking after Rais' affairs, and whose child valet he was for the next five years — within about two or three months, he saw two dead children in the room of the said Lord, who wanted to kill him, but the said Milords Roger and de Sillé prevented him. That he was subsequently kept in a room by the said Milord Roger for four days, and, this done, they made him swear to conceal what he had seen and would see later; but before this oath, the said Lord had sex with the said Corrillaut on his belly.
Item, he said that Milords Roger and de Sillé ordered him to abduct children and lead them to the said Lord; and the aforesaid brought him many, whom the said Lord got excited over, holding his penis in his hand and spilling his seed onto their bellies; after which he had their throats cut; and sometimes while they were languishing he had intercourse with them. And it was five years before that he, Poitou, began to steer the said children to him and be his accomplice in crime.
Item, he said that since the day when the said Lord regained Champtocé from the said Lord de La Suze, his brother, which the latter had held for two years,4 the said Lord went to Champtocé, where he stayed only one or two nights. The said Lord then told him, Poitou, Henriet, Petit Robin, and a man named Hicquet that for a long time there had been dead children in one of the towers, and that they had to be removed. Poitou and Robin went down, put them in a sack, and removed them. Henriet, Hicquet, and Sillé were on the lookout. They found forty-six that were put into coffers and transported to Machecoul and burned in a tower. The said children were dried out and rotten.
Item, he said that after the recovery of the place, which had been taken by Lord de La Suze and Lord de Lohéac, eighty dead children were found at Machecoul, who were likewise burned in the said place of Machecoul.
Item, he said that from the time of the deceased Lord de La Suze, the said Lord killed them in his room at the said place of Champtocé, according to what the said Poitou heard him say, and that it was about fourteen years before that the said Lord had begun to do so.
Item, he stated that occasionally he killed the children by opening their throats with a great braquemard; sometimes he kissed their heads after they had been severed, and he had intercourse with them; occasionally he killed them by his own hand, having had intercourse with them beforehand; he placed a cord around their neck that, with the help of a pole, he attached to a hook in his room.
Item, he stated that if there were two children who were brothers, the said Lord had them both snatched so that the one would not cry aloud about the other; and after having diverted himself with the one, he kept the other until his appetite returned.
Item, he stated that once the said Lord took the heart and hand of the said child, put them in his room, and ordered Poitou through a window to watch them; a little while later the said Lord tucked them up his sleeve, then went into the room of Master Francois, to whom he was bringing them; he does not know what they did with them, and the said heart was m a glass.
Item, he stated that the said Lord and Francois Prelati stayed one night in the said Lord's room at Machecoul, where they traced a large circle contaming characters and crosses; they made a drawing on the wall in the manner of arms, which arms resembled a head; then they made him, Poitou, leave the room, and he went with the others into the hall and, eavesdropping, they heard a beast, like a dog, walking on the roof. After this the said Lord asked whether they had heard anything, and he responded no.
Item, he stated that one night the said Lord sent him and Master Francois into a field close to Espérance, and the said Francois performed an invocation in a circle where he stood with Poitou. The said Francois lit a torch and called Barron and devils having other names, of which he, Poitou, was terrified. The said Lord and Francois had forbidden him to make the sign of the cross. But nothing came of it except for a strong rain, such that they could not leave.
Item, he said that Papelais, Guillemin le Portier, Guillemain Le Beille and Le Muet, Lord Gentelou, the prior of Chéméré, and the Marquis knew nothing of the deaths of the said children; even a nephew of the said prior of Chéméré, whom the latter had entrusted to a fellow named Tabard to learn singing and writing, was killed like the other children.
Item, he said that once a man named Master Jean, an Englishman, and the said Lord went to perform invocations, and that before they went the first squeezed the pinky of the said Lord and then pricked its tip with a needle to make it bleed, and with the blood the said Lord signed a letter written in his own hand in ink. Thereafter, they left to perform the said invocation, and the latter returned as drenched as if he had fallen into a river. A man named Guillaume Cievaye had gone looking for the said Master Jean, who was English or a native of Picardy, and the latter told Lord de Rais before the said Invocation that he should not cross himself or they would all be dead; and this took place in a field not far from Machecoul, that side of Espérance, near a house where someone named La Picarde lived. On another occasion the said conjuror returned wounded to such an extent that he could not speak; and after he left, Poitou heard it said by La Picarde that he was only faking it.
Item, he said that eleven or twelve had been killed in the house of La Suze, among them a young boy named Jenvret, from Nantes.
Item, he stated that on the last trip that the said Lord made to Vannes, pretending to be waiting for money that the Duke owed him, and staying there two or three days — this was last July, it seems to him — André Buchet led to the said Lord's lodging a child who was killed, whose body was thrown into the latrines of the house, where he, Poitou, descended by means of a rope to shove the said body down, whence Henriet and Buchet, who helped him with this piece of work, had difficulty removing him.
Item, he spoke of a beautiful child he brought from Roche-Bernard with the mother's approval; moreover, of another beautiful child, the son of the deceased Eonnet de Vllleblanche, whose mother, living in Nantes, is named Macée: she entrusted her son to him to become a page, whom he, Poitou, outfitted; as well as a beautiful young child who was living at Bourgneuf with Guillaume Rodigo, whom he fetched away and brought to his master, and who was a page of the same age; also a page of Master Francois'; also a page of Princé's; and again, among others, a son of Georget Le Barbier, a tailor, living near the entrance of the said castle of Machecoul; the said Lord had sexual intercourse with them, and they were killed and burned. Finally, he spoke of many others whose mothers and fathers he did not know, many of whom were taken while begging for alms, as often at Machecoul as at Tiffauges and elsewhere.
Such was the said Poitou's confession, as it is contained in the preceding articles.
Condemnations of Henriet and Poitou
After the confession of the said Henriet and Poitou, and on the advice of many people present, lawyers and others, in view of the cases and all things considered, it was judged and declared by my said Lord the President and Commissioner that the said Henriet and Poitou would be hanged and burned.