The Ecclesiastical Tribunal—Record in the Archives of Loire-Inférieure—The Trial—His Confession—Judgment and Sentence.

The ecclesiastical trial Against Gilles de Retz was of course conducted by the Bishop. He was the representative of the Church in the diocese, and he alone had the authority to act. His name was Jean de Malestroit. He was originally Bishop at St. Brieuc, but had been Bishop of Nantes since 1419. He called, as his assistants in the trial, to aid by their counsel and advice, the Bishops of Mans, of St. Brieuc, and of Saint Lo, one of the officials of the Church at Nantes, and with them Pierre de l’Hospital, President of the High Court of Brittany, and whose aid was asked to represent the civil law and to direct the charges, the witnesses, and the debates in such manner that they should come within the civil law. Three of the notaries of Nantes were made clerks, with a foreign assistant. Robert Guillaumet was the executive officer, that is to say, the sheriff or bailiff of the court. The prosecuting officer appointed by the Bishop was William Chapeillon, the Curé of St. Nicholas at Nantes.

It has been said that the Bishop, for a considerable length of time, had been receiving and hearing complaints and charges against Gilles de Retz, and that especially during the last month he had been investigating their truth. In this he was aided by the aforesaid William Chapeillon, who would thus have been entirely familiar with the charges against Gilles de Retz. It was, therefore, eminently proper that he should be appointed prosecutor. Whether the Bishop had the full power under either the civil law or the ecclesiastical law, to make the foregoing appointments of colleagues on his own motion and according to his own will, is not here determined, nor does it appear, in making these appointments, whether the accused was consulted or whether he gave his consent, nor does it appear that he either took or had the right to take exception to them or any of them and by such exception deprive them of the right to act in his case. As to one aid to the Bishop, Gilles’s consent was asked and obtained before he was allowed to sit, that was Brother Jean Blouyn, of the Order of Frères-Prêcheurs at the Convent at Nantes. He had been appointed as Vice-Inquisitor for the diocese of Nantes by the authority of the Grand Inquisitor of France, B. N. Medici, who had been appointed to that office by the Pope. Great stress is laid, throughout the process wherever this appointment came in question, on the fact that Gilles de Retz had consented to it before the priest took his seat on the bench. Jean Blouyn was a man of about forty years of age, who seemed to have commended himself for his moderation in making a decision, and for his firmness in adhering to it. Abbé Boussard classes him as digne de tout éloge et apprécié de tout le monde.

Another tribunal represented the civil law, and it was by this that the secular sentence of execution was passed.

In France, as in all countries under the civil or Roman law, and in some of the countries under the common law, there has been a separate jurisdiction of certain offences for the ecclesiastical court. As a matter of course, and necessary for the continuance and good administration of justice, there would be some controversies of which these two courts would have concurrent jurisdiction. It is quite impossible in such a work as the present to go into this question. Those who are interested in the subject are respectfully referred, for France, to the Histoire du droit criminel en France (pp. 74 and 85) by Du Boys; to Faustin-Helie’s Traité de l’instruction criminelle; Fornier’s Les officialités au moyen âge; Esmien’s Histoire de la procédure criminelle en France, et spécialment de la procédure inquisitoriale depuis le XIII^me siècle jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1882); and for the general criminal procedure and jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical tribunal, to Beiner’s Beitrage zu der Geschichte der Inquisition, prozesses (pp. 16–78). For a general history of these subjects as applied to England, one should consult the great work on the History of Common Law, by Sir Henry Maine.

The record of the process against Gilles de Retz in the archives of the Department of Loire-Inférieure has been adverted to. We now come to a point where it is almost the entire evidence. It consists of the records of the two courts, one the ecclesiastical court, kept by the clerks before-mentioned, and to which the names of some one or all of three are signed for each day, either Jean Delaunay, Jean Petit, Guillaume Lesne, or Nicholas Giraud. This record, made each day, apparently was supervised and made official by the prosecutor, William Chapeillon, and it seems that more than one copy was made of it at that time. This was in Latin, though French was interjected occasionally. The other record was of the civil tribunal, the record of the day’s proceedings being reduced to writing and signed by Touscheronde as Commissioner of the civil court, or by one of his aids, or, as they call them, assesseurs, who signed, alternating with Touscheronde. Their names were, Nicholas Chatau, Michael Eveillard, and Jean Coppegorge. This record was kept in French, the vulgar tongue, and very bad French and a very vulgar tongue it was. It would be interesting to philologists to note the changes during the last five hundred and fifty years in the spelling and, doubtless, pronunciation of the words of the French language.

These two records of the trial, the ecclesiastical and the civil, are treated as one, and their originals are filed together in the archives of the Department of Loire-Inférieure in the locality designated as Coté E, 189. Four copies of this record have been made, two in the year 1530, one of which was at the request of Gilles de Laval, the other for the Sire de la Tremoille. The copy given to the family of Laval has disappeared and no trace of it is known; the other for Tremoille was placed in the château of Thouars which, it is to be remembered, was the family name of the wife of Gilles de Retz.

This copy has taken its name from this château and is known in history as the Manuscrit de Thouars. It was left in this château until its existence was forgotten. When the château was bought by the State and became part of the national domain, all papers and documents belonging to the family were transported to the château of Serrant in Anjou, of which one of the ladies of the family of Tremoille was mistress. This copy of the record was in a pile of documents, tossed pell-mell and without order, and here Monsieur Marchegay, the archivist of the Department of Maine-et-Loire, discovered it. The Duke de la Tremoille immediately took steps for its preservation. This record was on parchment like the original, and comprises four hundred and twenty pages, of which three hundred and three, in Latin, are the record of the ecclesiastical trial; the last hundred and eight pages constitute the record of the civil tribunal, and are in French.

Two other copies have been made in modern times, one for the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, made under the Second Empire, and one for the Public Library at Carpentras, both of which have been certified as true. The author procured a photograph of an open page from the original ecclesiastical record in the archives at Nantes. It was made on his personal application while he was Consul of the United States at Nantes. These records will be explained in this work, and upon their foundation rests the entire history of Gilles de Retz. Without this record or its copies, the true story of Bluebeard could not be written.

Michelet (Histoire de France, vol. v., pp. 208 et seq.), in his description of the arrest and trial of Gilles de Retz, depends on two manuscript copies which he mentions in a note; one in the Bibliothèque Royale (No. 493 F)—the other communicated to him by M. Louis Du Bois.

The warrant of arrest of Gilles de Retz was signed by the Bishop on the 13th of September, 1440, it was executed the next day, the 14th, and on that day Gilles was thrown in prison. On the 19th, five days after, he was brought before the Bishop in the great hall of the Tour Neuve, in the château of Nantes. No information had been prepared, and no indictment filed. The prosecutor informed Gilles that he was charged with the crime of heresy and asked if he was willing to be tried before the ecclesiastical court, to which he consented, and added, with a defiant air full of assurance, that he would recognise in advance any other ecclesiastical judges, as he had great desire to clear himself of such accusation in the presence of any inquisitor, n’ importe lequel. It was on this occasion that the Bishop of Nantes called to his aid as an auxiliary judge, Jean Blouyn of the Order of Frères-Prêcheurs, the Vice-Inquisitor of the faith for the diocese of Nantes, and then, this business having been brought to a close, the session of the court was adjourned until the 28th of September, when the witnesses would be heard.

The record of this session is rendered in Latin, a translation of which is here given:

(Translation)3

“Monday, September 19, 1440.

“Proces-verbal, appearance in court of Gilles de Retz and his submission to the jurisdiction of the Court.

“On aforesaid Monday after aforesaid feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, there appeared personally in court before the afore-mentioned reverend Father the Lord Bishop of Nantes, in the great hall of the new tower of the castle of Nantes, to give hearing before the tribunal holding session there, the honourable Guillermus Chapiellon, promoter of cases of office of the aforesaid court, reproducing in fact the letters of citation enclosed above, together with the enclosed execution of them,—there appeared this Chapeillon on the one hand, and on the other the aforesaid M. Egidius, soldier and baron, the accused. And this M. Egidius [Gilles], soldier and baron, after he in his wisdom had perceived that the promoter accused him of heresy, said that he wished to appear before the aforesaid reverend Father the Lord Bishop of Nantes, and some other ecclesiastical judges, also before the inquisitor for heretical wickedness, and to purge himself of the crimes laid against him. Then the aforesaid reverend Father appointed for the aforesaid Monsieur soldier and baron, who agreed in this, the 28th day of the aforesaid month to legitimately appear before the religious, the brother Jean Blouyn, the vicar of the inquisitor of cases of heretical wickedness, in the afor-mentioned place, to answer to the crimes and charges to be urged against him by the aforesaid promoter, ... to be tried in things pertaining to faith, as is lawful and proper....

“In the presence of the distinguished men Master Oliverio Solidi de Beauveron, and M. Johannis Durandi of Blain, rector of the parochial churches, of the diocese of Nantes, called as witness to the foregoing.”

The commission of Jean Blouyn as Vice-Inquisitor was written in Latin on parchment, to which was attached the great seal in red wax, which hung dangling by two silken cords. It was as follows:

“William Merici, of the order of Friars Preachers, professor of Sacred Theology, by the apostolic authority Grand Inquisitor of Heresy in the Kingdom of France, to our well-beloved brother in Jesus Christ, Jean Blouyn of the convent of our order in the city of Nantes, salvation by the author of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ:

“Heresy, says the Apostle, is an evil that, if not cut up by the roots by the iron of the Inquisition, will propagate itself as a cancer in secret, and in darkness bring death to the most simple soul. Thus, in order to proceed in the interest of their own salvation against heretics, their aiders and abettors, and the evil men, because of heresy or suspected of the crime, against those who oppose the Inquisition, or who restrict its free agency, it is necessary to proceed with great caution and rare prudence. We have fullest confidence in the Lord that you are endowed with a capacity, jurisdiction, and good will to exercise this high charge. For this reason, by the counsel of several of our brothers of which the wisdom is recognised by all, we have made, established, and created to-day, and by these presents we do make, establish, and create you in all forms and with all the conditions required by the law and the best authority which are in our hands, as our vicar in the city and diocese of Nantes.

“By these letters, then, and by this concession, power is given to you against heretics and against the culpable persons above designated which may be there or otherwise. Also requests, citations, interviews, interrogations, you can take against all; you can cause them to be retained prisoners and proceed against them in justice in any manner that you may judge convenient, even including a definite sentence. You will have finally all that by custom or by law belong to the charge of Inquisitors; for in all this, as well as by the force of the common law as by the grace of spiritual privileges enjoyed by the Inquisition, we give to you, as much as it is in all our power.

“In testimony of which, we have set our hand and seal to these letters patent.

(Signed) “G. Merici.

“Done at Nantes July 25, 1426.”

This letter was read to Gilles, and he was asked if he recognised it. He declared “No!” It was submitted to, and proved by, the court, and was recognised as authentic and genuine, and under its authority Brother Jean Blouyn was admitted to a seat upon the bench as representative of the Holy Inquisition and as judge in the case, aid to the Bishop.

The session of October 11th was ended, and Gilles led back to prison.

On Wednesday the judges met, not in the great audience chamber, but in the hall below, aula bassa. It was, and is, the custom in the prosecution of criminal cases to have the investigation of the witnesses before either the court or some high officer of justice prior to the public or official trial. In this investigation the procedure corresponds in some degree to that of our grand jury, or more properly before the prosecuting attorney as well as the presiding judge. The inquests made by the Bishop of Nantes, and with him his present prosecuting attorney, William Chapeillon, during the summer preceding, had been secret, the witnesses having been called up separately and examined privately; but on this occasion the session was open, at least to all witnesses, and, as Michelet describes them,

“a cloud of witnesses, poor people, came up single file, crying and sobbing while they recounted the details of the abduction of their children. Their cries and tears added to the horror of the crimes which they recounted and showed the great sorrow and grief to which they had been subjected, and the terrors through which they had passed.”

The following is a record of this session, and the depositions of the witnesses heard:

“Wednesday, September 28, 1440.

“Procès-verbal de réception des plaintes.

“The register in the case and cases of faith, in the presence of the Reverend Father in Christ, lord Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, and of brother Jean Blouyn, vicar of Father Guillermus Merici, the inquisitor mentioned below, against M. Egidius (Gilles) de Rays, soldier, lord, and baron of the same place, under accusation.

“In the name of the Lord, Amen.

“In the year of the Lord 1440, on Wednesday, September 28, in the third indiction, in the tenth year of the pontificate of our most holy Father in Christ and Lord Eugenius IV., Pope by divine providence, and during the session of the council of Basle, there appeared before ... the lord bishop Johannes de Malestroit, ... and brother Johannes de Blouyn, ... vicar of Guillermus Merici, the inquisitor in matters of heretical wickedness, ... and before their scribes, ... the persons to be mentioned below, who, ... in tears and sorrows complained of the loss of their children and grandchildren and of others mentioned below, asserting that these children and others had, by the aforesaid Egidius de Rays and certain other accomplices of his and his abettors, been treacherously carried off and inhumanly strangled, and that he had committed upon them sins against nature, ... that he had often invoked evil spirits and offered homage to them, and had committed very many other enormous and unheard-of crimes of which the ecclesiastical court takes cognizance....

“Of whom the first complainant is Agatha the wife of Denys de la Mignon, of the parish of Holy Mary of Nantes, stating that a certain Colin her grandchild, the son of Guillermus Apvrill, about 20 years of age, small of stature and white of face, having on one ear a birth-mark, in the year 1439 in the month of August or thereabouts, on a Monday morning early went to the house commonly called la Suze in the city of Nantes (belonging to and occupied by Baron de Rays).... And afterwards she did not see the aforesaid Colin nor did she hear anything about him until a certain Perrina Martini alias la Meffraye, was arrested and shut up in the prisons of the secular court of Nantes. After this arrest she says that she heard it said by many that very many boys and innocent children had been carried off and killed by M. de Rays, she does not know to what purpose.

“Likewise the widow of Reginald Donété of the parish of Holy Mary of Nantes, also complained that Jean her son and son of aforesaid Donété used to frequent the house de la Suze in the city of Nantes; and since the feast of St. John the Baptist of the year 1438 she heard nothing about him until the aforesaid Perrina Martin, alias la Meffraye, was arrested and imprisoned and confessed that she had given him over to the aforesaid de Rays and his companions.

“Johanna, the wife of Guibeleti Delit, of the Parish of St. Denys of Nantes, likewise complained that her son Guillermus used to visit the house de la Suze, and went there during the first week of last Lent; and she had heard M. Jean Briant say that he had seen him in the aforesaid house on seven or eight successive days; that she had never afterwards seen her son, and that she suspected that he had been put to death in that house.

“Johannes Hubert and his wife, parishioners of St. Vincent of Nantes, complained that a certain son of theirs Jean by name, about 14 years of age, went to the house la Suze two years before the feast of the Nativity of St. John of last year, and then returning to the house of his parents, told his mother that he had cleansed the room of the aforesaid de Rays in the house de la Suze and had therefor bread in the aforesaid house, which bread he brought home and gave to his mother; to whom he also said that he was in favour with M. de Rays, and that the lord had given him white wine to drink; consequently he immediately returned to the house of Suze and was never again seen by his parents.

“Johanna, the wife of Johannes Darel, of the parish of St. Similien near Nantes, complained that on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul of the year before last, she was going home from the church of Nantes in the evening, and a child of hers aged seven or eight years was following her. When she had reached the church of St. Saturnine of Nantes, or was near it, she looked around to see her son, whom she thought to be following her, but she saw him neither then nor ever after.

“The wife of Yvon Kyeguen, stonecutter, of the parish of the Holy Cross of Nantes, complained that she had given to a certain Poitou, a servant of M. de Rays, one of her sons (this she did between the feasts of Easter and Ascension) to be a servant to him, as the aforesaid Poitou asserted; the son was about 15 years of age; and afterwards she never saw him again.

“Theophania, the wife of Eonette le Charpentier, butcher, of the parish of St. Clement near Nantes, complained that Peter the son of Eonet le Dagaye, the grandchild of the complainant, ten years old or thereabouts, was lost two years ago, and from that time nothing was heard of him until the aforesaid Perrina Martin, alias la Peliszonne, nicknamed la Meffraye, confessed, as is said, that she had given him to the followers of M. de Rays.

“The wife of Peter Coupperie likewise complained that she had lost her two sons, one eight and the other nine years old.

“Johannes Magnet complained that he had lost a son. Wherefore the said complainants said that they suspected that the aforesaid M. de Rays and his accomplices were culpable and conscious of the loss and death of the aforesaid children.”

The judges and those present and in authority were much moved by these scenes, and they declared that such crimes should not go unpunished, however high the rank of the accused, and they directed the bailiff to notify Gilles to appear before their tribunal the 8th of October to respond in their presence to the accusations against him. On that day more witnesses were introduced, but their depositions were not written out, or at least are not in the record.

The court was opened in the great audience chamber in due form and solemnity, at about nine o’clock in the morning. The audience was public, and the hall was crowded. Gilles was brought to the bar as a criminal, and required to plead. He carried a high head, looking around him disdainfully, as in the days of his power and strength. The bailiff recited that in accordance with the orders given to him, he had the possession of the body of Gilles de Retz, which he now presented before the court. Immediately the prosecutor arose, and proceeded verbally with the arraignment of the prisoner. It is to be remembered that the methods of procedure in the courts of that country are now, and were then, quite different from that of the common law courts.

After the oral statement of the crimes of which he was accused, the prosecutor called upon Gilles to plead, to which Gilles (also orally) declared his refusal, and demanded an appeal from the Bishop of Nantes and the Vice-Inquisitor,—supposed to be an appeal to the Archbishop at Tours or to the Pope himself. His appeal was refused immediately, and his plea demanded. Michelet (Histoire de France, vol. v., p. 210) justifies Gilles in his refusal to plead and his demand for an appeal. “For,” he says, “one cannot deny that the judges before whom Gilles was to be tried were his enemies.” Gilles seems, in making these demands, to have intended to use the law’s delay more than to have had any special hope of being sustained by the higher courts.

It is remarkable, though, to consider the value attached by the court to Gilles’s plea. It was evident that when he did plead, it would be a plea of “not guilty”; but this seemed to have had no effect upon the judges or upon their course of procedure. They appeared quite willing to permit the plea of “not guilty,” but were determined to have a plea of some kind entered. It would be curious to trace the causes of this solicitude on the part of the judges. The filing of the plea may have been required for some purpose deeper than the appearance would indicate; possibly it stood in the stead of the present rule of law that requires the criminal to be arrested and brought before the court in order to give it jurisdiction. True, the party can, in France, be tried in his absence and convicted in contumacion; but this can only be done after the party shall have been arrested and filed his plea. In murder trials, no conviction can be had in the court of any civilised country until the proof shall be made of the corpus delicti. It would appear as though the importance of this plea was that it should be an evidence of the presence of the prisoner before the court. It may have been, in the eye of the law, a synecdoche, wherein a part stood for the whole,—a plea standing for the evidence of arrest and presence of the prisoner before the court,—which was necessary to give it jurisdiction over the case. However this may have been, the court manifested great determination to obtain the plea from Gilles. They gave him some days to consider the matter, but he replied at once that

“none of the articles which you have presented against me are true except two things therein charged; the baptism that I have received, and the renunciation which I have sworn against the demon, his pomp and his works. I am now, and always have been, a true Christian.”

Upon the receipt of this answer and defiance, the prosecutor became indignant. He offered his oath to support each and every one of the articles he had presented. Turning to Gilles, he demanded that he make the same oath, and in the same manner, that is, between the hands of the Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor (“entre les mains de l’évêque et du Vice-inquisiteur”). This was demanded of him four different times—he was begged, pleaded with, implored, threatened, menaced with excommunication, but he remained strong in his refusal. What a strange thing is human nature! This man had committed the most fearful, inhuman, and base crimes,—crimes against the innocent and defenceless,—and yet, when brought to the bar of trial, he insisted he was a true Christian, and whatever else he might do or have done, he stood firm in his resolve not to take a false oath. He could commit murder times without number, and he seemed to consider the punishment for this relating only to the body. A false oath taken before God seemed to him to carry its punishment into the next world and to imperil his soul through eternity. He was willing to commit murder, but he was afraid to commit perjury.

The hearing was postponed until the 11th of October, to give the prosecutor time to prepare the information which should serve as an indictment and which had not yet been formally presented nor made a matter of record.

In the meantime, public attention must have been greatly attracted to the proceedings as they were progressing, and invitations went out to all persons who had lost children by abduction within the specified time and who had reason to suppose that the crime could be laid to Gilles, or his accomplices, to present themselves before the court and make their complaints.

Lemire relates (p. 39) this incident:

“On the 10th of October, a herald-at-arms of the Duke of Brittany, bearing his livery, sounded the trumpet three times before the château and then, in a loud voice, demanded that any person having knowledge of the affair of Gilles de Retz was summoned to appear before the court and tell what he knew under pain of fine and imprisonment. No person responded to this appeal.”

So great was the number appearing the next day in response to this notification that the court was unable to proceed with the trial, and consumed the 11th and 12th in its inquest, hearing and recording complaints of the many witnesses. As we have seen, these witnesses were presented before the judges, interrogated, and their statements taken down in the form of depositions, to the end that they might be included in the information against the prisoner. On October 13th, having finished this work, the court had the prisoner brought before it. The session of the court was held in public; the bench appears to have been filled with ecclesiastical dignitaries, many of them bishops from the neighbouring dioceses, with judges and lawyers; while below, an immense pressing, pushing, exasperated crowd of bereaved parents and friends, filled with emotion, added much to the excitement by their declarations of the losses they had sustained by the abduction of their dear children, and who filled the room with their cries against the perpetrator of the crimes by which they had been robbed of their loved ones.

The hour for opening was, as usual, nine o’clock. The first business was a return to the question of the plea to be filed by the accused. Gilles refused with greater hauteur than before, and pushed his refusal disdainfully, ending by becoming abusive of the judges and officers of the court, and conducting himself in a highly improper and insulting manner. The following extracts are from Procès-verbal of the audience (translated):

“Thursday, October 13, 1440.

“On the above-mentioned Thursday, the 13th day of October, there appeared in the court before the Lord Bishop of Nantes, etc., etc....

“Then the same Lord Bishop and the Vice-inquisitor and the aforesaid promoter, asked the aforesaid Egidius [Gilles], the accused, whether he wished to reply to the positions and articles against him, or whether he wished to say anything against them or to take any exception to them. He answered with pride and haughtiness that he wished to give no answer to the positions and articles, asserting that the aforesaid lords, the Bishop and Vice-inquisitor, were not his judges, and that he appealed from them, speaking irreverently and improperly.

“Moreover, the aforesaid Egidius, accused, then said that the aforesaid lords, the Bishop of Nantes and brother Jean Blouyn the vicar of the aforesaid Inquisitor, and all other ecclesiastical men were guilty of simony and were ribalds, and that he would rather be hanged by the neck than to answer before such ecclesiastics and judges, feeling it a grievance to have to appear before them, ... and finally addressing the lord Bishop, he said in the vernacular, ‘Je ne feroye rien pour vous comme évesque de Nantes.’ ... Then under pain of excommunication he was asked to reply to the charges made against him, but he refused, saying that he wondered how it was that Petrus de l’Hospital, the President of Brittany, could have permitted that the ecclesiastics should be present at the accusation of such crimes against him, stating that he was a Christian and a Catholic, and that he was aware that such crimes would have been against faith.

“Then he was formally excommunicated, and it was decided to proceed with the trial, paying no attention to his declaration that he had appealed, since such appellation was merely in verbal declaration and not in writing, and since the enormity of the crimes of which he was accused demanded immediate attention.”

No progress was made during the day, and the court was adjourned until the morrow, when the information would be completed and formally lodged against the accused.

The criminal proceedings in France, while different from those under the common law, yet still have some analogy therewith. There is no grand jury, but in its stead is an officer now called juge d’instruction. In this court no such special officer seems to have existed, but the duty of examining the witnesses, as done by the grand jury in the United States, was performed by the court itself, aided by the prosecutor. Instead of an indictment charging the crime as under the common law, an information is filed. The information is signed and presented in court by the prosecutor, and while being prepared is entirely within his control. He has, under the law, the power of our grand jury of charging, or refusing to charge, crimes; therefore the indictment is his. This information, instead of simply charging the crime directly, and in legal language, sets forth the history of the case, the jurisdiction of the court, the attending circumstances of the crime charged, and ends with the usual prayers for conviction and punishment.

The information against Gilles de Retz contained forty-nine articles, and charged him with three distinct crimes: (1) the crimes of abduction, violation, and murder of the infants named; (2) the crimes of magic and sorcery; (3) sacrilege in having violated the ecclesiastic immunity of the chapel of Saint Étienne-de-Mer-Morte. The information was divided into three parts. The first fourteen of the forty-nine articles were occupied with stating the jurisdiction of the court, that is to say, that Jean de Malestroit was the Bishop of Nantes, that he was properly and legally appointed as such, that he was under his superior, the archbishop, whose ecclesiastical province or cathedral was located at Tours; then followed the power, authority, and right to sit, of Jean Blouyn, the Vice-Inquisitor; then the declaration of the nativity of Gilles de Retz, his residence in the diocese of, and duty owed to, the Bishop of Nantes; a declaration of the ecclesiastical authority of the Bishop within his diocese over the château of Machecoul and the chapel of Saint Étienne-de-Mer-Morte and, in fine, a complete statement of all necessary authority over the accused, and this part finished with the declaration that all things herein set forth were true, notorious, manifest, and within the knowledge of all and every person.

The second part of the information comprised articles fifteen to forty-one. Article fifteen was a general statement of all the crimes charged against Gilles and his accomplices. The names of the accused were first stated: Gilles de Retz, Gilles de Sillé, Roger de Briqueville, Henriet Griart, Étienne Corrillaud, alias Poitou, Andrea Bouchet, Jean Rossignol, Robin Romulart, called Spadin, Huguet de Bremont, and the crimes charged were the murder of infants, killed, dismembered, burned, treated in an inhuman manner. Then there were the immolation damnable of the bodies of these infants offered to the demon as a sacrifice; consultation with the demon, odious conduct, frightful abomination, brutal debauches, and, taken together, a catalogue of crimes, a luxury of offences that exhausted the prosecutor to qualify in proper terms, and which, before a mixed assembly, could only be pronounced decently in Latin and not in vulgar language.

He told of the excitement, dread, fear, of the people; the public clamour that had sprung up from one end of the country to the other; how it at last settled around the château of Machecoul, and that every time an abduction took place some one of the accomplices of Gilles had been discovered in the neighbourhood. In making this part of his accusation, the prosecutor became filled with emotion, excited in his address, and eloquent in his words. He described the conduct and feelings of the people, and especially of the stricken parents, of their cries (clamosa, for his first presentation and reading of the information was in Latin), the loud lamentations (lamentabile), the immense sorrow (plurimum dolorosa), the accusing insinuations of the people; he showed the innumerable persons of both sexes and all conditions, both in the cities and in the diocese of Nantes, (præcedentibus vocibus quam plurimarum personarum utriusque sexus), who, bowed down by the weight of their grief and fright, had appealed to justice and to heaven with howls and cries (ululantium), and had presented their complaints together before the seat of justice, their visages bathed in tears (conquerentium et plangentium), for the loss of their sons and daughters, bringing to the Bishop, the commissioners, and the prosecutors the authority of their tears and their griefs in support of this accusation.

Article sixteen commenced with the charge of the crime of conjuration and invocation of demons. Over this the prosecutor also became eloquent. His accusation was of an infraction of ecclesiastical law, and he dealt largely with the law of the Church; his charges abounded in quotations from the Bible (Fourth and Thirty-ninth Psalms), adjurations from holy men, and was filled with many brave and eloquent words in description and denunciation of the abominable crime of black magic, conjuration, and sorcery. He takes up the Italian priests from their respective places in their native country, and brings them along until they are joined to Gilles in Brittany. In the articles alleging crimes against infants, in article twenty-seven, the accusation says, “and the number of victims is upward of one hundred and forty, and possibly more. The articles of the accusation following set forth the details of all these horrors; the action, conduct, and aid of the familiars of Gilles and his accomplices; when, where, for whom, and by whom the infants were taken, and their respective fates. These were all set forth in great detail and with great particularity, and article forty-one closes with the words: “These are the crimes which make Gilles de Retz infamous, a heretic, an apostate, an idolate, and a relaps.”

Articles forty-two to forty-seven were occupied with a recapitulation of the crimes committed by Gilles and his accomplices, and in article forty-nine he concludes with the assurance that by such crimes and by such offences the accused had incurred the sentence of excommunication and all other pains which follow the punishment to be assessed against such culpable of being auruspex et ariolus, the doers of evil deeds, the conjurors of evil spirits, their aiders and abettors, their friends, their dependants, and, finally, all those who have delivered themselves over to magic and the prohibited art. That the accused had fallen into heresy, that they were guilty of relaps, that they had offended the majesty of God, which was infinitely worse than the offence against the priests; they had incurred, consequently, the penalties for crimes against His Majesty Divine; they had broken the commands of the Decalogue, the laws of the Church; they had sown among the faithful Christians the most dangerous errors; finally, that they were rendered culpable of crimes as enormous as they were hideous, all of which were in the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Nantes. And in the closing sentences the prosecutor demands that he shall be admitted now to make proof of what he has advanced, and this he will do, so he promises, without further superfluity, reserving only the right to add, to correct, to change, to diminish, to interpret, and to put in order and produce any new matters if they shall be necessary at the time and place convenient; and he demands the application of the punishment due for this crime. The prosecutor admitted that certain of the crimes set forth in the information were not within the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court, and that they would have to be remitted to the secular court if punishment was expected.

Gilles de Retz interrupted the reading of the information many times, making denials in favour of himself, blaming his judges, and denouncing the prosecutors. Everybody seems to have preserved his temper except Gilles, and at the close of the reading of the information, the judges turned to him and demanded his formal plea to the various accusations against him. Gilles remained obstinate and refused to plead, and demanded an appeal to the higher court. His conduct during the reading was such as to destroy any sympathy the judges may have had. Bishops and judges are but men, and it was too much to expect that the human side of the court would hear, unmoved, this abuse and contumely heaped upon it.

Gilles’s continued refusal to plead gave the prosecutor and court an opportunity to exercise their legal power, and the prosecutor demanded a decree of excommunication against Gilles for his contempt in this behalf committed. This was an interlocutory order, intended to correct the faults of Gilles during the trial. It was useless to imprison him, for he was already a prisoner; it was useless to threaten him with any other pains or penalties applied to his physical body; therefore, the court, using the only other power it had as an ecclesiastical body, issued its decree of excommunication, the only thunder it could fulminate against him.

It is a curious commentary upon human nature, and throws a side light, not simply upon the ecclesiastical courts, but also upon the human nature of that day, that Gilles, who had committed all the crimes in the calendar, and deserved death a thousand times if he had had that many lives; who seemed to have no fear of any punishment inflicting physical pain or discomfort in this world, yet was so filled with dread of punishment in the next world, arising from the decree of excommunication which he believed and feared would deprive him of the solace of his religion and the benefit of the vicarious intercession of his holy Mother Church that, as we shall see, it produced the greatest effect upon him and was of the greatest efficacy in changing his course.

The decree of excommunication having been passed upon Gilles de Retz, a postponement was ordered until the Saturday following, October 15th.

At the next sitting Gilles had had two or three days in which to think over his condition. Brought to the bar, the Court put to him the original question, “Do you recognise us as your legitimate judges?” To which question, to the suprise of everyone who heard him, Gilles, who had heretofore been so proud and disdainful in all his refusals to respond affirmatively to this question, spoke out, “Yes; I recognise the Court as at present constituted. I have committed crimes, and they have been within the limits of this diocese.” With words of humility and regret, his voice broken with emotion, with tears in his eyes, he demanded pardon of the Bishop and Vice-Inquisitor for the words he had spoken so harshly against them.

The Bishop, who had heretofore been dignified, reserved, severe, as became a judge in the trial of a case, on hearing these words of submission and request for pardon, turned the other side of his character towards the repentant. He then became the priest whose duty was to pardon, comfort, and console erring and sinful men; and when Gilles prayed that his decree of excommunication be revoked, that he should be re-admitted to the fold of the Church and again be given the comforts of his religion, the Bishop granted the prayers, and received him again into the Church, giving him words of comfort and good cheer.

When this scene was finished, the prosecutor asked for the progress of the trial in the usual way. Gilles raised no objection, and expressed his willingness to enter his plea and take oath to speak the truth in all things whereof he was accused. The information was read to him at length in the Latin language, and explained, section by section, in the common French. Gilles responded to the first fourteen articles, admitting in succession the powers of the Bishop and of the Vice-Inquisitor, the lawful constitution of the court, and that he was a member of the Church, and that the venue, as laid, was within the jurisdiction. Being further interrogated, he, however, denied all dealings with the Evil One, all performances of magic, all attempts at sorcery, or that he had ever, either by himself or by another, sought to have communication with the Evil One, or to invoke his power in any way in order to obtain riches, power, or long life. He admitted that he had once possessed a book that treated of alchemy and of the invocation of demons; that he had obtained it from a soldier who had been thrown in prison at Angers; that he had talked with the soldier upon that subject, but had done nothing more—he had returned the book.

The record recounts how, at this period in the trial, the prosecutor demanded of Gilles that they two, in order to be on equal terms, should take the oath to speak the truth. They advanced together, the prosecutor and the defendant, and putting their left hands between the hands of the Bishop and of the Vice-Inquisitor, their right hands bearing upon the Holy Evangel, they took together the oath “To speak the truth and nothing but the truth,” as to the matter before the court.

This ceremony over, the formal plea of “not guilty” was entered by Gilles. Then came the introduction of witnesses, who were, Henri Griard, Étienne Corrillaud, alias Poitou, François Prelati, Demontie Cativo, Eustache Blanchet, Étienne of St. Malo, Steophanie Etiennette, widow of Robert Branchee, and Perrina Martin, surnamed la Meffraye. They were all brought to the bar by Robert Guillaumet, the bailiff, and appeared on the side of the prosecutor and against the defendant. The oath which the witnesses took is given in substance in the record. They were sworn between the hands of the Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor, as Gilles and the prosecutor had been, and their oath was that neither favour, nor resentment, nor fear, nor hate, nor friendship, nor relationship, should have any part in their words; and they put aside every spirit of party and all personal affection, having regard only for truth and justice.

The judges announced to Gilles the privileges of cross-examination, putting the questions himself if he desired to do so, for, be it understood, usually in criminal trials under the civil law, especially in France, the questions, whether they be by the prosecutor or by the accused, have to be handed up, and are put by the presiding justice. But as it is usual for the witnesses to proceed and tell their story without interrogation, Gilles declared his willingness to have the regular course pursued, and that he would leave the matter to the conscience of the Court. This being done, the witnesses were removed; for, be it understood, by no court practice in France are the witnesses who have not testified permitted to remain while others are giving testimony. The presence of Gilles’s accomplices as witnesses against him must have given him an awful shock. As soon as the witnesses had left the court-room, it seems that the condition of affairs presented themselves to Gilles in their true light, and showed him his serious and compromising situation. He was moved to great emotion, whether of remorse or fear cannot now be said. He demanded, in supplicating tones, that the revocation of the decree of excommunication should be in writing, not simply by oral decree.

It would appear from such of the history of this great criminal as we have, that the only thing which produced any emotion in him and caused him to exhibit fear or dread of his position was this decree of excommunication. The Bishop was in his forgiving mood, he had resumed his rôle of priest, and, very properly, he consented to do in writing what he had already done verbally, and the decree of excommunication was revoked.

The court adjourned until the Monday thereafter, the 17th of October, when it was expected that the introduction of evidence would begin. The examination was taken either orally (viva voce), before the court, or by the clerks, or greffiers, who acted as examiners, or notaries, and reduced the testimony to writing, reporting it or its substance to the court. De Alneto, Jo. Parvi, and G. Lesne were greffiers, and took most of the testimony for the ecclesiastical court; while de Touscheronde did the same for the civil court, and it was reported under their respective certificates.

October 17th was occupied with witnesses proving the crime of sacrilege committed on the chapel of Saint Étienne-de-Mer-Morte. On the 19th the witnesses were examined touching the crime of abduction of infants. This interests us more than the other, and therefore we follow it with the names of the witnesses: Professor Jean de Pencortic, Jean Andilanrech, André Seguin, Pierre Vimain, Jean Orienst, Jean Brient, Jean Le Veill, Jean Picard, Guillaume Michel, Pierre Drouet, Eutrope Chardavoine, Robert Guillaumet (Doctor), Robin Riou, Jacques Tennecy, and Jean Letournours. All of these were sworn, as before, to tell the truth without consideration of prayers, or recompense, or fear, or favour, or hate, or resentment, or friendship, or acquaintance’s sake. Gilles again declined to cross-examine the witnesses; he declared his willingness to abide by their conscientious declarations.

On the 20th of October the court was convened for the purpose of hearing the depositions, and Gilles was asked, with many questions, what response he had to make. He continually said he had none: nothing to say, nothing to ask of the witnesses, and no witnesses of his own to introduce. Practically, he made no controversy over the testimony against him.

The ecclesiastical court was equal to a court of the Inquisition. Two hundred or more years of practice by the Inquisition in prosecution of heresy had served to formulate rules of practice. And here is introduced one of the curiosities of human nature manifested in trials of justice when they are started in a given direction. Recurring to remarks concerning the legal necessity of obtaining a plea to the indictment or information, in order, possibly, to show the presence of the accused, and speculating upon that as the origin of the theory of the common law requiring the personal presence of the accused in order to give the court jurisdiction to try the case, and the proof of the corpus delicti in order to convict, it seems proper that a similar course of procedure and reasoning should prevail in cases of heresy, an offence which dealt so largely with matters of belief; therefore, the ecclesiastical court, or the Inquisitor, whether established as a court or not, deemed it necessary to appeal to the inner consciousness and the private knowledge of the accused in regard to his belief, and to that end put questions that demanded an answer.

As a matter of course, the prisoner, if a heretic, would refuse to answer because he would not convict himself, and hence grew up (this is only a suggestion of the author) a system which seems horrible and revolting to all lawyers; that is, the application of torture to compel the prisoner to make the necessary answer. No other punishment could be provided, for the accused was already a prisoner, and being punished as such. As nothing in the way of legal punishment further than imprisonment would be visited upon him, the Inquisition fell upon torture as a means of extorting a confession, and thus it forced from the unwilling lips of the accused a declaration of his belief. This would soon extend to include all his knowledge concerning matters at issue; and when he should declare himself innocent, however true it might be, the torture could be applied again and again, harder and greater, until the power of resistance on the part of the accused was overcome, and he would give up because of his inability to resist further.

So it appeared in the case of Gilles. The witnesses had testified to everything necessary to be proved; Gilles had admitted the jurisdiction and the corpus delicti, had practically admitted his immediate and direct connivance and assistance in the various abductions, as well as the sacrilege; still, on his refusal to proceed further, the prosecutor demanded the application of torture.

It was, according to our ideas, a lamentable condition of the course of justice when the application of the torture should have been so common a proceeding that, on demand of the prosecutor, it would be allowed by the court, even when the guilt of the prisoner was beyond dispute. This seems to have been the course of the court in the case of Gilles, and the petition for torture, as made by the prosecutor, was allowed by the court, and the next day set for its application.

“Et tunc idem promotor dixit quod, attenta confessione dicti Egidii, rei, productionibus testium et eorum dictis depositionibus satis constabat de intencione sua in causa et hujusmodi, sed nichilominus, ad veritatem lacius elucidandam et perscrutandam, torturam seu questionem dicto Egidio, reo, per eosdem dominos episcopum Nannetensem et Fratrem Johannem Blouyn, judices, et ipsum questionari debere, instanter postulavit.

“Qui quidem domini episcopus et vicarius dicti inquisitoris, prius habito per eos super his omnibus consilio cum peritis, premissis consideratis, decreverunt questionem sive torturam dicto Egidio de Rays, et eum torturam pati, ipsumque Egidium, reum, torturis sive questionibus subici debere.”

It was said that the instrument of torture had already been put in place, and for the convenience of all parties the prosecutor had chosen the hall adjoining that occupied by Gilles, to the end that the torture could be applied with as little trouble as possible, and whatever might be the result of it that Gilles could be properly attended to in case of need. On this demand of the prosecutor for torture, and its allowance by the judges, Gilles’s courage left him; he became frightened, turned pale and trembled. So full of fear and terror was he, as scarcely to be able to speak intelligently. He threw himself at the feet of his judges and, in broken accents, with cries and sobs, besought and supplicated them not to put him to this test, making all kinds of promises as to what he would do in order to escape torture.

He prayed for leave to make confession of his crimes, and to have the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc assigned for that purpose.

It was agreed that the judge, Pierre l’Hospital, the President of Brittany, should sit with the Bishop to hear the proposed confession, and that the session should be held at two o’clock that afternoon. Gilles agreed to this, as he would have agreed to anything else, and he promised to make a clean breast of the whole affair. But as an evidence of the terror with which he contemplated the torture, he demanded (this seems to have been his only condition) that his examination and confession should be taken in a hall as distant as possible from that of the torture. The court agreed to this proposition at once, and the two officials named were assigned the duty. The secretaries, or clerks of the court, acting respectively for these high functionaries, were Jean Parvi for the ecclesiastical court, and Jean de Touscheronde for the civil court.

It is said that Gilles’s confession before these two representatives of the ecclesiastical and civil powers was made in public, where everybody who desired could enter and hear. This confession of the same day is headed, in the records (archives), extra-judiciare, for what reason is unknown; but, as there was a fuller, and apparently a judicial, confession made by him the next day, which will be given at length, the confession extra-judiciare is omitted, the incident only being mentioned.

The President of Brittany, Pierre l’Hospital, undertook the interrogation of Gilles. He took up first the crimes against the infants, their abduction and murder, and went through that with great minutiæ, pushing it to all details; then the same with regard to sorcery and the invocation of demons; the bloody sacrifices that had been offered to the Evil One, as had been in evidence so many days. Pressed to tell where this commenced, Gilles said it was at the château of Champtocé, that the time was so long ago that he had forgotten and was unable to identify it, except that it was in the year in which his grandfather, Jean de Craon, had died. “Who gave to you, and how did you get, the idea of committing these crimes?” “No one; my own imagination drove me to do so. The thought was my own, and I have nothing to which to attribute it except my own desire for knowledge of evil.”

It appears, from the report of the case, that the President of Brittany did not believe these statements of Gilles’s to be possible. He was so much astonished to hear this declaration that he pushed the examination with great detail, and insisted upon fuller and more specific answers. He approached Gilles sometimes from the legal side, sometimes from the ecclesiastical; sometimes he threatened him with the punishment of the secular arm, at other times he pleaded with him and held out the offers of pardon from the Lord Jesus Christ; and by virtue of all these, he besought Gilles to go back over the words which he had spoken, to make a truthful and honest avowal of the causes which had led him to the commission of these frightful crimes.

There were three languages employed in these proceedings; probably all three were spoken by the higher orders: the Latin by the ecclesiastical authorities, and that language was employed by the ecclesiastical court; then the French language, which was foreign to Brittany, but which probably Gilles and all those concerned in the trial understood; while as for the common people, doubtless their knowledge was confined to the Breton language. The confession of Gilles, reduced to writing by the clerk’s secretary, not verbatim, nor pretending to be so, but to have been written out only in substance, as is done in the case of testimony before an examiner or notary who employs longhand.

While the President was pushing this investigation and cross-examination so far, to the visible annoyance and great trouble of Gilles, he cried out in French: “Alas, Monseigneur, you torment yourself and me also, both of us, unnecessarily!” “No,” replied the President of Brittany, “I do not torment myself; but I am astonished at what you have said, and I am scarcely content with it. My only desire is to have you tell the truth concerning the causes which I have so oftentimes asked you.” Responded Gilles: “There is no other cause; I have told you the truth and everything as it happened; Je vous ay dit de plus grans choses que n’est cest cy, et assez pour faire mourir dix milles hommes (I have said to you all things as they are, and enough to kill ten thousand men).” Then the President gave over interrogating him, and accepted his declaration as true. He was sent back to his chamber, and his accomplice, François Prelati, the Italian priest, chemist, and alchemist, was brought out.

Transcription of opposite page, being sample (photograph by the author) of a Latin manuscript of the Record in the process against Gilles de Retz, from the Archives of Loire-Inférieure, Nantes, a page of his (extra-judicial) confession.

“hoc facere illo anno quo defunctus avunculus suus dominus de la Suze decessit.

“Item, interrogatus per ipsum dominum presidentem quis eundem reum advisavit, consuluit vel instruxit ad predicta facinora facienda, respondit quod hec de se ipso imaginatus fuit, cogitavit, fecit, et perpetravit, nemine consulente seu advertente aut ipsum ad hoc introducente, sed ex proprio suo sensu et capite ac pro complicencia et delectacione suis libidinosis explendis, et non pro quacumque alia intencione seu fine, predicta peccata, scelera et delicta fecerat et commiserat. Et, cum dictus dominus presidens, admirans, ut dicebat, qualiter ipse reus hec premissa scelera et delicta de se ipso et nemine instigante fecisset, ipsum reum iterum summasset ut ex quo motivo seu intencione et ad quem finem dictorum puerorum occisionem, cum eis commixtionem seu pollucionem, et ipsorum cadaverum combustionem, et reliqua scelera et peccata predicta fecisset, vellet ipse reus, ad sue consciencie, ipsum verissimiliter accusantis, exonerationem, et pro venia clementissimi Redemptoris inde super commissis facilius obtinenda, plenius declarare: tune idem reus, quasi quodammodo indignatus super tam sollicita et exacta inquiscione dicti domini presidentis, dixit eidem verba que secuntur gallice: ‘Helas, Monseigneur, vous vous tourmentez et moy avecques’: cui reo dicenti dominus presidens ita dixit gallice: ‘Je ne me tourmente point, mais je suis moult esmerveillé de ce que vous me dites et ne m’en puis bonnement contenter. Ainczois, je desire et vouldroye par vous en savoir la pure verité pour les causes que je vous ay ja souventes foiz dictes.’ Cui domino presidenti ipse reus tunc respondit, hec dicens gallice: ‘Vrayement, il n’y avoit autre cause, fin, ne intencion que ce que je vous ay dit: je vous ay dit de plus grans choses que n’est cest cy, et assez pour faire mourir dix mille hommes.’ Qui quidem dominis presidens tunc omisit ipsum reum.”