Barbablù

Speranza

ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY, BLUEBEARD: AN ACCOUNT OF COMORRE THE CURSED AND
GILLES DE RAIS WITH SUMMARIES OF VARIOUS TALES AND TRADITIONS

The scope and purport of this book being explained in the introductory chapter, I need oflFer no very
lengthy prefatory remarks. It will be seen that the introduction glances at the folklore of the subject I
have chosen, and that it is followed by accounts of Comorre and Gilles de Rais, two men who have
long been mentioned in works of reference, all the world over, as the possible prototypes of Charles
Perrault's *Barbe-Bleue/ The narrative of the career of Gilles de Rais forms by far the greater
part of the book, which may be taken, therefore, as being chiefly an excursion (by no means the first I
have made) into that field of historical biography in which one so often discovers that real life is a great
deal stranger than fiction. Although I mention in my introduction many stories associated with Perrault's tale, I do not claim that the list is exhaustive. My object has been to give a variety of examples of the stories  constituting what folklorists, I believe, call ' the Bluebeard group.' Moreover, if I have glanced at
the views of the solar mythologists and others, I have done so merely in order that those readers
who are ignorant of folklore theories may in some measure understand how it is that various mythical
origins have been assigned to ' Bluebeard.' Turning to the question whether Perrault derived less, perhaps, the subject-matter of his story than
the name of his ' hero ' from some such character as
Comorre or Gilles de Rais, I have given a number
of traditions and tales about those men, as well as
accounts of their actual careers. The stories of
Comorre are certainly more interesting than are the
facts of his real life, although, within the limits of
his sphere of action, he was a personage of real
importance in his time* That time, however, is far
removed from us — it is like a forgotten charnel-
house, in which linger a few dry bones of history —
and unless one possess the pen of a Thierry, as in
the ' R6cits des Temps M^rovingiens,' it is difficult
to make it live afresh. Nevertheless — ^apart from
any Bluebeard theories — my account of Comorre,
which differs in several respects from one which I
contributed to the Gentlematis Magazine nearly a
quarter of a century ago {Eh^u fugaces iabuntur
anni . . .), may be acceptable, perhaps, to the
historical student, as I have now availed myself of
the researches of M. de La Borderie, who has recon-
structed the annals of a period of Breton history left
by other writers in a state of absolute confusion.
But it will be found that the chief interest of this
book, if I may be so bold as to claim interest for it,
centres in the personality of Gilles de Rms. My
attempt to narrate his extraordinary career in some
detail is, I think, the first of its kind in the English
language, though in France of more recent times
numerous works respecting him have been written.
Quicherat necessarily had to refer to Rais in his
' Proems de Jeanne d'Arc ' ; but the first modern
French historian who gave an approximate account
.of the Marshal's life and misdeeds was Michelet.
The second, of note, was Vallet de Viriville, who
wrote an article on Rais for the ' Biographic
Didot,' and who afterwards transferred the informa-
tion collected in that article to his well-known
' Hlstoire de Charles VII.' Then M. Paul L^croix
— the Bibliophile Jacob — recounted the Marshal's
trial, more or less correctly, in his 'Curiosity de
I'Histoire de France'; M. Armand Gu^raud, the
Baron de Girardot, M. de Sourdeval, and others,
particularly M. Paul Marchegay, contributed to the
literature of the subject ; and at last, after long
years, M. Ren6 de Maulde transcribed the Latin
text of the documents in the Ecclesiastical Pro-
ceedings against the Marshal, and Abb^ Bossard
gathered together all the available facts, and pro-
duced a work of considerable magnitude, which has
remained^ in France, the standard authority on
Gilles de Rais.
I have largely followed Abb6 Bossard, as was
indeed inevitable, for nobody could attempt to write
on Rais without frequently consulting the Abb6's
book. But I have also studied the works of his
forerunners, contemporaries and successors, as well
as many of the documents, and have endeavoured
to narrate the Marshal s career with more regard
for chronological order than the reverend Abb6
observed. He, moreover, throughout his book,
dedicated to Bishop Freppel of Angers, held a brief
for a fellow-churchman — that is, Jean de Malestroit,
the Bishop of Nantes who instituted the prose-
cution of Gilles de Rais — whereas I have held a
brief for nobody. I have written at greater length
than Bossard on some phases of Gilles' life, whilst
dealing very briefly with others on which it seemed
to me unnecessary to expatiate. For several reasons
I r^rard the career of Rais as one of the strangest
the world has ever witnessed If, as set down in
this book, it should fail to interest the reader, the
blame must attach to myself.
With respect to Comorre, as I have already men-
tioned, one finds the truth inferior to tradition ; but
the contrary may well be asserted of the extra*
ordinary personage whom Michelet for ever branded
as the Exterminating Beast. Beside the fiendish
crimes of the high and mighty Marshal de Rais,
those of Perrault's Bluebeard sink into insignificance.
As for the question whether Perrault, when writing
his story, derived any suggestion as regards either
name or subject from the lives or traditions of Rais
and Comorre, I need not discuss it in this preface, as
I have dealt with it at length, first at the close of
my account of Comorre, secondly at the end of the
book. To those passages of my text I would refer
the reader curious on the subject.
In the appendix to the volume will be found some
remarks on the alleged Beaumanoir Bluebeard, the
Montfaucon portrait of Gilles de Rais, and the
latter's supposed connection with Jean Chartier the
chronicler, as well as an excursus into the subject
of Ys and other lost cities — Gradlon of Ys and his
daughter, the Princess A^s, figuring incidentally in
my account of Comorre. Now and again, too, I
have added to my narrative sundry notes on legends
and traditions of St. Gildas, St Herv6, the Wild
Huntsman, etc. I have also prepared an index,
which I hope will be found adequate ; and I must
plead guilty to eight of the nine illustrations which
accompany the text.
It is not always the book an author most prizes —
the one which he regards as his masterpiece — that
wins for him the recognition and remembrance of
posterity. Had anybody predicted to Charles Per-
raulc. Comptroller of State Buildings and afterwards
Secretary-General of Finance under Louis XIV.'s
great minister Colbert, that his name would survive
him only in connection with a little volume of nursery
tales, he would doubtless have refused to believe it ;
for did he not extol in polished phrases the age of
the Roi Soleil, and contend, even against so redoubt-
able an adversary as Boileau, on the subject of the
relative merits of ancient and modern authors?
And did not that acrimonious controversy long stir
all the rival literary salons of Paris in a manner
which seemed to indicate that even if it should
end it would never be forgotten? Again, Charles
Perrault penned some erudite reflections on the
writings of Longinus, *the living library,' and made
a metrical translation of the fables of Faerno, besides
composing a poem on the art of Painting ; and,
assuredly, even those minor literary performances
must have seemed to him more worthy of fame, and
more likely to secure it, than the stories of fairies,
giants, dwarfs, and beautiful princesses which he put
together for the entertainment of children late in the
autumn of his life. Yet nobody nowadays reads the
* Si^cle de Louis le Grand ' or the ' Parall^le des
Anciens et des Modernes,' whereas all Christendom
remains familiar with Bluebeard, Cinderella, Hop o*
my Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, Riquet with the
Tuft, the Sleeping Beauty, and the other heroes and
heroines of the little volume of stories which Perrault
published almost surreptitiously when nigh to his
seventieth year.
Born in Paris in 1628, he was the son of an
advocate, and the youngest of four brothers, all of
whom cultivated literature. Pierre, the eldest
(1608-80), wrote several books, the principal of
which seems to have been a treatise on the origin
of springs. He also was employed in the Finance
department by Colbert, rising indeed to the rank of
Receiver-General, from which position he was dis-
missed, however, by reason of some irregularities in
his accounts, though, according to his apologists, he
was not really responsible for them. The next
brother, Nicolas (i6i:-6i), became a ' Docteur-
en-Sorbonne,' £md was one of the leading supporters
of Arnault, in the famous controversy between the
Jansenists and the Jesuits. Like Arnault, he
attacked the latter in writing (a book of his, ' De la
Morale des J^uites,' is still occasionally quoted),
and on their triumph he figured, as a matter of
course, among the seventy doctors expelled from
the Sorbonne. Claude (1613-88), the next of the
brothers Perrault, and the most versatile of them all,
originally made medicine his study, but turned to
architecture, and thereby became famous. As a
literary man, he translated Vitruvius, and wrote on
natural history, physics, mechanics, and other sub-
jects ; whilst, as a disciple of art, he acquired con-
siderable proficiency in painting and sculpture. But
he is best remembered by the stately colonnade
which adorns the Louvre, and which, curiously
enough, was his architectural d^bui.
It will be seen from the foregoing that each of
the brothers Perrault was a gifted and able man ;
but of all their work the world nowadays cares only
for the first effort of Claude and the last effort of
Charles — the great colonnade and the fascinating
fairy tales. The latter have the gift of perennial
youth ; they have been printed in hundreds of forms,
translated again and again into at least a score of
languages, and illustrated by artists innumerable.
Indeed, in the whole field of European literature,
one will find no more universal book than Perrault's
fairy tales — a book which has held its own for more
than two hundred years, in spite of every rival ; for
Grimm and Andersen, and all the other tellers and
collectors of stories for the young, have never suc-
ceeded in dethroning Perrault, however widespread
may be the popularity which they have acquired.

On the disgrace of Colbert in 1683, Perrault
retired from his official position, and although for
some years longer he remained a very prominent
figure in the literary salons then flourishing in Paris,
he at last sequestered himself in his quiet home
in the Faubourg Saint Jacques, where he died in
May, 1703. His first attempt as a conteur was
inspired by the success of his friend La Fontaine,
and the first subject to which he addressed himself
was the well-known story of ' Patient Grissel,* which
he found in Boccaccio,^ who, according to some
accounts, had it from Petrarch,^ though others say
that the latter took it from the author of the
* Decameron.' In England Chaucer appropriated
it, and it became the Clerk's Tale in the Canterbury

^ * II Decamerone,' x. 10,

2 ' De Obedientia et Fide Uxoria Mythologia.'



INTRODUCTION 5

series. Perrault's version was called ' La Marquise
de Salusses, ou la patience de Griselidis,' and was
issued in 1691 by Coignard. Its reception en-
cours^ed him, and two years later he produced
* Les Souhaits ridicules '^ (* The Ridiculous Wishes*),
which story was followed, in 1694, by * Peau d'Ane'^
(* Ass's Skin'), an arrangement of a popular tale long
current in France, one version having been done by
Bonaventure Des Periers in the time of Francis I.
Finally, in 1697 appeared * Histoires ou Contes du
Terns pass6, avec des Morality, '^ the general collec-
tion of stories which was to insure Perrault's fame.
It has been suggested that he may have given
manuscripts of these tales to two publishers. At all
events, those which had not previously appeared in
Holland (where some earlier ones had been pub-
lished) were seemingly issued there* at the same time
as the general collection was produced in Paris.

^ * Le Mercure Galant,' p. 37.

^ ' Recueil de Pi^es curieuses et nouvelles,' vol L The Hague,
Adrien Moetjens. Besides ' Peau d'Ane,' ' Les Souhaits ridicules '
and ' Griselidis ' are also printed in this volume.

' ' A Paris, chez Claude Barbin, sur le second perron de la
Sainte Chapelle ; au Palais. Avec Privilege de sa Majesty.' 1697,
lamo., 230 pp.

* See vol. V. of Moetjens's * Recueil de Pieces curieuses,' etc
The title-page of this volume is dated 1696, but its Fourth
Part bears the date 1697, and in this section will be found the
Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in
Boots, the Fairies, Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper (' Pantoufle
de Verre '), Riquet with the Tuft, and Hop o' my Thumb. As
M. Giraud has pointed out, the question arises whether the Paris
edition can really be called the original one, however fabulous the
prices paid for it in auction-rooms.



6 BLUEBEARD

Scholarly editors and commentators of our time —
Messrs. Giraud,^ Deulin,^ Dillaye,* Lacroix,* Lang,*
and others — have discussed, though they have not
solved, the question whether these tales of Perrault's,
or rather such of them as are in prose, were at least
in part the composition of one of the ex-Comptroller's
sons. M. Deulin finds in them more simplicity of
diction than a perusal of Perrault's other works
would lead one to expect, and is strongly inclined to
the view that some child must have had a hand in
them. Yet, if a man like the late Rev. C. L. Dodg-
son — to take an example from English literature —
could write both ^ Euclid and his Modern Rivals '
and * Alice in Wonderland, ' surely the author of
* Le Si^le de Louis le Grand ' may have been quite
capable of penning * Les Contes du Tems pass6 '
without assistance. From one point of view, indeed,
Mr. Dodgson's achievement was more remarkable
than Perrault's, for he was only two-and-thirty when
his * Alice' was published ; whereas Perrault was sixty-
nine at the time of the appearance of his collected
stories. At the former age very few men indeed, even
if they are fathers, are inclined to the telling of

* * Les Contes des F^s . . .' revised by Charles Giraud. Paris,
1S64, and Lyons, 1865. ^^o*

^ * Contes de ma M^re I'Oye avant Perrault,' by Charles Deulin.
Paris, 1879. lamo.

* 'Contes de Perrault,' etc., notice by F. Dillaye. Paris, 1880.
8vo.

^ * M6noires de Ch. Perrault,' edited by Paul Lacroix. Paris,
1878. i2mo.

^ 'Perrault's Popular Tales,' edited, etc., by Andrew Lang.
Oxford, 1888. 8vo.



INTRODUCTION 7

nursery tales ; but the sexagenarian is frequently
drawn towards childhood. If there be little ones
about him, particularly children or grandchildren of
his own, he pictures himself living afresh in them,
he watches their play, listens to their prattle, takes
them on his knees, and, to tell them stories, finds
once more the simple style, the easy words of the
tales told him by his mother or his nurse when he
himself was but a little lad. In Perrault's case some
doubt exists as to the age of his children at the time
his ' Contes * were probably drafted. Certain it is
that in the Paris collected edition they were put
forth as the work of a child, P. d'Armancour, who
in a dedicatory epistle addressed to ' Mademoiselle '
— that is, £lisabeth-Charlotte d'Orl6ans, sister of the
Due de Chartres, afterwards Due d'Orl6ans and
Regent of France — apologizes for his presumption
in offering his work to that Princess.^ The royal
privilege or authorisation to print and publish was
also granted to P. d'Armancour, which M. Deulin
tells us should be read as ' Perrault d'Armancour,'
the name which a son of Charles Perrault assumed.
And the explanation given for all this is that although
the authorship of the ' Contes ' was merely a secret
de PolichinelU^ Perrault did not care to put his name
to a book which he regarded as being more or less
trivial and frivolous. Yet it was this very book
which brought him fame.

It is, of course, possible that he may have heard

^ 'Mademoiselle' was twenty years of age in 1697; in the
following year she nuurried the Due de Lorraine.



g BLUEBEARD

some of his tales from children, and have endea-
voured to imitate their natveU of style ; and, again,
he may well have recalled stories told him in his
boyhood. It is in any case certain that several of
those which he gathered together are, in their essen-
tial lines, very old, and figured in one or another
form among popular myths, legends and traditions.^
In these days the popular old tales have been often
associated with myths and beliefs of the early ages.
One particularly notorious school of folklorists
carried back virtually everything to the sun, the
moon, the aurora. It was asserted that the names
given in the mythopoeic age to the celestial bodies,
and the changing scenery of the atmosphere, lost in
time a part or all of their original meaning, until
they were at last looked upon as the names of real
deities and beings, in whose actions and adventures
one might trace disguised descriptions of the sweep
of the clouds across the face of the sky, and the
victory achieved over them by the sun. * A thousand
phrases would be used to describe the action of a
beneficent or consuming sun, of the gentle or awful
night, of the playful or furious wind ; and every
word or phrase would become the germ of a new
story as soon as the mind lost its hold on the original
force of the name. Thus, in the polyonomy (the

^ A mere glance at Perrault's life and the circumstances under
which his tales were published has seemed sufficient here. For
fuUer information see the writings of Deulin, Dillaye, Lang, Lacroix,
and the edition of the * Contes ' edited by A. Leffevre, Paris, 1882,
which contains a good biographical essay.



INTRODUCTION 9

giving of several names to one object) which was the
result of the earliest form of human thought, we
have the germ of the great epics of later times, and
of the countless legends which make up the rich
stores of mythical tradition/^

Turning to the Vedic hymns, the sun was shown
figuring therein as the bull, the beneficent ^^««^/^r
of the beneficent fruitful power, which was the cow,
typifying the dewy moon, or the dewy aurora.^
Elsewhere, also, bull and cow appeared as symbols
of the chief celestial bodies. Soon, however, in one
and another mythological system the sun takes to
himself the guise of a man, a hero-deity, and, as
such, accomplishes innumerable exploits ; poets
transforming the war in heaven between the various
forces of nature into the strife of gods and men on
earth ; as, for instance, with the siege of Troy,
which, according to solar mythologists, was merely
a * repetition of the daily siege of the East by the
solar powers that every evening are robbed of their
treasures in the West' And at least it has been
claimed by many mythologists that all the great
ancient epics and cycles — the * Iliad,* the * Odyssey,'
the ' Volsungs,' the ' Nibelungs,' * King Arthur and
his Round Table,' * The Ram4yan4,' the * Mah4
Bh4rat4,' the ' Shah Nameh,' and so forth — ^present
similarities of incident and episode which point to a

^ Sir G. Cox's ' Mythology of the Aryan Nations,' p. 4a, as
quoted by Edward Clodd in ' Myths and Dreams ' (second edition,
Chatto and Windus^ 1 891, p. 62.

* Count Angelo de Gubematis' 'Zoological Mythology, or
Legends of Animals,' etc. London, 1S72, a vols., Svo.



lo BLUEBEARD

common derivation from old myth. The folk tales
are in much the same position. ' The* fact abides
that nursery stories told in Norway and Tyrol, in
Scotland and the Deccan, are identical.'^ When
identity is not absolute, great similarity is found,
and one rises from the study of old tales with a
keen impression of the limited number of plots at
the disposal of the storyteller, who is ever travelling
over ground explored by his predecessors, piecing
together narratives of which one feature has figured
here, another there, a third elsewhere.

But even should one assign a common mythic
origin to the old tales, one is often forced to the
conclusion that a certain amount of historical fact
is blended with the fable and the symbolism to be
found in them. We know nothing certain of King
Arthur, whom the comparative mythologists regard
as a mere myth, a variant of Sigurd and Perseus ;
but, as Mr. Clodd has pointed out, in the romance
woven around Arthur's personality, there was doubt-
less something which corresponded to some probable
event, fitted in with certain national traditions. The
obscurity in which Arthur is enveloped is not proof
of his non-existence. We might regard Alexander
as mythical if merely the wondrous l^ends of him
remained. Cyrus and Charlemagne might also
become myths, if all true record of their doings
were destroyed. And, in like circumstances, some
thousands of years hence, it might be allowable
for mythologists to adopt, in all seriousness, such

^ Qodd, Ar., pp. 70, 71.



INTRODUCTION 1 1

a view as that of the French ecclesiastic who
showed us ' that Napoleon is cognate with Apollo,
the sun, and his mother Letitia identical with Leto,
the mother of Apollo ; that his personnel of twelve
Marshals were the signs of the Zodiac ; that his
retreat from Moscow was a fiery setting ; and that
his emergence from Elba, to rule for twelve months,
and then be banished to St Helena, was the sun
rising out of the Eastern waters to set in the
Western ocean after twelve hours' reign in the
sky/i

This example — although many more might be
adduced, even from among contemporary events ;
for instance, the Boer War would make as good a
myth as the Siege of Troy — will suffice to indicate
the weak point in the theories of those who detect a
mythical origin and belief in everything of the early
ages that is nowadays wrapped in obscurity. Some
counterpoise to a myth-making disposition may be
found in the research and the labour of those ex-
plorers and excavators who raise from the shrouding
earth the relics of ancient civilizations ; while the
march of history itself, with its thousand repetitions,
its frequent similarity of incidents in one age and
another, should warn one against yielding too
readily to the tendency to found, merely upon repeti-
tion and similarity, the theory of a common origin.
Two rivers may flow in the same direction and find
their outlet in one and the same sea, without rising
from the same source ; as witness, for instance, the

^ Qodd, U.^ p. 64.



12 BLUEBEARD

Loire, which comes from the C^vennes, and the
Garonne, which rises in the Pyrenees.

At the root of many of the mythical tales, accord-
ing to some writers, one finds the never-ending
battle between light and darkness, the former being
usually symbolized by a hero, and the latter by a
monster. Those taking this view have cited, for
instance, the combats of Indra and Vitra, Traitana
and Ahi, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Feridun and Zohak,
Michael and Satan, Abel and Cain, David and
Goliath, even Jonah and the fish, Osiris, Horus and
Typhon, Apollo and Pythdn, Theseus and the
Minotaur, Perseus and the sea-monster, Hercules
and Cacus, Thor and Midgard, Siegfried and the
Nibelungs, Sigurd and Fafnir, St. George and the
Dragon, and Beowulf and Grendel, besides many
others, such as those which may be found in the
Arthurian and similar romances. But at the first
glance, it might seem difficult to associate the
subject of this present book, that is, one of the
most popular of Perrault's tales — Bluebeard — with
the great contest of the day and the night. Yet
not many years ago commentators arose to do so.
M. Hyacinthe Husson was content to picture Blue-
beard as the sun devouring the aurora ; but for
M. Dillaye^ he was the semblance of the dense and
cruel night, who imprisoned and would slay his
spouse the light, in whom was traced the highest
expression of curiosity. For does not the light pry
into everything, and even reveal everything to

^ Dillayei /.r., p. 217 et seq.



INTRODUCTION 13

others? Happily, the supreme power, unwilling
that mortals should have to exchange the benefi-
cence of daylight for the cruelty of darkness,
resolved to save the latter's imperilled victim, and
sent to her relief two aurora, or rather the morn-
ing and the evening stars^ — the A9vins of the ' Rig
Veda,* the twin Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux.

Here one may well pause to recognise the
ingenuity of M. Dillaye's theory. He turned the
tale of 'Bluebeard' into as pretty a little myth as
could well be devised.

Even the hue of the cruel husband's beard is
indirectly accounted for by the bluish blackness
ascribed to night by the poets of all ages. One
was carried far from the theories in which Husson
brought forward, as a prototype of Perrault s * hero,'
a certain Egyptian deity, B^, who boasted an azure
beard, whereupon another French commentator,
following in the same track, turned to the * Rig
Veda,' and quoted a passage which showed that Indra
was blue-bearded also ; whilst Greek and Latin
authors depicted Zeus himself, the almighty Jupiter,
* with beard and eyebrows of such blackness ' {telle-
ment noirs) ' that they appeared to be bluish, like
the plumage of ravens !' But another writer, Abb6
Bossard, whose researches^ will be largely followed
in one section of this book, and who evinces, un-
doubtedly, more scorn for myth than the occasion
warrants, makes merry over the views of M. Husson

^ 'Gilles de Rais^ Mardchal de France, dit Barbe-Bleue,' by
Abb6 Eugene Bossard. Paris, 1S86. 8vo.



14 BLUEBEARD

and his partisans. 'Just reflect,' says he, ' that the
god B6s was perhaps symbolical of the Blue Nile^
and that the origin of the tale ' (' Bluebeard ') * would
be wonderfully enhanced if one found it in the
hidden sources of that famous river! Reflect
that all the deities of the sea and the rivers, every
Proteus of pagan antiquity, had blue hair and beard
— cceruleus Proteus! And that the tradition of
'' Bluebeard," in coming down without a break to
Perrault and ourselves, passed through the hands
of Homer and Virgil ! What a splendid origin !
But to those who are fascinated by that fine reason-
ing we will address only one question : What will
future critics think if, after several centuries, there
should be discovered a certain religious statuette,
which we saw recently, and which an artist deemed
it good taste to decorate with a beard of azure, of a
brighter blue than the raven s wing ? There can
be no doubt of the answer. That statuette will help
to carry through future ages the tradition in which
the god BSs supplies one link ; and our great-gp^nd-
nephews will rear upon it the theory which the
Egyptian deity strengthens and illumines in so
powerful a manner.'^

On the other hand, it may well be admitted that
' Bluebeard ' offers features which are very sugges-
tive of a mythic origin. On considering the tale
under various aspects one finds it in some measure
typical of ferocity, deliverance, and, more particularly,
inquisitiveness. The first and second subjects have

^ Bossard, /.^, p. 393.



INTRODUCTION 1 5

not attracted much attention from commentators,
unless it be to connect one with the sun devouring
the aurora, and the other with the battle between
darkness and light; but the third theme, that of
imprudent curiosity and its consequences, has led to
much research, particularly on the part of M. Charles
Deulin, who since 1876, when he published the
result of his first investigations,^ has been followed
and paraphrased by nearly all the editors of Perrault^
some of whom have, now and again, added to his ^^
references^ Taking ' Bluebeard,* then, as typical of ^
curiosity in woman, one may trace it back to the
very beginning of the world, according to the
Mosaic view. Eve and her apple, Lot's wife and
her backward glance, immediately suggest them-
selves ; while the key which Bluebeard hands to his
wife reminds one irresistibly of Pandora's box.
Psyche's lamp, and Elsen's question to the Knight
of the Swan. The subject of human curiosity and
its fatal effects has tempted story-tellers from the
earliest times, which will appear only natural to
those who incline to the view that curiosity with
respect to their surroundings must have been one of
the very first feelings of the primeval race.O And
in a world which we cannot even imagine, of which,
despite all the discoveries and suggestions of science,
we have only the vaguest notions, a world in its
genesis, still subject to extraordinary convulsions
and phenomena, peopled with huge, strange, and

^ ' Revue de France,' tome xx. (number of March 30, 1876),
p. 975 ei se^.



1 6 BLUEBEARD

fierce creatures, the consequences of curiosity must
often have been dire to man, that comparatively
puny being who, after first wondering, turned to
examine the earth on which he found himself, con-
fronted at his first steps by that mighty work of
conquest which has been his task throughout the
ages. Thus, in all such stories as * Bluebeard/
there lingers a lesson which must have come down
to us from the remotest of our ancestor s^ /

It may be pointed out, in this connection, that if
we, accepting Biblical traditions, regard curiosity as
being more largely an attribute of woman than of
man, this idea has been by no means universal. In-
quisitive men are found in many of the old tales.
They appear in Russian as well as Oriental stories.^
A familiar instance is that of the Third Calender in
the * Arabian Nights'; and French examples are
supplied by Elias, the King of Albanie, who mar-
ried the fairy Pressina, and by Raimondin, the son
of the Count of Forez, who espoused Pressina's
daughter, the famous Melusina, from whom the
Lusignans of history claimed to descend. Pressina
gave birth to three children, Melusina and two
others ; and during a certain time Elias was for-
bidden to enter the room which his wife occupied.
He infringed the prohibition, and Pressina dis-
appeared, carrying her children to a mountain sum-
mit, whence she showed them the land where they
would have liv^^.t^n princely splendour had it not
been for their father's fatal curiosity. Again, we

^ Lang, Z.^.



INTRODUCTION 17

find Raimondin breaking the vow he had made
never to enter the room wherein his wife, Melusina,
secreted herself every Saturday, on which day she
was condemned to become a blue serpent.

Forbidden rooms and mysterious keys abound in
the ancient fables. There is the forbidden room in
which the treasures of Ixion are amassed, and which
none may enter under penalty of being devoured by
ever-raging fire. There is the forbidden chamber
in which Jupiter keeps his thunderbolts, and the
keys of which are known only to Minerva, as she
herself teltis the Eumenides, in iCschylus. Ag^ain,
there is a forbidden room, with a golden door and a
golden key, in the already-mentioned story of the
Third Calender, Agib, the son of King Cassib. This
tale^ is occasionally quoted in connection with * Blue-
beard,' to which, however, it bears little resemblance,
save in the matter of the room and the key. Agib,
after being wrecked on a lodestone mountain, is
carried by a roc to the palatial abode of forty
princesses, with whom he dwells for a year. They
then absent themselves for forty days, and give him
their keys, with permission to enter every room but
one. On the fortieth day his curiosity impels him to
pry into that particular chamber, and he there finds
a black P^asus, which he mounts, and which carries
him through the air towards Bagdad, deposits him
on the terrace of a castle, and knocks out his right
eye with a flick of its tail — even as it had done with
ten curious young princes encountered by Agib

1 ' The Aiabian Nights,' Night 66.

2



1 8 BLUEBEARD

earlier in the story. In this case, then, the for-
bidden room is scarcely like that of ' Bluebeard.'
It suggests rather the one which figures in the tales
collected by Bechstein — a room entered by two
children, who find there a golden fawn harnessed
to a golden carriage, in which they flee.

But, as M. Deulin and his followers have pointed
out, there are many other forbidden rooms. Some
will be found in 'The King Serpent,' *The Prince
of Tr^guier,* ' Koadalan/ * Bihannic and the Ogre,'
four of Luzel's * Contes Bas- Bretons ' ; in Miss
R. H. Busk's 'Black King' ('The Folk Lore of
Rome ') ; in MuUenhoflPs * Vigorous Franck ' ; in
' Faithful John,' one of the ' Kinder und Haus-
marchen ' of the Brothers Grimm ; in ' The Widow's
Son ' and the * Mastermaid,' of the * Norske Folke-
Eventyr ' of P. C. Asbjornsen and J. Moe ; in
the story of Maria Morewna in Ralston's * Russian
Folk-Tales ' ; in one of the ' Swahili Tales as told
by Natives of Zanzibar,'^ translated by Dr. E. Steere ;
and in the adventures of Saktivega, which figure in
the * Katha Sarit Sfigara ' (* The Ocean of the Rivers
of Tales'), compiled in the twelfth century by
Samodeva Bhatta of Cashmere. In this story, an
epitome of which is given by Mr. Lang, the ' for-
bidden room* takes the form of a certain palace
terrace and three pavilions, which the hero is pro-
hibited from approaching. When he does so, he

* Not having seen this book, the writer cannot supply the title
given by Dr. Steere to the story referred to, but Deulin calls it
* L'Esprit tromp^ par le fils du Sultan.'



INTRODUCTION 19

finds in each pavilion a dead maiden — a discovery
that is certainly suggestive of * Bluebeard.' But
there is no resemblance in the rest of the tale, which
appears to be a confused medley of many incidents.
We come now to an Esthonian legend set down
by Kreuzwald,^ and cited by Gubernatis in his

* Zoological Mythology.' Here we find a monster
husband who has already killed eleven wives, and
who is about to murder the twelfth for having opened
a secret room with a golden key (* perhaps the moon/
says Gubernatis!), when a youth, a friend of her
childhood, who tends some goslings, comes to deliver
her. Here the resemblance to * Bluebeard' is striking.
It is true that Perrault does not even specify the
number of his hero's wives ; he uses the word

* several,' but it is none the less generally accepted
in both France and England that Bluebeard was
married seven times. As F. W. N. Bayley wrote
in the rhymed version of the story which he pre-
pared for the * Comic Nursery Tales '^ : —

' In former times,

In the warmest of climes,
A gentleman gloried in several crimes :
Some terrible deeds he was known to have done,
And 'twas hinted that murder was certainly one ;

For six of his wives

Had been rid of their lives
In the darkest of manners under the sun.'

^ ' Ehsthnische Marchen,' aufgezeichnet von Fried. KLreuzwald,
aus dem Ehsthnischen iibersetzt von F. Lowe, etc. Halle, 1869,
post 8vo. (Tale 20).

* One of the early publishing ventures of the late Henry Vizetelly,
father of the present writer.

2—2



20 BLUEBEARD

That, of course, is only a modern instance, and an
English one ; but the idea of the seven wives has
always prevailed in France, though occasionally the
number becomes eight — that is, seven slaughtered
wives, and another who is saved by her brothers.

It is useless to plunge into the so-called occult
science of numbers. For some reason or other the
Esthonian view is, or was, that there were twelve
wives ; and those who are inclined to do so may trace
those twelve Esthonian spouses back through the
twelve Wise Masters, the twelve Paladins, the
twelve Knights of the Round Table, the twelve
Apostles, the twelve Roman Deities, the twelve sons
of Jacob, the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, and so
forth ; while the partisans of the seven French or
English wives may take comfort in thinking of the
seven Champions of Christendom, the seven Wise
Men of Greece, the seven Wonders of the World, the
seven Sleepers, the seven Virtues, the seven Mortal
Sins, the seven Sacraments, the seven Seals of the
Apocalypse, in addition to the yearly victims of the
Minotaur, who, suggestively enough, were likewise
seven in number. In this connection mention may
be made of the Indian tale of the magician Punchkin,
who changes into stone the seven princely husbands
of the rajah's seven daughters, a tale having a
counterpart in Norse folklore, for * The Giant who
had no Heart in his Body *^ turns six princes and
their wives into stone, whereupon * Boots ' (properly

1 ' Popular Tales from the Norse,' by Sir G. W. Dasent Edin-
buigh, 1859. 8vo.



INTRODUCTION 21

* Cinderson/ from * Askeladden '), the seventh and
surviving brother, undertakes to avenge them, and
does so with the help of a raven, a salmon, and a
wolf.^ In * Punchkin ' the magician's fate depends
on the life of a parrot, which the seventh princess's
son tears to pieces ; in the story of the giant the
latter bursts when an egg^ in which his heart is
hidden, is squeezed to pieces. The petrified victims
are restored to life in both of these tales, whose
likeness to Perrault's ' Bluebeard ' is, after all, of
the vaguest

An incidental suggestion of Perrault's conU is to
be found in the old Cornish tale of ' Tom and the
Giant Blunderbuss,'^ in which it is said that the
giant's wives were to be counted by the score.
What became of them nobody could tell ; yet there
were always more ready to take their places. Tom
was curious on the subject ; and thus, while Blunder-
buss was dying of his wounds, he sisked him : ' Did
you kill all your wives ?' * No,' sighed the griant ;
*they died natural.' One of them, named Jane,
survived, however, and Tom ended by marrying
her. Italy also supplies two suggestive stories, one,
quoted by Mr. Lang, being * The Devil Wooer,'^
wherein the heroines are limited to three, the ' per-

^ In like manner a fox, a redbreast, and a goldfish figure in a
story of Comorre, one of the Breton Bluebeards, given /^j/, p. 47
et se^,

* • Popular Romances of the West of England,' etc, collected
by Robert Hunt, F.R.S. New Edition, Chatto and Windus.
London, 1896, 8vo., p. 55 et se^.

» • Italian Popular Tales,' by T. F. Crane. London, 1885, 8vo.



22 BLUEBEARD

feet number' of Pythagoras, which in the present
instance may perhaps be regarded by believers in
numerical science as symbolical of the three Fates,
the three Furies, or even the Trinity, for, curiously
enough, as soon as the three women are resuscitated
the Devil hurriedly decamps, daunted by the idea
of having to face that number of wives. The other
Italian tale is the * King of the Assassins,' quoted
by Gubernatis,^ who had it from a peasant woman
of Fucecchio. Here again the sister-heroines are
three in number ; as is also the case in the Highland
story of * The Widow and her Daughters,' published
by Campbell,^ and in the tale of * Fichters Vogel '
(*The Feather Bird'), which figures in Grimm's
• Marchen.'^

These Italian, Gaelic, and German stories come
from a common source, as an epitome of their in-
cidents will show. In * The Feather Bird ' a sorcerer,
who takes the form of a beggar and steals children,
carries off the eldest of three pretty sisters, lodges
her in a splendid house in a forest, leaves her with
the keys, an egg which she is to carry about with
her (eggs figure largely and in all sorts of ways
in these popular tales), and forbids her to enter a
certain room. She, however, infringes the prohibi-
tion, and finds in the room a block, an axe, and a
basin full of blood, into which, in her fright, she

1 * Zoological Mythology,' vol ii.

* * Popular Tales of the West Highlands,' etc., by John Francis
Campbell. New Edition, Paisley and London, 1890-93. 4 vols.,
8vo. (Na 41.)

» No. 46.



INTRODUCTION 23

drops the egg, which she is afterwards unable to
cleanse. The man on returning home slays her;^
fetches the second sister, who shares her fate ; and,
finally, the third, who cunningly leaves the egg in
a safe place when she visits the secret room, where
she miraculously restores her sisters to life by re-
uniting their limbs. Then she makes the man
carry them home in sacks, dips herself in a cask of
honey and rolls among the feathers of her bed, till
she looks like a marvellous bird, and cannot be
recognised. In the result — the intervening incidents
are immaterial — ^her brothers, who have been warned
by her sisters, come to her rescue, and the sorcerer,
who has returned home, is burnt to death in the
house, which the brothers and other relations set
on fire.

All the commentators point to the resemblance
of this tale to ' Bluebeard,' and even Abb^ Bossard,
the champion of the Gilles de Rais theory, admits
that there is considerable analogy between the two
stories. In the Gaelic version, given by Campbell,
there are sundry variations. For instance, the
beggar-man becomes a horse, and the house to
which he carries the sisters is inside a hill. Then,
the part of the denouncing eggs is played by a cat,
whose services the two elder sisters neglect But
not so the youngest, who is cleansed of her blood-
stains by the grateful animal. Turning to the
Italian tale of the * King of the Assassins,' one there

^ In some English adaptations of the story, the girls, instead of
being killed, are simply shut up and starved.



24 BLUEBEARD

finds the cat replaced by a young dog, while the
coffers in which the sisters of the Highland tale are
carried off, when they are restored to life, are
changed into jars. There are other incidents also
in the Italian story which differentiate it from the
others. For instance, the heroine resuscitates a
certain French Prince Carlino, one of the Assassin's
victims, and marries him ; and the Assassin, after
placing a * soporific paper * under the prince s pillow,
conceals himself in a golden column, whence he at
last goes to the kitchen, to fill a large pan with
boiling oil. The heroine, however, shakes the
prince until he awakes, and in the end it is the
Assassin himself who is burnt alive.

In connection with * Bluebeard ' Mr. Lang men-
tions yet another tale — one of Kaffir origin^ — but
for the time this section of our subject need be
carried no further. The question which presents
itself is. What materials were used by Perrault when
he wrote this particular tale ? Was it derived by
him from any of those which have been mentioned ?
It is allowable to surmise that he borrowed his
* Riquet with the Tuft ' from the ' Nights ' of Stra-
parola, even as he took his ' Griselidis ' from
Boccaccio ; while ' The Sleeping Beauty ' may well
have come from one of the romances of chivalry,

1 « Nursery Tales of the Zulus '—the Kaffir Tale of the Ox—
p. 23a In * Household Tales collected in the Counties of York^
Lincoln,' etc., by S. O. Addy, London, 1895, there is one
(No. 18) entitled 'The Glass Ball,' which is likewise included in
the ' Bluebeard ' group. We also refer, at the end of our account
of Comorre, to two suggestive Breton stories.



INTRODUCTION 25

if not direct from the old Scandinavian legend of
Brynhild and Sigurd, which is generally regarded
as its earliest known form ; though, indeed, almost
every nation has some tradition about a sleeper —
usually of the malq. sex — who will some day awaken,
in order, as a rule, to perform some mighty deed,
as in the case of Arthur, who, when he emerges
from his slumber, is to make Britain the head and
front of all the kingdoms of the earth.

Again^ 'Cinderella' is a story seemingly known
in various countries before Perrault's time ; and
although it is altogether unlikely that he ever heard
of Sodewa Bai, the Hindu, or of Conkiajgharuna,^
the Georgian Cinderella, and may even have had
no acquaintance with the German Aschenputtel, we
know that he was a good classical scholar, and as
such may well have been familiar, through Strabo
or iElian, with the story of Rhodope, one of whose
sandals was carried away by an eagle, which dropped
it at Memphis, near King Psammeticus, who, after
marvelling at its beauty and diminutive size, caused
strict inquiry to be made for its owner throughout
the known world, with the result that Rhodope was
discovered, and, although at that time a courtesan,
was married to the King. That Rhodope may have
served as the original of Perrault's Cinderella is the
more possible as she is described by some authors
as having been originally a fellow- slave of iEsop's,
in th^ palace of Xanthus of Samos, a circumstance
probably known to Perrault, who, in translating

^ Miss M. Wardrop's ' Georgian Folk Tales,' London, 1895.



26 BLUEBEARD

Faernus, had familiarized himself with the then
generally accepted accounts of iSsop, Phaedrus, and
the writings ascribed to them. At all events, one
may at least say that Rhodope, the slave, suggests
Cinderella, the house-drudge.

But if in connection with the latter it is possible
to point to a classical prototype, such as may well
have been familiar to a writer like Perrault, no such
suggestion can be offered with respect to ' Blue-
beard.' If we regard the latter as an old-time story,
adapted from popular oral tales, it is extraordinary
that no earlier mention of it should be found in French
literature. Neither irouv^re nor troubadour, neither
historian nor moralist, neither chronicler nor poet,
before Perrault's time, had ever referred to that
legend of Bluebeard, great as is the position which
it now holds in popular lore. No literary man ever
wrote that name, Barbe Bleue, or alluded to Anne^
ma sceur Anne, before Charles Perrault did so. And
it is remarkable that, disseminated among the people
and kept alive by fireside traditions, the story should
have left no trace in the works of Rabelais, Marot
Montaigne, and all the other sixteenth-century
writers, who were so partial to popular anecdote.
As remarks Abb6 Bossard, who is here followed,^
it is as if Perrault had given new life to the story
by drafting it in a literary form, had brought it
into the full radiance of day by transferring it from
the sphere of nurses and children to the more en-
lightened sphere of literature.

^ Bossard, /.^., p. 396.



INTRODUCTION 27

Of all Perrault's tales, * Bluebeard * is the least
marvellous, the most * realistic,' the most * up-to-
date/ It is quite grand siicle, as a Frenchman
might say. Bluebeard has town and country houses,
coaches, gold and silver plate, and even sofas ! His
wife is a fit companion for Madame de La Fayette,
Madame de Motteville, and Madame de S6vigne ;
and the brothers also are essentially of Perrault's
time, for one is a musketeer and the other a dragoon.
To Abbe Bossard it seems as if Perrault had stripped
the story of everything that appeared to him un-
worthy of the bon-ton and politeness of society as
it flourished under Louis XIV. ; and the reverend
critic further suggests that Perrault deliberately
altered the popular tradition when he made Blue-
beard's wife solicit a short delay in order that
she might prepare herself for death by prayer to
God.

In this connection Abb6 Bossard quotes a curious
version of the tale which has long been current
throughout La Vendue, though whether it be of
earlier origin than the seventeenth century is un-
certain. It is an interesting version, as the reader
will perceive by the following extract^ : —

* " You must die, and at once," said Bluebeard.

* " If I must die," said the poor woman, **at least
allow me, I beg you, to go up to my room, where
are my wedding-garments; for, as a last favour, I
entreat you to let me wear them once again, that I
may die bedecked in them."

^ Bossard, U,^ pp. 386, 38 .



28 BLUEBEARD

* " Go/* said Bluebeard ; " but make haste, for I
have no time to wait"

* More dead than alive, the poor woman went up
to her room. And, forthwith, she said to sister
Anne, who happened to be there :

* " Go quickly to the top of the tower, and tell me
if my brothers are coming."

* Sister Anne went up swiftly.

• " Anne, sister Anne, dost thou see nothing
coming ?"

' ** Alas ! no ; I see but the dust of the sunbeams
scattering, and the grass a-greening."^

' Meantime Bluebeard was shouting to his wife
from below :

* " Come down, wilt thou ? Or I shall go up !"

' " Husband, I have yet to put my pearl necklace
round my neck."

* '* Make haste ! For I have no time to lose,"
Bluebeard answered.

'Then his wife repeated in a still more urgent
voice :

'"Anne, sister Anne, dost thou see nothing
coming ?"

* ** I see but the dust of the sunbeams scattering,
and the grass a-greening."

* '* Wilt thou come down ? Or I shall go up
there !" shouted Bluebeard.

' " Husband, I still have to put two golden brace-
lets on my arms."

^ £e soldi quipotidroU et Fherbe qui verdoie, — To green, Thomson ;
greening, Keats.



INTRODUCTION 29

* ** Make haste !" Bluebeard answered, " for I have
no time to lose."

* " Anne, sister Anne, dost thou see nothing
coming ?"

' " I only see a cloud of dust which the wind is
raising far away across the plain."

* " For the last time, wilt thou come down ? Or
I shall go up there !" Bluebeard shouted.

' •* Ah ! for mercy's sake," his wife answered him,
*' I still have to adjust my wedding head-dress."
And at the same time, knowing naught else to say
to him, that she might still tarry there : ** Anne,
sister Anne !" she cried in a voice of terror, '* dost
thou see nothing coming ?"

* *' Ah !" said sister Anne, " I see two horsemen
on the horizon."

' But Bluebeard was becoming impatient ; so his
wife said to him :

* ** I am coming down, but let me still look for my
wedding-ring, which I had forgotten."^ And again
calling to sister Anne : ** Anne, sister Anne," she
asked, " do they come this way ?"

* ** Yes," said sister Anne, " they are coming at a
gallop ; they are near, and I am signing to them to
hasten.'*

* At that moment, at the bottom of the tower,
Bluebeard called in so terrible a voice that his wife
began to tremble in every limb, for fear lest he
should come up to her room.

^ This is not out of the way, for the superstition which prevents
so many Englishwomen from ever taking off their wedding-rings is
scarcely known in France.



30 BLUEBEARD

' " I am coming down ! I am coming down !" she
called to him.

' For all that, she did not hurry. Only she made
a clatter with her shoes several times upon the same
stair, to make him think that she was hastening.

* *'Come down quicker than that !" said Bluebeard,
*• for I have no time to wait."

'When she at last appeared before his eyes,
she was pale and trembling, and clad in the same
garments as she had worn when she went up ;
for her fright had not allowed her to change
them.

'"False one! traitress!" he said to her, "it is
thus that thou didst ever deceive me! But thou
shalt gain nothing by having waited."

* " My lord," she said to him, falling at his knees,
" deign to pardon me !"

' But he has already raised his cutlass above her
head. He is about to lay her low with one stroke,
when all at once the door opens with a crash, the
brothers of the unfortunate spring towards Blue-
beard, and run him through the body with their
swords.*

It is impossible to say whether this version of the
story, current in La Vendue, is older than Perrault's.
But it is a curious one, as illustrating the popular
fancy. It would be easy to find many instances,
even nowadays, of people desiring to be buried in
their wedding clothes. There have been cases, too,
of criminals putting on such garments before appear-
ing on the scaffold. Lawrence, Earl Ferrers, did



INTRODUCTION 3'

so when he was hanged in i ;6o for murdering his
land-steward. And thus there is a suggestion of
quaint realism, such as would appeal to ttmaginatttm
populaire, in Bluebeard's wife entreating a respite in
order that "before dying she might deck herself in
her bridal gown and ornaments.^ Moreover, one
may perhaps picture her hoping that she m^ht
soften her cruel husband by appearing before him
in the garments she had worn when he wedded her.
But either Perrault did not know this version — sup-
posing it to be older than his own — or else, 3S Abb^
Bossard suggests, he was resolved to have none of
it, being a religious man, one who held that the only
proper thing for a woman to do, under such circum-
stances, was to pray. It may be added that the
peasants of La Vendue are also religiously inclined,
yet there is nothing suggestive of any religious
sentiment in their version of ' Bluebeard.'

It now has to be pointed out that, whatever the
folklorists may have to say on the subject, the vox
populi throughout France has long assigned to Blue-
beard a locfd habitation and a name. Historians,
such as Daru, Michelet and Wallon, and more
particularly the native writers of Brittany, Anjou
and La Vendue, have long re-echoed the popular
assertion that the real Bluebeard was the offspring
of that strange wild land of Brittany, the ancient
Armorica, which has given to the world, and pre-
served for our generation, so many weird and quaint

' The same occurs in S^billof s Breton siory oT ' Barbe Rouge,'
epitomiied ftat, pp. 107, toS.



32 BLUEBEARD

l^ends and traditions. But whilst all French
writers, apart from the mythologists, agree in assert-
ing that the original Bluebeard was a Breton, there
is difference of opinion with respect to the actual
man whose career served as the basis of the tradition.
Some hold that he was a certain Conomor, Comorus,
Comor, Comorre, or Commorre, as the name is
variously written, a Breton usurper of the sixth
century. One writer, however, has suggested that
he was a member of the famous house of Beau-
manoir, originally of Maine, but connected with
Brittany ; while many urge the claims of the high,
powerful, and redoubtable lord, Gilles de Laval,
Baron of Rais, Count of Brienne, and Marshal of
France, the first specially appointed protector of
Joan of Arc, and the companion-in-arms of Riche-
mont, Dunois, Ambroise de Lord, Boussac, and
many of the other paladins who at last succeeded in
driving the English from France, in such wise that
nothing of it remained to them, save the one port
and stronghold of Calais.

Passing, then, from the folklore of the subject as
glanced at in previous pages, an attempt will now be
made to recount, as far as the writer can ascertain,
and as far as is, for various reasons, convenient, the
careers of two of the historical personages to whom
the dishonour of having been the original Bluebeard
is imputed. It is unnecessary to discuss sundry
suggestions that Perrault's hero was a Turk — with a
harem, of course ; and it is not proposed to dwell on
the life of our much-married Henry VI IL, though



INTRODUCTION 33

Perrault, while writing his story, may well have

remembe ^ >hat libidinous monarch. As for the

allegatio " "^'^anQir — a mere allqra-

tion, ur ^ ' ^ •noticed

briefly

and t\

First,

called

his a

cons

intf

mo'

foU

pe



V

f



* . . . -^

, ■ . ,1






id'



the celebrateQ «..

example of the manner m «».^

^ See/ostf Appendix A.



'J



34 BLUEBEARD

should be approached and treated. And after Abb^
Bossard, there are Vallet de Viriville, Quicherat,
and Wallon, Paul Lacroix and Paul Marchegay,
Armand Gu6raud, E. Cosneau, and many others
of repute, to help one to narrate, in its essential
features, the extraordinary career of one of the
bravest captains, one of the most splendid prodigals,
one of the most superstitious and credulous beings,
and one of the very vilest monsters, that ever lived.



COMORRE THE CURSED

'COMOR AR MILIGUET'



3—2



COMORRE THE CURSED

'COMOR AR MILIGUET'
Or. A J). 515-555

I
LEGENDS OF COMORRE — BRITTANY IN EARLY TIMES

The River Blavet and its Scenery — Qu^fcan, Broceliande^ and
Arthurian Legends — Comorre's Castle of Finans — The Legend
of Comorre and St. Tryphine according to the ' Grandes
Croniques ' and Brother Albert of Morlaix— St. Gildas destroys
the Walls of Finans as Joshua destroyed those of Jericho—
Comorre is cursed and takes the Form of a Bisclavaret or
Werewolf— The Comorre and Tryphine Legend as a Fairy Tale
— Other Memories of Comorre in Brittany — The Legend of the
Ferry of Cloar-Camo<^ — Comorre as Charon — From Legend to
History — Confusion of the Early Annals of Brittany — La
Borderie's Effort to reach the Truth— The Fate of Ancient
Armorica — Hun, Alan and Saxon — Emigrations from Britain —
Armorica becomes Brittany — Early Breton Rulers contemporary
with Comorre — Gradlon the Great and the Submerged City of
Ys — Werok of the Vannetais — Riwal of Domnonia — Withnr of
Leon.

Some five -and -thirty years ago one of the finest
trout -Streams in France was the now partially
canalized Blavet, which, taking its source near the
squalid Breton hamlet of Querien — in a wild district
of the department of Les C6tes - du - Nord, a



38 BLUEBEARD

region all up-hill and down -dale, fwith stretches
of marshland intervening between [lofty hills —
flows southward through the adjacent department
of Le Morbihan, and, uniting with the Scorff,
meets the sea just below Lorient. Now and again
the Blavet, in its upper reaches, is pent between
rocky hills ; but at times come furrowed slopes
planted with buckwheat and colza, with intervening
patches of brushwood, interspersed with clumps of
beeches, or fringed with pines. Then the slopes
retreat, offering a wider bed to the river, which
pursues its course between verdant pasture-lands,
where poplars and pollard willows dot either margin.
Behind the apple-trees, clustering on some neigh-
bouring hill, the thatch roof of a homestead may be
occasionally descried ; but presently appear shady
woods, in which one espies quaint gray rocks, now
overgrown with moss or stonecrop, and now decked
round about with eglantine or holly. The rushes
bend to the breeze beside the deep blue water, in
which a sunbeam dances ; small tributary rivulets
gleam awhile amid fern, heather, and trailing peri-
winkles, and then leap onward in miniature cascades,
while, in the surrounding thickets, thrush and black-
bird pipe right joyously.

Beyond Gouarec, before the Blavet quits Les
Cdtes-du-Nord, it skirts first the woods of L'Abbaye
and Le Fao, and then the forest of Qu6n6can, which
extends over some seven or eight thousand acres of
Le Morbihan. Here the river is for a time shut in



COMORRE THE CURSED 39

by steep gray heights intersected by narrow gorges ;
but a glimpse is obtained of the ruined abbey of
Bon-Repos, founded by one of the Rohans, and
devastated during the great Revolution ; and then,
never heeding the huge overhanging rocks which
for centuries have been threatening to fall and im-
pede its progress, the river turns into the forest,
which is a remnant of that great primeval, central
forest of Brittany, still existent in early historical
times. Fragments of it are yet found here and
there ; one of them, towards Paimpont, even now
retaining among the peasantry the ancient name
immortalized by imperishable romance — that name
of Brekilien, or Broceliande, which recalls Arthur,
Merlin, Viviane, and even the fierce Esplandian,
that son of Amadis and Oriana whom the lioness
suckled. In the remnant of the old central forest
existing near Landerneau you will be shown the
ruins of the abbey built on the site of the castle of
Joyeuse-Guarde which Arthur gave to Lancelot ; in
the fragment near Paimpont you may see Merlin's
magic fountain of Baranton, as well as the hawthorn
bushes in which he was spellbound by the artful
Viviane ; while on a hill towards St. M6en is the
site of the palace of Gael, where Arthur himself
dwelt (so you will perhaps be told) after his passing
from Britain into Brittany. Thus, on learning that
Qu^n^can, also, is a remaining portion of the vast
woodland associated with the hero-king, who is to
return one day to Britain, * full twice as fair, to rule



rv



■f



40 ^ BLUEBEARD

over his people/ you may well expect to find some-
thing Arthurian there also.

The fotest is dark, weird, impressive. One of its
black gorges is called the Stang-en-Ihuem, or Valley
of Hell ; there are huge and fantastic rocks among
the clumps of oak-trees, and a very large dolmen
called ' the house of the small people ' is to be found
near the hamlet of Gouvello, in such wise that you
feel yourself in a spot which the Druids must have
chosen for their meditations and their mysterious
rites. And fairyland also comes to mind. This is
a fit home for the Korriganets, those spirits of native
princesses who, having refused to embrace Christi-
anity when it was first preached in Armorica, in-
curred, it is said, the Divine displeasure, and were
set the endless task of creating the springs and
fountains which were to supply the water of baptism
and health to true believers. And here also may
well abide the Poulpiquets, those black, hideous, hairy
dwarfs who built the dolmens, and whom every
peasant in the old days vowed that he had seen on
at least one occasion — most frequently after a drink-
ing bout. Thus, some Breton Oberon may per-
chance still hold his court in yonder glade, among
the dark trees and the strange rocks which occasion-
ally affect the aspect of grim giants or ogres, suggest-
ing, indeed, that Quen^can may be the very forest
where * Petit Poucet ' and his tribe of brothers were
purposely * lost' And as nothing Arthurian is to be
discovered in this particular part of old Brekilien,
may one not content oneself with some relic or



COMORRE THE CURSED 41

suggestion of fairyland ? The suggestion is supplied
by the forest itself; the relic is close at hand, for
yonder, old peasants will assert, is all that remains
of Bluebeard's famous castle.

At the point, indeed, where the Blavet changes its
eastern for a southern course, nigh to the lock of Guer-
l^dan, it washes the base of a conspicuous gray, rocky
promontory, the summit of which, showing traces of
a stone fortification, is bright with purple heather,
offering a lively contrast to the green foliage of the
trees on the margin of the stream. The river skirts
this promontory on three sides, which rise almost
perpendicularly from the water to a height varying
from one to two hundred feet. It would be almost
impossible to scale those cliffs, and even from the
land side the summit is difficult of access. For long
ages this towering promontory has been known as
Castel Finans ; and, according to tradition, it was
here, in the sixth century, that Bluebeard had his
stronghold, and murdered his hapless wives.

Some forty years ago, whatever may be the case
nowadays, the peasants of C16gu6rec, Ste. Brigitte,
S^glien, Lescouet, St Aignan, and all the other
villages and hamlets in or around the forest, signed
themselves at the mention of the miscreant's dreaded
name, for was he not * Comor ar Miliguet, '
• Coniorre the Cursed,' one on whom the saints of
Brittany had called down the judgment of Provi-
dence ; and being thereby denied access both to pur-
gatory and to heaven, did he not roam Qu6n6can at
night in the guise of a wolf, seeking whom he might



42 BLUEBEARD

devour? Imagination supplied most of the details
of his career ; but of the facts of his last great crime
and the miracle which followed it there was no doubt
whatever.

The legend has been briefly recorded by two of
the older Breton historians ;^ and in rather more
detail, most of which is imaginative embroidery,
by Brother Albert Le Grand, a Dominican of
Morlaix, who, in 1636, published a quaint work on
the ' Life, Deeds, Death, and Miracles of the Saints
of Armorican Brittany/^

* C6mor, a Breton King of the sixth century,* says
Alain Bouchard, * had already put several wives to
death, and Gu^rok, Count of Vannes, refused him
his daughter Triphine. Vanquished at last by the
King's pressing solicitations, he ended by granting
her to him, on the promise, which at the request of
King Comorus M. [Messire] St. Gildas made to
him, that she should be well treated, and restored to
him, healthy and whole, when he should demand her
of him.'^ Brother Albert, on his side, asserts that
Comorre had already had four wives, all of whom
had perished, and that, being known for his cruelty

^ Alain Bouchard, in his 'Grandes Croniques,' Nantes, 1531,
folio, p. 52 ; and Dom Lobineau, in his ' Histoire de Bretagne,'
1707, folio, p. 75.

^ His full name was Albert Le Grand de Kerigouval, but he is
generally catalogued as Le Grand or Legrand. Three editions
of his book are known to exist : (i) *La Vie, Gestes, Mort et
Miracles des Saints de la Bretagne- Armorique,' par le Fr^re Albert
Le Grand, de Morlaix, Dominicain ; Nantes, 1636 ; (2) ' La Vie,'
etc., Rennes, 1680 ; (3) * Les Vies,' etc., Brest, 1837.

' Bouchard, /.^., p. 52.



COMORRE THE CURSED 43

and his vices, he resorted to strats^em in order to
obtain the hand of Tryphine. Having attracted
Gildas the Wise, Abbot of Rhuys, to his court,
whither the holy man repaired in the hope of con-
verting *that ravenous wolf into a meek lamb,' he
prevailed on him to propose a durable peace and
alliance to the Count of Vannes, on condition that
the latter would give him the hand of his daughter,
whom he promised to treat with all kindness,
honour, and affection. The good Abbot, who
desired above all things to put an end to disastrous
wars, pleaded the cause of Comorre to the Count
and his daughter so successfully, that in spite of
their repugnance they accepted Comorre's proposals,
on the express condition, however, that if he should
some day lose his affection for Tryphine he was to
send her back to her father without ill-treatment.
The marriage took place ; but some time afterwards
Tryphine discovered that her husband invariably
killed his wives as soon as he found them to be in a
certain condition ; and she was so terrified thereat
(she herself being enceinte) that she resolved to flee^
According to one legendary account, she had a
warning vision of the dead wives; according to
another, she read her husband's fell purpose in his
glances. • At all events, early one morning, mounted
on her haquenie (an ambling nag), and attended, it
would seem, by a few servants, she fled from her
home. But Comorre, discovering her absence,
followed in hot pursuit, and Tryphine, perceiving
his approach, dismounted, and sought a retreat in a



44 BLUEBEARD

thicket, where her husband discovered her. ' Then/
says Brother Albert, *the poor lady flung herself
upon her knees before him, her hands raised to
heaven, and her cheeks bathed in tears ; and she
implored his mercy ; but the cruel monster, unmoved
by her weeping, seizes her by the hair, deals her a
great sword-cut on the neck, and lops her head from
off her shoulders/

While the murderer quietly rode back to his eyrie
overlooking the Blavet, the servants, who had
accompanied Tryphine without daring to defend
her, hastened to her father's home. The Count of
Vannes set out to succour his daughter, but found her
dead ; and in his desolation, after he had removed
her body to Vannes, where it was placed on a
funeral couch in the great hall of the castle, he
remembered that he had only given Tryphine to
Comorre at the request of Gildas, who had promised
that she should be restored to him 'healthy and
whole * if ever he should require it. So he sent for
the holy man, and, showing him the body of
Tryphine, he asked him if that was how it had been
agreed he should receive his cherished daughter,
the child of his heart, from her husband. The
reproach filled Gildas with emotion ; he knelt beside
the decapitated body, and with all the people present
he prayed unto Him who restored Lazarus, even
four days after his death, to Martha and her sister
Mary. The prayer ended, he approached the body,
and, taking the head, placed it on the neck ; and
then, speaking to the defunct, he said to her aloud :



COMORRE THE CURSED 45

* Tiyphine, in the name of Almighty God, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, I command thee to rise upon
thy feet ' (sur doui) ' and tell me where thou hast
been.' ^ The lady rose, and, before all the assembled
people, she said that the angels had been preparing
to place her in Paradise, among the saints, when the
words of St. Gildas had called her soul back to earth.
But Comorre was not to go unpunished. The
Abbot of Rhuys, we are told, betook himself to the
monster's castle of Finans, where the gates were
closed at his approach. And, having vainly de-
manded admittance, the holy man took up a handful
of dust and flung it against the walls, which, like
those of Jericho at the sound of the trumpets of
Joshua, immediately crumbled to pieces, at the
same time seriously injuring Comorre, who was able,
however, to flee to another castle which he pos-
sessed—one near P^demec, some six miles from
Guingamp, famous for its pilgrimages. Then, as
he still continued his career of crime, undaunted by
the warning of heaven, thirty Bishops of Brittany
assembled in solemn council on the adjacent height
of the Menez-Br6, on which Guin Clan, the pro-
phatic bard,^ is said to have lived, and which is
now crowned by a chapel dedicated to St. Herv6,
whither people afflicted with neuralgia resort in

^ Albert Le Grand, Lc. Alain Bouchard sajrs : 'The saint
betook himself to the body, and by his prayers and by his tears he
obtained from heaven the resuscitation of Sainte Triphine.'

' According to some theories Guingamp derives its name from
that semi-mythical personage ; but the more probable etymology
is Gwen


Hcrrc TirtuaDy fM C si ded over the
ltc of Bishops cxmimed to ponisii Comorre,
mho V2S solemnly anatfaemazued br tfaem. And

jcgtso^iY account — ^with a terrible malady* finom
vfakb be died, his soul being borne away in a
stream of blood. Nerertbeicss. in part, perfas^is,
hrra;isr St. Herre is tbe patroo of s h ephe rds and the
gxardxan of sbeepfalds against the attacks of vol ves,^
there is a traditioo that Comorre stiD vanders at
night round the Menez-Bre, or in the glades of
Qoenecany in the form of a great toIC ^Hio can be OTercome b>' a stab with a knife in the centre
of the forehead. The widespread werewolf super-
stitioa. which onhr the steadfast mardi of education
can dispd« was at one time shared by aD the
peasantry of Le Morbihan. Les Cotes-du-Nord, and
Finistere ; and it is not surprisii^ that those dwell-
ing in the vidnitv of spots associated widi die

the guise of a ^isc/myar/^ as the werewolf^ or loup
gmram^ is g^anerally called in Brittany.

We have the assurance^ that less than half a

^ One of the iegeDds of Si. Hem anient in Mortahm is to the
dBea tbat a vol( haTing deroored an ass wbich the sunt employed
in pSd^ii^ his knd, was coodenned bj him to take the place
of the animal he had eaten, and became dKXvw^ghhr domesticated,
during at night the same pen as the saint^ ^Mcp» and never
m ole stin g them. For kmg centuries lambs w«fe the osoal offer-
ings of the Breton peasantry at the vanons shrines of Sl Herr^
sc a tte ied thioi^ their province.

< ' Pderimiges de Bretagne (MorhihanV bj Hippoljle Vicdeau,
second edition ; Faris^ iS59> p^ 40.



COMORRE THE CURSED 47

century ago the murderer of Tryphine was often
recalled by the Morbiban peasantry, who designated
him now by the name of Comorre, now by that of
Finans, from the castle on the Blavet where his
wives were said to have been slain. Moreover, in
addition to what may be called, perhaps, Albert Le
Grand's semi-official version of the legend of the
tyrant and St. Tryphine, others existed — oral ver-
sions, based on the same facts, but differing in points
of detail, according to the vagaries of the popular
fancy. A quaint example of how an old Church
legend becomes partially transformed into a modern
fairy tale is supplied by one adaptation of this
Comorre and Tryphine story, which was current in
the neighbourhood of Vannes about 1860-63.^ So
well, indeed, does this version illustrate the changes
wrought in ancient tales by time and the fancy of
successive narrators, that one may give it here,
slightly abbreviating it in parts, in order to avoid
repetition.

* Count Guerech of Vannes,' we are told, * was a
wise prince, and in proof thereof had chosen for his
counsellor St. Gildas, Abbot of Rhuys, the most
sensible man of his time. It was by the advice of
that holy Abbot that Guerech gave the hand of his
daughter, the lovely Tryphine, to the fierce Comorre,^
Count of Tr^guier, and the Bluebeard of the age.

1 * Ldgendes Bretonnes (Souvenirs du Morbihan),' by Count
d'Amezeuil (C. P. Aclocque). Paris, 1863, post 8vo., p,iijet seg.

^ ' Conamor ' in the work dted, but we prefer to adhere to the
modem spelling which we have hitherto followed.



48 BLUEBEARD

Tiyphine, who had heard of the blackness of
Comorre's soul — he was accused of having already
killed four wives — long refused him her hand ; and
he, infuriated thereby, raised a powerful army, and
sent word to Guerech that if he did not deliver
his daughter to him, he would tear her from his
arms by force. Guerech was brave, but had few
soldiers, so he sent for St. Gildas, and requested his
advice.

' " Count,*' said the saint, '* your daughter must
marry Comorre."

* " But what if he should kill her ?" asked Guerech.

* **God will provide for it," replied St. Gildas.

* And, having spoken those fine words, he sought
the maid, and prevailed upon her to marry the
Count of Tr^guier.

* He, full of love, carried her to his fine castle of
L6on, the most splendid of the region, and gave
many entertainments and tourneys, in which he him-
self took part in honour of his lady. Tryphine, at
first astonished by his gallantry, became used to it,
and at last sent word to her father that her husband
was better than she had been told, and that she had
even begun to love him slightly. But all at once an
unforeseen occurrence changed her joy into mourn-
ing. Festivities of all sorts followed one another at
the castle, which was never empty, for fresh visitors
arrived there every day. Among them was Comorre's
cousin, the Count of Nantes, who came with a mag-
nificent retinue of lords and ladies. One of the last
was conspicuous for the brilliancy of her beauty ;



COMORRE THE CURSED 49

her name was Oltrogotha,^ and her father was the
Marquis of Ass^rac

* But she was a perfidious, cunning, evil-minded
woman, whose soul was as hideous as her face was
beautiful. She became jealous of Tryphine's happi-
ness, and resolved to destroy it She allowed Count
Comorre to court her ; and to inflame him the more,
she one day let herself fall from her horse whilst
hunting in his company, in such wise as to show
him how shapely were her ankles. Count Comorre
returned home afire with passion; and that very
evening he began to illtreat Tryphine. The poor
lady wept all night, and at daybreak, with her eyes
still full of tears, she left the castle, and wandered
through the neighbouring forest, in order that she
might dream and sigh at her ease.

' She had been walking along for about a quarter
of an hour, when she met Master Fox in the com-
pany of his wife. And at the sight of the smiling
pair she envied their happiness, and exclaimed :

* " How happy are the animals I They live in
quietude, and love one another. And none come to
interfere with their happiness."

* " That is because we are sensible, " said the Fox
on hearing Tryphine's words.

* " Am I not sensible ?'* Tryphine asked.
***You are a good girl {donne JiUe)" replied the

Fox, "but your husband is a wicked rascal, and for

^ A variant of Ultragotha, the name of King Childebert's wife,
who was associated with the legends of St Samson, and indirectly
connected with Comonre's real career. See/tfx/, pp. 961 97.

4



50 BLUEBEARD

that reason I will give you some advice. Flee from
him at once, for otherwise you will perish, for he is
in love with Oltrogotha, and longs to see you
dead."

'"Alas! then I am lost," cried Tryphine, ''for
how can I hope to escape him !"

* " Be not alarmed," said the Fox ; ** you have more
than once allowed me to carry off a cockerel or a
pullet for my dinner, so I wish to save you." And,
tearing three bristles from his breast, he added :
** Take these ; they are a talisman, and will preserve
you from all danger."

* *' But what am I to do ?"

' " Hope and wait Simply call on St. Gildas
when any great danger threatens you, and you will
then be saved. . . . And now farewell, Tryphine ;
be brave !"

* Then the Fox and his spouse, after bowing most
politely, went their way.

' The Countess did not know what to do with the
three bristles, but she at last placed them in her
alms-bag, and sighed : "I fear that the Fox was
making fun of me. Why is it that everybody seeks
to distress me ?"

' ** There is only Comorre who wishes you ill,
Tryphine, my dear," said a voice near her.

' The poor lady looked around, and could only see
a pretty Redbreast chirping on a bush.

' " Who spoke to me ?" she asked.

* " I, the Redbreast, for I love you, Tryphine,
because you threw me bread-crumbs when I was



COMORRE THE CURSED 51

hungry, and let me warm myself at your hearth
when I was cold."

••'You are so charming, my pretty little Red-
breast ! Who would not have done as I did !"

• '• I love you, Tryphine, and wish to save you,"
replied the bird. •• Your husband, Comorre, has set
assassins to watch for you and kill you. Take these
three feathers, call on St Gildas, and you will be
saved."

•Then the Redbreast, resuming his song, flew
away.

•The Countess, who felt more and more astonished,
put the three feathers with the three bristles, and
went on until she reached a splendid pond, where a
multitude of gold and silver fish were playing at hide-
and-seek.

' '* Ah !" she said again, •• how happy you are, little
goldfish, for none thinks of tormenting you. You
always live and die in peace !"

' Her words were heard by a beautiful Fish, with
glittering scales, who protruded his pointed head
out of the water, and at the sight of her face, wet
with tears, inquired : •• Why, what is the matter^
Trjrphine ?"

• •* Dear little Fish," said she, •• you do not know
what the Fox and the Redbreast have told me."

• •• Alas ! they have told you no doubt of some
fresh deed of cruelty done by Comorre, your hus-
band," said the Fish.

• •' You are right ; he wants to murder me."

• *• Murder you !" cried the little Fish, turning a

4—2



52 BLUEBEARD

somersault in the water^ such was his amazement.
*• You ! who gave us such fine wheaten cakes ! Oh !
that shall not be ! Take these three scales, call on
St. Gildas, and your enemies will at once be put to
flight."

* Tryphine took the three scales, which were of a
beautiful golden red, and placed them with the
bristles and the feathers. Then, as night was
coming on, she retraced her steps to the castle.
The guests were dancing in the great hall without
griving a thought to her; for Oltrogotha occupied
her place beside her husband. At the sight of her
rival, anger and jealousy took possession of Try-
phine, and wrung her soul. She sought a means of
avenging herself on that perfidious creature, as well
as on her unfaithful husband. In her fury her hand
pressed the catch of her alms-bag, which opened
unknown to her ; and as she saw her rival smiling
at her spitefully, she suddenly exclaimed : '* Ah !
great St Gildas, deliver me from that woman I"

' Scarcely had she spoken than the three scales of
the Goldfish sprang out of her alms-bag, and fastened
themselves upon Oltrogotha, who was instantly
changed into a hideous sturgeon, which the scullions
seized in astonishment, and carried away to the
kitchen.

* But when Comorre beheld that transformation,
his rage was beyond description, for his heart was
burning to cinders with love for the infamous
Oltrogotha, and he was convinced that this change
in her was the work of Tryphine.



COMORRE THE CURSED 53

•'•Guards!" he cried in a terrible voice, "seize
that woman, and let her be burnt as a sorceress !*'

' ** Help me, St Gildas 1" she murmured, while
she trembled from head to foot.

* Then the feathers flew from her alms-bag, and
the guards were changed into birds, who began to
fly and chirrup under the gilded ceiling of the great
haU.

* This time Comorre's anger knew no bounds ;
he drew his great sabre, and with one slash he cut
off* the head of the beautiful Tryphine. But oh!
what a miracle ! Scarcely had the head touched the
floor when the eyes looked at him again, and the
lips, although they were already turning blue,
murmured the words : " St. Gildas, help me I"

' At this a frightful commotion shook the castle,
a horrible rending resounded amidst the shrieks of
the guests and the servants. Then no other sound
was heard save the weeping of the wind among the
foliage. The castle was destroyed, a great forest
had taken its place, ^ and animals of the most various
kinds ran, terror-stricken, hither and thither.

' Tryphine, who had remained erect despite the
awful blow dealt her by her cruel husband, found
herself on a spot where four roads met, with her
head in her hands, after the fashion of St. Denis ;
and before her stood St. Gildas and her father. The
latter wept at the sight of his dear daughter in such
a pitiable condition.

^ This is a reminiscence of the Castel Finans legend See
p. 45-



54 BLUEBEARD

' ** Count !" cried the Saint, [the fairy-tale at this
point becomes a legend again] " dry your tears. It
is not fit that you should weep like an old woman.
God is great, and, in His justice, He knows how to
punish crime, and also how to reward virtue/'

' Thus having spoken, the Saint touched the head
with his abbatial crozier and added : 'Mn the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, head,
take thy place again ; and thou, Tryphine, appear
before us more beautiful than ever."

* The head obediently took its place between the
shoulders, and Tryphine appeared to them full of
dazzling grace and beauty.

* Then all three fell upon their knees, and
with a canticle of gratitude thanked God for His
exceeding goodness. And afterwards they took
the road to Vannes, where St Gildas quitted
his friends to repair again to his beautiful abbey of
Rhuys. Guerech and Tryphine lived long years in
restfulness and peace, and when they died they both
found places in heaven by the side of the Almighty.'

Le Morbihan is not the only part of Brittany in
which traditions of Comorre and his crimes have
lingered.^ The present writer well remembers
having heard of him some thirty years ago in the
vicinity of Guingamp, near the spot where he was
cursed Again, his memory abides at Carhaix, where,

^ In Le Morbihan itself there is a spot, north-west of Camors,
where some vestiges of a castle called the Porh-houet-er-Saleu
(The Court of the Wood of the Halls) are said to be the remains
of one of Comorre's residences.



COMORRE THE CURSED 55

as will presently be shown, he first ruled. There
are traditions of him also both in the neighbourhood
of Goueznou (Finist^re), where he is said to have
had a castle, and at Cloar-Camoet in the same
department, where, in 1879, an English writer^ found
the remains of another castle ascribed to him with a
belief that the banks of the river Laita were haunted
by his dead wives, whose cries and gestures troubled
the reason of those who heard them. This is
mentioned in connection with a curious legend of a
young man, whose betrothed is carried to the shores
of the departed by a sorcerer called Miliguet, that is
* The Cursed ' — a name so widely given to Comorre
that one need not hesitate to identify the sorcerer
with the so-called Breton Bluebeard.

He appears in the Carnoet legend in the guise
of a mysterious ferryman, who plies for hire at a
certain haunted part of the Laita, and * loses many
souls.' Loik Guern and Maharit, two Breton lovers,
are returning home one evening, when, on approach-
ing the ferry, Loik momentarily quits his betrothed,
whereupon she is urged by the ferryman to get
into his boat. She does so, and, without waiting
for Guern, the old, wild-looking man pushes off
from the bank. But the boat, instead of going
towards the opposite shore, swings round, and
shoots rapidly down the river. Maharit is at first

^ Mrs. Macquoid, ' Pictures and Legends from Normandy and
Brittany.' London (Chatto and Windus), 1879, P* ^^ ^^ ^^- '^^
Carnoet here mentioned should not be confounded with the larger
place of the same name in Les C6tes-du-Nord.



56 BLUEBEARD

astonished, then dismayed; but the ferryman pays
no heed to her, and, carried along by the current,
the boat descends the river with increasing swift-
ness. ' Maharit bent towards the shore. ** Loik,
Loik!" she cried. The words died away on her
lips, for she saw shadowy forms standing on the
gloomy banks ; they stretched their arms towards
her with menacing gestures, and she drew back
shuddering. She knew these were the spirits of
the murdered wives of Comorre. Then Maharit
uttered a loud cry, and fell lifeless in the bottom of
the boat.'^

Loik Guern, on finding that his betrothed has
disappeared, seeks her vainly in all the neighbour-
ing villages and the surrounding forest. Three days
later, however, while he is seated in despair on the
river-bank, he is told by an old beggar-woman,
who seems to him to have sprung out of the ground,
that if he has lost Maharit it is because she had
forgotten to make the sign of the Cross on getting
into the boat, and had spoken and looked behind
her, thereby giving the cruel ferryman power over
her, in such wise that he has carried her to the
shores of the departed. Then, after the old woman
has pleaded hunger, and Loik has given her a loaf
of black bread, she tells him what he has to do to
recover his betrothed. He must first cut a branch
of holly at midnight in Camoet forest, near the
Stag's Leap, a spot haunted by the Korrigans.
This branch must be steeped in holy water at the

^ Macquoid, /.^., p. 21.



COMORRE THE CURSED 57

chapel of St Leger ; and, at dusk, Guem must go
with it to the ferry. There he is to call the ferry-
man, and, when he has got into the boat, he is to
look neither around nor behind him, 'for every
night the banks of the river are haunted by the
dead wives of Comorre, and their cries and gestures
will trouble his reason/ But he will neither see
nor hear them unless he looks about or behind him.
He must tell his beads diligently ; and, above all,
he must make the sign of the Cross reverently.
And when he has come to the thirty-third bead of
his rosary, he must raise the blessed holly branch,
and show it to the ferryman, and then, in the name
of Christ, command him to take him living to the
shores of the dead. Miliguet will tremble at the
sight of the branch, lose all his power, and obey
the behests of Guem.

When the latter asks the old woman what will
be the end of it, she answers that she can see no
farther, that Guem must do as she has bidden him,
and wait in hope for the end. Then she disappears
as suddenly as she had come.

At midnight the young man cuts a branch of
holly at the appointed spot, dips it in the holy-
water stoup at the chapel, and entreats the aid of
St Leger. At dusk on the following evening,
having hidden the holly branch under his jacket,
he betakes himself to the ferry and calls the man.
Miliguet appears, and Guern, entering his boat
without a word, begins to tell his beads silently
but fervently. But by the time the boat has reached



58 BLUEBEARD

the middle of the stream he is so overcome by the
remembrance of his lost Maharit that he pauses
in his prayers, and, forgetting the old woman's
caution, looks behind him. Then his beads slip
from his trembling hands into the water, where-
upon the cries of Comorre's wives ring out, and
the boat, caught by the current, swings round and
dashes down the river.

* Guern roused himself, and remembered the holly-
branch ; he drew it forth and waved it before the
silent ferryman. '* Conduct me to the shores of
the departed," he said ; " take me to my betrothed !"
But in his agitation he forgot to say the word
** living." The boatman took no heed : the boat
drove on. Then, with an impulse over which he
had no control, Guern, in wild despair, struck the
ferryman with the consecrated branch. The strange
man uttered a terrible cry, threw down his oars,
and plunged into the dark water. Still the boat
drove madly on — on — on ! Guern could never tell
how long — till it struck with awful violence against
a rock, and was dashed to pieces beneath a gnarled
oak that bent over the river.

' For years afterwards, at all the Pardons of Clear,
of St. Leger, and their neighbourhood, was to be
seen a pale, distracted-looking man, who ran hither
and thither among the crowd. He cried out pite-
ously, while tears ran down his furrowed cheeks,
'* Ah ! my friends ; ah, for the love of God and the
saints, take me to the shores of the dead !" The
young people used to look at him with surprise and



COMORRE THE CURSED 59

pityi but the older folk only shook their heads, and
said : ''It is the poor madman of the ferry ; it is
Loik Guern/"!

Here, then, assuming Comorre and Miliguet to
be the same, and there can be no doubt in the
matter, we find the Breton * Bluebeard ' transformed
after death into a kind of Charon, who makes it his
business to hurry folk, and particularly young maids
(when, as we are told, they forget to make the sign
of the Cross on entering his boat), to some Stygian
shore, where their souls are for ever lost

But the reader will naturally inquire what truth,
if any, lies beneath all such stories. Did such per-
sonages as Comorre and Tryphine really live, or are
they mere myths, personifications, for instance, of
evil and good, darkness and light ? For an answer
to that question one must go to history, and there,
indeed, they will both be found, though, in many
respects, their lives and their fates were not such
as the legends tell us. It is never an easy task to
disentangle the historical facts of far-off centuries
from the mass of romance and superstitious lore
that enwraps them. Moreover, Brittany is one of
the lands whose history in early Christian times is
most shrouded in romance, superstition and false-
hood. On approaching the subject one is imme-
diately confronted by Arthurian heroes and their

^ Macquoid, /.^., p. 27. Mrs. Macquoid had the legend, which
she has given in perhaps too polished a form for some of the folk-
lorists of nowadays, from an old woman, one of the professed
story-tellers of Brittany, who are akin to the well-known droll-
tellers of CorawalL



60 ELUEBEAKD




niififhty dM ncn hundrrds. of saints a aximpfe imig nucades wfaidi
CiUK M those of Holv Writ &r into die siade. And
to {>orp)ex one die more, oome ^mioos diarters
und dc'cyK often ferried bf nbbejs so give tfaem a
piHiif^w title to knds diey had nyiMiyiiaip d ; whilst
fHirty c^ir^midefs «nd btsKcrans umyrsHj/ &cts« now
^^ h)iic4(<^ dK" TffiiitsitNtt ol sQoie pci^
m«i^>ifint)v s^^mrnent or Ajuwatius so ^ke Chnrdi,
n%AW to onKMKt' ^Mne
)VAtHiK\ ?K^w to docTv «MdKr wAiidb shcj htid

?ii^|iM^ ^or^T ^^>«m^MW9$ies: joine ns m
^«^:v4^ «^I^rMw^^ «Ai^!itfrir^ sai£

9i^vl^>i- Kt<«klw .>c^,\vm^ i*^ •:!s;^':h^ lu^ 4lir »if«t: tr :j*nn,*

^•* v^ >^


f t ^ » •







COMORRE THE CURSED 6i

authors of these histories have treated their subject
For instance, Count Dam, the first, believes in
Conan Meriadec and all the spurious Kings of
Brittany chronicled by Geoffrey of Monmouth ; and,
incidentally, he confounds our Comorre (whom he
speaks of as the personage * on whom the roman-
ciers have conferred a frightful immortality, under
the name of Bluebeard'^) with a certain Canao,
otherwise Conober, to whom reference will be made
hereafter. Next, M. de Courson, while making a
serious effort to arrive at the truth, and showing
that the so-called kingdom of Brittany was in reality
ruled by a number of chieftains, falls into numerous
errors, again confusing one personage with another,
after the fashion of Count Dam, and citing charters
and deeds which are now regarded as apocryphal
Finally comes M. de la Borderie, with his monu-
mental * History of Brittany,' the outcome of long
years of patient study, in which he revises many
views expressed by him in earlier works, corrects
his predecessors, and, whilst availing himself of
anecdote and legend to relieve the monotony of
discussion and strict historical narrative, strives,
without prejudice, to picture for us the ancient
Brittany, such as it really was. Thus our version
of the real Comorre's career will be based in a large
measure on his researches.

But before turning to Comorre again it is as well

^ It w9l be noticed that Dani's book was published in 1826.
Something will be said on the subject of the above quotation
when we discuss the story of Comorre.



62 BLUEBEARD

to explain the state of Brittany at the time he lived ;
and to do so one must go back to a somewhat earlier
time. The Bretons, so it is nowadays generally
held, are only in a small degree the descendants of
the Armoricans of the Roman era, though they
belong to a kindred race. They descend principally
from the Britons who dwelt in England. The
Armoricans, at the collapse of the Roman Empire
in Gaul, were decimated by the incursions of Hun,
Alan, and Saxon. Aetius, for reasons on which the
historians are not agreed, virtually assigned Armorica
to the Alans, and whatever be the l^ends about the
intervention of St. Germain of Auxerre, they traversed
at least some part of it, which they ravaged with fire
and sword. Abundant relics of Roman times have
been discovered (often chancewise) in Brittany —
methodical excavation would bring to light many
more ; and in almost every spot where tokens of
Roman or Gallo- Roman civilization have been dis-
interred, traces of fire and destructive fury have been
found. The wonderful vitrified * camp of Peran ' is
perhaps the most remarkable example of all ; but
there are many others, all pointing to conflagra-
tion, rapine, and massacre. Some of the Armoricans
saved themselves by withdrawing into their great
central forest, but those along the coasts more often
fell victims to the Saxons, who swept down on the
shores of Armorica — even as they swept down on
those of Britain — and devastated every spot where
they landed. La Borderie mentions Saxon descents
in or about the years 351, 353, 358, 368, and 37a



COMORRE THE CURSED 63

It was on the shores of the peninsula, and on the
inland borders of Armorica, that Gallo-Roman
civilization flourished. Roman roads certainly
traversed the country, but there were no consider-
able cities or townships^ in the central part, which
was chiefly wood and mountain. Thus it was only
occasionally that the Saxons found it worth their
while to go any great distance inland. They de-
stroyed Armorica chiefly by ravaging its coasts. A
few little colonies of theirs are known to have existed,
but it would not seem that they ever made any
serious attempt to establish themselves in the
country. The island of Britain proved more attrac-
tive to them, and Armorica was left little better than
a waste, whither the Britons, pressed by Pict, Saxon,
and Angle, betook themselves for refuge.

The exodus from Britain, says La Borderie, began
soon after the first Saxon victories there, probably
about 460. Breton records point to immigrations on
a large scale in or about 468, 470, 510, 513-15 ; and,
indeed, these immigrations extended over a period
of 150 years. Some of the emigrant Britons even
entered Gaul, notably those led by * Riothamus '
(or • Riothime,' as French writers call him), who
brought 1 2,000 men to fight the Visigoths in Berry,
but who did not sail expressly from Britain in order
to help the expiring Roman dominion, as historians
formerly contended, for he was already established

^ Pontivy, for instance, dates from the seventh, and I^ud^c
from the tenth century. Many other examples might be cited
in support of this view.



64 BLUEBEARD

on the Loire when his services were solicited. He
is regarded by various French writers as having
been in all probability the first of the British chiefs
to emigrate in consequence of the condition of
Britain. Without entering into the migrations of
prehistoric times, one may admit that Britons had
passed in small numbers from one country to the
other before the Saxons appeared upon the scene ;
but from that time the emigrant Britons became so
numerous, and the Armoricans were so few, that
the latter, even if minded to do so, could offer no
resistance to the continuous immigration. The new-
comers changed both the name and the language of
the country, and often gave to the ruined Gallo-
Roman cities, which they raised again under a new
guise, and to the various other townships which they
founded, names that recalled those of places where
they had dwelt in their native island. American,
Australian, and other colonists have frequently acted
in a similar manner in our own times. Further, the
Britons carried Christianity to Armorica. French
writers generally agree that, although at the end of
the fourth century there were Gallo- Roman mission-
aries at Nantes, Rennes, and Vannes, and a few
Christians scattered here and there about Armorica,
no great diffusion of Christianity is to be found
in that country until after the arrival of the British
immigrants.

Among the British chiefs who, in the fifth century
(dr. 470-75), landed in Armorica or Brittany, as one
may henceforth call the region, there was a certain



COMORRE THE CURSED 65

Gradlon or Grallon, who, according to La Borderie,
came from the vicinity of the Tyne and the wall of
Severus, and who established himself in a part of
the country which became known as Cornouaille,^
the equivalent of our Cornwall. This chief acquired
the appellation of Gradlon Mur, signifying Gradlon
the Great ; and early writers describe him as having
engaged the Saxons, at the mouth of the Loire,
with such good result that he captured five vessels
and decapitated five chiefs. He is said to have
founded the famous abbeys of St. J^fut and
Landevennec, but the latter's charters, often quoted
by early historians, were forged, says La Borderie,
in the eleventh century, and evidence of the ninth
shows that the abbey was really the creation of
St. GuinoU (Wingaljeus), on whom Gradlon be-
stowed nothing. Whilst it is certain that Gradlon
really existed, much that is recorded of him is un-
true ; for the compilers of romances and legends
associated him with all sorts of marvellous things,
notably the notorious lost city of Ys, which he was
said to have founded on the jutting headland bound-
ing the Bay of Douarnenez on its southern side.
Ys may have existed, and have been submerged
by the sea, as the legends assert ; but that it was-
destroyed by Heaven in consequence of the profli-
gacy of Gradlon's court, and notably that of his
daughter Afes, is quite another matter.* We only

• Quimper was probably its chief city.

* The legend of Ys, though gimikr to that of other lost cities,
is an interestiDg one ; and as M. de la Borderie has made some

5



66 BLUEBEARD

know that when Gradlon died he was buried at
Landevennec, where, according to Brother Albert
of Morlaix, the biographer of the Breton saints, his
tomb still existed early in the seventeenth century.

He had a son, named Riwelen Mur Marc'hou,
who predeceased him ; and about 510, when he had
been dead some four or five years, his State passed,
it seems, into the possession of a chief called laun
Reith, the leader of another exodus from Britain.

While Gradlon still ruled Cornouaille, a certain
Weroc or Werok (otherwise Guerech) held another
part of Brittany, the region of Vannes, which became
known as the Bro- Weroc or Browerech ; and, about
513-15, a British chief named Riwal, landing at the
mouth of the Couesnon, established, with the coun-
tenance of the Franks, a State called Domnon^e in
French and Domnonia^ in Latin, an appellation
borrowed from Britain. This State would seem to
have extended over the present department of
Ille-et-Vilaine, and a portion of Les C6tes-du-Nord.
In the northern part of Finistere, named L^on, there
was another British chief whom La Borderie calls
Withur (510-30). Then there are indications of
various chiefs having exercised authority at different
points of the coast, and of others established in or

ingenious suggestions with respect to its origin, a few particulars
are given in our Appendix B.

^ The name is written in various fashions. At times it
becomes Damnonia, at others Dumnonia. In England the form
Danmonium — as applied to ' Old Cornwall,' or Devonshire, as far
east as Exeter — ^appears to have been current, as it is frequently
given by Hunt in his ' Popular Romances of the West oi England.'



COMORRE THE CURSED 67

about Broceliande ; whilst at Rennes, Nantes, and
Vannes (the city of that name, it would seem, was
not held by Weroc, though he ruled some of the
adjacent country) there appear as time goes on
sundry Prankish Counts and Dukes, Wardens of the
Marches as it were, representing the Merovingian
Kings. The long controversy between French and
Breton historians with respect to the alleged con-
quest of Brittany by Clovis has ended in the recogni-
tion that it never took place, but that as the power
of the Merovingian princes increased, they exercised
a kind of suzerainty over the country — a suzerainty
which the Breton chiefs accepted or denied, as
seemed best suited to their interests, and which,
judged by the endless disputes and wars which
sprang from it wholly or in part, suggests in various
respects the relative positions of Great Britain and
the South African Republics prior to the present
Boer War.

The foregoing rough sketch^ of the origin of
Brittany and its state about the time when the real
Comorre made his first appearance in history may,

^ It is, of course, one of the roughest ; but those whom the
subject may interest must turn for particulars to La Borderie's
History, of which an abridged English adaptation might well be
made for the use of students who are not familiar with the French
language. This is the more desirable by reason of the connection
of Brittany with England at various times. For instance, the
Breton Dukes were often important factors in the foreign policy
of the Plantagenets. But if there are numerous English works
on Norman, there is, the present writer believes, virtually none
of value on Breton, history. The picturesqueness of Brittany
alone seems to have appealed to English writers.

5—2



68 BLUEBEARD

to some readers, seem an unpardonable digression ;
but it must be pointed out that the chiefs who have
been mentioned, or their heirs, or their possessions,
figure repeatedly in the story of Comorre s life.
Moreover, the somewhat intricate nature of that
story has induced the writer to attempt a chrono-
logical table, which will explain Comorre's connection
with the various petty States and rulers that have to
be mentioned in narrating his career.



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II

COMORRE's career — THE TRADITIONS AND PERRAULT's

TALE

Carhaix and Princess Abs— Comorre's Original Dominions- He
assists Harwian, the Bard, to win Rivanone — He is a Great
Helper of the Monks — He annexes Portions of Cornouaille and
Leon — He seizes Domnonia and marries the Widow of lona,
whom he is said to have killed — ^The Mutilation and Murder of
Melar — Comorre regards Judwal, his Stepson, with Distrust —
The Dream of Comorre's Wife — Judwal's Flight— Comorre
strikes a Saint, and is thrown from his Horse by Heaven — His
Quarrels with the Clergy — His Wife vanishes : did he kill her ?
— He solicits the Hand of Weroc's Daughter, Tryphine —
St. Gildas of Rhuys— The Oratory on the Blavet— Gildas
assists Comorre to marry Tryphine — Comorre urges Weroc to
divide his Territory — Weroc refuses — Comorre vents his Rage
on Tryphine — Her Flight and Comorre's Attempt on her —
Interpretation of the Legend — ^Tryphine's Son and After-Life —
Comorre is solemnly cursed — Conoo and his Brothers —
St. Samson of Dol brings Judwal back to Brittany — ^Three
Batdes and the Death of Comorre — The End of Tryphine's
Brothers — Comorre confounded with Conoo — Growth of the
Comorre Legend — ^The Paintings at St. Nicholas de Bieuzy —
A Breton Tale of Redbeard, another of a Much-married Giant
— The Possible Derivation of * Bluebeard * from the Comorre
Legend.

Comorre makes his first appearance in history at
the town of Carhaix, in Finist^re, which, before his
time, had been one of the chief cities and fortresses



COMORRE THE CURSED 71

of Roman Armorica — the Vorganium of the Osismii»
the Vorgium of the Theodosian table. Very
numerous remains of the Roman dominion have
been found at Carhaix — remnants of aqueducts, bricks
in abundance, vases, bronzes, innumerable articles
of pottery, silver coins and medals of various
Emperors ; while seven distinct Roman roads,
radiating chiefly towards different points of the
coast, have been traced in the vicinity of the town.
Situated at an altitude of some 500 feet above the
sea, amid forest and mountain, it was probably the
only inland fortress of the Romans in that part of
the country. According to some accounts, it was
occupied after the arrival of the Britons by Gradlon
of Cornouaille, from whose daughter, A^s or Ah^s,
it is said to have derived its modern name. M. de
la Borderie, however, on the ground that the British
immigrants often gave British names to their new
homes, suggests that Carhaix took its appellation
from Carhayes, a little place north-east of Falmouth.
Yet, remembering the situation of the spot, and all
the roads that radiate from it, one may perhaps be
allowed to surmise that Carhaix is only a corruption
of Carfax.

The true Breton, at any rate, clings to the
etymology of Ker-A^s. The Roman road which
goes from Carhaix towards the Raz, where Ys is
said to have been submerged, is called Hent-A^s,
* the road of Aes,' by the peasantry, who, well within
our times, still sang a woeful ballad of Gradlon's
hateful daughter : * See ! she is coming ; let us carry



72 BLUEBEARD

big stones to the roads. Big and little stones, to
the roads, let us carry them all I Better death than
A^s ! For taxmasters come in her train. The
white plague, the black plague, and cruel war with
eagles, with wolves, and with ravens, all follow Aes T^
In this ballad, derived, it may be, from ancient
Armorican sources, the semi-fabulous Princess of
Ys, whom the legends describe as having been
thirty feet in height — for Brittany, like Cornwall,
believed in an age of giants — is simply a symbol of
the Roman dominion, its fiscal system, and the
harshness of its pro-consuls. And perhaps it was
the oppression of feudal times and the hateful corvie
of the old French monarchy that helped to perpetuate
until our own day that cry of the downtrodden
peasantry, toiling on the highways.

But whatever may be the origin of the name of
Carhaix, it is there, on the ruins of Vorganium, that
Comorre is found between the years 515 and 5 20,
perched, among forest and mountain, like some
baron of later days on the banks of the Rhine. He
was certainly a Briton, but whether an immigrant
or a native of Brittany cannot be said. And nothing
is known of his personal appearance, though one
may assume that at the date mentioned he was a
young man, bold, enterprising, and in some things
unscrupulous. He is occasionally called a praefect

^ Adapted from a ballad called 'Groacli Aes' given in the
'Annuaire historique et arch^ologique de Bretagne' — Ann^e
1861-2. Rennes, 1861-2, x2mQk Groacli here means a malignant
fairy.



^H



COMORRE THE CURSED 73

of Childebert, the King of the Franks, but it seems
more correct to say that he was one of those petty
Breton chiefs who had placed themselves under the
patronage, among the tributaries perhaps, of the
Merovingian rulers of France. He exercised sway
over the northern part of the basin of the Aune, a
poor and arid r^ion, then called Pou-Caer — the
Land of the City — and afterwards by corruption
Poher — a region bounded on one side by the
Montagnes Noires, and on the other embracing,
perhaps, both slopes of the Montagne d'Arr^e.
And remembering the Roman roads which crossed
Comorre's possessions, one may surmise that he
subsisted, in part, by toll, and, perhaps, occasionally
plunder.

At the same time he protected and assisted those
travellers who brought with them the recommenda-
tions of King Childebert. Indeed, he is first
mentioned by the hagiologists in connection with
a certain Harwian, a British bard, who, after resid-
ing some time at the Frankish court, was consigned
on his homeward way to Comorre's care. Harwian,
however, whilst sojourning with the so-called Count
of Pou-Cagr, cast loving eyes on a maiden named
Rivanone, who lived with her brother Rigour
(Rigurius), and who was piously inclined. Eager
to marry the damsel, Harwian applied to Comorre
for his help, which was accorded. If one account
may be believed, force was used to overcome the
maid's resistance, and, on being wedded to Harwian,
she bitterly bewailed her fate. She cursed the ties



74 BLUEBEARD

she loathed, she cursed the man who had married
her by force, and when she found herself likely to
become a mother, she cried aloud that she hoped
her child might never see the light of day. And
that dread wish was fulfilled ; the child, who in later
years was to become famous as St. Herv6, and who
was destined to curse, in the name of the Breton
clergy, the Fman who had forced his mother to wed
a stranger — was bom blind !^

In those rough times, perhaps, little heed was
paid to the wishes of a maid when a man desired
to wed her, and Comorre may have felt no prickings
of conscience with respect to his share in that
transaction. For the rest, whether from piety or
policy — a desire to get on in the world — he be-
friended the clergy ; we are told that he was at this
time very devoted to the saints, a great helper of
the monks. He protected an anchoret, afterwards
known as St. Hernm or St. Harn, who dwelt on
the borders of Broceliande, where he assisted him
to build a chapel or church, with which the present
village of Loc-Ham originated. But Comorre was
ambitiously inclined, and made expeditions down
the Elorn as far as the remains of a Roman station
on the site of Brest, annexing some of the country
thereabouts, for Gradlon, who in all probability had

^ This is based on the account borrowed by La Borderie from
some of the hagiologists ; but there is a very different version
describing the marriage as a love-match ; and even fragments of
a song, in which after Harwian's death Rivanone is represented
bitterly bewailing the loss of her beloved bard, are quoted.



IT



/



COMORRE THE CURSED 75

previously held the r^ion, Mi^as now dead, and
all was confusion under the laun Reith line of
Comouaille. At all events, charters of the eleventh
century mention as then still existing in a ruined
state a stronghold raised by Comorre at Lan
Goueznou, which derived its name from St.
Goueznou, another holy man whom the Count of
Pou-Caer is said to have protected

But he cast covetous eyes towards L^on, a fertile
region on the north, far richer than his original
possessions, or even Cornouaille, for (as the legends
say) the giants, after arriving in Brittany from
Britain, had, in reward for their welcome in L6on,
cleared its soil of all the stones they could find
there, hurling them revengefully into Cornouaille,
whose inhabitants had given them the coldest of
receptions. But L6on was held by a certain
Withur, who, like Comorre himself, had accepted
the suzerainty of Childebert, and thus, until Withur's
death, which took place about 530, the ruler of
Pou-Caer did not venture to encroach on his
neighbour's territory. Circumstances changed when
Withur died, and Comorre then appropriated the
greater part of L6on. His earth hunger, his craving
for dominion, increased with years. The incidents
of his career conclusively prove that he dreamt of
making himself sole master of Brittany. Riwal had
founded the state of Domnonia about 515, and
his son Deroch (520-35) was more than once at
logg^i'heads with Comorre. The latter at last found
his opportunity in the time of Deroch's son, lona.



76 BLUEBEARD

who ruled Domnonia from 535 to 540, and who
married a daughter of Count Budic I. of Comouaille.
Between Comorre and lona there was intercourse,
outwardly of a friendly character. But one day the
subjects of these chiefs heard that lona was dead —
killed by some accident whilst following the chase.
Soon, however, the most sinister rumours were in
circulation. None dared to accuse Comorre openly,
but it was whispered that he had rid himself of
lona in order to gratify his ambition. One thing is
certain : lona was scarcely dead when Comorre
married his widow ^ and virtually appropriated his
possessions.

The chroniclers generally assert that the lady
was forced to this match,^ but it is possible that
she did not accept it unwillingly ; for whatever
Albert of Morlaix may assert of Comorre's passions,
saying that * he only took wives to gratify his lust,
and treated them rather as concubines than as law-
ful spouses/ it seems certain that Comorre and
lona s widow, for a time at all events, lived together
in good accord. We do not know whether Comorre
had been previously married, though such may well
have been the case, for at this time (dr. 540) he
was certainly over forty years of age.

^ The writer has searched several works for her name, but has
failed to find it.

^ The original authority for this statement appears to be the
' Vita S. Leonor ' (St Lunaire), in the * Acta Sanctorum * of the
Bollandists, Antwerp edition, § 13. It should be pointed out,
however, that there was bitter enmity between Comorre and
St Lunaire, as our narrative will show.



COMORRE THE CURSED 77

By her first marriage with lona, his wife had a
son named Judwal, the rightful heir to the State of
Domnonia, which Comorre ruled with the title of
regent. He is found living with his wife and step-
son at Pou-castel, near Beuzit (previously Buxidus),
west of Lanmeur, near the northern shore of Finis-
t^re. Early in the nineteenth century an esplanade
and a moat were still to be seen there, testifying to
the existence of the destroyed castle.^ From this
spot Comorre, still under the suzerainty of Childe-
bert, ruled more than half of Brittany, Domnonia,
Poher, and L6on ; and, content for a time with his
increase of power, he behaved, it would seem, with
propriety and prudence.

But one must now turn to Cornouaille, where
Budic, the father of Comorre's wife, had been suc-
ceeded by his son Meliau, who, dying in or about
537, had left his possessions to his only child, a
boy named Melar or Meloir. Rivod, Meliau's
brother, had been entrusted with the regency and
the guardianship of the young count ; but he be-
came more and more jealous of the boy as the
latter grew in years. A mere regency did not satisfy
him, and in order that the lad might never be able
to exercise sovereignty, he treated him with a
cruelty more ferocious even than that which is
imputed to our English Richard Crookback. He
caused the boy's left foot and his right hand to be
cut off, so as to prevent him from ever mounting a

^ Albert Le Grand, edition of 1837, M. de Kerdanel's notes,
p. 619.



78 BLUEBEARD

horse or using a sword. And incredible as such
fiendishness may seem to people nowadays, there
is really no reason to doubt the statements of the
hagiologists and the chroniclers, for we know, by
the researches and narratives of many modern his-
torians, what horrible and loathsome deeds were
perpetrated in those Merovingian days by ambitious
princes eager to prevent children from ever ui^ing
their claims.

But the mutilation of Melar — inspired perhaps
by Prankish practices of which Rivod had heard —
was foreign to the Breton character, and filled the
people of Cornouaille with indignation. Many of
the clergy and the chiefs assembled, and although
they were unable to deprive Rivod of the regency,
they removed Melar from his custody and placed
him in that of one of his cousins, named Keryaltan.
And the legends add, but this the reader may
believe or not, as he pleases, that the unfortunate
youth was provided with a hand of silver and a foot
of iron.

Rivod, however, if baulked, was not defeated.
He resolved to rid himself of Melar altogether ;
and with this object he strove to corrupt Keryaltan.
The two men soon came to an agreement. Kery-
altan, as the price of his crime, demanded, and was
promised, certain lands. The legends say that he
asked for all the territory that he might be able to
see from the summit of a certain hill. Then, every-
thing being agreed, he confided in his wife Barilia,
who, at the first moment, was fascinated by the



COMORRE THE CURSED 79

prospect of a great increase of wealth. But pity for
the unfortunate, mutilated youth afterwards came
upon her ; and she resolved to save him. For this
purpose she carried him with a few attendants to
Comorre's castle,^ which seemed to be the safest
place of refuge, for Comorre s wife was the sister
of both the deceased Meliau and the regent Rivod,
and therefore Melar's aunt. It was reasonable to
expect that she would take pity on her nephew.
From some accounts the flight would seem to
have been a very dramatic one ; but the fugitives
ultimately reached Pou-castel, and were made wel-
come there.

Unhappily Keryaltan, hungering for his promised
lands, followed them, feigned contrition, and was
reconciled to his wife and the unfortunate Melar.
Then, one night, when all suspicion had disappeared,
he stole, accompanied, it would seem, by his own
son, into Melar s chamber, and promptly despatched
the sleeping youth, one account saying that with
a single stroke of his sword he severed Melar's
head from his body. Then the assassin fled, re-
paired to the residence of Rivod, and claimed his
due. But at the moment when he reached the
summit of the hill, whence he was to designate the
territory which was to form his reward. Heaven —
so say the legends, which intrude upon one at each
step of Breton history — was pleased to intervene,
and Keryaltan fell to the ground blinded. M. de la

^ *Ad castellum Comori, Regis Francorum praefecti, cum
epdum, trans Montem, aufugit' — 'Acta Sanctonim (S. Melar).'



8o BLUEBEARD

Borderie suggests that, if any such incident occurred,
the miscreant may have had a stroke of apoplexy,
consequent, it is to be presumed, on his exertion
in climbing.

Melar, meanwhile, had been buried in the church
of Kerfeunteun, now Lanmeur. The present edifice
dates from the eleventh century, but a crypt of much
earlier date still existed in 1867. In this crypt,
whose vaulted roof was upheld by thick squat
pillars, on which twining serpents were carved, there
was to be found an old statue of Melar (who after
his death was ranked as a saint), a statue showing
him with only one foot and one hand in accordance
with tradition ; but the stone coffin in which his
remains were laid behind the high altar of the upper
church disappeared long ago. It is believed that
St Melar's bones were for safety carried to Paris in
the tenth century, when the Normans preyed on this
part of the Breton coast.

It may be that this dreadful tragedy had rendered
Pou-castel odious to Comorre and his wife. At all
events they are next found dwelling at another of
their castles, between Corseul (the famous capital of
the Curiosolites) and Plancoet in Les C6tes-du-Nord.
Roman remains have been found on the site, and it
is known that the Breton chiefs often turned the
half-demolished fortresses of the Imperial days into
residences. At the present time, however, the spot
where Comorre dwelt is occupied by the ruins of the
feudal castle of Montafilant, which, from the twelfth
century onward, was owned by the houses of Dinan,



COMORRE THE CURSED 81

Laval, ^ and Toumemine. Comorre's residence
there became before long the scene of incidents
which ultimately led to his overthrow. He began
to regard his stepson Judwal, the heir of lona, with
suspicion. He doubtless foresaw the day when
this youth would be claiming his rights, and, in-
fluenced perhaps by the example of Rivod with
respect to Melar, he may have resolved to imitate it-
The legends, of course, describe what happened in
a very melodramatic manner. One night, it is said^
Comorre's wife had a dream, in which she saw
her son crowned and wearing all the apparel of
sovereignty. She imprudently recounted this dream
to her husband, who responded that she would never
see it fulfilled, and who determined from that hour
to slay this Judwal who might some day rise up
to dispossess him. Some knowledge or idea of
Comorre's intention came to his wife, who immedi-
ately warned her son.

Judwal fled for protection to St. Lunaire, who
then (czr. 545) dwelt at a monastery he had estab-
lished on the sea- shore. A village bearing the
saint's name now stands on the site of that monas-
tery,^ whither Comorre promptly pursued his stepson.
But with St Lunaire's help Judwal had already

^ To which Gilles de Rais, the other reputed * Bluebeard,'
belonged. A Toumemine, too, was Gilles' first guardian.

' St. Lunaire is between Dinard and St. l^nogat The church
is partially of the eleventh and partially of the fifteenth centuries.
There is a twelfth-<:entury an="" br="" effigy="" of="" saint="" show-="" the="" tomb="" with=""> ing him clad in his pontifical vestments, with the staff of his
crozier thrust between the jaws of a monster.

6



82 BLUEBEARD

embarked, bound for Prankish territory ; and when
Comorre galloped up to the monastery and imperi-
ously demanded the surrender of his stepson, the
holy man pointed, perhaps derisively, to a bark
which was already quitting the bay. In his exceed-
ing wrath Comorre struck the Abbot, and, accord-
ing to some accounts, would still have attempted
pursuit, but his horse suddenly became unmanage-
able, reared, and fell with its rider, who had one of
his thighs broken, and long lingered between life
and death. The moral, of course, was that one
ought never to raise one's hand against an Abbot.

When Comorre recovered, however, he sought
revenge by persecuting the clergy. He threatened
St. Tudual, behaved haughtily with St Malo, and
would have made short work of St Lunaire if the
latter had not been protected by Childebert. More-
over, the people had now begun to murmur. It was
said on all sides that Comorre had attempted
Judwal's life, and the mysterious death of lona was
also imputed to him. Thus confronted by the
enmity of the monks and the discontent of his
subjects, it was necessary that he should remain on
good terms with the King of the Franks, particu-
larly as the latter had received Judwal at his court,
and might be disposed to assist him in recovering
his inheritance. For some years, indeed, this
menace hung over Comorre's head, inclining him to
good behaviour in all that served the Merovingian
interest. However, Judwal having fled the country,
Comorre dropped the title of regent, and, according



COMORRE THE CURSED 83

to some writers, became known as * Dux Domnonicae
regionis.' There was probably some agreement
between him and Childebert, he undertaking to
spread the Prankish authority, and the King pro-
mising to detain, in semi-captivity, lona's heir.

At this point Comorre's wife suddenly vanishes
from the scene. It is not known when or how she
died. La Borderie says that Comorre treated her
kindly and well, apart from his sudden jealousy of
her son. Did his conduct alter after the latter's
flight? Did he quietly put the mourning mother
out of the way ? If so, would not the dark deed
have been cast in his teeth a little later by some
of the Breton clergy and the hagiologists ? But
though he is constantly reproached with the death
of lona and the attempt on Judwal, nothing is said
of ^is wife. The silence is absolute, until, in later
centuries, the tradition arises that this man Comorre
had several wives, all of whom disappeared in so
mysterious a manner that nobody could ever tell
what became of them. To the very silence of
the hagiologists and chroniclers one may, perhaps,
trace the origin of the legend of wives fiendishly
slaughtered.

We assume that Comorre's wife died, because the
next notable incident in his career is his application,
some time in 547 or 548, to the Count of the Van-
netais for the hand of the latter s daughter, Tryphine.
For nearly half a century the Vannetais had been
ruled by one of the most notable, and, considering
the exceptional duration of his sovereignty, perhaps

6—2



84 BLUEBEARD

one of the most diplomatic, of the Breton chiefs,
Weroc (otherwise Guerech), whose eminence and im-
portance are shown by the fact that the region he held
took and long retained his name — Patria Warochii,
Bro-Werech. This Weroc had six children, five
sons and a daughter, and if Comorre solicited the
latter's hand it was probably from a desire to extend
his rule yet further. But Weroc, a pacific, ex-
perienced man, ripe in years, was aware of Comorre's
rapacity and unscrupulousness. He remembered
also the mysterious death of lona and the attempt
on Judwal, and was at first by no means inclined to
place his daughter in the hands of the ruler of
Domnonia, even though the latter had chosen as his
matrimonial ambassador a man whom all revered.

It is now that St. Gildas enters into the story, and
it may at once be said that there is no intention here
of attempting to solve the problem of how many
saints of that name there may have been. Con-
fronted by the contradictory statements of hagio-
logists and chroniclers, Ussher and Bale long ago
came to the conclusion that there must have been
at least two St. Gildases — the Badonian and the
Albanian ; and some subsequent writers even dis-
tinguished both of the foregoing from the Gildas the
Wise who wrote the famous unreadable * Liber
querulus de Excidio Britannia^.' Others again have
imagined even seven and eight saints of the name ;
but Professor Tout, in his article in the * Dictionary
of National Biography,' is of opinion that there was
only one. This may be right or wrong ; but in any



COMORRE THE CURSED 85

case an article which, however great the ability dis-
played in it, evades many points of bitter contro-
versy is not likely to end a discussion that has lasted
for centuries among those interested in the subject
M. de La Borderie having been followed in many
respects in the course of the present narrative, it
may be allowable to take his view in this instance
also. He, after studying the latin * Lives ' of the
Abbot of Rhuys, and also the manuscript ' Histoire
de Saint Gildas de Ruis, 6crit en Tan 1 668, par un
B6n6dictin,*^ arrives at the conclusion that the
Gildas who became renowned in Brittany was bom
in or about 493-94 ; that he was a discjple of St
Illtyd ; that he attained to the priesthood when five-
and-twenty years of age (518); that he went to
Ireland and ministered there ; that he returned to
Britain about 530 ; ' that he found a refuge in
Glamorganshire, whence he was driven by the raids
and invasions of the time ; and that, after writing the
first part of his ' De Excidio, ' he repaired to Armorica,
landing on the isle of Houat off the coast of
Le Morbihan in or about the year 538. Later dates
than these have been suggested both for the birth
of Gildas (516) and for his arrival in Brittany (550) ;
but the last does not fit in with revised Breton
chronology.

In order that one may the better understand
Gildas's intercourse with Comorre, it is necessary to
pursue the subject somewhat further. In coming to
Brittany, Gildas's first object was probably quietude

^ Biblioth^ue Nationale, Paris, MSS. Fond 16822.



86 BLUEBEARD

and repose ; but he belonged to the Church militant,
and before long, when he saw the inviting green
peninsula of Rhuys on the horizon before him, he
crossed from Houat to the mainland, and eventually
established there the famous abbey which bears his
name, and which six centuries later was ruled by the
unhappy Abelard. From this spot Gildas at last
made journeys through Brittany, perhaps for the
purpose of ascertaining its condition, preaching, and
disseminating religion, for pagans still existed in the
country. He had with him a companion, a brother-
monk called Bihi, afterwards Bieuzy,^ and the pair
of them entered and explored the great forest lands
and the moors, where Gildas beheld all those
Druidical remains the sight of which exasperated
him. Eventually, on the banks of the Blavet, at a
spot midway between the present towns of Pontivy
and Baud, they found a little grotto in which they
resolved to dwell awhile.^ The grotto being small,
they resorted to excavation. It is now about 22 feet
in depth and from 1 6 to 1 8 feet wide, and a stone,
which rings sonorously on being struck, and which
Gildas and Bihi are said to have used to summon
the faithful to prayers, is preserved in it. On the
overhanging rocks is a stone cross, and the spot
is still known as the Oratory of *La Roche sur
Blavet.* Near at hand, in the hamlet of Castennec,
where the notorious * idol of Quinipily ' was first
discovered, and where the Roman station of Sulim

^ He was subsequently killed by a pagan.

' ' Histoire de S. Gildas,' etc, Bib. Nat, Paris.



COMORRE THE CURSED 87

— on the road from Carhaix to Vannes — is supposed
to have been situated, abundant relics of the im-
perial age have been discovered ; and it is possible
that Gildas*s oratory was less lonely in his time than
it is now. Almost in front of it, but on the other
side of the Blavet, is the chapel of St. Nicod^me,
renowned alike for its stone spire, which is 160 feet
in height, and for its pilgrimages ; for the saint is
credited with the power to preserve both the faithful
and their cattle from epidemics, in such wise that
numerous oxen and calves are presented at the chapel,
and sold by auction for its benefit, every year.

But, to return to St. Gildas, it may be assumed
that he was at his oratory on the Blavet when
Comorre requested him to solicit the hand of
Tryphine from he ^ather Weroc. Comorre, on his
side, must have ' s a at Castel Finans,^ probably
the extreme limi^fr-'f his possessions in this part of
Brittany, and, as the crow flies, only some fifteen
miles from Gildas's oratory, though by road the
distance may be two or three and twenty. It is
virtually certain that when Comorre summoned
Gildas the latter consented to assist him in his
suit,^ being influenced by the fear that a terrible
war might ensue if the marriage should not take

^ Sec antey p. 41. Roch le Baillif asserts in his * Petit Traict6
de I'Antiquit^ et Singularitds de la Br^tagne-Armorique,' Rennes,
J 577> that he himself found in the old ruins of Castel Finans, other-
wise Castel G^ant, various ancient silver coins, some marked
illegibly, others on which could be distinguished a tower and the
inscription Castri Gigantis.

« La Borderie cites * D. Viu !!.• S. GUd«, § 21 ; Mabillon
edition, p. 145/



88 BLUEBEARD

place. And though he was acquainted with
Comorre's grasping disposition, he was not dis-
posed to think that Tryphine would suffer at her
husband's hands. In any case, he pledged his word
to Weroc that she would be well treated, and by
dint of persuasion obtained the old chiefs reluctant
consent to the alliance.

Thus Comorre and Tryphine were married, and
for a short time there seemed to be every prospect
of peace and harmony. Then, however, Comorre
threw off the mask, and revealed his motive in
desiring the match. In addition to his daughter,
Weroc had five sons, the names of only two of
whom have come down to us. One of these sons,
the eldest, was named Conoo or Canao, while the
other (who seems to have been the youngest of the
five) was known as Macliau or Madiavus. Comorre,
it may be inferred, became friendly with Macliau,
who, as the sequel will show, was jealous of his
brother Conoo, as the latter would inherit the
Browerech territory whenever Weroc died. Now
Weroc was an old man, perhaps seventy years of
age, if not more, and it was unlikely that he would
live much longer. Thus Comorre suddenly pro-
posed to him that he should divide his possessions,
giving one half of them to Macliau and the other
half to himself (Comorre), as husband of Tryphine.
No doubt some suitable provision was proposed for
the old ruler of the Vannetais, but the latter was
not tired of governing, and he indignantly rejected
Comorre's suggestions.



COMORRE THE CURSED 89

Comorre, thwarted in his designs, and restrained,
perhaps, from plunging Brittany into war by the
direct orders of Childebert, or by the thought of
Judwal, could not conceal his fury, but cast angry
glances upon Tryphine, whom he had only married
for purposes of aggrandizement His manner un-
doubtedly filled her with alarm. Perhaps she had
heard horrible stories of him from some of those
about her ; perhaps he actually threatened her with
violence. At all events, one morning, attended
by a few servants, she stole down from the height
of Castel Finans for the purpose of placing herself
in safety.

Modern investigation has shown that the great
Roman road from Rennes to Carhaix passed by way
of Mur-de-Bretagne, Caurel, Gouarec, and Ros-
trenen ; and La Borderie thinks that, on quitting
Castel Finans, she sought that road, then, on find-
ing herself pursued, plunged into the forest land,
and was overtaken by her husband about four miles
north of the present village of Gouarec, at a spot
where now stands a church of St. Trephine, in
which some say she was buried, and which was
first raisedf perhaps, to commemorate her tragic
adventure.

That view, however, may be erroneous. Brittany
numbers several churches and chapels of St. Trd-
phine, St Tr6fine, and St Triphyne, as she is
variously called. There are two in the very region
mentioned by La Borderie — the one he specifies,
and another in the vicinity of Callac ; and thus the



90 BLUEBEARD

presence of a church dedicated to Tryphine in
any particular spot does not seem sufficient evidence
that this spot was the scene of Comorre's murderous
onslaught. Moreover, in fleeing from her husband,
Tryphine must have been anxious to reach her
natural protectors, her father and Gildas ; and thus,
instead of seeking the Roman road from Carhaix to
Rennes, she would rather have directed her course
towards that which ran from Carhaix to Vannes.
In any case, she was pursued and overtaken by her
husband.

Albert of Morlaix says that this occurred near
Vannes, an assertion which, given the distance
from Castel Finans to that city, is nonsensical.
Besides, there is evidence which tends to show that,
although Weroc ruled over what is called the Van-
netais, he did not hold Vannes itself, some Prankish
Warden of the Marches being stationed there. And
as Tryphine was undoubtedly overtaken in a wood-
land, it seems more reasonable to suppose that this
woodland was the present forest of Qu6n6can. The
historical, or perhaps it is best to say the semi-
historical, account agrees with the legend in telling
us that the unfortunate woman heard the approach
of her pursuers, and hid herself among some bushes.
But Comorre galloped up, and scoured the wood
like an expert sportsman who knew how to unearth
his game. He discovered his trembling wife, he
drew her forth, and, raising his blade, he dealt her a
terrible blow on the head, inflicting a horrible wound
and stunning her. She sank senseless to the ground,



COMORRE THE CURSED 91

and the ruffian, believing her dead, rode back to his
castle.^

Albert of Morlaix, in his legend, asserts that
Weroc was informed of the tragedy by his daughter's
servants, that he recovered the * decapitated ' body,
caused it to be laid in state in the great hall of the
castle of Vannes, and then ' posted ' ( * prit la poste *!)
towards the Blavet to consult Gildas, who hospitably
kept him to dinner before going to attend to the
dead woman, who, being dead, was no doubt well
able to wait. But wherever Tryphine fell, whether
north of Gouarec or in the vicinity of C16guerec,
she was certainly nearer to Gildas than to her
father; and one may accept the view that Gildas,
after being informed of the tragic occurrence, was
conducted to the spot where the unhappy woman
lay, found her still senseless — suffering, no doubt,
from concussion of the brain, in addition to which
her skull may have been fractured — and then by
dint of extreme care and skilful science — a science
derived perchance through St. Illtyd from those
expert * medicine-men * the Druids — revived and
healed her. As soon as possible he led her back
to her father, and bade him take every care of her
and of the child whom she would soon bring into
the world. All this seems simple enough ; but the
ignorant, as was natural in those days, regarded the
recovery of Tryphine as a resurrection, a miracle
performed by Heaven at the intercession of the
saintly Abbot of Rhuys.

^ La Borderie, U.



92 BLUEBEARD

That the latter, in his indignation, betook himself
to Castel Finans to upbraid Comorre for his cruelty,
that the gates were closed at his approach, that the
watch on the rampart had orders to decline any
parley, may be well believed ; but the legend of the
handful of sand thrown at the castle walls, and the
crumbling of those walls immediately afterwards, is
merely an example of many legends devised, in
later ages, to account for the destruction of one or
another famous stronghold.

The reader may ask, however, what became of

Tryphine after the * miracle.'^ Albert of Morlaix

asserts that when she was brought to life again her

gratitude to Gildas was so intense that she vowed

never to leave him. But the holy man rebuked her,

saying *it was not meet for a woman to follow a

^ In a canticle sung every year at Auray on the occasion of the
festival of St. Gildas (January 29) the following occurs :

' Sancti Gildasi,
Qui Tryfinam suscitasti,
Quam tyrannus occiderat
Inter sylvarum pascua.'

The resuscitation of Tryphine is not the only miracle ascribed
to St. Gildas in the Breton legends. There are many others.
Perhaps his most wonderful legendary adventure was a trip he took
on the sea with four demons, who had disguised themselves as
monks, and who, at some distance from the shore, suddenly dis-
appeared together with their boat, leaving the holy man standing
upon the water, with one foot resting on a comer of his cloak,
and his staff caught in another corner of it, in such wise that the
garment served him as a sail to catch the sudden breeze which,
coming from heaven, wafted him safely to land. There is a
similar legend about some women of the Isle of Arz, and another
of St Nennoch crossing the sea from Britain to Brittany in a stone
trough.



COMORRE THE CURSED 93

monk/ And as she evinced great piety, he promised
that after her delivery * he would dedicate her to
the service of God in a monastery of holy virgins.*
This, apparently, was done. All the available
accounts agree in saying that Tryphine founded a
convent and dwelt therein after giving birth to a son,
who, like herself, received canonization after his
death.^ The Bretons call him St. Trever, the
French Tremeur or Tremor6, and it would seem
that he was educated at the abbey of St. Gildas of
Rhuys ; but the writer has failed to ascertain any-
thing else about his career, apart from the fact that
on the west door of a church dedicated to him at
Carhaix there are or were a series of carvings stated
to represent certain incidents in his life, one of them
showing him as a Breton St. Denis — that is, holding
his head in his hands. It is asserted, indeed, that
he was decapitated by his father, but this seems
unlikely, for he cannot have been more than seven
years old at the time of Comorre's death.

Comorre, after his murderous attempt on Tryphine,
would appear to have embarked on a career of
violence, excesses, and exactions, the outcome, per-
haps, of his mortification and resentment at having
failed in his designs upon the Vannetais. Though
he could assume friendliness with a man like Gildas

^ As the Protestant reader may wonder at the great number of the
Breton saints, ft is as well to point out that canonization was then
conferred by Bishops and Churches, without reference to the Court
of Rome. It is asserted that the first canonization by Papal
authority was that of St. Udalricus in 993 (* Recueil des Historiens
de France,' preface, vol x.).



94 BLUEBEARD

when it suited his purpose to do so, he had repeated
quarrels with the Breton clei^y. It may be also
that he was jealous of the latter^s increasing wealth
and influence, and desired to keep it in check. But in
those days the ruler who came into conflict with the
Church was seldom victorious, and though Comorre
contrived to hold his own for a few years longer, his
fall may be directly traced to his struggle with the
priesthood. It is certain that a council of Bishops
assembled on the Menez Br6 near Guingamp to
deliberate on the subject of his misrule and the
crimes imputed to him. There was a vast concourse
of prelates and people. The death of lona was
recalled ; the attempts on Tryphine and the absent
Judwal were denounced, and Judwal's rightful claims
to Domnonia were urged. This council was held in
the year 550, or perhaps a little earlier. St. Gildas
does not seem to have attended it. Perhaps he was
still on the Blavet, or had returned to Rhuys.^ But
another very famous Breton saint was present.

^ He died, it is said, on the isle of Houat on January 29, 570.
According to one legend there was a dispute among his monks as
to where he should be buried, and a boat, in which his remains
were at last placed, sank between Houat and the mainland. At
this the monks were in great distress, but, three months later, the
boat was washed up near Rhuys, and St. Gildas's body was found
in it, fresh and whole, 'even as on the day when he died,' the salt
water having miraculously preserved it Glastonbury is said, by
some English writers, to have been Gildas's resting-place, but a
skull and arm-bones, alleged to have been his, still figure among
the relics of Rhuys. The oldest part of that abbey, however, is
of the twelfth century. It is known to have been destroyed by
the Normans in the tenth.



COMORRE THE CURSED 95

This was the blind St. Herv6, at that time neither
deacon nor priest, but merely an exorcist. To do
him honour, as he was late in arriving, the council
deferred its business for a whole day. The result of
its deliberations was the solemn cursing of Comorre
for his crimes and his tyranny. Throughout Brittany
he received the name of *Comor ar Miliguet' — a
name still universal in the sixteenth century, as
D'Argentr^ has recorded in his history.

Nevertheless, Comorre showed a bold front. The
thunders of the Church had no terrors for him ; he
was not the man to quail before any St. Dunstan.
For a time, indeed, he seems to have taken more
interest in what was happening in the Vannetais
than in the proceedings of his priestly adversaries.
Old .Weroc having died, Conoo, his eldest son, had
succeeded to his possessions, and, fearful of the
rivalry of his brothers, had savagely put three of
them to death. A similar fate seemed likely to
overtake the remaining one, Macliau, who was
thrown into a dungeon, and only released after
humbling himself and renouncing every right. Even
then he did not deem himself in safety, but fled to
his old friend Comorre, with whom, a few years pre-
viously, he had proposed to divide the Vannetais.
Comorre concealed him, and when Conoo*s envoys
came to claim the fugitive, he pointed to a tomb —
perhaps a tumulus — which he had raised, and told
them that Macliau was dead.

In the end, however (552), Macliau renounced all

claim to dominion, put away his wife, and accepted



96 BLUEBEARD

priesthood and the tonsure in order to secure eleva-
tion to the bishopric of Vannes. This fact is cited,
among several others, as showing that the Vannetais
or Browerech ruled by Weroc and Conoo did not
include the city of Vannes, for Macliau, who still
meditated revenge, would never have placed himself
again in Conoo's power. Thus it is argued that
Vannes was garrisoned by the Franks.

A few more years went by, Comorre and the cler^
still at variance. But one of the latter, Samson of Dol
— St Samson, as he became — had repaired to the
court of Childebert to solicit the release of Judwal,
the rightful heir of Domnonia. Suitable pledges
were doubtless offered with respect to the Prankish
suzerainty over Brittany, and, after a time, Childe-
bert, apparently, was willing to sacrifice Comorre,
But we are told that Ultragotha, Childebert's wife,
had cast lascivious eyes on young Judwal, and would
not let him go. Naturally enough, the legends step
in at this particular point ; the opportunity was too
good a one to be missed by them. They pretend
that Ultragotha caused a poisoned beverage to be
offered to Samson at the royal table, but that when
he made the sign of the Cross over the cup it was
shivered to pieces, while as the liquor dropped upon
the cup-bearer's hand ulcers immediately formed on
it, Samson, however, considerately curing them by
another sign of the Cross. In like manner he
rendered an untamable horse, which was presented
to him by the Queen, as gentle as a lamb, and had
only to pronounce the Lord's name in order to cause



COMORRE THE CURSED 97

a monstrous lion to recoil in respect and fear when
the wicked Ultragotha summoned the beast from
Hades in the hope that it would devour the holy
man. Finally, all her enchantments having failed,
her opposition ceased ; but when Samson celebrated
Mass for the last time before quitting the court with
Judwal, she impiously turned her back on the altar,
and in punishment for her irreverence she was struck
dead — an assertion utterly at variance with the
historical account, which shows that Ultragotha sur-
vived her husband.

Having removed Judwal from Childebert s court,
Samson found him an asylum on one of the Channel
Islands, either Jersey or Guernsey, and it was
arranged that he should remain there until all was
in readiness for a rising in Domnonia. When,
about 554-55, the young man, like some * Bonnie
Prince Charlie,* landed on the Breton shore, he was
met by a crowd of eager adherents. 'Come and
avenge lona! Avenge your father!' they cried to
him. • We will help you !'

Judwal's forces appear to have been mustered near
Dol ; but Comorre was not idle, he still had his
partisans, whatever might have been the harshness
of his rule and the effects of the solemn cursing of
the Church. A first battle was fought — perhaps
between St Malo and Chiteauneuf — ^and he was
worsted in it But although he retreated, he still
held the field. A like result, however, attended a
second engagement, and at last the contending
parties met for the third time on the wild heather-

7



98 BLUEBEARD

lands south of Morlaix (Finist^re), between the
forest of Gerber and the first slopes of the Mon-
tagne d'Arr^e. Spots bearing very significant names
are still shown there ; for instance, the Rosarc'ham,
the slope of the battle; the Ban Lac'h, the knoll
of the massacre; and the Roc'h Conan, the rock
of the chief. And here, then, on the scene of his
early exploits, his first march upon L^on after
Withur s death, Comorre turned to bay and met his
fate. A wound laid him low, says the Mabillon
Life of St. Samson, but another account of the
same saint's career (Angers MSS.) describes his end
more graphically : ' Comorre was vanquished ; a
javelin from the hand of Judwal struck him down ;
he died.' And, the usurper killed, the rightful heir
reigned in his stead.

Such, so far as fact can be disentangled from
l^end, seems to have been the life and fate of
the man who for a century has been openly called
* the Breton Bluebeard.' Some years ago a large
block of schistous slate, designated as the ' Men Bez
Comor,' was shown on a spot named Brank Halleg,
or the Willow Bough, near the hamlet of Mengleuz,
which adjoins the battlefield. Beneath that block of
slate, said the peasants, lay the bones of the tyrant,
awaiting the sounds of the judgment trump.^

Before examining Comorre's career in connection
with the l^ends based on it, some mention must
be made of incidents which occurred after his death.

^ Some historians cite a second Comorre, a mler of L6oa ; but
La Borderie declares that there was never any such personage.



COMORRE THE CURSED 99

Conoo, or Canao, the ruler of the Vannetais, who
had put three of his brothers to death and com-
pelled Macliau to enter the priesthood, was, like
Comorre, a stern, harsh ruler, a terror to his sub-
jects. Ambition came to him as it had come to the
usurper of Domnonia, but unluckily for his schemes,
after the death of Childebert, he gave an asylum to
Chramn. the son of Childebert s successor, Clothaire.
Chramn, after various quarrels with his father,
followed by a reconciliation, had remained appre-
hensive of future punishment (we here follow
Gregory of Tours), and therefore fled to Brittany
with his wife and children. It may be that Clothaire
only desired a pretext to invade Brittany, or else he
regarded the hospitality accorded to Chramn by
Conoo as an unpardonable action. In any case he
collected an army and invaded Conoo*s possessions.
A battle ensued on a spot west of Vannes, near the
shore of the 'inland sea,' and Conoo — these Bretons
were as brave as they were savage — fell fighting.
But Chramn, who had a bark waiting on the shore,
might have escaped had he not desired to save his
wife and children, who had taken refuge in a hut.
In trying to do so he was made a prisoner. If he
expected any mercy from his father, he was deceived.
By Clothaire's orders he was bound to a bench in the
hut, which was set on fire, in such wise that he was
burnt to death there with his wife and his daughters.
Directly Macliau, the Bishbp of Vannes, heard that
Conoo was dead, he cast his priestly vestments aside,
took his wife back, let his hair grow again, and asserted

7—2



loo BLUEBEARD

his rights to sovereigfnty. But it was a sovereignty
of little account for a time, for the Franks spread
through the Browerech and ravaged it At last
Macliau came into possession, and subsequently
seized Cornouaille also; but the young Theodoric
(son of Budic II.), whom he then drove away,
returned, surprised him, and showed him no mercy.
He was slain, with one of his sons named Jacob, in
or about 577. Thus died the last of St. Tryphine's
brothers.

If these final incidents, particularly those connected
with Conoo, have been related, it is because con-
fusion long existed among the chroniclers and his-
torians, as well as in the popular mind, with respect
to Comorre and Conoo. Many writers confounded
the two men, with the result that their readers were
confronted by a perfect monster — a ruffian who had
killed lona of Domnonia, who, perhaps, had mur-
dered even lona's widow after forcibly making her
his wife ; who had certainly threatened the life of
Judwal ; who had killed three of his own brothers,
persecuted a fourth (Macliau), and decapitated his
second wife (and sister) Tryphine. Briefly, a
monster whose whole life was assassination, and
whose deeds might serve as the basis of a far more
horrible tale than * Bluebeard.' And Conoo being
confounded with Comorre, a perfect pot-pourri of
Breton history ensued. It became necessary to
imagine all sorts of things in order to reconcile
conflicting dates and events. It would require
many pages Co point out all the blunders made by



COMORRE THE CURSED loi

writers of one and another century, and it is not
proposed to do so here. Those curious on the
subject may compare M. de La Borderie's history
with the others.^

Some of the older chronicles and histories of
Brittany must indeed be read, so far as they deal
with the early centuries of our era, in much the
same spirit as one might read the ' Chansons de
Geste/ whose writers, between them, took the
events of three or four centuries, and adapted them
to the reigns of a trio of rulers. Those writers,
whatever their claims, were, as a matter of fact,
but versifiers and romancers ; and their versions of
history need not surprise, though they may well
puzzle, one, particularly as when — to quote a recent
work on * L'6pop6e Romane* — one finds 'certain
religious legends respecting the Vandal invasion of
France in 406, and a more or less authentic Arlesian
martyr of the fifth century, St. Vezian, transferred
from the Merovingian to the Carlovingian period ;
Charles Martel being made to fight against the
Vandals in Lorraine; St. Vezian falling beneath
the blows of the Saracen **Aucebier" (Alsamah),
who invaded the south in 721 ; then that invasion
\ being confounded with that of " Desrame " (Abder-
rhaman) in 732, and finally identified with the

^ We have not followed M. de La Borderie blindly in our n'arra-
live. We have checked several of his statements, and have
occasionally drawn somewhat different conclusions from the facts,
conclusion»such as M. de La Borderie, a devout Catholic, would
not have drawn ; but he may be consulted with advantage for
references to authorities, etc.



I02 BLUEBEARD

struggles waged by Guillaume of Toulouse from
ygo to 806/ Nor was this all, for 'Vezian's
character was changed ; he was made a knight, and
his name was altered to Vivian, which was better
known in the West of France/^

This passage has been quoted because the fate
of Vezian in the * Matter of France ' illustrates the
f^e of Comorre at the hands of many historians and
popular raconteurs. It must be added, however,
that the errors of the Breton writers arose in part
from a n^lect of philological considerations.

Throughout this narrative the usurper of Dom-
nonia has been called Comorre, the form of his
name which has prevailed in modern times ; but
his real name was Conomor, meaning Conoo the
Great, according to La Borderie, who objects to the
etymology of Courson and others, who took * Cono *
as the equivalent of Conan, and made the name
signify 'great chief* Now, Conoo of the Van-
netais, called sometimes Canao, is also repeatedly
referred to by both the hagiologists and the older
chroniclers by the names of Conober, Conoberus,
Conoborus, Chonobarus, and so forth. Conober
signifies Conoo the Little or the Short, and it is
allowable to surmise that this was a nickname given
him by his contemporaries for the express purpose
of distinguishing him from Conomor. Had a little
attention been paid to this matter some hundreds of
years ago, when it was first assumed that the two

1 ' Les Personnages de F^pop^ Romane,' by Vicomte Ch. de
la Lande de Calan, Paris^ 1901.



COMORRE THE CURSED 103

men were identical, there might have been much
less confusion in the particular period of Breton
history to which they both belonged. It may be
repeated that they were quite distinct Comorre or
Conomor never ruled the Vannetais ; Conoo or
Conober never encountered the forces of Judwal
between St Malo and Chiteauneuf. He fell at the
time when Chramn was taken prisoner in the battle
fought west of the city of Vannes.

That confusion should have arisen in the popular
mind respecting the two personages is a different
matter. Fourteen centuries now separate us from
the days of Comorre and Conoo, and even if there
had been books to tell the Breton peasantry the
truth, they, with their fervent belief in legend and
tradition, would scarcely have accepted correction.
It is more than probable that the stories told of
Conomor and Conoo had already become entangled
and blended in their minds many hundreds of years
ago. One man had heard a tale of how the tyrant
had murdered his brothers ; another was sure that
his victims had been his wives. The brothers were
added to the wives, perhaps, and by degrees became
part and parcel of them, in such a way that the
tyrant was believed to have killed quite half a dozen
spouses, and the foundation was laid for a tale
of the Bluebeard kind. Brittany used to have its
itinerant story-tellers ; moreover, the Bretons often
crossed their peninsula, going in pilgrimage from
one pardon to another, when they not only told and
heard marvellous stories of Our Lady and the



I04 BLUEBEARD

Saints, but narrated and listened to other curious
legends, Arthurian, Druidical, and medieval. The
years rolled on, and at last, from one to the other
end of Brittany, in the lands which Conomor had
usurped, and in those where Conober had ruled,
there only remained the memory of one tyrant—
* Comor ar Miliguet' One thing is virtually cer-
tain : the Comorre remembered in our days in the
vicinity of Camors, and again at Cloar Carnoet, the
Comorre transformed into a ferryman, was Conoo,
who reigned in that region ; whereas the Comorre
of Castel Finans, Carhaix and the Willow Bough,
was Conomor, the usurper of Domnonia.

It must be admitted that, however widespread the
tradition in these later centuries, there is no proof
of Perrault having borrowed his tale of * Bluebeard *
from the Comorre legend. No ancient chronicler
ever refers to Comorre as * Barbe-bleue.' Nor does
the writer know of any very old story connecting
the two. Daru, in his * Histoire de Bretagne,'
published in 1826, refers, however, to the novelists
{romancters) who had conferred * a frightful immor-
tality on Comorre under the name of Bluebeard.'
And in this connection the writer remembers having
read in his youth (which was spent in France) an
old novel which he has vainly endeavoured to trace
recently. It was a two- volume work, issued either
at the end of the eighteenth or early in the nineteenth
century, and its title was * Le Roi Comor ' or some-
thing very similar. No doubt it was one of the
books referred to by Daru. The latter's statement



COMORRE THE CURSED 105

at least shows that Comorre was associated with
Bluebeard in his time — that is, in the twenties of the
nineteenth century ; and this is of some little interest,
because various critics of more recent times have
asserted that the two were first coupled in 1850, when
certain paintings were brought to light in a chapel
dedicated to St. Tryphine at St. Nicolas de Bieuzy,^
which is in the immediate vicinity of St. Gildas's
oratory on the Blavet. These paintings were then
said to be of the thirteenth or fifteenth century, and
their discovery created quite a stir on account of
their identity with the chief incidents of Perrault's
tale. They decorated the lambris of the chapel, the
subject depicted in the first compartment being the
marriage of Tryphine to a Breton lord (Comorre)
whose beard was coloured a bluish black ; next the
husband was shown quitting his castle on some
warlike expedition, and handing his wife a little key ;
and then appeared the mysterious chamber with the
bodies of the murdered wives — seven in number —
hanging in it. Afterwards came the terrible inter-
rogatory, with Bluebeard scowling at his unhappy
wife ; farther on, she was portrayed praying on her
knees, while Sister Anne anxiously scanned the road
from a little window. And finally, while the cruel
husband was shown passing a noose round his wife's
neck, Tryphine's brothers and St. Gildas appeared,
the first ready to run their swords through Comorre's
body, and the last all anxiety to revive the victim.

^ 'Bulletin arch^logique de T Association Bretonne,' 1850,
toL iL, p. 133.



io6 BLUEBEARD

Now, if these paintings — brought to light from
under the ever-recurring coat of whitewash which
has blotted out so much artistic work in churches all
the world over — ^had really belonged to the thirteenth,
or fifteenth, or sixteenth century, if they could even
have been traced to the earlier part of the century
in which Perrault wrote, they would have proved
conclusively that he derived his famous tale from
some adaptation of St Tryphine's story .^ But those
who first examined the paintings, and thought them
very ancient, perhaps by reason of their damaged
condition, were quite mistaken. Several years later
the paintings were scrutinized by more competent
persons, whose verdict was that they had been
painted early in the eighteenth century. And sub-
sequently, after various researches, M. Rosenzweig,
the departmental archivist, ascertained the very year
of their execution — 1704.*

Thus another legend has been swept away. In
1 704 Perrault's tales had been six or seven years in
circulation. It is known that quite a furore arose
when they first appeared ; that they were in demand
on every side. The artist who executed the paint-
ings at St Nicolas must have been acquainted with
them. Whatever his name, he was no peasant ; he
came from a town, a city, where books were read ;

^ There is a quaint old Breton mystery in which she figured as a
princess of Hybernia wedded to Arzur, the hero-king, and perse-
cuted by her jealous brother, Kervoura. ' Sainte Tryphine et le
Roi Arthur,' edited by F. M. Luzel. Quimperl6, 1863, 8vo.

' Bossard, /.^., p. 402. From the ' Statistiques archtologiqoes
de TArrondissement de Pontivy,' article on ' Napol^ooviUe.'



COMORRE THE CURSED 107

and for some reason or other, on being called in to
paint the l^end of St Tryphine, he depicted, in
lieu thereof, the story of Perrault's Bluebeard. Was
it, then, his shocking audacity in this respect which
subsequently led some indignant curi to cover the
paintings over ?

The course taken by the painter is, indeed, at the
first glance, so suggestive of rank impudence as to
make one pause. He may have been a sceptic.
Indeed, his portrayal of Tryphine with a rope about
her neck is strongly suggestive of scepticism. He
declined to believe that the unlucky woman could
be revived by St. Gildas after decapitation ; but he
knew that people who are hanged may occasionally
be cut down in time to have their lives saved.
Thus, in Brittany of all places in the world, in one
of its most superstitious regions, too, one finds a
Voltairean spirit displaying itself at a time when
Voltaire was only ten years old But, however
sceptical the painter may have been, he cannot have
desired, he would not have dared, to insult his
priestly patrons, from whom he expected payment
for his work, by depicting something which had no
relation whatever to the subject that he had been
commissioned to treat. What had he been told of
the legend of St. Tryphine before he started on his
work 'i Assuredly he must have heard something
which had brought 'Bluebeard' to his mind. He
must have had some basis to work on ; he must at
least have been told that Tryphine's husband had
killed several wives. Everything indicates, indeed.



io8 BLUEBEARD

that there were stories of Comorre current in the
region at that time — 1704 — which suggested Per-
rault*s tale. If one only knew what they were, one
would probably be able to say whether Perrault did
or did not derive his Bluebeard from some Comorre
legend, told perchance by some Breton servant
to his children ; for it does not appear that he
himself was ever in Brittany.

So far as the writer has been able to ascertain, no
legends of Comorre and Tryphine appear in M.
S6billot*s numerous books on the folk-lore of Upper
Brittany ; but in one volume^ a * Bluebeard/ or, rather,
a * Redbeard,' story is to be found. Here we have a
husband who has lost seven wives,^ and lived ten
years with the eighth, whom he at last hates to such
a degree that one Sunday, on returning home from
high Mass, he resolves to kill hen When he tells
her his purpose she contrives to slip a note into the
ear of a little dog, which she sends to fetch her
brothers. And afterwards she asks permission to
put on her wedding garments (as in the Vendean
version of * Bluebeard *), while her husband, taking
his sabre, sings :

' I'm sharpening, I'm sharpening my knife
To kill my wife, who is upstairs.'

Then, as at intervals he calls to her to comedown,

1 • Litt6ature Orale de la Haute-Bretagne,' by P. SAillot
Paris, 1881, 8vo. (* Barbe-Rouge,* pp. 40-43).

^. The Bretons are very partial to the number seven. There are
many tales of seven brothers, seven sisters, seven children, and so
forth.



COMORRE THE CURSED 109

she responds with various excuses : she has only
just slipped on her petticoat ; she is putting on her
stockings ; she is combing her hair ; she is looking
for her large coif; she has only to put in another pin.
And meantime she looks out of the window, and at
last perceives several horsemen, to whom she makes
signs. Redbeard hides in the corridor when the
soldiers knock, but they find and kill him, and one
of them ends by marrying the widow.

S^billot also gives a story of a giant with seven
wives,^ the last of whom rids herself of her cruel
husband with the help of a soldier. In this tale the
giant is a magician who will always remain invulner-
able unless a certain egg should be crushed on his
breast. The egg is inside a pigeon, which is inside
a hare, which is inside a wolf, which is inside the
griant's brother, who lives some leagues away. When
the wife has learnt the secret from her husband, she
confides it to the soldier, who, after various adven-
tures, secures the egg, which the lady duly crushes
on her husband's chest, with the result that he
immediately expires.

This, however, is a tale of a familiar type (the
egg business suggesting ' The Giant who had no
Heart in his Body'), whilst Redbeard may be
merely an adaptation of Perrault's story. Thus one
remains confronted by the tradition of the tyrant
Comorre who killed many wives, and who became
here a werewolf, and yonder the ferryman of hell.

^ 'Contes Populaires de la Haute-Bretagne.* Paris, 1880
(Na 19, p. 61 ei seq.).



no BLUEBEARD

And the vox pofmli^ so fiu* as can be ascertained,
having always pointed to Brittany as the original
home of ' Bluebeard/ it may be said in favour of
those who picture Comorre as the prototype of
Perrault's ' hero/ that at the time when Perrault
wrote, the Comorre l^ends were certainly far more
familiar to the Breton peasantry than they are
nowadays. And owing to the confusion between
Conomor and Conober, the ' Miliguet/ the cursed
one, was regarded as a most bloodthirsty, in-
human monster. Hagiologists, members of that
Breton clergy with which he was so long at
variance, had painted him in the blackest colours,
making his crimes even worse than they really were.
Chroniclers had taken the same line, and legends of
horror and infamy had spread among the people.
But before expressing any decided opinion upon
Comorre's connection with ' Bluebeard,' it is pre-
ferable to turn to another period and examine the
claims of the second candidate to the odious honours,
Gilles de Rais, a man by the side of whom Comorre
might be accounted a saint.



GILLES DE RAIS

MARSHAL OF FRANCE
1 404- 1 440



GILLES DE RAIS

MARSHAL OF FRANCE

I
1404.1424

DESCENT, PARENTAGE, POSSESSIONS, MARRIAGE, AND

FIRST CAMPAIGNS

The Descent of Gilles from the First Barons of Christendom —
The Blood Royal of France— Genealogical Tables— The
Ancient House of Rais — ^Jatie the Sensible adopts Guy II. de
Laval — He assumes the Name and Arms of Rais — Birth of
Gilles — His Education and Accomplishments — He loses his
Parents — His Guardian, Jean de Craon — His Great Barony and
other Possessions — His Successive Betrothals — His Fiancees all
die — He turns to the Career of Arms — ^Hie English Invasion
and the Civil War in France — The Struggle of Montfort and
Penthi^vre in Brittany — Duke Jean V., seeking Beautiful
Damsels, is trapped and imprisoned — Gilles de Rais at the
States-General of Brittany — The Duchess as Maria Theresa —
The Penthifevres ravage Rais — ^Jean V.*s Curious Vows in his
Captivity — Gilles raises Men and joins Alain de Rohan — The
Penthi^vres vanquished and the Duke released — Rewards for
Gilles — He marries Katherine de Thouars and again takes the
Field — ^The Penthibvres finally sentenced — Gilles assumes the
Government of his Fiefs.

Gilles, Baron of Rais, first and last of his name,
sprang from four of the most illustrious houses of

8



114 BLUEBEARD

medieval France. On the side of his father, Guy de
Laval de Rais, he claimed descent from the Mont-
morencys, the first Barons of Christendom ; whilst
on the side of his mother, Marie de Craon, he could
boast connection with the blood royal, for she
descended from the famous Renaud of Nevers and
Adela of France. Nor was that all ; for Gilles'
grandfather, the renowned Brumor de Laval, had
married the daughter of Clemence, sister of the
immortal Bertrand du Guesclin. Again, Gilles'
mother represented not only the opulent house of
Craon, but the doughty lords of Machecoul also, and
was allied to the Thouars, the Beau^ays, the Roche-
forts, and the Beauvaus — all names which are written
on splendid pages of French history. Finally Gilles
could claim that some of the blood of the ancient
house of Rais, whose wealth he inherited, flowed in
his veins ; for Eustachie, only daughter of Chabot L,
Baron of Rais, had married Gerard de Machecoul
in the thirteenth century, and Girard Chabot IL had,
about the same period, espoused Jeanne de Craon ;
whilst Jeanne la Folle, the * Crazy Jane of Rais ' —
a grand-daughter of Gerard Chabot III. and Marie
de Parthenay — had afterwards become the wife of
Foulques de Laval. Thus Montmorency- Laval,
Rais, Craon, and Machecoul all met in Gilles and
his younger brother, who became known as Rend de
La Suze, from property in Maine which had come
to his mother s family by matrimonial alliance.

To Gilles as Baron of Rais one might have
applied, with the alteration of one word, the famous



GILLES DE RAIS 115



GENEALOGY OF GILLES DE RAIS.

I.— HOUSE OF LAVAL.

Guy DE Montmorency,

Sixth of the name ; called ' of Laval,^ Younger son
of Mathieu II., Lord of Montmorency and Constable of France.

I

Guy DE Laval VII.

I

Guy DE Laval VIII.

I

Guy DE Laval IX.

Brother of Foulques de Laval, who married Jeanne la Folle

(' Crazy Jane ') of Rais, who died 1358, and had :

(Junior^ or * Brumar * Branch),

Guy de Laval I., called Brumor.

Married : (i) Jeanne de Montmorency ;

(2) Tiphaine, daughter of the Chevalier de Husson

and of Cl^mence, sister of Bertrand

Du Guesclin, Constable of France.

I

Guy de Laval II., de Rais.

t 1415-
Adopted by Jeanne la Sage ('Jane the Sensible') of Rais,

which name he takes ; married, 1404, Marie de Craon.



GILLES DE BALi. BEN^ DE LA 8X7ZB.

1404-1440. t 1474-

Married Katherine Married Anne de

de Thouars, by whom Champagne, by whom

he had : he had :

I I

Marie de Rais. Jeanne de Laval.

Married Married Fran9ois de

(i) Pr^ent de Coedvy, Chauvigny, Prince

Admiral of France, of D^ls.
'became Baron of Rais.



(2) Andr^ de Laval, Andr^ de Chauvigny,

Lord of Lohdac, Prince of Dtols.

Admiral and Marshal t 1520.

of France. No Issue. No Issue.



8-



ii6 BLUEBEARD

lines subsequently addressed to Austria, when,
through the marriages of the children of Maxi-
milian I., Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary fell to
the house of Hapsburg :

* Bella gerant alii, tu felix Radesia nube ;
Nam quse Man aliis, dat tibi r^[na Venus.'

For the vast estates of which Gilles became possessed
were not the fruits of feudal warfare ; they had been
gathered together mostly by the marriages of his
forerunners. His father, Guy de Montmorency-
Lavaly Knight and Lord of Blaison and Chemill^ in
Anjou, acquired great wealth by a curious combina-
tion of circumstances. The last Baron of Rais,
Chabot v., had died childless, and the ancient
house had but one representative left, Jane the
Sensible (Jeanne la Sage), whose marriage with
Jean de Parthenay had been annulled on the ground
of consanguinity, and who had no hope of children.
She therefore cast her eyes upon her cousin Guy
de Laval, but the mere tie of relationship did not
entitle him to succeed to her property ; for a decree
of disherison had fallen on his grandmother, the
Crazy Jane of Rais, on account of a love match she
had made with a mere squire, Jean de la Musse,
prior to her marriage with Foulques de Laval, a
decree barring her rights and those of all her '
descendants to the barony of Rais. Only a special
act of adoption on the part of the last heiress of Rais
could give Guy de Laval the rights which that decree
had annulled. Jane the Sensible expressed her desire
to adopt him, and indeed, in 1401, she did so, solemnly



GILLES DE RAIS



117



GENEALOGY OF GILLES DE RAIS.



i

GODBFROY,

Lord of
La Maurice.



II.— HOUSE OF RAIS.

[Old Line.]
GARSIR& Living in II 6i.

Harcoubt or Arcoit. t 1190.

I
Garsir£ or Garsile. 1220-1225.

Raouu 1 237-1 248.

Married Fran9oise Salvagie de la Motte-Achard» by

whom he had issue one daughter, Eustachie, who

married (1254) Girard Chabot, younger brother d

Thibaud Chabot, Lord of Aulnesand Rocheservi^re.

, I
[JVew Line.}

Chabot I. 1 254-1 264.

I



I



1 —

RaouL
No issue.



GiRARD Chabot II.

1265-1298.

Married:

1. Emma de Chateaugonthier.

2. Jeanne de Craon (t 1264).

3. Marguerite des Barres (t 1289).

By the second he had :
I



I

EUSTACHIB,

Md. Gerard
de Machecoul.
(Table III.)



I
GERARD Chabot III.

1 298-1 336.

Married Marie de Parthenay.



I
Guillaume.

No issue.



Gerard Chabot, eldest son,
Married Katherine de

i_



died before his father.
Lavali and had :



I
Jeannb la Follb.

Married Foulques de Laval.

See Table I.



I
GERARD Chabot IV.

1337-1344.

Md. Philippe Bertrande

de Rouxeville.

I



I
Jbannb la Sagb.

1371-1406.

Her marriage annulled.

Adopted Guy de Laval II.,

father of Gillbs db Rais.



GERARD Chabot V.,
* The Posthumous.'
t 1351 ; married
Marguerite de Sancerre.
No issue.



ii8 BLUEBEARD

acknowledging him to be her heir, on the express con-
dition, however, that he should renounce the name
and arms of Laval and assume for himself and his
descendants those of Rais. In default thereof
Jeanne chose as her successor Jean, son of Katherine
de Machecoul and Pierre de Craon, Lord of La
Suze in Maine, and of Ingrandes and Champtoc6 on
the borders of Brittany and Anjou. But Guy de
Laval did not for a moment think of refusing an
inheritance which would so largely increase his
fortune. On September 23, 1401, he accepted the
stipulated condition, and on the last day of the month
relinquished the name and arms of Montmorency-
Laval, and took the name and arms of Rais, diose
arms being or with a cross sable. ^

For some reason or other — none of the writers on
the subject have been able to account for it — Jane
quarrelled with the successor whom she had chosen,
and in his stead selected another and rather more
distant cousin, the Katherine de Machecoul who has
been previously mentioned, and who was now ( May,
1402) a widow with one son. Guy, the first chosen
heir, was indignant at this alteration, and cited
Katherine and her son Jean de Craon before the
Parliament of Paris in order that the provisions in
their favour might be set aside. It would appear
that the lawsuit was for a time conducted with
great bitterness by all parties, but a settlement

^ *Gilles de Rais,' etc., by Abb^ Bossard. See posi^ Ap-
pendix Cy on the Montfaucon Portrait of Gilles.



GILLES DE RAIS ii



GENEALOGY OF GILLES DE RAIS-



III.— HOUSE OF MACHECOUL.

Raoul DE Machecoul.
t 1160.

Bernard.

I

AlMERY.

I

OUVIER I.



Olivier II.
t 1264.

I

ouvier iii.

G£rard.
Married Eustachie, daughter of Chabot I. of Rais (Table II.)

by whom he had three children.

GERARD.

Married Ahette de Thouars.

I

Louis.

Lord of La B^naste and Le Coustumier.

Married Jeanne de Beau9ay.

I

Katherine DE Machecoul.

Married Pierre de Craon (Table IV.) ; had three children

of whom Jean was father of Marie de Craon,

the mother of
GiLLES de Rais.



no BLUEBEARD

was eventuaUy effected on the basis of a marriage
between Guy and Jean de Craon's only daughter^
Marie. All rights to the barony of Rais were ceded
to the former, and the wedding was celebrated on
February 5, 1404*^ Of this marriage two children
were bom : first Gilles de Rsds* and secondly his
brother Ren& There was formerly considerable
controversy as to the date of the former^s birth,
many authorities suggesting the year 1396, and
others 1406 ; but Ahh6 Bossard has fully established
the fact that Gilles came into the world at the castle
of Machecoul in September or October, 1404,^ a
date which shows that he evinced extraordinary
precocity in his youth, marrying at the age of
sixteen, acquiring military skill and almost renown
before a score of years had passed over his head,
and attaining to the exalted rank of Marshal of
France when he was only five-and-twenty.

Two years after his birth Jeanne la Sage of Rais
departed this life, and her territories passed to
Gilles* father, of whose subsequent career not much
is known. It is difficult even to say how Gilles and
Ren6 were educated, though we have it on record
that both were very talented. Gilles spoke Latin
elegantly, and cultivated several of the arts. We
find him in after-life illuminating manuscripts, and
preparing enamels, with which he enriched the
bindings of his books ; we see him studying science,
cultivating music, initiating, and perhaps helping to

^ ' G^n^alogie de^ plus iUustres Maisons de Bretagne,' Du Paz.
' Bossard ix.^ pp. 5-8.



GILLES DE RAIS 121



GENEALOGY OF GILLES DE RAIS.

IV.— HOUSE OF CRAON.

RsNAUD I.y Count of Nevers.
Married Ad^le of France.

I

Robert db Nevers,
Called Lord of Craon. Married Avoise de Sabl^

Renaud I.,
Called the Burgundian, Lord of Craon.

Amaury, or Maurice I. de Craon.
Married Tiphaine de Champtoc6 and d'Ingrandes.

HUGUES.

I
Maurice II.

I

Amaury II.



Maurice IV.
Maurice V.

I

Maurice VI.

I

Amaury III.
Married Beatrix de Roucy, Lady of La Suxe.



Pierre de Craon.

Lord of La Suze> Ingrandes and Champtoc^.

Married Katherine de Machecoul (Table III.).



I

Pierre.

t 1415-
No issue.



I

Jeanne.

M. (i) Ingerger d'Amboise IL

(2) Pierre de Beauvau.



Jean de Craon.

Lord of La Suze, etc.

Married Beatrix de Rochefort, and had

one daughter, Marie de Craon, wife

of Guy de Laval de Rais, and moUier of

GiLLES DE Rais.



122 BLUEBEARD

compose, theatrical mysteries and moralities — to say
nothing of an alleged treatise on the Art of Evoking
the Devil. Thus, he certainly had many gifts in
addition to the brilliant courage and the military coup
dcdl which, at an early age, brought him to the front
as a captain. One so gifted surely ought to have left
behind him a name of eminence, instead of one asso-
ciated with crime and turpitude. Alas ! in our own
time we have seen the fall of a man of culture and
high literary talent, who ended ignominiously, from
lack of moral principles. As for Gilles de Rais,
there was doubtless great truth in the words which
he spoke when he stood at the bar of justice :

* Fathers and mothers, all ye who hear me I
Keep yourselves, I entreat you, from all lax rearing
of your children ! For my part, if I have committed
so many and such great crimes, the reason is that in
my youth I was always allowed to do as I listed and
follow the bent of my desires.'

Those are words for every age, and well may
they be applied to ours ; for in no period of civili-
zation can one find such an absence of parental
control and guidance as is nowadays manifest among
virtually every class of the community.

Gilles, unfortunately, lost his father when he was
only eleven years old ; and his mother soon after-
wards married Charles d'Estouteville, Lord of
Villebon, in such wise that her children were re-
moved from her control. Guy de Rais, prior to his
death in October, 141 5, had evidently feared for the
future of his young children, as is evidenced by his



C m



• • «



• • ••#



GILLES DE RAIS 123

willy in which he appoints a distant relative, Jean de
Touraemine, Lord of La Hunaudaye and husband
of his ' dear cousin de Saffr6/ as ' guardian and
defender of his sons and heirs, Gilles and Ren6, and
legitimate administrator of their estates/ In the
ordinary course of things one might have expected
that their guardianship would have been entrusted
to their mother's father, Jean de Craon, but the
latter was old and prone perhaps to extreme
indulgence. Thus Abb6 Bossard may be right in
suggesting that Guy feared the result of confiding
the boys to their grandfather, and preferred to select
a younger and stronger-minded guardian. In some
way or other his plans were frustrated. A few
months after Guy's death Jean de Tournemine dis-
appears from the scene — perhaps he died, or was
unwilling to discharge his office — in any case,
the boys passed into the care of their maternal
grandfather. A memorial with respect to Gilles'
property, drawn up a year or two after his death,
says :

'After the demise of the said Messire Guy de
Rais, father of the said Messire Gilles, this Messire
Gilles remained a minor, and of tender years {6as
age\ under the guardianship {baiiy and rule of the
said Messire Jehan de Craon, his maternal grand-
father, who was old and ancient, and of exceeding
great age {sicy^

^ • Bail — tutelle^ tuteur/ (Ducange's * Glossaire Fran9ois.')
' 'M^moire des H^ritiers de Gilles de Rais,' folio 6, recto
(cited by BossardX Setpasf, footnote, p. 140.



1 24 BLUEBEARD

Moreover, every original document, pertaining to
Gilles' career, in which mention is made of Jean de
Craon, describes the latter as aged, weak, and
indulgent. Yet what we know of his public life
shows him to have been a man of considerable
acumen, entrusted at times with important political
duties ; and the truth would seem to be that, on
finding himself the guardian of two high-spirited
and perhaps self-willed boys, his destined heirs, he
proved a doting grandfather, while still remaining a
man of good counsel and even energy in affairs of
state, one on whose assistance the Duke of Brittany
could rely in difficult circumstances. Briefly, he
must have been one of those men, by no means
rare, whose private and whose public life are in
some respects contradictory.

One of the very first matters to which Jean de
Craon gave attention, when Gilles and Ren6 de
Rais became his wards, was the finding of a wife
for the former. Gilles was a first-rate partly for on
reaching his majority he would come into possession
of the great bulk of his father's property, besides
eventually succeeding to most of Jean de Craon's
wealth ; for Ren6, being a younger son, was entided
to comparatively little. It would be very difficult,
if not impossible, to enumerate all the possessions
of Gilles at the outset of his career ; but some idea
of their extent may be gleaned from a few available
data. For instance there was first the barony of
Rais itself — the senior barony of Brittany — a great
stretch of country, bounded on the north by the



GILLES DE RAIS 125

Loire, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean ; and ex-
tending on the east to the farther shore of the Lac
de Grandlieu, and on the south to the frontier of
Poitou. The isle of Bouin likewise formed part
of the territory of Rais. Machecoul, which had
previously belonged to another house, but was now
included in the barony, was the principal fortress of
the region, which also numbered the castellanies of
L6g6 and St. l^tiehne de Mer-Morte on the south,
Bourgneuf and Pornic on the western coast, and
Vue near the Loire, whilst, in the interior, were
Prin9ay, La B6nate, and Prigny or Prign6.

The barony had long been r^arded as the key of
Brittany on its southern side, for Poitou and Brittany
as semi-independent States had more than once been
at war together. The soil was very fertile ; the salt
marshes on the coast yielded considerable revenues ;
while there was abundant plough-land and forest-
land on the banks of the Loire and in the direction
of Poitou and the Vendean Bocage. It is thought
that the region derived its name from a Gallic city,
Ratiastum or Ratiatum, the exact site of which has
not been ascertained. In the Latin of the Middle
Ages the barony is called Radesia and Radesie, and
in French Raiz, Rays, Rayx, and Rais. Ahh6
Bossard, who is here followed, states that Rais was
the prevailing form in the time of Gilles. It was
only in 1581, when the barony was raised to the
rank of a duchy in favour of the Gondi family, with
which Gilles had no connection whatever, that the
modern spelling, Retz, was introduced.



126 BLUEBEARD

But this great tract of country was not the only
possession of the fortunate Gilles. From his father
and his maternal grandfather — we here slightly
anticipate events — he inherited the lands and lord-
ships of Fontaine- Milon and Grattecuisse, the lands
and castles of Blaison, Chemill6, BrioUay, and
Loroux-Bottereau — all in Anjou ; the lands and
castles of Champtoc^ and I ngrandes, on the borders
of Anjou and Brittany ; the lands and lordships of
Ambrieres, St Aubin-de- Fosse- Lou vain, LaVoulte,
and S6n6ch6, in Maine ; and of Auzence, Clou^
Lignon, La Mauri^re, and Breuil-Magnon, with the
stronghold of La Motte Achard, in Poitou ; besides
the castles of Verri^res and Treilli^res in Brittany,
a house at Angers, and a splendid mansion, the
* H6tel de La Suze,* at Nantes ; whilst he even
levied certain tolls on the Loire, and a charge on
the revenues of the ducal forest of Broceliande.

Owner of or heir to all those lordships, lands,
and castles, the youthful Gilles could surely have no
difficulty in finding a damsel of high degree willing
to place her hand in his. Jean de Craon looked
about him, and on January 14, 141 7, when his ward
was only thirteen, he betrothed him to a Norman
maiden, Jeanne, daughter of Foulques Peynel, Lord
of Hambuie and Bricquebec. But no marriage
ensued, for Jeanne Peynel died. Then Jean de
Craon again looked around, and this time a splendid
alliance was arranged. A contract of marriage was
prepared between Gilles, Baron de Rais, and Beatrix,
the eldest daughter of Alain IX., Viscount de Rohan



GILLES DE RAIS 127

and Count de Porhoet, by his wife Marguerite,
daughter of Duke Jean IV. of Brittany. It was a
seemly match. The houses of Rohan and Laval
were already distantly allied, through the marriage
of a daughter of the famous Olivier de Clisson and
Katherine de Laval with Alain VIII. of Rohan.
Thus the contract was signed at Vannes in the
presence of the most illustrious members of the
Breton noblesse on November 28, 14 18. But, before
there could be any wedding, Beatrix de Rohan, like
Jeanne Peynel, died.

Some legendary accounts of Gilles de Rais say
that his grandfather chose two or three other Jianc^es
in turn, and that all were thus snatched away. In
Italy, in such a case, people would have regarded
both grandfather and grandson as possessed of the
evil eye. In Brittany and the adjacent province of
La Vendue, these numerous alleged betrothals,
always followed by the death of the fiancieSy gave
rise, in later days, to the tradition that Gilles had
been married repeatedly, and that all his brides,
save the last, had mysteriously disappeared. In
that one legend alone lay the germ of a • Bluebeard '
story. But tradition, in all likelihood, exaggerated
the facts, as it often does. One may admit the
possibility of Jean de Craon having sought other
brides for his grandson, between the two girls who
have been mentioned and the one who ultimately
became the young man's wife ; but, if so, history
has not preserved their names. In the interval,
moreover, Jean de Craon, as will be shown, had



128 BLUEBEARD

other and most important cares ; whilst Gilles
turned to that career of arms in which his grand-
father Brumor de Laval and his great grand-uncle
Bertrand du Guesclin had previously achieved
renown.

It was not, however, in order to charge the
English that the youth first learnt to couch his
lance, though they, at this time (1419), had been
prosecuting the conquest of France for some years.
And here, in order that the times in which Gilles
lived may be understood, it is as well to recall a few
famous historical events.

Henry V. of England had landed in Normandy
for the first time in August, 141 5, Agincourt had
followed in October of that year ; then the English
King had returned in 141 7, and by the middle of
the autumn had subjugated all Lower Normandy.
France was torn by dissensions ; plunged into
civil war by the rivalry of Jean-sans-Peur (John
the Fearless) of Burgundy and Bernard VII. of
Armagnac, the Constable of Charles VI., that
sorry King who had lost his reason, largely if not
entirely in consequence of the frantic debauchery
which had marked his earlier years, notably at the
time of a certain progress that he had made through
the South of France, when he had abandoned him-
self to excesses which had wrecked his frame and
impaired his intellect. Isabeau of Bavaria, his
wife, the memory of whose chaste and virginal
beauty at the time of her marriage is perpetuated
by a painting now in the galleries of the Louvre,



GILLES DE RAIS 129

had been polluted by her surroundings, and had
taken to courses similar to those of the King.
Removed from power by Bernard d'Armagnac, she
had escaped his control, and entered into an alliance
with Jean-sans-Peur, although the latter was the
murderer of her first and most notorious lover,
Louis d'Orleans, brother of the King, her husband.
And in May, 1418, the Burgundians had made
themselves masters of Paris. Bernard VII., dis-
guised as a beggar, had sought a refuge with some
poor citizen who had delivered him to his enemies.
The Armagnacs of the capital had then been
butchered, and Charles, the Dauphin and heir of
France, had fled to Bourges (June 21, 14 18) — all
this occurring while the English were making
steady progress.

Jean V., Duke of Brittany — which State had
remained virtually neutral both in the great inter-
necine struggle and the war with the English —
had twice endeavoured to patch up an s^reement
and alliance between the contending factions of
France, in order that they might present a united
front to the invaders ; but his efforts had proved
fruitless. Thus Henry V. had taken Rouen, and
made himself master of the whole of Normandy.
There had been conferences, in which Henry had
demanded the hand of Katherine, the young and
handsome daughter of Charles VI. and Isabeau.
And meanwhile the Dauphin, with Tanguy-Duchitel
as his Mardchal des guerres^ had carried on a desul-
tory warfare, occasionally with detachments of the

9



I30 BLUEBEARD

invaders, but chiefly against the partisans of the
Duke of Burgundy. Further attempts at a recon-
ciliation between the latter and the heir of France
had come to nothing. Finally the Duke had been
murdered at Montereau (September, 14 19), to the
great profit and advantage of the English King,
who, by the terms of a treaty between himself,
Charles VI., and Philip the Good, the new ruler of
Burgundy, covenanted to avenge the death of John
the Fearless. It was at this time that the Dauphin
betook himself to Languedoc in the hope of ensur-
ing its fidelity to his cause, while civil war suddenly
broke out in Brittany, as the result of the revival of
ancient feuds — a revival brought about by the action
of the Dauphin himself.

Even as France had been torn asunder by the
struggle between Burgundy and Armagnac, so
Brittany, indeed, had long been rent by the con-
tentions of the houses of Montfort and Penthi^vre.
Duke Artus II., who died in 1312, had been twice
married, and the century-old feud had originated in
the rival pretensions of the children of his two wives.
There had been wars, attended by various changes
of fortune, women on both sides embittering and
prolonging the struggle. At times the Penthi^vre
branch had seemed to triumph in the person of
Charles de Blois, the husband of its heiress ; but
Jean de Montfort, thanks to Chandos, was victorious
at Auray, and thereby secured recognition as the
sole sovereign Duke of Brittany. Yet Penthi^vre
did not entirely disarm ; and when Olivier de Clisson,



GILLES DE RAIS 131

Constable of France, who at the outset had been a
partisan of the house of Montfort, gave his daughter
Marguerite in marriage to Jean, son of Charles de
Blois, the feud acquired fresh force. Marguerite
brought up her four sons in hatred of the Montforts,
married the eldest, Olivier de Blois, to a daughter of
Jean-sans-Peur of Burgundy, and was at one moment
hopeful that the latter would place his son-in-law
in possession of the Breton throne. In the result
Jean V. of Brittany — of the Mont fort line — ravaged
many of the domains of the Penthi^vres (1409), and
brought English auxiliaries into the duchy to help
him to maintain his authority, by which means
Marguerite and her sons were temporarily restrained
from urging their claims, though their ambition re-
mained as great as ever.

It so happened that throughout this long struggle
the ancestors of Gilles de Rais had supported the
cause of the Penthi^vres. The Lords of Machecoul
and Rais, who belonged to South Brittany — and
those of Laval, who were allied to them by blood —
had fought, side by side with Charles de Blois,
Du Guesclin and Clisson, s^ainst the Montforts, who
had recruited their partisans chiefly in the northern
and eastern parts of the duchy. But when young
Gilles stepped upon the scene, in 1420, circum-
stances had changed, and one finds him, with most
of the old adherents of the Penthi^vres, ranged on
the side of Montfort against the heirs of Charles de
Blois.

The fact is a treacherous plot had beem devised

9—2



132 BLUEBEARD

against Duke Jean V. by Marguerite de Blois, act-
ing in conjunction with the Dauphin. The latter,
as Regent of France, had applied to Duke Jean for
a military contingent to assist him, less in fighting
the English than in contending with the Burgun-
dians ; and the Duke, who had previously striven
to reconcile the contending factions of France, had
not complied with the royal demand. The Dauphin
was anxious to revenge himself, and as he could not
do so personally by force of arms, he resorted to a
stratagem. He gave Marguerite de Blois sealed
letters, recognising as legitimate the claims of her
house to Brittany, and authorizing Olivier de Blois,
Count de Penthi^vre, her son, to seize and hold the
person of Duke Jean, he having shown himself to
be a rebel and enemy of the kingdom by his refusal
to succour his liege lord.

The Duke was trapped. At that time he did not
suspect the machinations of the Penthi^vres, who
feigned all friendship and loyalty ; and when Olivier,
on his mother s behalf, invited him to their castle of
Champtoceaux on the Loire, near Ancenis, barely
two days* ride from Nantes, he repaired thither in
all confidence. The Duke was young (about one-
and-thirty), with fair hair and attractive features —
* a right handsome and amorous prince,' says one of
the old chroniclers ; and Marguerite de Blois, it
seems, proposed to lure him into captivity by pro-
mising him the society of some * young, beautiful
and lively damsels.'^ Indeed, to quote another old

^ 'Preuves de THistotre de Bretagne,' etc., by Dom Morice,
ToL i., p. 476.



GILLES DE RAIS 133

chronicler, on being asked to repair to Champto-
ceaux, he was told that he would find there * a
gracious banquet, and would be served by the most
comely damsels he could wish for, and would have
right pleasant pastime ; to which the Duke willingly
condescended.'^

But by an artful stratagem Duke Jean was sepa-
rated from his escort. On approaching Champ-
toceaux it was necessary to cross a wooden bridge,
thrown over a little river, La Divatte. Olivier de
Blois had caused the planks of this bridge to be
loosened, and, on reaching it with the Duke, he
began to jest about its bad condition. As it was
impossible to ride across, Olivier, Jean V., and the
latter's younger brother, Richard, with one or two
servants, dismounted, taking their way on foot over
the loose planks. Then, before the ducal escort
could follow, some of Olivier's men, still jesting,
flung the boards into the water. Thus the Duke
could not retreat, nor could his guards join him.
And now, instead of 'young, beautiful, and lively
damsels ' and ' right pleasant pastime,' Jean V. found
himself confronted by Olivier's brother Charles, with
forty horsemen, who carried him to a dungeon, and
provided him with coarse fare in lieu of ' a gracious
banquet.'

Had he thought more of his devoted wife arid
less of the belles damoyselleSy he might have escaped
this unpleasant adventure ; but it would be difficult



1 (



Les Grandes Cronicques,' etc, by Alain Bouchard.



134 BLUEBEARD

to name any prince of that age who really had any
inclination to conjugal fidelity.

Brittany, however, rose at the news of its Duke's
imprisonment, and on February 23. 1420, we find
Gilles de Rais, with his grandfather, Jean de Craon,
attending the States - General of the duchy and
swearing on the cross to employ their bodies and
their estates, and to g^ve their whole hearts and
even the last drop of their blood to effect the
deliverance of their prince. Duke Jean's wife,
Jeanne of France, sister of the Dauphin, appeared
before the States in tears, with her two young
children beside her, and spoke to the Breton nobles,
even as, some centuries later, Maria Theresa spoke
to the magnates of Hungary. And the Breton
nobles acclaimed her, vowed to die for her, and
promised her every assistance. The young Lord
of Rais arose, and offered money and men ; Alain
de Rohan was appointed Lieutenant-General ; and it
was settled that an Embassy should proceed to
England to beg the release of the Duke's brother,
the gallant young Artus de Richemont, who had
been a prisoner there since Agincourt, in order that
Brittany might have the advantage of his services
in this hour of trial. The Duchess Jeanne wrote
personally to Henry V., entreating him at least to
lend her Artus for a time, if he would not release
him altogether.

But the Penthi^vres, full of hope, and relying on
the promises of the Dauphin, who was now in
Languedoc, invaded and ravaged the barony of Rais



GILLES DE RAIS 135

and the possessions of Jean de Craon, south oi the
Loire, whilst carrying the unhappy Duke of Brittany
and his brother from castle to castle in Anjou,
Poitou, and even Saintonge. Duke Jean showed
no great courage, it is said, but he had reason to
fear the worst from his captors, in whom was per-
sonified the hatred of a hundred years. And thus
it is not surprising that he should have offered to
consent to anything provided that his life were
spared. Further, that in return for salvation on
earth, he should have vowed to make the most costly
presents to famous shrines, to give his weight in
gold to the church of the Carmelites at Nantes, and
his weight in silver to St. Yves of Tr6guier, and
even to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre,
was, after all, but natural in that age, when super-
stition was still so prevalent. More practical, per-
haps, was his promise (of the piecrust variety) that
he would never more ask his subjects for subsidies
if they would only deliver him. They certainly
made all efforts to do so, and if the Penthievres
carried the Duke — tied to a horse and half starving
— from castle to castle, night being the time selected
for these journeys, it was in order to deceive and
elude his partisans.

A force of 50,000 Bretons, it is asserted, had
responded to the call of Alain de Rohan. Among
the leading contributors to that host was young
Gilles de Rais, who marched at the head of his own
levies and his grandfather s vassals. The strength
of the force equipped at his expense, the splendour



136 BLUEBEARD

of his armour and equipage, the gallantry displayed
by this boy in his sixteenth year, attracted universal
attention. Flatterers already flocked around him
and fanned his ambition and vanity.

While the barony of Rais was being ravaged,
and Gilles' castle of La Motte-Achard in Poitou
fell into the hands of the enemy, the latter's strong-
holds of Lamballe and Guingamp were besieged.
Both ultimately surrendered, and then La Roche-
Derrien, Jugon, Ch&teaulin, and Broon in like
manner opened their gates. Finally the partisans
of Jean V. directed all their efforts against Champ-
toceaux, to which fortress Marguerite de Clisson
had at last retired with her family and the captive
Duke. She ended by capitulating and surrendering
her prisoner, though some accounts say that she
only did so by the advice of the Dauphin, who had.
thrown her over. At all events, on July 5, 1420,
her son Jean, Sire de TAigle, came forth from
Champtoceaux in all humility, and handed the Duke
of Brittany over to his subjects. Marguerite and
her forces, to whom the honours of war had been
accorded, were suffered to depart ; and Duke Jean V.,
having issued orders that the fortress should be
razed to the ground, made a triumphal entry into
Nantes. In the rejoicings which ensued there was
no more conspicuous personage than the youthful
Gilles de Rais, all splendour and prodigality.

Various confiscated lands were assigned, by way
of recompense, to him and Jean de Craon, the Duke
declaring that he knew not how-to requite their



GILLES DE RAIS 137

services ;^ and in some respects the proffered
rewards were excessive, for the Breton Parliament,
while acknowledging the good and loyal conduct of
Rais and La Suze (as Jean de Craon was called),
remonstrated, and, eventually, annual charges on
various revenues were granted in lieu of territory —
of which, assuredly, both Gilles and his grandfather
already had quite enough.

In that same hour of victory a wife was found for
the young Sire de Rais. On the limits of Poitou
and Brittany, near the boundaries of his own fiefs,
were several large and rich domains destined to pass
into the possession of a girl of high lineage, an only
child, who was of much the same age as Gilles. This
girl was Katherine de Thouars, daughter of Miles
de Thouars and Beatrix de Montjean. And her
inheritance comprised the important and wealthy
barony of Tiffauges, and the lordship and castle of
Pouzauges, both in La Vendue ; with Savenay in
Brittany, near the Loire, between Nantes and St.
Nazaire ; Grez-sur-Maine ; and Confolens, Chaba-
nais, Chiteaumorant, Lombert, and other lordships
in Poitou. Young Gilles, on his side a high-born
and wealthy noble, who, however few his years, had
already borne himself gallantly in the wars, and had
been complimented and rewarded by the Duke of
Brittany, was regarded as a very fit suitor for
Katherine's hand. He was promptly accepted, and
the marriage was celebrated on the last day of

^ ' Cartulaire des Sires de Rais,' Nos. 16 and 249. See note,
p. 140.



138 BLUEBEARD

November, 1420, Gilles then being rather more
than sixteen years of age — not fourteen, afi Vallet
de Viriville surmised.^

But the Penthifevres, though sorely worsted, were
not yet absolutely crushed. On being summoned
to appear and answer for their conduct before the
States of Brittany, which again assembled at Vannes
about the end of 1420 — both Gilles and his g^rand-
father attending as councillors of the duchy*-they
entered no appearance. Jean V., indulgendy enough,
prorogued the States twice in order that the leaders
of the vanquished faction might attend ; but they
either disdained or feared to do so. Thereupon,
at the last meeting of the States, February 25, 142 1,
all their property in Brittany was confiscated, to be
divided by the Duke among his relations and friends.
To carry the decree into full effect, it was once more
necessary to appeal to arms. Gilles de Rais there-
fore quitted his bride to attach himself, with the
Lords of Rohan, Rieux, and Laval, to the person of
Artus de Richemont, whom Henry V. of England^
had released on parole. However, Clisson and Les
Essarts, the two strongholds remaining to the
Perithi^vres, were very speedily reduced, and the

1 « Histoire de Charles VII.,' etc., by Vallet de ViriviUe. Paris,
1863, vol. ii., p. 412.

^ They were almost related, for Artus de Richemont, like Dake
Jean V., was the son of Jeanne de Navarre by her first husband,
the Duke of Brittany, after whose death she became the second wife
of our Henry IV. By her influence with her stepson (Henry V.)
the captivity of her son, Artus de Richemont, in England was
made supportable.



GILLES DE RAIS 139

duchy of Brittany was then for ever lost to that
tenaciously ambitious house. On February 16, 1422,
the Breton Parliament^ declared the Penthifevres to
be gfuilty of felony, treason, and Use-majesU : con-
demned them to decapitation, and ordered that their
heads should be set in turn upon the gates of Nantes,
Rennes, and Vannes ; excluded them and their de-
scendants in perpetuity from all honours in the
duchy ; prohibited them from bearing the name and
arms of Brittany, and once again pronounced the
confiscation of all their belongings. They escaped
death by avoiding Breton territory, to which — as a
price was set upon their heads — they never returned.
But if war was in this wise brought to an end
in Brittany, it still raged in France, where the
Dauphin, with little apparent hope of success, was
struggling s^ainst the victorious English. In that
struggle Gilles de Rais was to take part after the
lapse of a few more years, which he doubtless spent
in Brittany, Anjou, and Poitou, leading for the most
part a life of pleasure, and contracting habits of
prodigality. At least this is the only inference to
be drawn from certain passs^es in a document which
has been previously cited — the 'M^moire' of his
heirs after his death. In one part of it we read :
'The said Messire Gilles ... by the inducement
and counsel of certain of his servants and others,
who desired to enrich themselves with his wealth,

^ Not a legislature but a court of justice, which (as shown on
p. 137) had the right of remonstrating when the ducal edicts were
against the common weal.



I40 BLUEBEARD

did take unto himself the government of all his
lands.' Further on, this statement is repeated and
emphasised. We are told that Gilles was ' so
swayed by the falsity, craft, and malice of his ser-
vants that he took in hand the rule and management
of his lands and lordships ; and from that moment
did with them as he pleased, without seeking the
advice of his grandfather, or listening to him further
in any respect' He is said to have been twenty,
or thereabouts, at this time, but it is virtually cer-
tain that he was a year or two youngen As a noble
he would probably have attained his majority on
reaching his eighteenth birthday. That he found
himself in very bad hands is repeatedly evidenced
by the * M^moire.* For instance, nothing could be
more significant than these words : * He was ever
pressed by the counsel and the exhortations of those
who were around him, and who wished to enrich
themselves at his cost* And again : * He was
seduced by the false craft and damnable covetous-
ness of his servants.'^

Unfortunately, we have no precise information
respecting his doings at this period, which must
have strongly influenced his subsequent life. Sur-
rounded by parasites and flatterers, he disappears
from view, and only comes into prominence again
when he has nearly completed his twenty-first year.

^ ' M^moire des H^ritiers/ etc., and Letters Patent of
Charles VII. under date January 13, 1446, in the ' Cartulaire des
Sires de Rais ' (now at Serrant), published by M. Paul March^;ay
in the 'Revue des Proirinces de POuest,' Nantes, 1853-6.



II

1425— 1434-5-

THE PATH OF GLORY — GILLES AND JOAN OF ARC —
THE CLOSE OF GILLES' MILITARY CAREER

The Anglo-French War — Cravant and Verneuil — Gilles at St
James-de-Beuvron — Malestroit, Chancellor of Brittany — Gilles
at Rainefort, Malicome and Le Lude — The French chased by
Talbot— The Crisis of Charles VIL's Fortunes— The Royal
Favourite, La Tr^mouille — The Maid of Orleans — Joan and
Gilles — A Curious Compact — The Relief of Orleans — The
Fight at Patay — The Coronation at Rheims — Gilles created
Marshal of France — He escorts the Holy Oil — Charles VII.
and Joan of Arc — ^The March on Paris — Gilles and the Maid
at the Attack on the St. Honor^ Gate— The Withdrawal to the
Loire — ^The Arms of France granted to Gilles — His Associa-
tion with the Maid — His Expedition to Louviers — His Presence
at Beauvais and Lagny — He fights at Sill6 and Conlie — His
Withdrawal from Active Command — His Military Services and
the Historians.

The years during which one loses sight of Gilles de
Rais were gloomy ones for France and the French
monarchy. The death of Henry V. of England on
August 31, 1422, and that of the wretched Charles VI.
towards the end of the following month of October,
in no wise tended to improve the circumstances
of the unlucky King of Bourge^, as the Dauphin-



142 BLUEBEARD

regent was derisively called. John of Lancaster,
Duke of Bedford, governed the northern provinces
of France on behalf of the infant Henry VL; and
the English work of conquest proceeded steadily,
helped by the alliance with Burgundy, into which
unholy compact Brittany seemed likely to enter;
for Duke Jean V. was sorely embittered against the
Dauphin, who, contrary to repeated promises, had
failed to dismiss from his council and court the
various personages compromised in the enterprise
of the Penthievres.

Thus, at the moment when Henry V. was near
his death, Breton ambassadors arrived in Paris, and
a little later arrangements were made with Bedford,
by which Brittany engaged to help the English to
secure possession of La Rochelle. The Dauphin,
however, heard of what was brewing, and, in his
anxiety — for La Rochelle was the only port by
which he could communicate with his allies of Scot-
land and Castille — he hurried to that city, and placed
it in a state of defence. The Anglo- Breton designs
were frustrated ; and when the royal levies of Sain-
tonge found that a Breton force had crossed the
frontier, they attacked and defeated it at Montaigu
(October, 1422), driving it back into the neighbour-
ing barony of Rais. It is not known whether Gilles
was present on that occasion, but the geographical
position of his territory points to the conclusion that
the measures against La Rochelle were concerted

there. ^

^ Massiou's ' Histoire de Saintonge,' vol iL, part 2, p. a6i ;
Thibaudeau's ' Histoire de Poitou,' vol. ii., p. 4.



GILLES DE RAIS 143

In spite of the failure of that enterprise, Brittany
and England remained on good terms, and it seemed
more probable than ever that the former would give
the latter active support, especially as about Easter,
1423, Artus de Richemont, brother of the Breton
Duke, wedded one of the two daughters of the Duke
of Burgundy, her sister at the same time being
espoused by Bedford. Thus the position of the
Dauphin-regent, or Charles VII., as he may hence-
forth be called, appeared more and more desperate.
Before long, moreover, his forces sustained two
memorable defeats. The first was at Cravant, on
July 31, 1423, when the Franco-Scottish army, led
by the Marshal de S6v6rac and James Stuart, Lord
Damley, was totally defeated by the Anglo- Bur-
gundians under Salisbury, Suffolk, and Jean de
Toulongeon. Yet more disastrous for the French
arms was the Battle of Verneuil, on August 17,
1424 — a battle less familiar to Englishmen than
Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, but as well worthy
of remembrance as any of those famous fights.
Bedford led the Anglo-Normans, some 14,000
strong, and did powerful execution in the fray.
The French King's army of 20,000 men — chiefly
Scots, Lombards, and Spaniards — was decimated by
the English archers. Most of its leaders fell, and
with them 9,000 of their men, Bedford's losses being
estimated at about one-third of that number.^

After that * bloody daye of old Vernoyle ' the
cause of Charles VII. seemed almost hopeless. He
^ Vallet de Viriville^ /.r., vol iL, pp. 412-418.



144 BLUEBEARD

had as yet shown none of the high qualities which
marked the latter part of his reign. Supine and
indolent, he left everything to favourites, and had
it not been for the intervention of three women,
Yolande d'Aragon, Joan of Arc, and Agnes Sorel,
who between them ended by making almost a great
ruler of him — so true it is that certain men are
entirely the work of women — he would^ perhaps,
now figure in history as one of the very weakest
princes that ever reigned.

In the crisis of his fortunes it was Yolande
d'Aragon, his mother-in-law, who came forward
with good advice. Artus de Richemont, scurvily
treated by the Duke of Bedford, had retired, in
high dudgeon, into Brittany ; and Yolande pre-
vailed on Charles to send for him and create
him Constable of France. This — in spite of the
opposition of the favourites and other obstacles —
was effected in March, 1425, and it has been sur-
mised by some writers that Gilles de Rais then
accompanied Richemont to the French court There
is no proof of it, however ; indeed, Gilles* adhesion
to the French cause appears to date from Sep-
tember 8, 1425, when, in the company of his grand-
father, Jean de Craon, he was present at an inter-
view between Charles VII. and Duke Jean V. at
Saumur. After the appointment of Richemont and
the negotiation of a truce with Burgundy, Yolande
d'Aragon had employed Jean de Craon in the
delicate task of drawing France and Brittany
together, and the Saumur interview was the result



GILLES DE RAIS 145

of Craon's diplomacy,^ Chiarles VII, having solemnly
undertaken, once again, to remove from his court
the favourites and other personages inimical to the
Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, besides formally
disavowing all connection with the sequestration of
Duke Jean V. by the Penthifevres.

It is n(OW, then, that we find Gilles de Rais con-
sorting with the French court Handsome, clever,
possessed of a ready wit, and — what was of far more
importance in those days — a very large fortune, it is
certain that he was well received by the nobles who
surrounded Charles VII. But he did not linger
among the pleasures of Saumur or Chinon. Ever
since the earlier part of 1425, Richemont had been
endeavouring to raise men in Brittany — a task
attended by considerable difficulties until the recon-
ciliation of Saumur. Now, however (February,
1426), Jean V. himself desired active hostilities
against the English, particularly as they had seized
Le Mans, the appanage of his ward and son-in*law,
Louis III. of Sicily, Duke of Anjou and Count of
Maine. Thus the young Baron of Rais was able to
come forward, raise seven companies of men at his
own expense, and join the banner of Richemont.

He fought for the French cause for the first time
at the attack on St James-de-Beuvron, a little town
on the Norman frontier (between Avranches and
Foug^res), which, with its castle built by William
the Conqueror, was held by three English captains —

^ Chartier's 'Troubles sous Charles VII.* Nevers, 1553, p. 53
(cited by Bossard).

10



146 BLUEBEARD

Ramston, Branch, and Burdett, who commanded
some 700 men. Richemont had perhaps 16,000
followers; but they were raw Breton levies, and
when some of the English soldiery stole out of
the stronghold and appeared on one of their flanks
with shouts of 'Salisbury and St George!* the
Bretons, imagining that a large English relieving
force was at hand, were seized with panic, and fled,
despite the efforts of Richemont and his captains.
Many were drowned in their flight, others were put
to the sword, and the English took possession of
eighteen banners and immense booty.

Jean de Malestroit, Chancellor of Brittany and
Bishop of Nantes, said to be an accomplice of the
English, with whom, it appear, he had often n^o-
tiated on behalf of the duchy, and from whom he
had received a pension and lands in Normandy,
was openly accused of having planned or helped on
this disgraceful rout ; and when Richemont, who
with a few captains remained on the lost field till
midnight, returned to Rennes, he caused Malestroit
to be arrested. The Chancellor, however, escaped
punishment by dint of excuses, protests, and
promises.^ The incident has been mentioned here
because this same Jean de Malestroit in after-years
sat in judgment on Gilles de Rais. He will appear
more than once in this narrative, for if it is im-
portant that the reader should be made acquainted

1 Guillaume Gruel's * M^oires de Richemont,* p. 364^. V. de
Viriville, /.r., voL ii., p. 15. < Le Conn^table de Richemont/ by
£. Cosneau, Paris, 1886, 8vo., p. 121.



GILLES DE RAIS i47

with the character of Gilles, the culprit, it is also
essential that something should be said of the
character of his judge.

After the disaster of St James, the Duke of
Brittany sued the Earl of Suffolk, then the English
Lieutenant in Lower Normandy, for a three months'
truce, which was granted on onerous conditions, and
not renewed. Moreover, if the English for a time
refrained from invading Brittany, they carried war
yet farther into Maine, where they seized several
castles, including La Suze, then belonging to Jean de
Craon, and afterwards to Gilles* brother Ren6.
About the end of 1426 various French forces were
disposed in this region in order to resist the English
advance. There was one body of men under
Ambroise de Lor6, a second under the Sire de
Beaumanoir, and a third under Gilles de Rais,^ who
acted on some occasions independently, and at times
in conjunction with the others. The chief duty of
these captains appears to have been the defence of
the country around La F16che, but they also made
frequent efforts to retake the various neighbouring
fortresses which the English had occupied.

Richemont repaired to the region after the relief
of Montargis, at which the English were badly
beaten by that energetic rascal La Hire and the
young Bastard of Orleans. The Constable drove
the enemy out of Galerande,^ while Ambroise de

* Jean Chartier's * Chronique de Charles VII.,' etc., Elzevir
edition, Paris, 1858, 8vo., vol. i., p. 51 et seq,

* Near Chateaugontier (Mayenne).



148 BLUEBEARD

Lor6, directing his efforts on Rainefort,^ assaulted
that castle with such good effect that he had already
carried a part of the boulevard or rampart when night
set in. At ten on the following morning the English
garrison agreed to surrender on the morrow if no
succour should then have reached it; but a few
hours later Gilles de Rais and Beaumanoir arrived
to reinforce De Lor6» and capitulation was then no
longer delayed. The English were spared, but some
French renegades among them were hanged by the
orders of Gilles, in spite of De Lor6*s remonstrances.

In this connection it may be mentioned that both
Henry V. and the Duke of Bedford had more than
once made examples of those who, after swearing
allegiance to England, had* passed over to the other
side. Indeed, all such renegades are, by the uss^^es
of war, liable to the death penalty.

Rainefort having been reoccupied, Gilles and
Beaumanoir marched on Malicorne, near La Fl^che ;
but this fortress resisted stubbornly until first De
Lor6, and then the Sire de Chartres, arrived upon
the scene with powerful artillery. Malicorne was
cannonaded and assaulted, but only at the last
extremity did the English captain capitulate. He
and his compatriots were held to ransom ; ' but those
of the language of France who had surrendered to
the said Lords of Rais and Beaumanoir were all
hanged.'^

^ ' M6moires concemant la Pucelle' (Petitot), vol. viii., p. 129.

' Bourdign^'s ' Chroniques d'Anjou et de Maine,' 1529 (Quatre-
barbes' and Faultrier's reprint). Angers, 1842, voL ii., p. 155.
J. Chartier, /.r., vol i., p. 53.



GILLES DE RAIS 149

From this time Gilles and Beaumanoir are con-
stantly found together. It would seem that they
were not only of much the same age and disposi-
tion, but that some ties of relationship existed
between them. They are found joining De Lori
at Ambriferes, where they again defeat a small Eng-
lish force ; and soon afterwards they appear under
the walls of Le Lude, one of the region's strongest
castles, situated on the left bank of the Loire. Here
the English captain, Blackburne by name, had re-
solved to fight to the last extremity, and in order to
reduce Le Lude artillery again had to be employed.
At last the assault was given, led by Gilles de Rais
in person. He was the first to reach the summit
of the rampart, where, encountering Blackburne, he
fought and slew him. The English, seeing their
captain fall, speedily surrendered.^

The capture of Le Lude opened the road to Le
Mans, whose inhabitants were eager to throw off
the foreign rule; but an enterprise on that city
could only prove successful if it were undertaken
by a large force. This was brought together by
Guillaume d'Albret and La Hire, joined by Beau-
manoir, Rais, and others. Talbot, who commanded
at Le Mans, was momentarily absent at Alen9on,
and, with the connivance of the inhabitants, the
French, towards the end of May, 1428, made them-
selves masters of the town after very little resist-
ance. But the English garrison, which withdrew

* Bourdign^, /.r., vol. ii., p. 156. 'Chronique de la Pucelle*
(Biblioth^ue Gauloise), p. 250. J. Chartier, /.r., vol. i., p. 57.



150 BLUEBEARD



»,:



into a part of the fortifications, sent messages to
Talbot, who at once set out with all his forces. His
advance guard, under Matthew Gough, arrived at
Le Mans before dawn, thus surprising the French,
who had spent the previous day drinking heavily,
and were in no fit condition to fight They fled,
chased to Le Lude by Talbot, who afterwards put
to death those inhabitants of Le Mans by whom
they had been admitted to the city.^

With this discomfiture, the share of Gilles de Rais
in the campaign seems to have ended. He was now
altogether in the French service, for the Duke of
Brittany had long previously ceased to support the
cause of Charles VH. Bedford, enraged by the
Breton attempt on St, James-de-Beuvron, had sent
Warwick and Talbot against Brittany early in 1427,
and Jean de Malestroit, the Bishop-Chancellor, *a
traitor sold to the English, '^ had speedily come to
terms with them. Finally, in January, 1428, Jean V.
had acknowledged Henry VL as his only li^e lord,
and disowned all alliance with France ; Scales and
Talbot repairing on this occasion to Nantes, where
the Duke — a puppet in the hands of the wily
Malestroit — loaded them with gifts by way of pur-
chasing their forbearance.^

Thus Charles VII. was again reduced to his own

* V. de Viriville, /.r., vol. ii., p. 27.

* /did., vol L, p. 480. Cosneau, /.r., p. 121.

^ The Lavals, the Lord of Rais, the Viscount of Rohan and
the Bishop of St. Malo refused the oath to the English. (Letters
patent of Charles VIL, Loches, June 28, 1428.) Cosneau, /^^
p. 531.



GILLES DE RAIS 151

resources, and never had his position been more
critical. The Duke of Bedford having decided to
carry the war beyond the Loire, the Earl of Salis-
bury marched triumphantly on Orleans, reducing, as
he proudly wrote to the City of London, forty towns,
castles, or fortresses on his line of march. At last,
on October 12, 1428, the memorable siege of Orleans
began. Who was to save France ? Richemont,
the Constable, a brave captain, whom fortune had
deserted at St James-de-Beuvron, was no longer
beside Charles VII.; for he had not only acquired
the surname of the Justiciar, but had also incurred
the royal distrust by his summary treatment of the
favourites, some of whom he had driven away,
whilst others — the infamous Pierre de Giac and the
aspiring Le Camus de Beaulieu — had been put to
death by his commands. In the result, a third
favourite, George de La Tr^mouille, fearing that
his own influence might have a similar ending, had
induced Charles VII. to exile Richemont from the
court, and deprive him of active command.

In the Constable's absence, however. La Tr^-
mouille was not the man to take his place. He, the
favourite, was no captain. In that age, which,
whilst warlike and bloodthirsty, was also full of
intrigue, venality, and grasping egotism. La Tr^-
mouille, like Philip of Burgundy, represented the
latter characteristics. Yet Vallet de Viriville has
assuredly painted him blacker than he really was.
It is exaggeration to r^ard him as a Burgundian
henchman, treacherously installed by the side of the



152 BLUEBEARD

French King. He played his own game, not that
of Duke Philip. Possessed of a natural talent for
intrigue and diplomacy, he was essentially an egotist,
a jouisseur^ fond of pleasure and particularly of
money. That he w^s venal is certain — he is known
to have practised usury, to have built himself a large
fortune on the ruins of his country ; but, whatever
may have been his jealousy of others, his enemies
have assuredly gone too far in basing on three or
four coincidences a theory that he planned the ruin
and downfall of Joan of Arc from the very hour of
her advent. His disastrous management of public
affairs is amply explained by the fact that he was
a diplomatist, not a soldier. And what France
needed in that terrible crisis was a captain of genius.
No diplomacy could cope with the wily arts of
Philip of Burgundy, or prevent the progress of the
English, whose banners, now planted about the
Loire, might soon advance into Southern France.

But already at that hour the saviour of the
country had arisen. In a little village by the
Meuse, in the remote province of Lorraine, there
was a maid in her seventeenth year, a tall, comely,
thoroughly healthy, strong and active girl, one with
a winning, kindly heart, one who was never idle,
who helped her mother in her housework, and spent
long hours sewing and spinning beside her, one, too,
who went into the fields and put her hand to plough
and harrow whenever occasion required, and who at
other times led the sheep of the villagers to pasture.
She was no sickly weakling like Bemadette of



.*



GILLES DE RAIS 153

■w.

Lourdes, she was no mystic even in the sense in
which that word is often taken ; yet visions had
come to her, and she had heard commands. The
voice that spake to her was the voice of a sensitive
conscience and of untutored genius — natural genius,
dawning triumphantly in a pure and pious mind.
The visions she beheld were in like way the splendid
visions of genius, blended with the most trustful, the
most fervent religious faith. And the genius arising
in that young maid was that of the most ardent and
courageous patriotism. For long years, amidst the
rivalries and jealousies, the eager and conflicting
passions of princes and nobles, the real question at
issue in those dolorous and bloody days had been
lost sight of, simple though it was. And she came
forward to bring it back to recollection. Was
France to belong to its own children, or was it to
pass for ever under the sway of the Anglo-Saxons ?
* France for the French ' — ^such, virtually, was the
answer of Joan of Arc. And, though the end came
long after her cruel martyrdom, she it was who saved
France, who saved her race. In her, indeed, glowed
the flame which, in another supreme moment of
French history, shone in Danton. Long before his
time she was the apostle of audacity. * De I'audace,
encore de I'audace, toujours de Taudace ' — and, not
miracles, but marvels would follow !

* Brief, brave, and glorious was her young career ;'
and she is still so near to us that when we think of
what she did and what she suffered, epopceia ceases
to be fantasy and becomes reality. Joan, all uncon-



154 BLUEBEARD

scious of it, was a poet in action. Her few years
formed a splendid pathetic living epic, soaring to the
very acme of earthly glory, ending in the most dire of
human sufferings. As for the men who sent her to
her death, they were less to blame than was the
cruel, revengeful, and superstitious age in which
they lived. When one remembers how low Chris-
tianity was allowed to sink by those who had taken
on themselves to diffuse and guide it, one marvels
that it should ever have revived, ever have attained
again even to semi-purity.

Fascinating, however, as is the story of the Maid
of Orleans, this is not the place to tell it in detail.
Nor would it be necessary to recapitulate its chief
features — which are almost as well known to English
as to French children^ — if it were not for the fact
that throughout a considerable period Gilles de Rais
figured prominently by the side of Joan, in such wise
that one is forced to tread well-worn ground in order
to make the narrative of his career intelligible. It
was early in March, 1429, when Joan reached
Chinon, saw Charles VII., and told him of her

^ Should this book fall by chance into the hands of any French
readers, it is as well perhaps that they should know that the story
of Joan of Arc, in its broad lines, is taught in English Board and
National Schools, and is thus as familiar to the young of this
country as is the story of King Alfred and the cakes. The writer
has questioned several children on the subject, and has been both
surprised and pleased by the knowledge and sympathy displayed
by them. This ought to show French Anglophobists in some
measure how absurd it is on their part to cast Joan, her exploits,
and her death, as a menace and a reproach at the English of the
twentieth century.



GILLES DE RAIS 155

mission. After being taken to Poitiers and interro-
gated there, she returned to Chinon with the King
about the end of the month. The expedition for
the relief of Orleans had now been decided on, and
an establishment and a command were assigned to
Joan. At this moment, according to some accounts,
the duty of watching over her and protecting her —
apart, of course, from the immediate services of her
squire and other personal attendants — was assigned
to the young Baron of Rais, who was also to com-
mand a part of the relieving forces. Abb6 Bossard
insists even that, as Gilles discharged the afore-
mentioned duty, he must have been selected for it
by Joan herself, and in support of that contention
the Abb6 quotes the * Geste des Nobles,' which
shows the Maid asking ' that, to serve as her escort,
it might please the King to grant her such men,
and in such number, as she might request* The
* Chronique de la Pucelle '^ adds : ' Then the King
ordered that whatever she might ask should be
given unto her ; and afterwards the Maid took leave
of the King to go to the city of Orleans.'

It is said, however, that Joan repaired to St.
Florent and Tours whilst the military preparations
were being made at Blois, and one must therefore
assume (if the story be true) that Gilles only entered
on protective duties — such as were subsequently

^ V. de Viriville's edition, p. 280. Bossard also cites ' Proems
de Jeanne d'Arc,' J. Chartier, voL iv., pp. 41-53; Monstrelet,
voL iv., p. 363; Jean de Wavrin, p. 407; 'Chronique de la
Pucelle' (Biblioth^ue Gauloise), p. 278.



156 BLUEBEARD

assigned to Alen^on — ^when the Maid arrived there
on April 25, with Regnault de Chartres (Chancellor
of France) and the Sire de Gaucourt.

On the 8th day of that month, before leaving
Chinon for Blois, Rais entered into a curious engage-
ment with the royal favourite La Trimouille, an
engagement which has been the subject of con-
siderable speculation. 'Gilles, Lord of Rais and
Pouzauges,' says the deed,^ ' engages on his honour
to observe inviolable fidelity towards George, Lord
of La Tr^mouille, Sully and Craon,^ for the King's
service.' In recognition of the 'great rewards,
honours, and acts of courtesy ' for which he has to
thank the favourite, he swears ' to serve him until
death against all lords and others of whatever estate
they be, always with regard to the good grace and
love of the King.*

Some writers have thought that this deed was
connected with a plot — even at that early stage
— against Joan of Arc, who undoubtedly was not
regarded with favour by certain prominent person-
ages. But, leaving the Maid altogether on one side,
the document is amply accounted for by the dis-
trustful and jealous disposition of La Trdmouille. It
was in all likelihood a precaution taken by him to deter
the young and flighty Gilles — at a moment when with
the favourite's sanction, and probably by his help, he

^ Cited by Bossard. There is a copy among Dom Fonteneau's
MSS. at Poitiers (Redet's Catalogue, No. 329), which copy is said
to be from the original at Thouars.

^ La Tr^mouille was a distant kinsman of Jean de Craon and of

Gilles.



GILLES DE RAIS 157

was being entrusted with an important command —
from entering into any conspiracies with other nobles.
There is nothing to show that La Tr^mouille then
hated the Maid, though, like many others, he
probably doubted her assertions, for she had not
yet won her spurs. But, on the other hand, he,
the favourite, was unpopular among many who ap-
proached Charles VI I. And, again, the deed may
have been directed more particularly against Riche-
mont, the Constable, who was very desirous of
quitting his retirement and exercising a command
now that active warfare was imminent Richemont
and Rais had been on friendly terms, and La Tr6-
mouille may have wished to prevent the latter from
using his new rank, as one of the chief captains of
the French forces, in the dreaded Constable's interest
In that respect, however, Rais remained indepen*
dent ; at a later stage he even helped Richemont to
return for a brief period to the royal service. Thus if
— ^in order to secure command — he did covenant to act
as La Tr^mouille's ' man and spy ' on the expedition
to Orleans, it is certain that he afterwards attached
very little importance to his undertaking. Princes
and nobles, it may be added, were constantly enter-
ing into solemn covenants and breaking them in
those suspicious and changing times.

Orleans was reached safely, and Joan entered the
city ; Rais apparently being among those who
returned to Blois for fresh supplies, artillery and
ammunition. But he participated in the desperate
fighting, and was certainly with the Maid during the



158 BLUEBEARD

various attacks on the fortresses held by the English
around Orleans.^ Some chroniclers say he hurried
to her side to succour her when she was wounded
in the breast by an arrow at the memorable assault
of Les Tourelles. Again, when the si^e was raised,
Gilles was one of those who strongly advised that
the Loire region should be purged of the English
before any attempt were made to carry the King to
Reims for his coronation. This is shown by the
* Mystery of the Siege of Orleans,' which by reason
of Gilles's share in its production — of which further
mention will be made hereafter — may be regarded
in some respects as a historical document

It is also beyond question that the young captain
rendered important services in the reduction of the
town of Jargeau, when, after a desperate onslaught
gallantly led by the Maid, the English were over-
come and Suffolk was taken prisoner. A State
document^ shows that Charles VII. afterwards
granted to the Baron of Rais 'the sum of i,ooo
livres to recompense him for the great expenditure
he had incurred by assembling, according to agree-
ment, a certain large body of men-of-arms and bow-
men, whom he had kept at his own expense and
employed for the service of the King and in the
company of the Maid, in order to reduce to obe-
dience the town of Gergeau {stc\ which was held by
the English.'

^ J. Chattier, /.^., vol. i., pp. 73-77.

' Archives de la Chambre des Comptes. Quicherat : * Procte
de Jeanne d'Arc,' vol. iv., p. 261.



GILLES DE RAIS 159

Again — and this proves that Gilles did not attach
much importance to his covenant with La Tr^mouille
— he is found among those who signed and sealed
guarantees of the fidelity of Richemont^ when the
Constable (early in June, 1429) was for a brief space
again allowed to bear arms for France. Rais
helped him to reduce Beaugency.^ And he fought,
too, at Patay (June 18), when Talbot's men got
into confusion, and when the doughty warrior him-
self was taken prisoner, philosophically exclaiming :
* It is the fortune of war * — a battle which, as distinct
from si^e operations, was the first gained by the
French in the Maid's company. It was not a great
engagement, perhaps ; for it would seem that on
either side there were only about 6,000 combatants ;
but its effect on the morale of the French can
hardly be overestimated. They, in the first in-
stance, awed by the recollection of Agincourt,
Cravant, and Verneuil, had been almost unwilling to
fight ; but Joan had urged them on.

* Have you your spurs ?' she cried. * Go at them
and they will flee. . . . And your spurs you will
need to follow them !'

This prophecy was not fulfilled to the letter ; for
Sir John Fastolfe — who has received more justice
from French than from English historians — drew off
his division in good order ; but victory rested with
the French, who now felt that in the inspiring com-
panionship of the Maid they could beat their

^ Desonneaux, 'Histoire de la Maison de Montmorency';
Guillaume Gniel, etc ; cited by Bossard, p. 40.
' Cosoeau, /.r., p. 171.



i6o BLUEBEARD

enemies in the field as well as recover their lost
towns and castles.

When the time came for the bold and eventful
march on Reims (June 27-29), Rais figured among
the commanders of the force escorting Charles VII.
and Joan of Arc The * coronation city' was reached
on July 16, and on the morrow Gilles was promoted
to the dignity of Marshal of France. He had cer-
tainly rendered good service at Orleans, Jargeau,
Beaugency, and Patay, and was entided to reward.
Yet this particular honour, at this particular moment,
was due, perhaps, to the fact that usage required two
Marshals to be present at the coronation, and the
force accompanying the King and the Maid counted
only one — that is, Jean de Brosse, Lord of Boussac
and Ste. S^vfere, who had held the office since 1427,
having gained it, some assert, by the help he had
given Richemont in putting the ignoble royal
favourite, Le Camus de Beaulieu, to death.

Invested with his new dignity, Rais and his
brother Marshal, with the Sire de Culant, Admiral
of France, and the Sire de Graville, Grand Master
of the Archers, rode in brave array, with banners
flying, to the ancient abbey of St Remi to serve as
an escort^ for the ' Sainte Ampoule ' — the holy oil
said to have been brought down from heaven by a
dove expressly for the coronation of the Kings of
France. The Abbot received them, mounted a
horse provided by Charles VII., and — with the

^ J. Chartier, /.r., vol i., p. 97. Letter of Three Angerai
Noblemen: facsimile in Wallon's ' Jeanne d'Arc,' ilhis. edit, p. 136,



GILLES DE RAIS i6i

golden dove, in which the phial of holy oil was
encased^ hanging by a chain from his neck^ — repaired
with his pompous guard of honour to the cathedral,
where Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of France
and Archbishop of Reims, received the dove from
his hands. Rais, Boussac and the rest, still acting
as escort, rode clattering up the nave as far as the
choir, at the entrance of which they dismounted.
Charles stood in readiness, took the customary oaths,
and was knighted by the Due d'Alen9on. Then
Berry, King at Arms, called the twelve Peers of
France. Three of the six ecclesiastical peers were
present, but all the others, it is said, were repre-
sented by deputies, respecting whom the historians
are greatly at variance. Father Daniel and Desor-
meaux^ both assert that ' Gilles de Laval, Sire de
Rais,' figured among those deputies ; but he is not
mentioned by others, and it may well be that this
honour did not devolve on him.^ Another state-

^ Daniel's * Abr^ de THistoire de France,' voL iv., p. 399;
Desonneaux, /.r., vol l, pp. 121, 371.

* The ecclesiastical peers — the peerage going with the sees —
were the Archbishop Duke of Reims, the Bishops-Dukes of Laon
and Langres, and the Bishops-Counts of Beauvais, Chalons, and
Noyon. Their number was not increased until 1674, when the
Archbishop of Paris was created a peer, with the title of Duke of
St Cloud The lay peers were originally the Dukes of Burgundy,
Guienne, and Normandy, and the Counts of Flanders, Cham-
pagne, and Toulouse. But at the time of Charles VII.'s corona-
tion the peerages of Normandy and Guienne had passed to the
Crown, the English titles of Duke of Normandy and Duke of
Guienne not being recognised by the French. In like way Cham-
pagne and Toulouse had gone to the Crown, as had also Flanders,
so far as it was French. Thus, at this particular time, the six lay

II



1 62 BLUEBEARD

ment is to the effect that he was at this time created
a Count ; and this may be accurate, as in later
documents we find Gilles styling himself Comte de
Brienne as well as Sire de Rais.

However hasty had been the preparations for the
coronation ceremony, nothing was lacking. The
cathedral treasury supplied a crown, the real crown
of France being then at St. Denis ; and when the
Archbishop had placed the symbol of royalty on the
King's head the trumpets sounded, ' till it seemed
that the roofs would split asunder,' and a great shout
of * Noel r went up from the assembled throng, while
the deputies of the peers, according to ancient usage,
stretched forth their hands as if to press the crown
on the royal brow, thus signifying that they, as the
great vassals of the State, confirmed the coronation.
Meantime, below the altar, with her standard raised,
stood the Maid who had brought the once vanquished



peers seem to have been : Burgundy, senior and chief peer ;
Anjou, created by Philip the Fair 1297, recreated 1360 ; Brittany,
created 1297; Orleans, created 1344-45 ; Saintonge and Roche-
fort (James I., King of Scotland), created 1421 ; and either
Evreux (J. Stuart, Lord Damley), created 1424, or Alen^on — that
is, if the Maid's 'Beau Due' inherited the peerage created in
1360. Until the middle of the sixteenth century the new peerages
were not additional to the old ones, but replaced such of the latter
as became extinct. This is proved by the preambles of the Letters
of Creation and the decisions of the Parliament of Paris. Thus,
there were never more than six lay peers until peerages were
lavished on the Guises (1527, 1547). The Parliament then
remonstrated, but in vain, and from that time the number of peers
frequently increased, and the peerage was finally shorn of all
its ancient significance.



GILLES DE RAIS 163

and forsaken Prince to be anointed, like his ances-
tors, in that splendid fane. And, to quote one of
the old chronicles, when the ceremony was at last
finished, 'whosoever had seen the Maid fall upon
her knees before the King, and clasp him by the
legs, and kiss his feet, weeping the while hot tears,
would have been moved by it. And many did she
provoke to tears when she said : " Gentle King,
now is accomplished the pleasure of God, Who
willed it that you should come to Reims to receive
your stately sacring, thereby showing that you are
the true King and the one unto whom the kingdom
should belong." '

After that memorable coronation came the march
on Paris, so es^erly desired by Joan, but opposed
by several of the courtiers, and notably by La
Trimouille. Indeed, when the royal army ap-
proached Bray, the King purposed crossing the
Seine there, and taking the road to Berry. But
some English forces threw themselves into Bray, and
the royal design was frustrated, to the great delight,
not only of Joan, but of Rais and other captains,
who were bent on proceeding to Paris.^ Bedford,
however, moved from the capital to meet the royal
army, and when, on August 14, the contending
parties met between Baron and Senlis an engage-
ment seemed inevitable. The French even formed
in order of battle, the Due d'Alen^on and Louis
d'Anjou commanding the centre, Rais one wing^ and

^ ' Proems ' and Desoraieaux, cited by Bossard.
' J. Chartier, /.r., voL i., p. 103.

II — 2



1 64 BLUEBEARD

Boussac the other ; but the English, who had en-
trenched themselves in a kind of zareba, remained
on the defensive, and finally retreated, first to Senlis
and thence to Paris ; whilst Charles VII. moved on
Compi^gne, which, like many other towns, now
declared for him, and where he arranged a fresh
truce with the envoys of the Duke of Burgundy,
who gulled him with promises to place him in pos-
session of Paris if he would only refrain from
hostilities. Joan likewise proceeded to Compi^gne,
whilst Rais forcibly occupied Senlis, where he was
at last joined by the Maid, to whom the King's
dilatoriness and belief in Burgundy were a constant
source of grief. Charles VII. and his councillors
were left to their own devices, and Joan and Rais
pressed on towards the capital, followed by Boussac
and Alen^on.

On August 26 St. Denis was reached, and
Charles VII. was then obliged to draw nearer to
his forces, finally joining them on or about Sep-
tember 7. A famous attempt to assault Paris
ensued on the morrow. The army had moved to
La Chapelle in two bodies, first an attacking force
under Joan, Rais and Gaucourt, and secondly a
corps commanded by Alen9on and Clermont, which
was to cover the other, and resist any attempt at a
sortie. Joan and Rais marched to the St Honor^
gate, forced the outer barrier, and the boulevard
protecting it. Then the Maid, banner in hand, and
regardless of the fire of bombards and culverins,
sprang into the first fosse and crossed it with her



i



GILLES DE RAIS 165

followers. But as the second one was full of water,
the city walls could not be reached. Joan and her
companions remained therefore on a kind of glacis
between the two ditches, exposed the while to all the
projectiles of the garrison.

The Maid was sounding the depth of the water
with the staff of her banner, when a shaft from a
cross-bow,^ glancing off one of her thighs, pierced
the other. Some accounts, inimical to the French,
say that she fell into the dry ditch and was long
abandoned there, but Wallon assures us that she was
carried behind an ipaulement^ which sheltered her,
and that she lay there in grievous pain,^ yet
still urging on her men, pressing them to fill the
ditches with faggots in order that an assault might
be attempted. Rais, we are told, ' remained beside
her all that day, both in the crossing of the dry
ditch and at the water-side where she was wounded. '^
But night fell, and, though Joan besought her men
and captains to persevere, the attempts to force an
entry, which had been going on since noon, were at
last abandoned.

In spite of her wound the Maid would have
renewed the effort on the morrow. It is certain
that there was a considerable French party in the
city — the Baron de Montmorency and fifty or sixty
nobles made their way out to join the royal

^ 'Chronique Normande ' (Brit Mus. MSS. 11,542) annexed
to Chartier, /.£, p. 205.

* The Latin text of Chartier's Chronicle sa^rs of her wound :
' atrocissime in crure cum sagitta vulnerata.'

' Bossard, /.r., p. 44 ; }• Chartier, Ix,^ p. 109.



1 66 BLUEBEARD

standard^ — but pusillanimous counsels prevailed
with Charles VII.

Moreover, another herald from that accomplished
trickster the Duke of Burgundy had just reached
the King with a message, b^ging him to cease
hostilities, and again promising to place him there-
after in possession of Paris. Thus the captains
were ordered to withdraw, and although Joan,
defying the royal commands, made yet another
attempt with Alengon to approach the city, nothing
came of it, and she was compelled to accompany the
court and army on the road to the Loire.

Charles VII. proceeded to Jargeau and Gien, and
between those towns he made a halt at SuUy-sur-
Loire, where La Tr^mouille had a castle, at which
the King had stayed on previous occasions. This
time, whilst he was there, he caused letters-patent
to be drawn up, conferring a great honour upon
Gilles, Lord of Rais and Pouzauges and Marshal of
France, in recognition of ' his glorious services and to
perpetuate the memory thereof.' This was nothing
less than the grant of a right to add the arms of
France as a border to the shield of Rais. * The said
escutcheon,' says the document, ' shall bear an orle of
our arms — that is, a field azure charged with flowers-
de-luce or, in such form and manner as is here
portrayed, figured, and emblazoned. '^

^ The English subsequently condemned Montmorency for Ikse*
majeste towards Henry VI., and confiscated his barony.

^ The document was discovered in the Archives of Thouars by
M. Paul March^ay. It is on parchment and has suffered from
dampness ; the new shield of Rais is painted on it



GILLES DE RAIS 167

It is perfecdy true that these letters-patent, pre-
pared during the royal journey, were never sealed
and roistered, probably because there was no
opportunity to do so at the time, and because other
circumstances subsequently arose to prevent the
execution of the final formalities. Nevertheless, in
conjunction with other documents, discovered of
recent years, they serve to show that Gilles de Rais,
at the time they were drafted, was held in very great
honour by the King. The royal arms had been
granted a few months previously to Joan of Arc and
her family, and if they were now bestowed on Gilles,
his services must have been considerable. Such an
honour, indeed, was reserved for exceptional occa-
sions, and, in that age, was conferred more often on
towns— distinguished for their patriotism and fidelity
— than on individuals. It is true that Charles VII.,
in May, 1432, made similar grants to Nicholas of
Ferrara, Marquis of Este, and Visconti, Duke of
Milan, in recognition of their great assistance in
placing contingents of troops at his disposal ; but
Este and Milan were sovereign houses, whereas
Gilles de Rais was only a subject — the first Baron
of Brittany,^ it is true, but none the less an imme-
diate vassal of the duchy, and, for some of his
possessions, of the French crown also. If he were
singled out for a distinction similar to that conferred
on the Maid herself, it must have been therefore
because he was regarded as one of her best lieu-

^ Mourain de Sourdeval*s ' Les Seigneurs de Rais.' Tours,
1845, 8vo., p. 18.



1 68 BLUEBEARD

tenants. And this shows that one is justified in
assigning to the young Marshal a more prominent
position in the record of Joan's campaigns than has
been granted him, first, by chroniclers writing a few
years afterwards, and, secondly, by several genera-
tions of modem historians.

In this connection it must be pointed out that
eleven years after that grant of the right to emblazon
the arms of France in his escutcheon Gilles died a
death of infamy. It is possible that from that very
moment men shrank from associating his name with
that of the national heroine, the pure and pious
Maid of Orleans. In any case, that prejudice, a
very natural one, is to be traced in the works of
various modern writers. For instance, Gilles is
mentioned in documents and books which Vallet
de Viriville, the historian of Charles VII., is known
to have consulted ; but even that painstaking author,
who, when he is not dealing with his particular
bite noire. La Tr^mouille, is usually so reliable and
impartial, seems desirous of ignoring Rais until
the Maid is dead and gone, and occasion arises to
speak of the crimes for which the Marshal under-
went the capital penalty. It seemed, perhaps, to
M. Vallet de Viriville that the name of Rais, in con-
junction with that of Joan of Arc, was calculated to
befoul the latter ; and thus, in pages of the ' Histoire
de Charles VII.,* where Gilles should have been
named with other leading captains, a convenient 'etc.'
often does duty for him. M. Wallon was probably
swayed by feelings similar to those of M. Vallet de



i



GILLES DE RAIS 169

Viriville, though it must be acknowledged that the
Marshal's military services are mentioned not un-
favourably in 'Jeanne d'Arc * — that fine literary effort
of the * father * of the present French constitution.

In the first place, even the devil is entitled to

his due, and the present writer holds that Gilles de

Rais was, as a military man, a trusty, energetic, and

able servant of France. This is the view taken by

Abb6 Bossard, who, as a minister of religion, has

shown considerable courage in dealing with Rais's

career. Again — and on this point also one may

express cordial agreement with Abb^ Bossard —

nothing can besmirch the pure glory of the Maid.

She had no connection whatever with the crimes of

Gilles, whether they began prior to her arrival at

Chinon, or whether they were altogether of a later

date, which is a matter for consideration hereafter.

In any event they were absolutely unknown to Joan

of Arc. And thus any attempts to banish Rais from

her side — from the history of France, in fact, to

consign him solely to its ' Newgate Calendar ' or

* Causes C^l^bres ' — are foolish.

To show how far the prejudice has gone, it must
be mentioned that some years ago even those
historians who had condescended to name Rais in
connection with Joan, the relief of Orleans, the
march on Reims, and the assault of Paris, were said
to have been entirely mistaken. Rais had no share
in all those exploits, it was asserted ; the Marshal of
France who assisted Joan of Arc was Rieux. But
investigation has completely disproved that theory.



170 BLUEBEARD

It is true that in certain documents the name is
written 'Rees,' which, allowing for the fact that
accents were not used at that time, would, accord-
ing to modem orthography, be R6es — that is, a
phonetic equivalent of * Rais,' and not of Rieux.
Moreover, Pierre de Rieux-Rochefort was far more
generally known as the Mar^chal de Rochefort. It
is unnecessary to recapitulate his career, but one may
mention that he was created a Marshal of France as
far back as 141 7, gained a reputation for timidity, not
to say cowardice,^ was taken prisoner in 1438, and
died in captivity in England in 1439. It is true that
in the latter part of Gilles' military career Rieux
appeared somewhat prominently on the scene, and
in some minor matters there may have been a litde
confusion between the two men. But the one who
fought beside Joan of Arc was undoubtedly Gilles
de Rais.

After the return of the French court to the Loire
in the autumn of 1429, Gilles may have repaired
for a time to his own possessions. That would,
indeed, be virtually certain were it true, as Vallet
de Viriville asserts, that his only child, a daughter,
named Marie, was born during the following year.
But there is great doubt on that last point^ We
know, however, by another document discovered
by M. Marchegay, that in the winter of 1430 Gilles
was at Louviers in Normandy, which in December,
1429, the famous La Hire had occupied for the
French King. Joan of Arc, it should here be

^ Cosneau, /.^., pp. 56S-69. ^ Bossard, pp. 370-71*



GILLES DE RAIS 171

mentioned, had been taken prisoner at Compiegne
on May 24, 1430 ; and, transferred from dungeon to
dungeon, had been finally carried to Rouen about
the end of the year. The English fully intended
to drive the French out of Louviers, but had
adjourned the enterprise until after the trial of the
Maid. She, it is known, evinced the greatest con-
fidence throughout the earlier proceedings against
her ; and it has more than once been surmised that,
however strictly she may have been guarded, she had
some positive reasons for hoping that Charles VII.
would deliver her by force of arms. He has always
been reproached with having absolutely deserted her.
His Chancellor, Regnault de Chartres, was certainly
no friend of Joan's ; besides, his favourite. La Tr6-
mouille, always preferred negotiation to military
eflfort. Yet it is possible that the King may have
been judged too harshly by historians. La Hire
was so often accustomed to act on his own behalf
that his doings at Louviers need occasion no sur-
prise, but the Marshal de Rais can only have gone
thither under orders.

The document which shows that he repaired to
this town is an acknowledgment that he owes to
' Rollahd Mauvoisin, his squire, captain of Le
Pringay, the sum of eighty golden crowns for the
purchase of a black horse {cheval moreau), saddled
and bridled, which he promised to give to his very dear
and well-beloved squire, Michel Machefert, captain
of the men-of-arms and bowmen of his company,
directly they arrived at Louviers, to induce him to



172 BL0EBEARD

come with him on that journey/ The acknow-
ledgment is dated December 26, 1430, and signed
simply ' Gilles/ in the sovereign style the Marshal
affected, though even the brother of the Duke of
Brittany signed ' Le Cte. de Richemont, Artus/

Now, one may well agree with M. Marchegay
and Abb6 Bossard that the presence of Rais at
Louviers — less than sixteen miles from Rouen, where
Joan was imprisoned — is a very significant circum-
stance. Some writers have suggested that, being
a mere spy employed by La Tr^mouille, Rais
abandoned the cause of the Maid after the failure
of the attempt on Paris. We think otherwise, and
are inclined, moreover, to give Charles VII. credit
for some desire to save the unfortunate Joan. It
is certain that in March, 1431, the force at Louviers
was joined by Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, with
* a certain great company ' sent * to resist our ancient
enemies the English, who were then assembled there-
abouts in great strength,' and that Dunois carried
out * two secret enterprises against our said enemies.'^
Vallet de Viriville suggests, however, that the King's
only desire was to prevent Louviers from being
retaken by the English, and that he cared nothing
about the fate of Joan. In any case, whatever may
have been the desires of Charles or Rais or Dunois,
we know only too well that the heroic Maid went to
her cruel death to become, for all ages, the martyr
and the saint of patriotism.

^ Royal donation of 1,200 livres granted to Dunois ; V. de
Viriville^ /.^., vol. iu, p. 244.



GILLES DE RAIS 173

Louviers was finally seized by the English in
October, 1431, and Gilles de Rais is next found
with his colleague Boussac at Beauvais» in the
following March, when an unsuccessful attempt is
planned to surprise Rouen and kidnap the young
English King, Henry VI. Next Gilles is traced to
Lagny, where he participates in the engagement of
August 10, when Bedford is repulsed and compelled
to raise the siege of the town.^ Then, on December
14, old Jean de Craon, the Marshal's grandfather,
dies, and Gilles no doubt proceeds to Brittany. We
find nothing about him in connection with military
matters during the ensuing year (1433),^ when the
grasping La Tr^mouille is at last driven from power,
though this is an event in which he is certain to have
taken the side of the Constable de Richemont, for
in February or March, 1434, in response to the
request of Charles d'Anjou, he hastens into Maine
with a body of troops, appears at the demonstration of
Sill6-le-Guillaume and at Sabl6 by the side of the
Constable, the Sire de Bueil and Pr^gent de Co^tivy*
— the very three men by whom La Tr^mouille had
been overthrown ; whilst, in the latter part of the

^ Chartier en's in saying that Gilles de Sill^ (the Marshal's
cousin) was then taken prisoner. It was Michel de Sill^ who was
captured, as is shown in connection with the Marshal's crimes.
Setposi^ p. 274.

' We believe that Gilles went to Lyons with the King that year,
after the overthrow of La Tr^mouille. See/^j/, p. 187.

* Bossard, /.r., p. 51, refers to Gruel, edit 1622, pp. 55-58;
Chartier, edit. 1597, Nevers, pp. 72, 73; Martial d'Auveigne's
' Vigiles de Charles VII.,' 1493, p. 137.



174 BLtlEBEARD

following year, he again appears in the same region —
the Laval country — to do battle at Conlie. The con-
nection of Rais with the spurious * Maid of Orleans,'
La des Armoises, belongs to a later period —
1 438-39 — when he had become demoralized. 1 1 may
well be the case that when he placed this woman at
the head of a body of his men, and allowed her to
figure as the real Maid, it was from a desire to
exploit the prestige attaching to the memory of
Joan, whom many still thought to be alive. But
he removed her from the command soon afterwards,
as is mentioned in certain letters of remission granted
to one of his captains, Jean de Siquenville, for various
offences,^

Whatever may be the exact date of Gilles's
retirement from active service, documents in the
Archives of Orleans show that he always retained
his rank of Marshal of France ;^ and, indeed, accord-
ing to the * M^moire ' of his heirs, the emoluments of
his office were paid to him until his death, or at
least until his prosecution. Vallet de Viriville and
others have stated that there were never more than
two Marshals in office, at one and the same period,
during Charles VII.'s reign ; but the list of the nine
Marshals created by that King, and the records of
their careers — to say nothing of the Marshals sur-
viving from the reign of Charles VL — scarcely bear
out that contention. It may be taken that in
previous times the Marshals were only appointed for
limited periods, and that there were then never more

^ Secposf^ p. 296 efse^. ^ Bossard, Ic,^ p. 51.



GILLES DE RAIS 175

than two exercising active command ; but this rule
may well have been relaxed during the more
eventful years of Charles VII.'s struggle with the
English. In any case the assertions which will be
found in some writers, that Rais was disgraced in
1433, at the same time as La Tr^mouille, and sup-
planted in the marshalate by Gilbert de la Fayette
— who, removed from all command by La Tr6-
mouille, was reinstated after the favourite's over-
throw — are at variance with his participation with
Richemont, Bueil, and Co^tivy in military operations
after 1433, ^^^ ^^^^ documentary evidence existing
at Orleans and elsewhere.

Detested — and not without cause — by historians,
the Marshal de Rais, one may repeat it, has never
received from them the recognition to which his
military merits entitled him. Besides being a
courageous, a diligent, an energetic and a trusty
soldier, he expended, there can be no doubt of it,
very large sums in the cause of France, at a time
when Charles VII. was little better than a beggar,
and when the royal favourite, La Tr^mouille, and
the right reverend Chancellor Regnault de Chartres
were preying greedily on the misfortunes of their
country. As Vallet de Viriville has shown, the
French army was then seldom paid by the King.
Gilles de Rais therefore repeatedly raised, equipped
and kept large bodies of men at his own expense.
Occasionally, as in the Jargeau alBfair, he was reim-
bursed, but his great military expenditure may well
have been the beginning of his ruin. At the same



176 BQUEBEARD

time, however, he was certainly a prodigal, one who
was bent on having all his fancies satisfied regard-
less of the cost And he found a Duke of Brittany,
a Bishop, a cathedral Chapter, and others only too
willing to avail themselves of his eagerness to turn
his possessions into money. One may now pass
then from Gilles de Rais, the soldier, the Marshal
of France, to Gilles the spendthrift and the patron
of dramatic literature and the arts.



."rt"'



III



1434-35

SPLENDOUR AND PRODIGALITY *THE MYSTERY OF

ORLEANS* — THE HOLY INNOCENTS

The Marshal's Valuable Furnishings — His Large Income — His
Military Expenses and Receipts — His Grand Bodyguard and
his Herald — His Chantry and Chapter — ^The Magnificence of
his Chapel — His Passion for Music — He keeps Open House —
His Pompous Progresses — His Library and his Reader — His
Predilection for the Stage — Mysteries, Moralities, Farces, and
Morris Dances — *The Mystery of Orleans' — Gilles and his
Retinue invade the Hostelries of the City — They make Costly
Trips into the Bourbonnais — Gilles' R61e in the * Mystery of
Orleans '—The Rondeau of * St. Michael and the Maid '—The
Foundation of the Holy Innocents — Gilles' Anxiety to save
his Soul — A Glimpse of his Crimes — His Estrangement from
his Wife and Daughter — Pleasure and Remorse — Financial
Troubles.

On introducing Gilles de Rais to the reader some
mention was made of the great extent of his terri-
torial possessions, his many lordships, his castles
and fortresses, and his superb mansion of La Suze
in the city of Nantes. The previously quoted
* M^moire ' of his heirs, drawn up in the course of
litigation with successive Dukes of Brittany, also
tells us that Rais inherited from his father and his

12



178 BLUEBEARD

maternal grandfather, and received as part of his
wife's dowry, a great variety of splendid furnishings,
tapestries, examples of the art of the gold and silver
smith, jewels, and so forth, the value of these
belongings being estimated at more than one
hundred thousand crowns. In 1445 the crown was
worth twenty-five sols, and according to Abb6
Bossard's calculation — based on Leber's researches
and estimates^ — the value assigned to Gilles' fur-
nishings would be equivalent to more than ;^ 180,000
of our present currency. The young noble's annual
income was also very large. He derived more than
thirty thousand livres from his personal domains,
without counting all the produte received as tribute
or tithe from vassals. Indeed, Desormeaux, who
wrote with all the documents of the House of Mont-
morency before him — and Gilles, it should be
remembered, whether one call him * of Laval ' or * of
Rais/ was really a Montmorency — states that the
Marshal's full revenue amounted to nearly double
the amount given above ; his fortune being the more
conspicuous ' as the appanage of the brothers of the
Duke of Brittany then only represented six thousand
livres a year.'

One may take exception to Abb^ Bossard's view
that Gilles, apart from his private wealth, was also
in receipt of large pensions and grants from
Charles VII. He was doubtless entitled to them
by letters-royal, but it is far from certain that he

^ * Essai sur Tappr^iation de la Fortune priv^e au Moyen Ag^i'
by C. Leber. Paris, 1847, 8vo.



GILLES DE RAIS 179

ever actually received them. Charles VII. was
remarkably lavish with grants on paper, but it often
happened that they were not carried into effect.
Powerful men like La Tr6mouille and Regnault de
Chartres undoubtedly took good care to secure
every gift which the King signified his intention
of bestowing on them ; but others were less fortunate
in those troublous times, when the royal treasury was
almost always empty, and when a donation often
took the form of an assignment of confiscated pro-
perty or of a charge on some source of revenue,
which the grantee had to recover by personal
authority, and occasionally even by force of arms.
Moreover Charles VII., like most Kings swayed
by successive favourites and parties, revoked all royal
donations at various periods of his reign ; and, on the
other hand,Gilles,as previously mentioned, long main-
tained considerable bodies of men in the royal service
at his own expense. In the course of the litigation
between his heirs and Francois I. of Brittany, we
find the latter stating that if Gilles sold certain
property, it was by reason *of the great necessity
in which he was to maintain himself in the exercise
of his office of Marshal at the time of the wars and
divisions then existing in this realm, for which office
he received but very little wage or profit.' And,
again, in equipping men and providing money for
the public service, the Marshal, it is said, simply did
* as was often done by the late Messire Bertrand de
Glesquin, in his lifetime Constable of France, and
as in like way many other g^eat lords of this realm,

12 — 2



i8o BLUEBEARD

wise men and valiant, did in those wars, for the
defence of the commonwealth, even as they were
bound to do ; and, in any case, it was for the King
to reward the said late Messire Gilles or the said
plaintiff, his heir.'^

This tends to show that the dignities acquired by
Gilles proved a source of expenditure and not of
profit. Whatever he may have received from
Charles VII, represented but a portion of his
outlay for the State. But, apart from all question
of the royal generosity, the young noble's income,
at a moderate estimate, represented not less than
;^8o,ooo and perhaps as much as ;^ 100,000 a year.
Such a revenue is not despised even in these days
of American plutocracy ; and, at the time of the
Marshal de Rais, it was altogether exceptional.
Thus, from the standpoint of his wealth, he may be
regarded as one of the millionaires of the first half
of the fifteenth century, whilst in prodigality he set
an example unsurpassed by any of the * Jubilee ' and
other plungers of our own times. His magnificence
was conspicuous already in his earlier days, when,
as the * M6moire ' of his heirs tells us, he was
' seduced by the false craft and damnable covetous-
ness of his servants,' and took in hand 'the
government of his lands and lordships, doing with
them as he pleased, without seeking advice from his
grandfather or listening to him further in any re-
spect.' There can be no doubt that the flatterers

^ * Intendits du Due de Bretagne.' Archives of the Loire
Inf(6rieure, Nantes.



GILLES DE RAIS i8f

and companions of those times completely turned
the young man s head, even if they did not then
debase his nature, as we shall presently inquire^
And, intoxicated with vanity, he strove to vie, not
with other nobles even of the highest degree, but
with Kings and sovereign Princes.

After his appointment as Marshal of France he
surrounded himself — at home as well as at the wars
— with a military household. He maintained a
private bodyguard of thirty chosen men-at-arms
and more than two hundred horse. There were
pages, squires and knights around him, all splendidly
equipped and clad ; a perfect court, such as many of
the highest could not provide for in those days. We
know he signed simply * Gilles' like a monarch; and
in the same spirit he had heralds and pursuivants,
the chief of whom was called * Rais-le-h6raut.'^ Roger
de Bricqueville, a Norman noble of a good house,
was his major-domo; Hicquet de Br^mont, another
noble, was the governor of his pages ; and Abb6
Bossard thinks that Jean Chartier, the famous
chronicler, who of all the contemporary writers
gives the most particulars about the Marshal,
was at least for a time attached to his chantry.
All his retainers were lodged, fed, and well paid.
He provided them with horses and harness, and
replenished their wardrobes two or three times
a year ; such indeed was the pride which he
took in surrounding himself with a well-equipped

^ From a document communicated to Abb^ Bossard by M.
DoineL



1 82 BLUEBEARD

bodyguard, and in living, as' his heirs subse-
quently complained, ' not according to the condition
of a Baron, but according to that of a Prince.*^

Gilles also maintained an ecclesiastical household
— a chantry and a chapter — in such wise that at
Machecoul and Tiffauges, two of his principal
residences, one found some five-and-twenty or
thirty clerics, who, like his military retainers, lived
splendidly at his expense. There was a Dean,
Messire de la Ferri^re ; several chanters ; an Arch-
deacon, Messire Jourdain ; a Curate, Olivier Martin;
a Treasurer of the Chapter, Jean Rossignol ; a
schoolmaster; with Canons, chaplains, coadjutors,
and clerks, in addition to numerous choir-boys.
Gilles, who, by virtue of his fiefs in Poitou, was,
himself, a lay Canon of St Hilaire-le-Grand of
Poitiers,^ bestowed the title of Bishop on the chief
dignitary of his collegiate, and his great ambition
appears to have been to raise his clerics to the
status enjoyed by the clergy of a cathedral. If one
may believe the * M^moire ' of his heirs, he actually
sent deputations to Rome requesting that his Canons
might be authorized to wear the cappa magna and
the mitre, like prelates or like certain Canons of
Lyons. But the Pope, warned by the Rais family,
who at last took steps to check the Marshal's pro-
digality, would never allow this request, nor even
authorize the collegiate which Gilles had endowed.

^ Bossard, /.r., p. 60.

' The Counts of Poitou were tx officio Abbots of St HiUure,
and their great vassals were Canons.



GILLES DE RAIS 183

The Marshal, it would seem, repeatedly had
trouble in this matter with Jean de Malestroit, the
Breton Chancellor and Bishop of Nantes. Still,
that did not disturb the churchmen who had rallied
to him ; and they had good reason for remaining at
their posts, as they were remunerated, says Abb6
Bossard, with ridiculous prodigality, some of them
receiving as much as four hundred crowns — about
;^8oo — a year, and at the same time being lodged,
boarded and clad entirely at their patron's expense,
so that they never had occasion to disburse a single
sol. Even as Joan of Arc was preceded on the
advance to Orleans by priests and monks chanting
the * Veni Creator,' so Gilles — who, it may be,
borrowed the idea from what he had witnessed
during the Maid's Progress — was accompanied on
all his journeys by his clerical retainers, each
mounted on horseback and followed by a body
servant They lived on the fat of the land
wherever it pleased Monseigneur le Mar6chal to
halt. At home and in the towns where he sojourned,
he arrayed them, says the ' M6moire ' of his heirs,
in long sweeping robes of scarlet and other fine
cloths, * furred with sable, badger and minever, and
other splendid furs, and plumes besides.' In church
they wore surplices of the finest tissue, * with amices
and choir-hats of badger lined with minever, such
as the Canons of cathedrals have, and as if they had
really been of great estate and great science.' For
travelling wear, their patron furnished them with
chaperons and gowns of the best cloth, but these



1 84 BLUEBEARD

gowns were 'short in order that they might ride
more comfortably.' Then horses and ambling nags
were provided for them, with servants and chests to
carry their belongings, to such effect 'that none
remembered nor ever expected to see such super-
fluity, excess, and unreasonable expenditure even in
the chantry of a King of France.*^

Whenever Gilles desired to secure the services of
any particular cleric he did not hesitate to offer him
the most costly presents ; and if he heard of a man
or boy with a particularly fine voice in any church,
however distant, he made every effort to procure
him for his chantry. Rossignol, who became the
treasurer of his collegiate, had been a choir-boy at
St Hilaire, at Poitiers ; and Gilles was so struck
with his fine voice that to induce him to enter his
service he gave him an estate called La Riviere,
near Machecoul, yielding two hundred livres a year ;
besides offering his parents, needy people of La
Rochelle, a gift of three hundred crowns.

Again, Mass was celebrated with the greatest
magnificence at the Marshal's castles. Cloth of
gold and silk of the finest quality procurable served
for the vestments of his chaplains. He never
bargained with merchants. He paid them whatever
they asked, and his prodigality was so well known that
they did not hesitate to charge him twice and three
times as much as they charged other customers.
The ell of cloth of gold, then worth from twenty-five
to thirty golden crowns, was sometimes paid by him

^ ' M^moire des Hinders.*



GILLES DE RAIS 185

at the rate of sixty and even eighty. He would
purchase a pair of Paris orphreys for three or four
hundred crowns, when their value was less than one
hundred ; and it is recorded that once he went
so far as to give fourteen thousand crowns (about
;^2 5,000!) for three copes of cloth of gold, when
they were worth less than a third of that amount.^

But all that was as nothing. A Parisian goldsmith
was specially attached to the Marshal's service-
His candlesticks, censers, crosses, osculatories,
servers, chalices, pyxes and reliquaries — among
them being, it seems, a bust or head of St. Honor6
— were all of massive gold or silver, finely chased,
adorned with precious stones and brilliant enamels,
the perfection of the workmanship surpassing even
the splendour of the materials. And to increase the
pomp of his religious services Gilles procured several
organs, large and small ones, which cost him con*-
siderable sums. Music indeed was one of his great
passions — he often chanted the psalms with his own
chantry — and he at last had some portable organs
made, which followed him on all his military expedi-
tions and journeys, borne sometimes on chariots,
sometimes on the shoulders of six vigorous men.
Thus there was nothing novel in the practice of
those English officers who carried pianos with them
in the course of the Boer War.

Rais did not confine his liberality to his retainers.
He kept open hall wherever he might be. The
traveller might enter freely, the board was always

^ ' M^moire des H^tiers.'



1 86 BLUEBEARD

spread for him, and hypocras and fine wines flowed
abundantly.^ Gilles even clothed strangers, not
merely beggars, but all who chose to accept his
gifts ; distributing at times as many as lOO and 120
gowns among as many people. 1 1 is not surprising,
therefore, to find that he was surrounded by parasites
in addition to his ordinary retainers. And one and
all helped themselves freely, junketing at his ex-
pense, now at Tiffauges, now at Machecoul, now at
Nantes, now at Angers, now elsewhere. He had
mansions in both of the last-named cities. Of that
at Angers we only know that it was called the
Hdtel de la Belle-Poigne. The one at Nantes, the
Hdtel de la Suze, faced the Rue Notre Dame, near
the Cathedral, its site now being occupied by the
Hdtel de la Thuillaye. It surpassed in magnificence
the palace of the Duke of Brittany. The vaulted
roof of the oratory was finely painted, we are told ;
the windows were of stained glass of rare artistry ;
and the walls were covered with cloth of gold. In
other parts of that splendid abode, in addition to
the tapestry of Flanders and the stamped leather
of Spain, one found Oriental hangings and carpets
acquired from the few merchant-princes who then
traded, either through the Genoese or the Venetians,
with the East. But Gilles, it appears, regarded his
mansions of Nantes and Angers as m^r^pieds-d-terre;
he preferred his various castles, where he ruled in all
sovereignty, dispensing high and low justice as he
pleased — Champtoc6, Machecoul, Pouzauges, and

^ ' M^moire des Hitlers.'



GILLES DE RAIS 187

Tiffauges, the last-named, which was both the most
formidable as a fortress and the most magnificent
as a pleasure-house, being his favourite place of
sojourn.

Yet his was a restless nature. Apart from the
campaigns already chronicled, he seems to have
undertaken many journeys. There are indications
that he once went to Lyons, perhaps with the King,
in June, 1433 (when there is no trace of him else-
where), for we know that if he desired to clothe the
Canons of his Chapter like those of that city, it was
because he had been personally struck by the latter's
appearance ; and it seems^ that on the occasion
indicated Charles VII. visited the primatial church
of St Jean of Lyons, garbed himself in a Canon's
vestments, and, thus attired, took his seat in the
choir. It is possible, therefore, that this was the
particular ceremony which impressed the Marshal
de Rais and impelled him to solicit permission to
array his own Canons in the cappa magna. Again
there is evidence^ that, some time between 1430 and
1436, Gilles made extensive military preparations
for an expedition to Langres, on the confines of
Champagne and Burgundy, perhaps in connection
with the vigorous efforts of the famous Barbazan
to prevent Duke Philip the Good from exercising
authority in the former province, which the English
had assigned to him. Then, in other documents
concerning the Marshal, there are references to

^ V. de Viriville, vol. iL, p. 310.

' ' lotendits da Due de Bretagne.' Archives, Nantes.



1 88 BLUEBEARD

several journeys or expeditions to Le Mans in
Maine ; whilst he made progresses — royal in their
pomp and splendour — to some of the chief cities of
the Loire region. He was fond indeed of display-
ing himself and his magnificent retinue in one and
another part of France, and this brings us to the
consideration of another of his costly passions — a
passion for the stage, as it then existed, with its
mummers, dancers, mysteries, and moralities.

This extraordinary man had a taste for all forms
of literature and art. We know the names of
several precious books which he possessed, and there
is reason to believe that he had a considerable
library in the charge of a certain Henri Griart,
commonly called Henriet, who, bom in Paris in
1402, had graduated at the then renowned univer-
sity of Angers, and, entering the Marshal's house-
hold, bore therein the titles of Chamberlain and
Reader to Monseigneur. It was he who read to
Gilles the * Lives of the Caesars ' by Suetonius, the
* Annals ' of Tacitus, the * Metamorphoses ' of Ovid,
the * Deeds and Sayings ' of Valerius Maximus, the
' Livre des Propri6t6s des Choses,' which Jehan
Corbechon had translated from the Latin by order
of Charles V., and the * City of God,' by St. Augustin,^
of which Gilles possessed both the Latin text and a
translation, probably that by Raoul de Presles. And
as Henriet was himself a man of letters, he may
perchance have helped to prepare some of the

^ In all likelihcxxl the magnificent copy now in the Libxary of
Nantes.



GILLES DE RAIS 189

mysteries and moralities devised and performed for
the delectation of his patron, the Marshal.

But the latter's passion for the stage must have
dated from his youth if it be true, as is affirmed by
some writers, that it was he who caused Jean
Michel's • Mystery of the Holy Passion ' to be
performed at Angers in 1420, in honour of his
marriage with the heiress Katherine de Thouars,
on which occasion the chief parts were taken by
Canons of the Cathedral, two of them representing
the Virgin and Mary Magdalen.

The ' M^moire ' of Gilles' heirs tells us that he
celebrated all the great festivals of the year —
Christmas, Easter, Ascension Day, Whitsuntide,
and All Saints* Day — by great performances of
mysteries and moralities. And as farces and soties
(the last being variants of the first) came largely
into vogue in those years of incessant warfare, when
the French people apparently sought amusement in
order to forget the bloodshed of the times, it is
not surprising to find it stated that Gilles pro-
vided himself with a company of * comedians,
troubadors, and minstrels,' who frequently played
before him.^ We read also of jugglers, and of real
mauresque dancers whom he procured from Spain.
The * M^moire ' of his heirs says that he often caused
* games, morris-dances, farces and personages' {sic)
to be performed, as well as more ambitious dramatic
ventures, for which he provided ' great scaffoldings,
garments, decorations, and apparatus of divers kinds,'

^ Desormeaux, /.r., vol. i., p. 123.



I90 BLUEBEARD

which cost him immense sums, the more particularly
as he invariably • had everything made expressly
and afresh, thereby incurring great expenditure.*
With respect to the splendour of a mise-en-scine he
was as exacting as any theatrical manager of our
own times, and in the matter of costumes he was
often more prodigal, for it was in no imitation
stuff that he clad his actors : they wore real cloth of
gold, real cloth of silver, as well as the finest silk
and velvet.

The cost of staging a mystery was enormous.
The buildings, erected for the performance, spread
over a large area, at times along an entire street,
with a depth of more than a hundred feet Then
the characters were almost innumerable. There
were a hundred dressed in silk and velvet in the
' Myst^re de Sainte Barbe,* which a cousin of
Gilles caused to be performed at Laval in 1493.
All this implied great expenditure, and it is not
surprising to read that Ren6 d'Anjou was almost
beggared by a performance which he gave of the
* Resurrection ' in 1456. Indeed, of all the passions
swaying Gilles de Rais, this passion for the stage
was the most costly. When cities caused mysteries
and moralities to be represented they recouped
themselves for their outlay by charging very high
prices to the spectators. Some folk, says Abb6
Bossard — following M, Petit de Julleville — paid as
much as eighty-five francs, and the worst places cost
an average of a franc, which was a very high price
in those days for the needy multitude. But Gilles



GILLES DE RAIS 191

had no thought of asking any payment. His per-
formances, not only those which he gave at Tiffauges
and Machecoul, where, so to say, he was at home,
but also those which he gave at Angers, at Nantes,
and at Orleans, were gratuitous. Special places
were reserved for great lords, bishops, royal officers,
magistrates, dames and damsels of high degree,
churchmen of various ranks, while the multitude
had free admission to all other parts. And as a
crowning stroke of prodigality banquets were
spread, tables were laden with viands, and * hypo-
eras and claret wine flowed as if they had been
water.'

In the opinion of Abb6 Bossard, M. Vallet de
Viriville and others, it was Gilles de Rais who
caused the famous * Mystery of Orleans ' to be
written and acted. Several writers have assigned
the work to a date posterior to that of the
Marshal's death, 1440. Indeed, taking the * Mystery '
in the form in which it has come down to us, it
appears evident that some portions were written
about the middle of the century. But M. Wallon
and others take the view that the style of the com-
position varies, and that the work of various authors
writing at different periods can be detected in the text
now extant.^ Moreover, the opinion is expressed
that this * Mystery,' revised and amplified at various
times, was performed in its first state at Orleans in
1435, on the anniversary of the raising of the siege

^ MS., Vatican Library. First printed by Guessard and De
Certain in the ' Documents inddits de i'Histoire de France.'



192 BLUEBEARD

of the city. It may have been represented there again
four years later — in the presence of Charles VII.
and his court — but this is uncertain. The question
whether it was ever actually performed after the
execution of Gilles de Rais (even if additions were
made to it for that purpose), raises an extremely
delicate point; for it would, at first sight, seem
impossible that a play in which the Marshal is a very
prominent personage could be publicly performed
after he had died a death of infamy. But strange
things happened after the death of Gilles, as will be
presently shown. And although it is certain that the
memory of Rais was never formally rehabilitated,
there is something to be said on the subject of
documents and incidents which indicate attempts
to palliate his guilt.

One thing is certain. The Marshal has a con-
spicuous rSle in this * M ystery of Orleans ' — the
historical value of which, disputed by Quicherat, has
been fully recognised since his time by Vallet de
Viriville, Guessard, Tivier, Wallon, Petit de JuUe-
ville, and many other scholars. If it is so accurate
in many particulars of Joan of Arc's life, this may
well be because it was written under the direct
inspiration of Rais himself, to whom it assigns so
prominent a place beside the Maid, and who was
certainly acquainted with the real facts of the
early part of her career. The author is generally
supposed to have been some native of Orleans ;
but this is not certain. And if the Marshal was
responsible for its production, it may have been



GILLES DE RAIS 193

the work of one of his literary retainers. In this
connection it is curious to find a certain 'Jean
Chartier/ accompanying him to Orleans in 1434.^

It was in the middle of September that year that
the Marshal made this journey — probably to arrange
for the performance of the ' Mystery ' on the eighth
day of the following month of May. He was
accompanied by his brother Ren6 de La Suze and by
his military and his ecclesiastical households. He
himself with some of his immediate favourites and
attendants lodged at the hostelry of the Golden
Cross, and his other people found accommodation
at the other inns of the city. His chapter put up
at the St George's Arms (Ecu de Saint-Georges),
kept by Guillaume Antes ; his chanters lodged at
the sign of the Sword, where Jean Fournier was
host; his men-of-arms, his herald, his retainers,
Galard de Galardon (one of his captains), Temberel,
Challeney, Sainte-Croix, Guyot, and Jean Chartier,
made themselves at home at the Black Head, where
a landlady, Agnes Grosvillain, a comely dame, no
doubt, to the taste of messieurs les militaires, offi-
ciated. But another captain of his guards, Loys
the Angevin, called Louynot, and his councillors,
Gilles de Sill6 (his cousin), Guy de Bonni^re, Guyot
de Chambrays, Guillaume Tardif, and Guy de
Blanchefort, betook themselves to the Great Salmon,
kept by Guyot Denis ; whilst his armourer, Hector
Broisset, lodged with Mac6 Dubois at the sign of
the Cup.

^ See/^i/, Appendix D.

13



194 BLU£BEARD

Ren^ de La Suze, meantime, sought the hospi-
tality of the Little Salmon, kept by Regnard Provost ;
and the Marshal's knights, Monseig^eur de Mar-
tigne, Monseigneur Foulques Blasmes, Jean de
Rains and Baul^is took their ease at the Image
of St. Mary Magdalen. Then Jean de Montecler,
another leading retainer, lodged with Colin le
Godelier^ (the brewer ?) ; Monseigneur Jean de
Vieille, like Bois-Roulier, the Marshal's provost,
and George, his trumpeter, found rooms with Jean-
nette la Pionne ; and Thomas, his scribe and illumin-
ator {enlumineur), resided at the sign of the God of
Love, kept by Marguerite. Nor was this all ; the
Marshal's chariots and horses — the latter including
his favourite black steed named Cassenoix (Nut-
cracker) and a valuable long-tailed bay — were, like
those of his brother Ren6, stabled at the Hdtel de
la Roche- Boulet, kept by Marguerite Hu6, awidow.
The horses of his chapter, together with CoUinet,
vicar of his chantry, a certain squire. Petit Jean, a
priest named Le Blond, and a barber, were all pro-
vided for by Jean Couturier, called Thursday (Jeudi),
who lodged man and beast at the sign of the Fur-
bisher. And there were other and other retainers
and servants, staying, some at the White Horse,
kept by Charles of Halot, some at the Wild Man,
kept by Sebille la Trasilonne, and some at the

^ From 'good ale,' an expression introduced by the English
into France, whence *godale' (Froissart), ' goudale,* ' goudalier '
(brewer : Ducange, ' Glossaire Fran9ois '), and the modem French
word * godailler ' — * to go about tippling.'



GILLES DE RAIS 195

Arms of Orleans, where Foulques of Estrepon was
host.^ Briefly, there was no hostelry in all Orleans
which did not accommodate some of the splendid
retinue of Monseigneur Gilles, Baron of Rais, Count
of Brienne, Lord of Champtoc^ and Pouzauges, and
Marshal of France.

All these folk remained in the city until October,
when Gilles, who was fond of change, moved with a
part of them into the Bourbonnais, sojourning at the
Arms of France at Montlu9on until the following
December. The bill then presented to him by the
host, Guillaume Charles, called Guillou, amounted
to 810 gold * royals,' and the Marshal certainly lacked
sufficient ready cash to pay the full sum just then, for
he handed only 490 * royals ' to Maltre Guillou ; and
two of his retainers, Jean le Sellier and Huet de
Villarceau, had to become sureties for the remainder
of the money. From Montlu^on Gilles betook him-
self to Montmoreau, and after various peregrinations
returned to Orleans in March, 1435. All the accounts
of him — confirmed by various notarial documents
found in the city — agree in saying that he spent
vast sums on that journey of his, which lasted until
the following August. Vallet de Viriville estimates
his expenditure at between 80,000 and 100,000
crowns — that is, ;^ 150,000 or more of our present
currency ; and it may therefore be allowable to
assume that the greater part of this prodigious out-
lay was devoted to the production of the famous

^ Documeots discovered at Orleans by M. Doinel, archivist, and
communicated by him to Abh6 Bossard.

13—2



196 BLUEBEARD

* Mystery/ at the performance of which Gilles, in any
case, must have presided. Perhaps it was for future
representations of this very work that the city
purchased ' the standard and the banner which had
belonged to Monseigneur de Reys, to imitate the
manner of the assault by which Les Tourelles were
taken from the English on the eighth day of May.'^
It has been mentioned previously that the Mar-
shal is a prominent character in the Mystery, and in
support of that statement just a few passages may
be quoted. After Charles VII. has received the
Maid and has decided to follow her inspiration, he
says to her :

' £t pour vous conduire voz gens

Aurez le mareschal de Rais,
£t ung gentilhomme vaillant

Ambroise de Lor^, ar^ ;

Esquelz je commande exprbs
0(i il vous plaira vous conduisent,

En quelque lieu, soit loing, soit prbs.'*

And afterwards Rais inquires of the Maid :

' Dame, que vous plaist il de fiaire ?
Nous sommes au plus prbs de Blois ;
Se vous y voulez point retraire
Et reposer deux jours ou trois,



^ Accounts of the City of Orleans.

^ ' And to lead your men (troops) for you, you shall at once
(ar^s) have Marshal de Rais, and a valiant nobleman, Ambroise
de Lor^ whom I expressly command to conduct you whither
you please, whether the spot be fieur or near.'



GILLES DE RAIS 197

Pour savoir oil sont les Anglois,
Aussi pour rafraichir vos gens,

Ou se vous aymez mieux ain9ois
Aller droiet jusques h, Orleans P*^

Joan approves of the assembling of the relief
forces at Blois, but when the English have arrested
her herald, she becomes anxious to proceed to the
besieged city. Rais answers her that they will do
so without further delay ; and, a discussion arising
between the captains as to the road which should be
taken, it is Gilles who suggests going by way of
Sologne, as ' the strongest force of the English is
in the Beauce region, where, indeed, they hold the
entire country.'^ As soon as this suggestion is
adopted, Jean de Metz inquires if it be time to warn
the Maid ; and Gilles, after retorting that he is
ready to go whenever she desires, tells her that if it
pleases her to start, he now has all the men in
readiness. Again, when the English retreat, Rais
is the first to propose pursuit ; and it is he who,
with much eulogy of Joan, supports the Due
d'Alen^on's proposal that the Loire country should
be cleared of the English prior to the march on
Reims. Then the Maid is confided by the King to
the protection of Alen9on ; but until after the victory
of Patay, when the Mystery closes with Joan's
triumphant return to Orleans, Gilles remains near

^ * Lady, what would it please you to do ? We are very near to
Blois. Will you retire there, rest there for two or three days, to
ascertain where the English are, and also to refresh your men?
Or would you rather go thus straight to Orleans?'

^ Corroborated by Chartier, /.^., p. 73.




198 BLUEB

her, ever evincing the greate^K^evotion to her
person — a devotion which, if fine speeches mean
anything, is much appreciated by the Maid.

From the poetic standpoint the ' Mystery of
Orleans * is for the most part mere doggerel. But
some of the patriotic passages are really vigorous
and enthusiastic, and one finds here and there some
little gracefulness and pleasing nMveti, as in the
following rondeau, which closes Joan's interview
with the Archangel St. Michael, after she has
promised to obey the behests of God :

'S. Michel.

' A Dieu, Jehanne, vraye pucelle
Qui est d'icelui bien aym^e,
Ayez tousjours ferme pens^
De Dieu estre sa pastorelle.

* Pucelle.

' En nom Dieu, je vueil estre celle
De le servir, si lui agr^e.

'S. Michel.

* A Dieu, Jehanne, vraye pucelle.
Qui est d'icelui bien aym^e.

* Pucelle.

' Mon bon seigneur, vostre nouvelle
De par moi sera reclam^e
Au seigneur de ceste contr^e,
Par la voye que dictes telle.

' S. Michel.

* A Dieu, Jehanne, vraye pucelle,
Qui est d'icelui bien aym^e,
Ayez tousjours ferme pens^
De Dieu estre sa pastorelle.'



GILLES DE RAIS 199

This rondeau is perhaps the only thing in the
entire work which is at all worthy of quotation as
verse. But in other respects the * Mystery ' has the
value of a human and historical document. As it
has come down to us it is of great length, comprising
no fewer than 20,529 lines, whilst, in addition to
large parties of citizens, soldiers and trumpeters, it
embraces no fewer than 140 distinct rSles. Again,
so many scenes and incidents are represented —
England and the English preparations for the
expedition to Orleans, the visions of Joan, while she
tends her sheep, her interview with Charles VII.,
the relief of Orleans and her triumphant return to
the city after the victory of Patay — that the staging
must have cost a very large amount of money.
And thus, assuming that Gilles de Rais was at least
largely responsible for its production, one is not
surprised to find him in financial embarrassment at
the end of his sojourn on the Loire.

But before turning to the consequences of his
prodigality something mu^t be said of a very
remarkable deed which Jean Caseau and Jean de
Recouin, sworn notaries of the Chastellets of
Orleans, prepared for him during his stay in the
city — that is, soon after his return from the Bour-
bonnais. The minute of this deed found by
M. Doinel among Jean de Recouin's papers begins
as follows : * Saturday, the twenty - sixth day of
March, 1434 (1435, ^-S-)- Whereas, the noble and
powerful Lord, Monseigneur Gilles, Lord of Rais,
Count of Brienne, Lord of Xhamptoc6 and Pou-



200 BLUEBEARD

zauges, Marshal of France, did, not long since, for
the welfare and salvation of his soul, and in order
that his deceased father, mother, relations, friends
and benefactors might be held in the memory of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, make a Foundation in
memory of the Holy Innocents at the spot called
Machecoul in Rais, which is in the Duchy of
Brittany ; and whereas, in this said Foundation, he
did make and ordain a curate, dean, archdeacon,
treasurer, canons, chapter and collie, and did order
and provide revenues and possessions for their live-
lihood and necessaries, . . . and whereas the said
Lord did have and still has a full intention and firm
resolve to maintain the said Foundation, as he has
shown, and does each day show, by his deeds, now
he, desiring with all his heart that the said curate,
dean and chapter shall, after his death, remain in
good and peaceful possession of the revenues and
possessions thus assigned to them, and shall be
preserved and defended from all oppression, hath
given first the castle and castellany of Champtoc6
to the King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou^ . . . from
whom they are held in fief ; and, secondly, one-half
of all the lordship, barony, and land of Rais to the
Duke of Brittany,^ in order if Madame Katherine
de Thouars, wife of the said Monseigneur de Rais,
or Mademoiselle Marie de Rais, his daughter,
or any other relatives, friends, heirs, or claimants
. . . should, by whatever title or manner or for
whatever cause, deny and prevent the said Founda-

1 Louis III. . « Jean V.



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GILLES DE RAIS 201

tion, then that they, the said Lords, the King of
Sicily and Duke of Anjou, and the Duke of Brit-
tany, shall help, sustain, and defend the members
of the said Foundation"^ in order that they may enjoy
it fully and peaceably/

Next the minute confirms the Foundation and
the gifts, and in addition to the latter conveys to
Louis d' Anjou and Jean V. all that Gilles has ever
inherited, or may in the future inherit, from his
ancestors to the fourth degree, always with the
proviso that the Princes are to maintain the Foun-
dation in memory of the Holy Innocents. And if
they refuse the gifts on those terms, the mainten
ance of the Foundation is entrusted, on the same
conditions, to the King of France; if the King
should refuse, the Emperor (Louis of Bavaria) is
designated ; if the Emperor will not accept, the
Pope (Eugenius IV.) is named ; and if, finally, the
Pope will have nothing to do with the matter,
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and of St.
Lazarus are chosen, each of those Orders to hold
half the gifts. Moreover, Gilles urges si desire that
the Apostolic Chamber will, under penalty of ex-
communication, compel his heirs to respect this his
express will. But in the whole document the
most pregnant words are the first ones, coupled
with the following passage which enforces and
amplifies them : ' Considering that neither he
[Gilles] nor any other human creature can requite
his Creator for the benefits derived from His
Grace and benevolence, and that it is a necessary



202 BLUEBEARD

thing to acquire an intercessor, by the help of
whom, one may, in continuation of temporal welfare*
attain to the glory of spiritual prosperity.'

Here one may well pause. This Foundation of
the Holy Innocents sprang from Gilles* desire to
save his soul. At the first glance there would seem
to be nothing extraordinary in such a proceeding
on his part. For many centuries the wealthy and
the powerful had frequently raised splendid fanes,
established or endowed abbeys and shrines, in the
hope of thereby securing admittance to Paradise.
Each had his or her favourite saint, whose inter-
cession was relied upon at the hour when the spirit
would burst its bonds and go to meet its God.
Gilles, however, chose no particular saint, selected
none of the great miracle-workers to be found in
the Breton calendar ; he desired the intercession of
the Holy Innocents, the little children io inhumanly
slaughtered by King Herod. They were to pray
for him, they were to plead for him, whenever
he might shuffle off this mortal coil. They, in
their sanctity, were the natural representatives of
childhood, they typified all the little ones of suc-
cessive centuries, and if they would only intercede
for him, then, surely, he would be forgiven and
saved.

Forgiven ! What were his crimes then ? What
particular reason had this bold, spendthrift soldier
for self-reproach, he who had fought valiantly for
France, who had stood beside the good and glorious
Maid in the hour of peril, who had given freely of



GILLES DE RAIS 203

his substance both to the state and to the poor?
He had killed his fellow-man undoubtedly, but in
batde and for a righteous cause ; responsibility for
deeds of war cannot have filled his mind with any
exceeding dread. Was there something else then,
was he guilty of secret crimes, had he murdered
outrageously, abominably, had he spilt innocent
blood in such wise that only the intercession of
the Holy Innocents, nestling round the throne of
the Almighty, could possibly save him from the
damnation of Hell ? Answer, ye dungeons of
Champtoc6 and Tiflfauges ! Answer, oubliettes of
Machecoul ! Answer, Signior Prelati, learned
magister and necromancer, man of the bloody
sacrifices, intimate with ' Barron ' and Bedzebub !
Answer, Etienne Corrillaut, otherwise * Poitou,'
page and pimp.^ Answer Henriet, chamberlain and
reader, did you indeed abet your master in the
perpetration of the foulest crimes ? And answer,
La MefTraye ! hag with the glowing eyes, the soft
voice, the fair words, you who with eager steps went
scouring the roads. What did you seek there?
Unsuspecting victims ? And answer, mothers of
Nantes, of Rais, of Anjou, of La Vendue, the
weeping Rachels of towns and villages, who have
lost your straying children and will never see them
more!

But is it possible? Is this great and gracious
lord a monster? See how liberal he is, what
splendid entertainments he provides! He smiles
right pleasandy as he shakes his fair locks and



204 BLUEBEARD

strokes his dark^ perfumed, ' swallow-tailed ' beard,
which (so tradition has it) assumes, in the sunlight, a
bluish tinge ! Nor wife nor daughter dwells beside
him; both are parted from him, have remained in war
days in seclusion at Machecoul and Champtoc6, then
at one time have gone to Thouars, and now dwell
alone in the grim keep of Pouzauges. Does the wife
know the dread truth ; or is there merely * incom-
patibility of temperament' between Monseigneur
Gilles and Dame Katherine? Have they simply
been married in haste in order to repent at leisure ?
Such is the outcome of many a mariage de canven-^
ance ; and in any case Monseigneur Gilles does not
appear distressed by the estrangement. Has he not
mysteries and moralities, farces, morris-dances, and
minstrelsy to divert him ? Is not the winecup
always at hand? Is he not ever encompassed by
mirth and bustle ? Ah I it may indeed be that the
life of perpetual excitement which he leads, the
splendour with which he surrounds himself, the
prodigality which he incessantly displays, are all
due to the dread of recurring bloody visions — the
dread, too, of a certain persistent still, small voice,
whose reproach he would fain escape.

Yet no ! For if at times he repents, at others he
sins again, perhaps imagining that he is certain of
Divine pardon, whatever his misdeeds ; for has he
not done penance, by establishing right lavishly that
Foundation of the Holy Innocents; is he not sur-
rounded by Churchmen, ministers of the Deity, on
whom he bestows a profusion of the most costly



GILLES DE RAIS 205

grifts ; do not his chanters sing the Songs of praise
with a melodious excellence, unsurpassed by any
cathedral choir ? And is not the greatest magnifi-
cence observed at the daily celebration of Mass,
which he never fails to attend ? Is not the Host
that is raised before him lodged in a monstrance
of the most precious metal, flashing with the most
glorious gems ? Again, did he not devote himself
to Joan the Maid because she was the envoy of
heaven ? Ay, he has done a great deal for God
and for His ministers. He will even dedicate all
his possessions to their use, thereby disinheriting his
only child. And thus, no matter how he may sin,
he will be sure of salvation. After being a prince
of earth, he will become a prince of heaven, the
Baron of some celestial Rais, the Marshal of the
archangels, higher even than Michael himself!

From what we know of the man, from what we
can guess of his character, there were hours when
some such visions must have filled his mind ; though
at other times his thoughts were undoubtedly very
different. But if his prodigality and his incessant
quest of pleasure were inspired by some desire to
rid himself of the prickings of conscience, they
ended by placing him in many difficulties. It is
certain that he had squandered large sums prior to
his costly journey to Orleans ; and that at its close
he was on the highroad to beggary, with all sorts
of litde debts to worry him until he could sell some
of his estates, on which he had already borrowed
large sums of money. Perchance he might even



2o6 BLUEBEARD

have a difficulty in carrying out his intentions with
respect to that Foundation of the Holy Innocents
which was to save his soul ; for he owed money
upon all sides : * Monseigneur de Rais, Marshal of
France, confesses that he owes to Jehan de Laon,
furrier, the sum of sixty-four gold royals and sixteen
sols parisis. . . .' ' My said Lord of Rais con-
fesses that he owes to Jacques Bouchier, residing at
Orleans, the sum of one hundred and ninety golden
royals, lent to him by the said Jacques Bouchier,
being a new debt, apart from other sums owing for
wines and other merchandtse, etc. . . .' That is the
kind of entry which one finds in the minute-book of
Jean de Recouin, sworn notary. And copes, and
baldachins, and chasubles, the long-tailed bay horse,
the favourite black horse, Cassenoix, and eight
harness horses, together with the Marshal s splendid
parchment copy of ' Ovide Metamorphoseos,' covered
in gilt leather, protected by copper nails, and with
clasps of silver gilt, and even his * crucifix of wood
covered with silver gilt, and bearing a figure of
Christ in massive silver,' are deposited as pledges
with one and another creditor. At other times, his
retainer, Guyot de Chambere, or Chambrays, aiti
Squire Petit Jean offer personal security for money
owed by the Marshal, notably when Galardon, one
of the captains of Monseigneur's men-at-arms and
bowmen, purchases a number of new bows and
quivers for his troop, and has not received from his
master the wherewithal to defray their cost. It is
true that the accommodation granted to the Marshal



GILLES DE RAIS 207

is often for a very short time. The bows and
quivers, for instance, are to be paid for in twelve
days ; the debt contracted with Bouchier on June 14
is to be settled on the loth day of July, and so forth ;
but everything points to embarrassment, following
unreasonable extravagance, and to distrust, also, on
the part of merchants and others in that city of
Orleans where the Marshal de Rais, by reason of
his connection with the Maid and the relief of the
city, had some right to expect more confidence. But
traders, though they are willing to accept the fruits
of prodigality, often look askance at the simpleton
whose puree they are draining ; and, remembering
how freely Gilles had scattered his gold for months
past, many may well have wondered if he really had
any belongings left to enable him to pay the debts
which he now contracted. However, the story of
his downward course must be told in another
chapter.



IV

1436— 1438

THE RESULT OF PRODIGALITY — THE SCRAMBLE FOR

THE RAIS ESTATES

GiUes anticipates his Income and borrows from Parasites whom
he has enriched — He lives on Credit, and is at a Loss for a
Meal — He pledges Books, Candlesticks, Vestments, Baldadiins,
Bedclothes, and even the Silver Head of St Honors — Nobles,
Burgesses, and Hinds account him Mad and void of Sense —
His Parasites raise Money for him and secure Secret Commis-
sions — He sells many Lordships and Lands — Prosperity of the
Barony of Rais — Lack of Prosperity in Anjou and Poitou —
Sales and Purchasers — Jean de Malestroit's Share in ' La Cur^ '
— Malestroit's Character — The Bishop of Angers and the
Chapter of Nantes — Alarm of Gilles' Relatives — Interdict of
Charles VII. — ^Jean V. scorns the Royal Injunctions, makes
Gilles Lieutenant-General of Brittany, perjures himself and
purchases many of the Rais Estates — Some Curious Deeds of
Defeasance — Gilles' Relatives seize Champtoc^ and Machecoul
— The Great Alarm of Gilles, Proof of whose Crimes is to be
found at Champtoc^.

Prodigality usually, if not invariably, ends in
disaster. However large might be the fortune of
Gilles de Rais, much of it was bound to melt away
in the blaze of incessant extravagance. The raising
of troops, the maintenance of military and eccle-



GILLES DE RAIS 209

siastical households, the lavish hospitality bestowed
on sycophants, the love of display, the gratification
of costly passions and whims, the expense attendant
on frequent journeyings, which Gilles could never
undertake unless surrounded by the pomp and
circumstance that properly pertained to royalty —
all these things helped to drain the purse of the
premier Baron of Brittany. At an early stage
Gilles had begun to anticipate his income. He
could never wait for his revenues to be collected.
He needed ready money for the satisfaction of his
cravings and the maintenance of the court around
him. Thus he borrowed freely, and was fleeced by
those who accommodated him with cash. For in-
stance, in return for an immediate loan of a thousand
crowns, he would assign for two or three years the
revenues of some estate, yielding almost that
amount annually — with the result that he ended by
paying double or treble the sum which had been
lent to him. The salt marshes of the barony of
Rais supplied an abundance of salt which in certain
years he sold for a third of its value. And matters
were made worse by his generosity to his parasites.
He would give one a charge on his corn, another a
charge on his wine, while a third secured for two or
three years the entire income of some considerable
property. And curiously enough, Gilles, in the
course of his downward career, ended by borrowing
money of the very men whom he had enriched.

Roger de Bricqueville, his cunning major-domo,
Gilles de Sill6, his profligate cousin, Petit Jean, his



2IO BLUEBEARD

favourite squire, lent him cash, of which they had
really defrauded him. At other times he obtained
large sums from Jacques Boucher, or Bouchier, the
treasurer of the Duchy of Orleans, whom he had
known since the days of the Relief, when Joan of
Arc and her brothers had lodged at Boucher s
house. And whatever money the Marshal bor-
rowed slipped between his fingers immediately. It
was squandered on some whim, or distributed as
largesse to favourites and servants — in such wise
that Gilles was perpetually buying goods on credit,
which was duly charged for, so that in the end he
paid considerably more than the real value of his
purchases. One not only reads of pieces of cloth,
pieces of silk, horses, harness, furs, rings and jewels,
bought in this manner ; but one even finds Gilles
securing his daily fare on credit, and this although
his domains yielded corn and wine in plenty, although
his forests were full of game, although his pasture
lands were peopled with flocks and herds, and
although fish could be caught in his rivers as well
as off the coast of his barony of Rais. And it came
to pass that this whilom millionaire was occasionally
at a loss how to procure a meal, ' as, from lack of
management, nothing had been provided.' Mean-
time, however, * those who had control of his estates
lived lavishly, like lords of the highest degree, at the
cost of the said Messire Gilles.'^

A constant source of impoverishment was the
erratic nature of the Marshal's disposition. He

^ ' M^moire des H^ritien.'



GILLES DE RAIS 211

squandered a large sum on some coveted object ;
but within a week it had ceased to please him, and
he either resold it for half, or perhaps a third, of its
cost, or else gave it as a present to some retainer.
His lavishness on his travels often placed him in
great difficulties ; and then, as previously mentioned
in connection with his sojourn at Orleans, he
virtually pawned all the precious things which he
carried with him. Not only were his favourite
books, his ' Valerius Maximus,' his ' St. Augrustine,'
and his * Ovid,* deposited as pledges with creditors ;
but he was at times so seriously embarrassed that he
left the vestments and ornaments of his travelling
chapel with money-lenders, merchants, and inn-
keepers as a guarantee of the payment of some
loan or account.

On one occasion we find him pledging some gold
candlesticks used in the celebration of Mass ; at
another time he leaves a cope in green damask, a
silver chain, a damask altar-cloth embroidered with
gold, and his bed-hangings and sheets — that is, four
curtains of green silk and two sheets of the same
material and colour, besides a coverlet of cloth of
gold — with an innkeeper, to whom he has become
indebted. Elsewhere he parts with * a cope without
a cape, another of damask, and a chasuble of black
satin.' Then we read of *a silver-gilt baldachin,
figrured with green, and embroidered with gold birds/
of 'two chaperons for church copes, embroidere^d,
one with a Trinity and the other with a Crowning of
Our Lady '; of a cope of crimson and violet velvet,

14—2



212 BLUEBEARD

of a satin dalmatic ; and even of the silver head of
St. Honor6 being thus left in pawn. It must be
admitted that Gilles generally redeemed these
pledges, though at times long months elapsed before
he did so. Indeed, his circumstances were becoming
more and more critical, and to provide for an ex-
penditure which he never attempted to curtail, he
began to sell his estates, on which, indeed, he^had
borrowed money more than once already.

It was, however, beneath the dignity of the Baron
de Rais to attend to such matters personally. Some
retainer always acted for him, even when a petty loan
was negotiated. And all his friends were eager to
serve him, being well aware that in any transaction
conducted on his behalf there would be plenty of
pickings for themselves. Judging by one of the
documents connected with the lawsuits which his
heirs subsequently brought against the Dukes of
Brittany, it would appear that Gilles was regarded,
at least in some quarters, as quite a fool in money
matters as well as a prodigal. * The said Duke
Jean,' we read, * was well acquainted with the indis-
cretion, lack of understanding and notorious prodi-
gality of the late Messire Gilles ; nor could he
indeed be ignorant of it, for it was notorious in all
the land and Duchy of Brittany, in Anjou, in
Poitou, in the city and Duchy of Orleans, as well
as in divers other lands, cities, towns, and places.
. . . And it will be proved and demonstrated that
- . . the said Duke Jean, the late Messire Jean de
Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, his Chancellor and prin-



GILLES DE RAIS 213

cipal Councillor, Geffroy le Perron, his Treasurer, and
his other Councillors and Officers, and the nobles,
burgesses, hinds, and inhabitants of the said Duchy
of Brittany, did publicly hold and account the said
late Monseigneur Gilles to be mad and senseless,
and did mock and laugh together as at the sight
of a fool, every time that they saw him. . . . Item^
they; did know and repeat many times and in many
places that he was mad, void of sense, and a prodigal,
wherefore they each sought to acquire whatever
they desired of his belongings, knowing that they
could make him accept and pass all such contracts
as they might please. And [in such matters] no
sensible and prudent men of the country did ever
attach any importance to anything that he might do
or say.'^

The fact is that Gilles took no thought of the
morrow ; he was intent on dissipation, regardless
of the consequences. He invested several of his
retainers and parasites with full powers to transact
business on his account, giving them blank forms
{blancs-seings), which he duly signed and sealed, and
which, in the hands of these improvised ag^ents,
became deeds of sale, mortgages, acknowledgments
of debts, which subsequently fell heavily, not only on
himself, but on his heirs, and kept lawyers busy foir
long years after his death. And the * M^moire * of
his heirs |ells us that he went even further than this,
that he actually gave his evil counsellor, Roger de
Bricqueville, full power to find a husband for, and
^ ' Intendits des H^tiers de Gilles de Rais.' Archives, Nantes.



2 14 BLUEBEARD

many off, his only daughter^ the n^lected Marie de
Rais. Thus, as Abb6 Bossard remarks, he disposed
of his flesh and blood, even as he disposed of his
wealth.

When Gilles had anticipated his revenues as far as
was possible, and had parted with a few little estates
here and there, and a large amount of portable pro-
perty, the whole with the assistance of his retainers,
who carried on the work of dilapidation as quietly as
possible for fear lest Dame Katherine, the Lady of
Rais, or Messire Ren6, the Marshal's brother, who
had attached himself to the fortunes of Constable de
Richemont, should intervene — when he had done all
this, Gilles, still largely through the medium of his
servants, disposed of many of his casdes, lordships,
and lands. In this connection all the authorities
say that he was generally fleeced by those who
bought of him. Quite as often, however, he was
robbed by his intermediaries, unscrupulous men,
chiefly desirous of securing large secret commis-
sions for themselves. In any case his necessities
were often so pressing that he was forced to sell
at whatever price might be fixed. In fairness,
one is bound to mention that the Duke of Brittany's
lawyers subsequently urged that Gilles had not been
badly treated in certain transactions, for it had been
found that too high a value had been set on some
lands, which had failed to produce the, revenue
ascribed to them by the Marshal or his inter-
mediaries at the time of sale.^ On the other hand,
^ ' Ilitendits du Due de Bretagne.* Archives, Nantes.



GILLES DE RAIS 215

those particular instances were few, and the number
of sales effected by Gilles or his representatives was
enormous.

Another point worthy of consideration is the
value of landed property at that particular time.
There is no reason to suppose that the barony of
Rais itself was otherwise than prosperous. It had
escaped the incursions of war ever since the last
despairing effort of the Penthi^vres (1421). But
in other regions, where the Marshal had extensive
property, matters were different. Not many years
had elapsed since the English had penetrated into
Anjou, first for their own purposes, and again
to assist the Duke of Brittany in rescuing his
Chancellor, Jean de Malestroit, from the hands of
Alen9on, by whom he had been kidnapped. Alen9on
was the nephew of Jean V. ; and impoverished by
a heavy ransom which he had paid the English,
whose prisoner he had been, he had claimed of
the Duke certain moneys to which he was entitled
through his mother. But both the ruler of Brittany
and his Chancellor remained deaf to these appeals ;
and Alen9on, in the hope of compelling payment,
eventually seized Malestroit, one evening, when he
was crossing a moor near Carquefou, in the vicinity
of Nantes, and carried him from castle to castle
until he consigned him to that of Pouanc6 in Anjou.
Jean V» thereupon appealed for English help.
Willoughby and Scales promptly marched into
Anjou, and invested Pouanc6 ; and Alen9on had to
capitulate, surrender his prisoner, humble himself



2i6 BLUEBEARD

in the Cathedral of Nantes, and pay a large
pecuniary indemnity, instead of receiving the money
he desired. At the time of this affair — September
to March, 1431-32 — Gilles de Rais seems to have
been absent from Brittany. Nevertheless, he may
have been indirectly concerned in it ; for Alen9on
was a friend of his, and to effect his purposes with
Malestroit had freely lodged himself in certain
of Gilles' lordships, which were overrun by the
soldiery on either side, and naturally suffered from
those incursions.

Again, in Poitou and Saintonge, where Gilles
also possessed numerous territories, there had been
trouble ever since La Tr6mouille had attempted to
seize the viscounty of Thouars (which had passed
from the family of Gilles* wife to the house of
Amboise) — an attempt which had led to the
favourite s overthrow, so far as his presence at Court
and influence with the King were concerned, but
which had left him free to pursue his designs of
aggrandisement and rebellion in Poitou, Saintonge,
and Aunis. Those regions, therefore, were in a
state of chronic unrest, which a few years later, at
the time of the Praguerie revolt (1438-42), became
intensified. Rival lords — those who upheld the
royal authority, and those of La Tr6mouille's faction
— were continually invading one another's domains,
besieging castles and raiding villages, in such wise
that this part of France cannot have been in a con-
dition of normal prosperity.

Yet, when all is said, it remains certain that



GILLES DE RAIS 217

Gilles parted with many of his estates for sums
which cannot have represented their value. The
number of sales effected by him was so great that
even the industrious Abb6 Bossard has recoiled
from the attempt to prepare anything like a com-
plete list of them. He tells us, however, that the
Marshal disposed of the towns and lordships of
Confolens, Chabanais, Chiteaumorant and Lombert,
in Poitou, to a certain Gautier de Brussac. Then
he sold the ' castellany, land, and lordship of
Fontaine-Milon ' in Anjou to Jean de Marsille for
the bagatelle of four thousand crowns.^ Again, the
lands and castles of Blaison and Chemilld, also in
Anjou, were bought by Guillaume de la Jumelifere,
Lord of Martign^-Briand, for five thousand crowns,
and the purchaser, it seems, paid only half of the
covenanted amount.^ Next the lands and castles
of La Motte Achard and La Mauri^re — yielding
twelve hundred livres per annum — were sold to
Messire Guy de la Roche Guyon, for a sum which-
Bossard does not specify. Guillaume de Fresni^re
and Guillemot le Cesne, merchants of Angers, in
like way bought the lands and lordships of Ambri^res
and St. Aubin de Fosse- Lau vain, in Maine ; Jean

^ This sale was impugned by the heirs of Gilles, but was
upheld by the Courts. It is probable that this Angevin domain
had suffered by acts of warfare.

^ This sale was also impugned ' as the act of a spendthrift,' but
was upheld, perhaps for the same reason as mentioned in the pre-
vious note. With respect to the figures given above, a thousand
crowns maybe taken as representing about ^1,800 of our present
corrency.



21 8 ^ BLUEBEARD

de Montecler, one of the captains of GiUes* men-
of-arms, an adventurer whom he had enriched, pur-
chased of him, in conjunction with Guillemot le
Cesne, the lands and lordships of Voulte and
S6n6ch6 ; Guillaume, an apothecary of Poitiers,
acquired Le Brueil-Magnon ; while Perrinet Pain,
a citizen and merchant of Angers, secured various
charges on the revenues of a number of lordships,
in return for money lent

There is reason to suspect that the names of the
buyers given above were not in some instances
the names of the real purchasers, but simply those
of intermediaries, acting more than once on behalf
of the Duke of Brittany. However, La Tr^mouille,
the fallen favourite, notorious as a money-lender,
is found holding an annual charge of twelve hundred
golden royals on the revenues of Champtoc6, as
interest for a loan of twelve thousand royals ; and
there is a further charge on the same estate in
favour of Jean de Malestroit, the Breton Chancellor
and Bishop of Nantes. The clergy, indeed, seem
to have secured a considerable share of Gilles'
estate, in that eager scramble or curie. Malestroit
himself purchased the lands and castles of Prign6,
Vue, Bois-aux-Tr6aux, the parish of Saint Michel-
S6n6ch6, and many other properties in the barony
of Rais. But Abb6 Bossard exaggerates matters
when he asserts that the prelate paid an * enormous *
sum for those domains ; for on referring to the state-
ments of the heirs of Rais we find that the pur-
chase-money paid by the Bishop-Chancellor was



GILLES DE RMS' 219

twelve thousand crowns — that is, ^'20,000 of our
present currency,^

The fact is that Abb£ Bossard, anxious for the
honour of his cloth, paints Jean de Malestroit —
Gilles' future judge — as a high-souled individual,
a model of the most perfect integrity, almost too
good for this mundane sphere ; whereas in matters
of business he was really quite as grasping as his
master, the Duke of Brittany. His influence with
Jean V. was enormous ; it was he who so strenuously
endeavoured to keep Brittany friendly with England
through all the years when France was vainly
begging for Breton help. In his favour it may be
said that he was simply a man of his times, full of
the old feudal notions, one who cared nothing what
might become of France provided Brittany remained
independent ; and it may be added that in striving
(though not always successfully) to keep the duchy
out of the sphere of hostilities, he certainly promoted
its immediate welfare. But his policy was deficient
in foresight, and was extremely ungenerous towards
France ; for if Brittany had steadily co-operated
with the latter, the close of the English dominion
might well have been accelerated. Thus, from the
standpoint of French independence, the influence
of Malestroit with Jean V. was pernicious ;^ and
although historians are at variance on the point

^ This must have been a mere bagatelle to a man accustomed
to spend quite ;^ 100,000 a year.

' M. £. Cosneau throws considerable light on Malestroit in
numerous passages of his exhaustive biography of Richemont.



220 BLUEBEARD

whether he was personally bribed to favour the
English, it is certain that belief in his corruption
was widespread among his contemporaries. It is
known, moreover, that he was the bitter foe —
tennemi achami — of the gallant and tireless Con-
stable de Richemont ; and one cannot therefore
accept as genuine the very flattering portrait which
Abb6 Bossard has drawn of him, on the basis,
perhaps, of statements to be found in the 'Gallia
Christiana,'^ which could hardly refer otherwise
than favourably to one who was a great dignitary
of the Church as well as a Breton Chancellor.

One of Malestroit's episcopal colleagues, Hardouin
de Bueil, Bishop of Angers, secured some of the
property of Gilles de Rais, giving, indeed, twelve
thousand crowns for the estate of Grattecuisse, the
land and lordship of Savenay, and a charge on the
forest of Broceliande. Then the splendid mansion
of La Suze was sold with all its appurtenances to
the Chapter of Our Lady of Nantes,^ while Jean
Rabuteau, one of the Presidents of the Breton
Parliament, bought the lordships of Auzence, Clou6,
and Lignon ; and the Duke of Brittany himself
entered into direct negotiations for the acquisition
of Champtoc6, Ingrandes, and other domains.

But the Marshals family — his wife, his brother,
his cousins of Laval, and others — had ended by
hearing of several of the sales which have been
mentioned. Whatever secrecy may have been

^ He is there called Jean de Chiteaugiron.

^ We think Gilles retained a life interest in this house.



GILLES DE RAIS 221

observed in those transactions, it was no longer
possible to conceal them when new owners arose on
one side and another; and, naturally enough, the
alarm of the Marshal's relations impelled them to
seek some means of restraining him from stripping
himself of any more of his domains — domains which
in the event of his death would, under ordinary
circumstances, pass to themselves. At last Dame
Katherine, Ren6 de La Suze, who was co-operating
with Richemont in the reduction of Paris,^ and Guy
de Laval, as senior representative of the house
whence Gilles himself had sprung, made formal
complaint to Charles VIL, with the result that
letters patent were issued by the King in Council
(Amboise, 1436), setting forth that, having been
informed of the bad rule and management of the
Sire de Rais, he thereby forbade him to sell or
alienate any of his lands, lordships, and revenues.
Letters were also addressed to the Court of Parlia-
ment that it might likewise prohibit Gilles, in proper
judicial form, from selling his property, and others
from purchasing it. Notification of these royal
commands was then sent to the various authori-
ties, by whom the captains and guards of the
castles still held by the Marshal were forbidden
to hand those fortresses over to others, until the
Court of Parliament should have signified its
decision.

The prohibitions were made known by the public
criers d son de trotnpe (a trumpet or horn being

^ Cosneau, /.^., p. 245.



222 BLtJE^EARD

sounded), in the cities of Angers, Orleans, and Blois,
and at Machecoul, 'which is the principal place in
the barony of Rais, and that where the Lords of
Rais are accustomed to hold speech and fix their
abode/^ Bossard adds that similar proclamations
were made at Tours, Champtoc6, Pouzauges, Tiff-
auges, St. Jean d'Angely, and many other places;
and quotes Desormeaux to the effect that Guy de
Laval personally notified the prohibitions to his
father-in-law, Duke Jean V., besides making them
known to the governors of Gilles' fortresses, and
particularly to Charles de Layeul, his captain of
Champ toc6. It is also stated that when a copy
of the prohibition was affixed to the gate of the
castle of La Motte Achard, in Poitou, it was carried
away and delivered to Jean de Malestroit, the
Duke of Brittany's ' chief councillor, who took it
and read it in its entirety, and warned the said
Duke Jean/2

* This royal interdict,' says Bossard, * interfered
with the egotistical views of Jean V., the covetous
(cupide) Duke of Brittany.* But it must be pointed
out that those views were not absolutely egotistical
in the strict sense of that word. Jean V. had three
sons — Francois, his successor, Pierre, and Gilles —
and he was at that time extremely anxious to con-
stitute suitable appanages for the two younger men.*
It was particularly this desire, and not merely a
sharp man's craving to effect a good bargain with

1 * Intendits des H6ritiers.' 2 /^^,

' Cosneau, /x, pp. 270-280.



GILLES DE RAIS 223

Gilles de Rais, which prompted the Duke to pur-
chase some of the latter's domains. At the outset
of the imbroglio he did not openly disregard the
injunctions of Charles VII. He sent his son Pierre
on an embassy to the King, with the object of
securing authority to enter into contracts with the
Marshal. But Charles, influenced no doubt by the
Lavals, by Richemont the Constable, who took the
part of his Lieutenant, Rend de La Suze, and by
Frigent de Codtivy, one of the most prominent of
the royal councillors, who afterwards married the
Marshal's young daughter, Marie de Rais — whom it
was already his ambition to wed — refused to comply
with the request of the Duke of Brittany, who was
nettled, if not enraged, by that refusal, and at once
decided on reprisals.

Jean V., like others of his house, admitted that
he held Brittany of France, even as he held the
so-called ' Comt6 de Richemont * — which was really
the earldom of Richmond in Yorkshire^ — of England ;
but he contended that he owed only simple homage,
and not liege homage, to the French King, and that
he was therefore free to disregard the latter's in-
junctions, to which he denied all force of law in his
duchy. Briefly, in spite of all the appeals made to

^ The grant of this earldom dated from William the Conqueror
(1067). Since that time it had been confiscated — perhaps more
than once — and transferred to others ; but the Dukes of Brittany
had never ceased to claim it and to bear the title, unless, indeed,
there were two brothers, as in the case of Jean V. and Artus,
when the elder succeeded to the title of Duke of Brittany, and the
younger became Count de Richemont. Cosneau, ix.



224 BLUEBEARD

him ' by the wife, relations, and friends of Gilles de
Rais/ he and Malestroit absolutely refused to allow
the royal interdict to be published in Brittany. And
in his resentment the Duke went further. Although
Guy de Laval was his son-in-law, he abruptly de-
prived him of the Lieutenancy-General of the
duchy, in punishment for having presumed to notify
him of the royal letters patent ; and he gave that
very Lieutenancy to Gilles de Rais! Again, *on
November 2, 1437,' says Bossard, 'he concluded
with him a pact of friendship, a fraternity darmes^
such as had linked Bertrand du Guesclin to Olivier
de Clisson/

One may here well pause to inquire whether
Jean V. can possibly have been acquainted at tfiat
time with the private life of Gilles de Rais, with the
horrible rumours which must then already have
begun to circulate among the artisans of the towns
and the hinds of the villages. Jean V., as will be
shown almost immediately, was not a man of high
principles ; yet it is only charitable to assume that,
at the moment of entering into that solemn pact of
knightly brotherhood, he must have been absolutely
ignorant of the secret life of the man to whom he
pledged himself, whatever he may have thought of
his vanity, recklessness, and prodigality. In any
case, the negotiations for the acquisition of Gilles
property proceeded. The Duke, in point of fact,
had already purchased several domains either per-
sonally or through intermediaries, and the better to
conceal the transactions which he now meditated he



GILLES DE RAIS 225

did not scruple to write and speak untruly. He
gave Rend, now Duke of Anjou and King of Sicily,
a signed and sealed promise that he would buy no
domain of the Marshal's in Anjou, and, what was
more serious on the part of a professed Christian, in
order to quiet Ren6 de La Suze and the Lavals, he
took an oath in church, on the body of the Redeemer,
that he would never, under any circumstances, pur-
chase Champtocd and Ingrandes. Yet, in spite of
those solemn promises, he acquired the title to both
domains early in 1438. Bossard tells us that there
were two charges upon the revenues of the estates
—one of a hundred livres a year belonging to Rend
de La Suze, and another of nine hundred standing
in the name of Perrinet Pain of Angers — who may
merely have been the agent of La Tr^mouille or of
Malestroit, both of whom had previously held charges
on Champtocd. There is nothing to show that they
had ever been repaid, though Malestroit*s claim may
have been met when other lands were sold to him.
Jean V. acquired the estates ' with all that belonged
to the Sire de Rais, within the line of the river
Mayenne ' for ' one hundred thousand old gold
crowns ' — at least ;^ 180, 000 — and to provide for the
charges or mortgages it was stipulated that the
Duke should also receive the domains of Prin9ay,
Bourgneuf and La Benate, a sum of one hundred
livres a year from the revenue of Machecoul and a
part of the isle of Bouin, Soch6 and Les Jamonnidres,
all in the barony of Rais. Further, with Champtocd
and Ingrandes went the tolls on the Loire of one

15



226 BLUEBEARD

jalaye out of every queu^ of wine conveyed up or
down the river. But this matter led to interminable
and costly proceedings before the Parliament of
Paris after the death of Gilles de Rais, who left his
heirs a series of lawsuits by the side of which
Dickens' famous case of Jamdyce v. Jarndyce would
seem a bagatelle.

In connection with the sale of Champtoc6 and
Ingrandes, Abb6 Bossard quotes three deeds of
defeasance (cantre-lettres) given on January 22,
1438, by Jean V. to Gilles, and now preserved in
the Archives of Nantes. In the first deed the Duke
agrees to restore Champtoc6 to the Marshal in a
delay of three years ; declares that the castellanies
of Bourgneuf and La Benate are already restored to
him ; but reserves to himself a thousand livres a
year in exchange for the castellanies of La Motte-
Achard, La Mauri^re and Les Chines should Gilles
desire their restitution.^ In the second deed the
Duke and his son Pierre covenant that, if the
Marshal restores those estates to them, the time that
elapses shall not be counted in the term granted
for their redemption. Finally, in the third deed,

^ The qtietu contained about 80 imperial gallons. Thejaiaye
oxjaille seems to have been identical with the old French gallon
of ' two pots.' As a rule, however, tolls of thb kind were, for
convenience, paid in money.

* It was mentioned previously (p. 217) that La Motte-Achard,
and La Mauri^re had been sold to a Sire de la Roche Guyon.
Perhaps, however, that sale was annulled in consequence of
Charles VIL's prohibition ; or La Roche Guyon may have trans-
ferred the property to the Duke of Brittany.



GILLES DE RAIS 227

Jean V. grants Gilles the faculty of repurchasing
the domains of Champtoc6» Ingrandes, Bourgneuf, La
Benate and Prin9ay within a delay of six years for
the sum of one hundred thousand crowns. Perhaps
the various redemption clauses figuring in these
deeds were inserted chiefly in order to make it
appear that the Duke had not taken a false oath in
swearing that he would never buy the Marshal's
estates. As there was power of redemption, there
was no absolute purchase on his part, and thus he
could, if necessary, plead that he had not perjured
himself. In other respects the first two deeds are
somewhat obscure ; they may indicate that Gilles
wished to repurchase portions of his property while
he sold others, or that certain modifications in the
original contract had become advisable. It is certain
that the Duke only handed over a portion of the
covenanted price in 1438, for we have a receipt for
a large sum paid on account of Champtoc6 in May,
1439. We know also that Gilles, in the spring of
the former year, ended by accepting the third deed
of defeasance, which granted him a delay of six years
to recover the property of which he was stripping
himself. The Duke of Brittany, as Abb6 Bossard
points out, can have had no fear of repayment occur-
ring, for he knew that the Marshal was sinking deeper
and deeper into difficulties. But Gilles was doubtless
all hopefulness, for, renouncing the substance for the
shadow, was he not prosecuting with every prospect
of success in his laboratory of Tiffauges the wondrous
task of making gold and silver by the aid of all the

15—2



228 BLUEBEARD

arts of alchemy ? And whatever might be his
present difficulties, would he not soon be as wealthy
as he had ever been — wealthy, indeed, beyond all
the dreams either of avarice or of prodigality ?

But all at once consternation fell upon him. His
brother and his cousins, who had doubtless heard of
what was brewing (there may well have been traitors
among the Marshal's unscrupulous henchmen), re-
solved to oppose cunning by force of arms. They
threw themselves into Champtoc^, Machecoul and a
few other places among those still held by Gilles,
and the only course then open to him was to band
his own men together and drive out the intruders.
For, on the one hand, no more money to relieve his
present necessities could be expected from the Duke
of Brittany until he handed Champtoc^ over to him ;
and, on the other, that castle must not be left long
in the hands of his relatives, for dreadful deeds had
been done in it, and horrible proofs of those deeds
might be discovered if he did not promptly repossess
himself of the invaded stronghold. He deemed
himself fortunate, no doubt, in having succeeded in
destroying similar proofs of crime at Machecoul —
impelled thereto by some presentiment, or some
warning that he might soon have trouble with his
relatives. But he had lacked the time to act in a
similar manner at Champtoc6, and, liowever much
he relied on his name and position, the thought of
what might be found there must have alarmed him.

It will soon be necessary to draw aside the veil
of gprgeousness, prodigality, culture, valour, and



GILLES DE RAIS 2^9

even charity, which hid the real Gilles de Rais from
the eyes of the world. But one must do so cautiously
and gradually, with a proper sense of one's responsi-
bility, for the crimes of Gilles were crimes such as
shock the conscience, crimes from the consideration
of which even the historical student recoils with
dismay and horror. And they become the more awful
when one reflects that they were perpetrated by no
wretched outcast, no wild man of the woods, no
untutored savage scarce emerging from animality
and possessed of instinct rather than intelligence ;
but were the deeds of one endowed with every
earthly advantage, robust health, a commanding
figure, an engaging countenance, a ready wit, an
education liberal for the times, a great fortune, a
large share of power and authority, a lofty name,
a distinguished record for valour and military skill.
Many, as the writer unfolds the story, so far as it may
be unfolded, will probably regard this high and power-
ful Lord, this Marshal of France, this premier Baron
and Lieutenant-General of Brittany, as demented,
but it is best to reserve all opinion till the end.
Before dealing, however, with his actual crimes,
one must refer to his passion for alchemy and his
belief in sorcery : two crazes of his period which
he fervently shared, and the consideration of which
will throw some light upon his real character.






1426—1440

THE GREAT FORTRESS OF TIFFAUGES — ^ALCHEMY

AND MAGIC

The Favourite Residence of Gilles de Rais— The *Teffalian
Scythians ' — ^The Pleasure-house, Crypt, K6ep, and Towers of
Tiffauges — Pouzauges and its Fierce Black Castle — Alchemy,
the Laws and the Church — Gilles seeks the Philosopher's Stone
— A Charlatan of Angers gets Drunk on his Money — His
Alchemists — The Wondrous Powers he demands — The

• Dauphin intrudes on his £xperiment9— From Alchemy to
Magic — Giac and his Right Hand — Alen9on and his Herb
to wither the King — How Jean I'Anglais tried to raise the
Devil, and how Gilles got very Wet — The Devil appears as a
leopard — Beelzebub considers Gilles too Religious — How the
Devil beat a Necromancer and raised a Great Bump on his
Forehead — The Compacts with the Devil which Gilles signed
with his Blood — His Horrible Promises to the Fiend and his
Abominable Cruelty and Wickedness.

The castle of Tiffauges, the favourite residence of
Gilles de Rais, formed part of the dowry brought
him by his wife, Katherine de Thouars. For several
centuries it was one of the most formidable fortresses
of the north-western district of Poitou ; and it is not
surprising, therefore, that Richelieu should have
refused to spare it when he took upon himself the



GILLES DE RAIS 231

great experiment of suppressing feudality and raising
in its place that absolute monarchy, which he deemed
essential for France, but which did not really flourish
till nearly a score of years after his death, and which
collapsed, in blood and mire, in less than a century
and a half. Dismantled by the orders of the power-
ful Cardinal, Tiffauges is now a place of ruins, which
may be visited by alighting at the station of Torfou,
on the railway-line from Nantes to Cholet A walk
of less than two miles, along a road skirting a forest
abounding in oak-trees, brings one to the once
fortified bourg of Tiflfauges, through which one may
make one's way to the castle, unless one should
prefer to take a path following the bank of the
little river Crdme, near the point where it falls into
the S^vre, a tributary of the Loire. In former times
those watercourses — the Criime and the Sfevre —
largely defended the castle, whose triple enceinte of
great walls and proud towers, all of glistening
granite, rose in formidable splendour above the
narrow valleys through which the rivers take their
course.,

Tiffauges was originally a Roman castrum, raised,
it is said, by Agrippa, and deriving its name from
certain inhabitants of the region, a tribe of bar-
barians distinct from the ordinary Gallic race.
According to Marcellinus Ammianus and Sidonius —
fourth and fifth century writers — these 'Teffaliao
Scythians,' as they were called, were folk of great
ferocity and gigantic stature, averaging a height of
seven feet— a statement which, in some measure, has



232 BLUEBEARD

been corroborated by the discovery in modem times
of various large skulls and bones. ^ It is said that a
community of these ' barbarians ' subsisted until the
eleventh century on the confines of Aunis and
Poitou, dwelling there in a state of comparative
isolation, feared as they were by their neighbours.
Those of Tiffauges and its vicinity, however, mingled
with the Gallo- Romans at an earlier date ; but the
inhabitants of the district still have a reputation for
exceptional stature and sturdiness.

Agrippa's castrum was taken by both the Bretons
and the Normans in the ninth century ; but it was
never entirely destroyed. It had become a feudal
castle already in the eleventh century ; and at the
end of the twelfth or early in the thirteenth — that is,
during the Philip Augustus and St. Louis period —
a great fortress was wrought of the old remains and
of the granite abounding in the valley of the S^vre.
In the time of Gilles de Rais, the buildings^ to
which frequent additions had been made by their
possessors, the Viscounts of Thouars, were of great
extent, and the fortifications embraced such a lai^e
expanse that within their limits there nowadays
appears a farm-house with garden, orchard, meadows,
and plough-land. Amidst the latter one finds the
remains of a large pleasure-house which faced the
south, and overlooked the valley of the S^vre, shady
with oaks and alders. This pleasure-house was
finally wrecked, it seems, at the time of the War of

^ It is possible that these people were simply the descendants
of some Roman auxiliaries stationed in the region of TifEuiges.






• • t • •



GILLES DE RAIS 233

La Vendue. Portions of the portico and of the
choir of a chapel — dedicated to St. Vincent — still
exist, covered with ivy and carpeted with brambles ;
and an aperture offers access to a crypt, which
dates from the eleventh century. But of recent
years the descent has become dangerous by reason
of the frequent subsidence of the soil, which is
gradually filling the crypt, in some parts rising
almost to the capitals of the columns, which are
some twenty in number.

The fortress proper was separated from the
pleasure-house, and its numerous attendant piles
for the accommodation of the Marshal's household
by a moat spanned by a drawbridge, which rested
on a granite column planted in the water. A large
pait of the keep^built, it would seem, in St. Louis'
time — has fallen, forming as it were a hill of granite ;
but a few fine halls, and winding stairways, leading
simply into space, may still be seen. On one side
of the keep is the site of the court of honour, the
entry of which was formerly commanded by a
massive porticuUised gateway. Huge towers over-
looked the Criime and the S^vre, and two of these
are still in a fair state of preservation. In the larger
one will be found a stone staircase, the pivot of
which is hollow, having been made thus in order
that it might serve as a speaking-tube for the trans-
mission of orders. At the entry of the guard-room
there appears a kind of sentry-box, fashioned in the
wall ; at its far end is a huge fireplace. Then,
encompassing the guard-room, there is a vaulted



234 BLUEBEARD

ciemin de ramde, which nobody can enter, however
softly, without beii^ heard. A word whispered at
one end of it is re-echoed aloud at the other. In
another chamber of the same tower — ^a dark, cold
room — there is an opening conducting to some
onblUttes^ into which* more than once, imprudent
tourists have fallen. Quaint little cells or cabinets^
whose vaulted roofs are curiously ribbed and
decorated with broken escutcheons, adjoin the
chambers of this large tower, which on the side
facing the castle grounds has some lofty windows.

The highest chamber of all is said to have been
frequently occupied by Gilles de Rais, and when he
slept in it, the watch on the platform of the tower
was often horrified by unearthly groans. But it was
in the upper chamber of the smaller tower that
Gilles installed his laboratory and practised alchemy
with the assistance of various charlatans. This
smaller tower, like the larger one, contains a guard-
room, on the left of which is a little cell where at
the utmost only two or three prisoners could be
lodged. An opening, about two feet square, in the
stone flooring affords access, however, to an under-
ground cellar, or perhaps dungeon, large enough
for a score of captives. And the guard-room of this
smaller tower, like that of the large one, is encom-
passed by a chemin de ronde, where, again, every
word that is whispered is re-echoed aloud in the
most startling fashion. The walls verily had ears in
the castles of Gilles de Rais.

Many fallen portions of the fortress have doubtless



GILLES DE RAIS 235

been carried away for building purposes; others
have formed hillocks over which time has cast a
layer of soil and a plentiful growth of briars and
nettles. Yet enough remains standing to give one
an idea of the great fastness as it was in former times,
with its triple belt of ramparts, its huge towers, its
belfry-like keep, its fish-pond or vivter^ its moats
into which the waters of the Crflme and the S^vre
were turned at will, its great court of honour, its
lordly pleasure-house and gardens, its chapel and
chapter-house, its dozen buildings for retainers and
servants, in such wise that, quite s^art from the
dourg at its feet, it was of itself a fortified town where
the Marshal de Rais reigned and ruled in all
sovereignty over his priests, deacons and chanters,
his chamberlains, valets and pages, his knights,
archers and men of arms, and all his other retainers,
vassals and servants.^

Tiffauges is perhaps fifteen miles from the limits
of the barony of Rais, and thirty from Machecoul,
the barony's chief place. Rather more than twenty
miles on the south-east, but still within the limits of
the modern department of La Vendue — as in the case
of Tiffauges itself — is Pouzauges, where for some
years the Marshal's wife dwelt with her daughter
Marie« The castle, like the bourg, stands on the
side of a hill crowned by a wood called the Bois de

^ The ruins are now the property of the Marquis de Couboureau.
The farmer, established in the centre of the fortified space, gives
permission to visit the estate. Many of the remaining fragments
of the castle are now in a dangerous state of collapse, and lights
are essential for purposes of exploration.



236 BLUEBEARD

la Folic, and from the summit of the height — more
than 900 feet above the sea-level — the eye may roam
over the undulating plain and leafy bocage of La
Vendue, explore the northern horizon for the towers of
St. Pierre of Nantes, and gaze southward and east-
ward at the restless sea forty and fifty miles away.
The fierce black keep of Pouzauges is square, each
face, about sixty feet in width, being flanked by towers,
and around it are the remnants of a rampart among
which a dozen other towers may be distinguished.
One of them, called the Tower of Brittany, and
probably dating from the fifteenth century, is said to
have been erected by Gilles de Rais ; but although
he occasionally tame to Pouzauges in the earlier
years of his married life, it is virtually certain that he
never visited the spot after his estrangement from
Katherine. Thus the occasional references to
Pouzauges which are to be found in some of the
records of his trial may be regarded as the errors of
a scribe who ought to have written Tiffauges.^

It was principally at the last-named castle, and at
that of Machecoul, of which some account will be
given a little later, that Gilles de Rais sought to
restore his fortunes, first by means of alchemy, and
secondly by the practice of the black art Alchemy
counted many disciples in the time of Gilles. The

^ The references to Pouzauges occur notably in the Latin
records of the ecclesiastical proceedings. On turning to those of
the civil trial, which are in French, one finds Tifiauges speci6ed ;
and from all that is known of the Marshal's career it is certain
that the latter is correct



GILLES DE RAIS 237

vulgar still deemed each and every student of science
to be a wizard. Perhaps the prejudice was a trifle
less universal than it had been in the days of Roger
Bacon and Albertus Magnus, or even in those of
Raymond LuUy. But, on the other hand, two
centuries were destined to elapse before a writer like
Naud6 could venture, with a due regard for his
personal safety, to issue, urbi et orbi, such a book
as the • Apology for the Great Men who have been
suspected of Magic'

In 131 7 Pope John XXII. had launched a Bull
against the alchemists and their science ; half a
century later Charles V. of France had issued an
edict, followed by others. The chief point which
troubled the Church, from whose ranks the alchemists
were largely recruited, was the suspected alliance
between the science and necromancy, which alliance
— as the case of Gilles de Rais will show — was more
real than might be supposed. That is to say, apart
from the genuine enthusiasts, the men who prose-
cuted their search for the philosopher's stone, the
elixir of life, the universal panacea, in all good faith,
and, incidentally, made valuable scientific discoveries,
there were many others who were mere impostors,
who practised alchemy as rogues practise robbery,
and who claimed that, in addition to their knowledge
of chemical science, they had acquired the power to
work spells, raise the Devil, and procure favours
from him.

Into the hands of such men as these fell Gilles de
Rais, whose interest in alchemy was first aroused, it



'''^



238 BLUEBEARD

is said, by a book which he found in the possession of
a soldier who had been arrested for heresy, and im-
prisoned in the castle of Angers. This book treated
both of alchemy and of the raising of devils ; and,
according to the Marshal's own account,^ he restored
it to the prisoner, after perusing it. It is not known
at what date this incident occurred. In the records
of the Marshal's trial one finds it stated that he first
dabbled in alchemy and necromancy about the year
1426; but all the incidents mentioned in evidence
are of a later date, and there is reason to suppose
that he was unable to give any great attention to
such matters until after his campaign with Joan of
Arc, and after the death in 1432 of his grandfather,
Jean de Craon. Wealthy as he then was, curiosity,
rather than a desire to enrich himself, must first
have attracted him towards the science of the
alchemists. But when prodigality had emptied his
coffers he turned to the search for the philosopher s
stone, and to all the usual attempts to transmute the
baser metals into gold, as to the very best means of
replenishing his purse.

Among the members of his ecclesiastical house-
hold figured a certain priest, Eustache Blanchet,
born at Montauban de Bretagne, in the Diocese of
St. Malo, in or about 1400. Abb6 Bossard regards
Blanchet as having been the least guilty of all the
Marshal's retainers. But the only proofs of his
innocence are his own statements made in the

^ Trial : Ecclesiastical Proceedings. R. de Maulde's transcript
of the Latin text in Bossard, p. xxxiiL



GILLES DE RAIS 239

course of the Marshal's trial, when he naturally
strove to avoid incriminating himself. It was at
least shown that for several years he had been in
the habit of procuring alchemists and necromancers
for his patron, on one occasion carrying his search
into Italy, where the most skilful masters of magic
were then found. At other times he had recruited
such men at Poitiers ; it is from him that we learn
how at some uncertain date, when Gilles was staying
at the sign of the Silver Lion at Angers (perhaps it
was the very time when the book was borrowed
from the imprisoned soldier), something was said of
a goldsmith of the city, renowned for his skill in
alchemy. Blanchet brought this man to Gilles, who,
after listening to his boasts, gave him a mark of
silver, bade him exercise his talents on it, and
locked him in a room of the hostelry. But the gold-
smith, who was an impostor and a drunkard to boot,
found a means of procuring a plentiful supply of
wine — perhaps by way of the window of his room —
became thoroughly intoxicated, and fell asleep.
When the Marshal went to ascertain what the
man had done, and found him lying on the floor,
he angrily threw him out of the house, shouting :
* Get thee gone, drunkard ! get thee gone, fool ! go
and get thyself hanged elsewhere !*

One might have thought that this experience
would have enlightened Gilles with respect to the
boasts of alchemists ; but his passion for the science
became more intense, increased, no doubt, by a
desire to recover his squandered wealth. A labora-



240 BLUEBEARD

tory was fitted up at Tiffauges, and for several years
the most costly experiments were carried on there.
For a long time the chief alchemist in Gilles'
employ appears to have been a certain Master
Antonio di Palerna,^ who is also described as a clerk
and a member of the Marshal's chantry. Besides
this man there was Jean Petit, the Parisian gold-
smith attached to his house, together with an indi-
vidual who is sometimes called Jean de la Rivi^re,^
and at others Jean TAnglais, some authorities
assuming that he was a Picard previously in the
English service, and others that he was really an
Englishman, in which case his name would have
been perhaps John Rivers. He had come from
Guienne to Poitiers, where Blanchet appears to have
recruited his services. Then there was a certain
Du Mesnil, described as the Marshal's trumpeter,
who likewise dabbled in alchemy,* and one may be
quite sure that Gilles' boon companions, Sill4 his

^ In the province of Chieti, kingdom of Naples, according to
Maulde.

^ ' Johannes de Riparia ' in the Latin documents.

^ Abb^ Bossard, misreading one of the Latin texts, also men-
tions, among the alchemists employed by Gilles, a certain Francois
Lombard ; but the reference is really to Francesco Prelati, of
whom an account will be given hereafter. Although this Prelati
was a Tuscan, and his colleague Palema a Neapolitan, they are
both frequently called Lombards in the procedure against Gilles de
Rais. In one document, too, the city of Florence is said to be in
Lombardy ; after which it is a trifling matter to find witnesses
giving the name of ' the Lombardian Marquis ' to Lenano di Ceva
(another character in the Rais tragedy), who was really a Pied-
montese. These instances show that the Bretons of the fifteenth
century still generally regarded all Italians as Lombards.



GILLES DE RAIS 241

cousin, and Roger de Bricqueville, his major-domo,
had a hand in these operations, which, whether they
enriched their patron or not, might in one way or
another yield considerable profit to themselves.

Gilles subsequently admitted that the number of
alchemists and necromancers employed by him was
so large that he could not possibly recall their
names. That he was more or less fooled by all of
them is certain. Several of the tricks employed by
the impostors who feigned ability to turn the baser
metals into gold or silver are known. Crucibles with
false bottoms beneath which gold was secreted were
occasionally used. At other times the charlatan,
making a hole in a piece of charcoal, filled it with
oxide of gold or silver and stopped the hole with
wax. Again, he stirred the mixture in his crucible
with a hollow rod containing oxide of one or the
other precious metal, thereby introducing it into the
operation which he pretended to perform. Solutions
of silver in nitric acid, of gold in aqua regia, and
of amalgam of gold or silver, were also cunningly
employed. Simple-minded patrons were deceived
and inspired with confidence by spurious experiments
with nails made half of iron and half of gold, the
latter being covered with something to conceal its
colour; or else metallic rods, half gold and half
silver, were employed, the gold being whitened with
mercury, which was dissipated in the transmuting
liquid, with the result that the gold appeared, and the
dupe, in his delight, imagined that half the rod had
been converted into the more valuable metal.

16



242 BLUEBEARD

Gilles no doubt was occasionally the victim of one
or another of these tricks. None the less he perse-
vered with his costly experiments, spending all the
money he could get together on his alchemists and
necromancers, in the frenzied belief that he would
at last attain, by means of the much-coveted philo-
sopher's stone, the elixir vita, the universal solvent,
to enormous wealth and supreme power. Of
alchemy and magic he asked science, wealth 'and
the marvellous power of being able to cast down, as
his fancy might dictate, the fortresses and cities
which were the best defended by art and nature,
without any ever being able to prevail against him/^

This need occasion no surprise ; the reader has
only to remember the intercourse of Gilles with Joan
of Arc, an intercourse which had certainly intensified
his belief in the supernatural. Like others, he was
of opinion that Joan's exploits were not her own ;
that they were the acts of a superior power — a power
which had continued working even since her time ;
for, otherwise, how could one explain the numerous
successes now achieved by the French in their
struggle with the English, after years and years of
repeated reverses } Either God or the devil — at all
events some supernatural agency — had come to the
help of Charles VII. and his commanders. This,
indeed, is how Gilles de Rais must have reasoned,
even as thousands reasoned in those days. But if
a supernatural power helped the King in his neces-

^ Ecclesiastical Proceedings : Indictment and Blanchef s con-
fession.



GILLES DE RAIS 243

sky, why should it not also help the Baron of Rais,
who, in his turn, was reduced to sore straits ? There
must be a means of securing that power's assistance,
and no effort to discover that means should be left
untried. He, Gilles, must acquire supreme know-
ledge, supreme wealth, supreme power, in such wise
that his word would be law, that the very towers
and ramparts of fortresses would fall at his bidding
even as the walls of Jericho fell at the sound of
Joshua's trumpets.

There were hours when Gilles still believed that
mere alchemy — the discovery of the philosopher's
stone — would invest him with the attributes of a goA
On one occasion, as he himself afterwards related in
his confession, the experiments at Tiffauges were
proving so successful that he was transported with
delight. But all at once a servant came to the
door of the laboratory with the tidings that Monseig-
neur the Dauphin was waiting without and craved
admittance. We can picture Gilles clenching his
fists and cursing his illustrious visitor. He was in
despair, as he subsequently acknowledged. There
were laws against alchemy, even though they were
seldom put in force ; and in any case he did not
wish the Dauphin to become acquainted with his
secrets. By his orders the crucibles were over-
turned, the furnaces extinguished, the appliances
shattered, while he went forth with feigned delight
to greet the heir of France.

No previous writer on Gilles de Rais has offered
any acceptable suggestion as to the date of this visit

I



244 BLUEBEARD

Some think that it must have taken place at a
comparatively early period of the Marshal's career ;
they forget, however, that the Dauphin (afterwards
Louis XI.) was bom as late as 1422, and that there
is no record of any journey made by him (unless it
were with the Court of his father) — sl journey, too,
which would bring him within easy distance of
Tiffauges, until December, 1439. In the previous
month, as a result of all the deeds of rapine com-
mitted by armed bands in various parts of France,
Charles VII. had issued an edict assigning grarrison
posts to those troops who held the royal commis-
sion, and forbidding nobles and captains to maintain
military forces of their own. This edict had been
set at defiance, however, by several prominent men,
particularly in Poitou, where the ex-favourite, George
de la Tr6mouille, his nephew, Jacques, Sire de Pons,
Guy de La Rochefoucauld, and several other nobles,
openly practised brigandage. The young Dauphin,
then seventeen years of age, was sent to pacify
the province ; but the Duke of Alenqon and the
Seneschal of Poitou, who had been gained over to
the malcontents, prevailed on the prince to side with
them and throw off the paternal authority. Thence
sprang the rebellion known historically as La
Praguerie, and it seems to us that the Dauphin's
unexpected visit to Tiffauges must have taken place
at the end of 1439 or very early in 1440. And it
may well be that the object of the Dauphin's visit
was to win Gilles over to the cause of the rebellion.
But the Marshal was now Lieutenant-General of



GILLES DE RAIS 245

Brittany, and, moreover, his personal affairs absorbed
his attention. Thus whatever appeals may have
been made to him it may be regarded as certain
that he took no part in the revolt against the
authority of Charles VII.

This digression has led us to anticipate events,
and we must now refer to incidents which appear
to have taken place at a somewhat earlier period,
though, indeed, it is extremely difficult to assign a
date to many of the strange experiences and abomi-
nable deeds which are ascribed to Gilles de Rais.
It is impossible even to say that as alchemy led to
magic, so magic led to crime, which is largely the
opinion of Abb6 Bossard, and which is, indeed, a view
commending itself to logicians. Everything tends
to show, however, that crime — horrible crime — had
sullied Gilles' life at an early stage, that his estrange-
ment from his wife may have been due to it, and
that the crime, once practised, never ceased until he
was arrested. At first it had no connection whatever
with alchemy, but when magic came in the train
of alchemy crime was imported into it, becoming,
indeed, one of its essential elements.

Although the Marshal s attempts to make gold
were pursued to the end of his career, his repeated
failures naturally brought moments of despondency,
when, finding that he could not produce the precious
metal by scientific means, he bethought him of the
Devil. It was then the common belief that Satan
had it m his power to enrich mankind, and so why
should he not be summoned and asked for some



246 BLUEBEARD

bestowal of his gifts ? Excepting only his own life
and his own soul, Gilles was ready to gpive the fiend
whatever he might desire in return for wealth and
power and science. Thus the Marshal studied the
Black Art in the books he possessed, and consulted
his alchemists, who all replied to him that it was
indeed possible to raise the Devil. Gilles, himself,
doubtless remembered that Giac, the favourite of
Charles VII., put to death by Richemont, had
carried on dealings with the Fiend, to whom he had
sold his right hand, which he begged to have struck
off at the moment of his execution.^ Perhaps,
also, the Marshal was acquainted with the friendship
which was said to exist between the Evil Spirit
and the Duke of Alen^on, though the latter
dabbled in magic principally with the object of dis-
covering some potent love-charm — declared by his
enemies to be really a poisonous herb, which he
desired to put into the King's bed and thereby
wither him. It is true that Alen9on never dis-
covered the charm or the herb, whichever it was, in
spite of all the science of his private necromancer,
Messire Michel Bars, who not only described him-
self as a physician, astrologer, and master of magic,
but was also a monk, and had acted for some years
as provost of the abbey of Wastines, near Bruges.
However, Alen9on's failure was no proof that
Gilles would fail, and in any case it was decided by

^ His idea was that if his hand were struck off before he died,
the Devil would only secure that portion of his body ; whereas, if
he retained his hand, the Devil on seizing it would drag him to
hell in his entirety.



GILLES DE RAIS 247

the Marshal and his henchmen that they would
summon the Devil.

One of the first to make the attempt appears to have
been La Riviere or Rivers — the Picard or English-
man, who one may hope was really of the former
nationality. First of all, this rascal told Gilles that
he must have a cedula or promissory note for Satan ;
and the document was written out * in certain ink/
which he, ' L'Anglais,'^ had prepared. Then he
pinched and pressed the little finger of the Marshal's
left hand, drew blood from it, and made him sign
the script with this blood. The attempt to raise the
Fiend duly followed, in a field in the vicinity of
Machecoul, near an inn whose sign was L Espdrance
(* Hope ') and a cottage where resided ^Jille cC amour,
known as La Picarde. Gilles was present with his
valet, ntienne Corrillaut, alias Poitou, and a certain
Guillaume Crevais. A magic circle was formed,
dry flax and holly leaves being strewn around it.
But, so far as the Marshal was concerned, the invo-
cations yielded no result, save that * Monseigneur
felt as wet as if he had fallen into the river, and yet
it was not then raining.'^ However, Maltre Jean,
the necromancer, stepped by mistake out of the
circle, and was thereupon beaten, scratched, and
tormented * by certain little imps,' which he told his
companions belonged *to the retinue of the great
Devil of Hell.' The result was even worse when

^ Civil Proceedings : Poitou's evidence.
* Rais was brave, but very superstitious ; and the wet to which
Poitou refers may well have been perspiration induced by dread.



248 BLUEBEARD

La Riviere returned alone to the spot another night,
for he came back to Machecoul, according to the
Marshal's valet, in such an injured state that he
could hardly speak or walk. Poitou was of opinion
that * Jean T Anglais ' did not know his business ;
but La Picarde, who had watched his incantations
from her cottage, openly declared that he only
feigned injury, and that ' the most cunning of all the
devils was certainly in his own skin/

Disappointed as Gilles might be by the failure of
Jean de La Riviere s first attempts, he nevertheless
continued to employ him, and another experiment
was made in a lonely and mysterious wood at some
little distance from Tiffauges. According to the
statements of some of his retainers, Gilles was again
present on this occasion, though he himself after-
wards asserted to his judges that he was absent, and

deputed his valet Poitou, his chaplain Eustache

*

Blanchet, and his chamberlain Henri Griart, other-
wise Henriet, to attend the necromancer on his behalf
This time La Riviere was clad in armour and carried
a sword. He took his way under the trees, alone,
his companions halting on the verge of the wood.
The night was very dark, the spot very lonely, the
minutes went by, and at first nothing could be heard
save the soughing of the wind among the branches.
Waiting with mingled dread and expectancy, the
magician's escort held their peace, and all at once
they heard a loud rustling sound, followed by the
clash of steel, a shriek, a commotion as if the evocator
were wrestling with the demon. But before long he



GILLES DE RAIS 249

rushes back to them, haggard, gasping, scarce able
to speak, tanquam perterritus et turbatus. And he
declares that he has indeed seen the Devil, who * in
the form of a leopard ' had come straight towards
him» and then, to his infinite surprise, had passed on
' without deigning to speak a word.' La Riviere,
however, endeavoured to stop him — at least, it would
seem so, for he afterwards showed Gilles * sundry
hairs which he had plucked from the beast's neck,'^
and which he burnt, in the Marshal's presence, while
repeating certain magic words.

After this exciting experience the Marshal, the
chamberlain, the valet, the chaplain and the sorcerer
spent the remainder of the night, we are told,
• drinking and rejoicing together '^ ; and Jean de La
Riviere having put Monseigneur in a good humour
and filled him with the hope of a future apparition,
when Messire Satan would doubtless condescend to
speak, declared that he would have to purchase
various things in order to ensure complete success —
a hint to which Gilles responded by handing him
twenty golden crowns. And of course 'Jean
FAnglais ' then departed to procure what he needed,
and of course he took good care never to return to
Tiffauges.

So Eustache Blanchet, chaplain and provider of
devil-raisers, had to search for others to take La

* Bibliophile Jacob's transcript of the Civil Proceedings.
M. Paul Lacroix claimed that this copy was more detailed than
those now preserved at Nantes.

> Ecclesiastical and Civil Proceedings : Gilles' confessions.



250 BLUEBEARD

Riviere's place. Roger de BricqueviUe and Gilles de
Sill6 helped him. Brittany was scoured for necro-
mancers ; it is said that a search for experts in the
Black Art was even made in Paris. As a rule
those who were solicited immediately repaired to
Tiffauges, eager to gain some of the Marshal's gold
by the practice of charlatanry. But two old witches,
whom Gilles de Sill6 went to consult in Normandy,
declined to go near his master on any terms. One
of them told him that her patron Beelzebub would
never appear to the Marshal so long as he should
bestow his affection on the Catholic church, his
chapel and chantry ; and the second confirmed this
statement, adding ' so long as he does not relinquish
certain practices on which he is intent' Then,
another necromancer was drowned whilst on his way
to Tiffauges ; and another died a few days after his
arrival there. Despite these contretemps, however,
Gilles was never without somebody who professed
to be learned in the Black Art. There was even
a cowherd named Loys (Louis) who practised
devil-raising for him ; and, in default of strangers,
he could fall back on his trumpeter, Du Mesnil, and
his chanter, Antonio di Palerna.

On one occasion when a sorcerer whose name is
not given had just arrived at Tiffauges,^ an attempt
was made to induce his Satanic majesty to appear in
a room of the castle in the presence of the Marshal
and of his cousin, Gilles de S1II6. The necromancer
traced a magic circle on the floor and told his com-
^ Gilles' confessions. Some copies say ' MachecouL'



GILLES DE RAIS 251

panions to enter it with him. Sill6, however, was
afraid to do so, and remained seated on the ledge of
an open window, pressing an image of the Blessed
Virgin to his breast and intending to jump outside
at the very first sign of danger. Meantime, Rais
and the sorcerer entered the circle, the former, to use
his own words, * not daring to make the sign of the
Cross, for the magician had told me that I should
incur great peril by doing so. But I heard voices
which were not human, and I became marvellously
afraid, feeling that I had confessed myself badly that
morning, in such wise that a prayer to Our Lady, the
Alma Mater Redemptoris, did come to my mind ;
whereon the evocator at once bade me quit the circle,
which I did, fearing lest I should be seized by the
Devil. And making the sign of the Cross I left the
evocator by himself, closing the door of the room
upon him, whilst Gilles de Sill6 fled by the window.
But having come to the door to listen, we heard that
someone was beating the evocator^ even as one might
strike a feather-bed. I drew my dagger, and Gilles
de Sill6 did likewise ; then we opened the door to see
what was the matter. And the said evocator was
lying on the floor outside the circle, moaning and
weeping, injured exceedingly in the face, and else-
where, having a large bump upon his forehead, in
such wise that he could not stand up, and I feared he
might die ; wherefore I did have him well confessed
by my chaplain, but he did not die.'^

This adventure is said to have greatly impressed

^ Civil Proceedings : Gilles' confession.



252 BLUEBEARD

the Marshal, showing him how fierce was the anger
of the evil spirits when they were offended. Never-
theless, he still sought their ministry, at one time
endeavouring to raise Satan, at another Barron, at
another Belial, at another Oriens, and at another
Beelzebub. One day his trumpeter, Du Mesnil,
following the example of Jean de La Riviere, came
to him saying that he had seen the Devil, who was
willing to enter into intercourse with the Marshal,
provided the latter gave him a cedula signed with his
blood. The necessary document was at once pre-
pared, Du Mesnil pricked his master's little finger,
and when there was enough blood to fill the pen the
signature Was duly appended, written no doubt in the
following fashion^ :




At midnight, all being in readiness, the Marshal
and Du Mesnil — accompanied, perhaps, by others —
repaired to a meadow where Satan was to be sum-
moned. But the night proved to be abominably
wet, so wet indeed that, according to Gilles, * all the
writing on the cedula was effaced, and the Devil did
not come to receive it.' When his judges asked
him what was written on this cedula and on the one

^ The facsimile given above shows how the Marshal usually
signed his name. This specimen is from a receipt (formerly in
the possession of M. Benjamin Filon) for money paid by the
Duke of Brittany on account of the purchase of Champtoc^.



GIIiLES DE RAIS 253

which he had previously given to Jean de La Riviere,
he answered that he could only remember having
asked the Devil for the three things which have
been previously mentioned — that is, science, power,
and wealth. And when he was pressed with regard
to the promises he had made in return for those
gifts, he declared that he was unable to recollect ; he
only knew that he had expressly reserved both his
soul and his life.

But Poitou, first his page and afterwards his valet,
had a better memory. He confessed to the horror
of all that his master had told him what was con-
tained in the cedula given to Jean de La Riviere ;
and that was a promise to immolate five little children
and give their hearts to the Devil, in exchange for
those great gifts of science, power, and wealth !

Ah ! he took good care of his own life, did this
Marshal of France, this Lieutenant - General of
Brittany, who dwelt in a fortress, surrounded by
knights, squires, pages, men-of-arms, archers, and
horsemen. And doubtless he hoped to save his
soul by means of his chapel, his chantry, his daily
confessions, his daily Masses, his everlasting psalm-
singing, and his blasphemous ' Foundation of the
Holy Innocents.' But he thought nothing of the
lives of others ; he did not hesitate to send them
unshriven to meet their God. As Michelet has
written, he was indeed the Exterminating Beast —
a monster who for years practised the murder of
children with impunity, in such wise that the massacre
ascribed to King Herod pales to insignificance by



254 BLUEBEARD

the side of all the massacres perpetrated by this man,
who had been the protector and the companion
of the pure Maid of Orleans, and whose war-cry,
when he chained the English, was that of the
Montmorencys, his ancestors, *God help the first
Christian !' Again, Jack the Ripj>er, notorious in
the annals of English crime, and Jacques Lantier,
la bile humaine of Emile Zola, were as nothing
compared with Gilles de Rais. A French writer of
fiction has seized upon his career to pen one of the
ghastliest novels ever written — a novel in which one
may trace a mystical dementia akin to that of Gilles
himself ; but it is certain that no novelist could have
imagined such a career, have conceived such a com-
bination of courage, culture, prodigality, superstition,
credulity, craft, cruelty, and vice, as one finds in this
high and mighty Baron of Rais. And it seems all
too true. Several copies of the procidure instituted
against him are in existence. There is the evidence
of numerous witnesses, the repeated confessions of
the man himself, and the decisions of laymen as well
as churchmen. In these pages an attempt will be
made to spare the reader many horrors, but some-
thing at least must be said of the cruel murders
which accompanied the Marshals practice of magic»
and won for him in La Vendue, Poitou, and many
parts of Brittany, the sinister name of Bluebeard
before either folklorists or historians referred to him
in connection with Perrault's tale.



VI

1426 — 1438

THE HORRORS OF MACHECOUL AND CHAMPTOClS — THE
CRIMES OF THE EXTERMINATING BEAST

Machecoul and Champtoc^ are seized by Gilles' Relations —
Machecoul Forest and Guillery the Outlaw — The Castle where
Gilles was born — The Remains of his Victims burnt — ^Two
Women witness the Ghastly Business — Gilles recovers Possession
of Machecoul and Champtoc^ — The Library of Champtoc^ and
the Origin of the Marshal's Crimes — He swears his Retainers
to Secrecy — The Remains of the Victims of Champtoc^ — A
Gruesome Voyage with Three Chestfuls of Mangled Corpses —
The Number of the Marshal's Victims — The Fear and Silence
of his Henchmen — The * Lost ' Children and their Parents'
Surmises — * English Kidnappers * — How La Mefiraye sought
Victims for the Marshal — * Les Empocheurs' — Increasing
Rumours of the Marshal's Crimes — The Three Stages of his
Abominable Career.

It has been mentioned that Ren6 de La Suze, the
Marshal's brother, and Andre de Laval, Sire de
Loh6ac and Admiral of France,^ his cousin, had
forcibly taken possession of the castles of Machecoul
and Champtoc6, to the anger and alarm of Gilles,
who wished to place the latter property in the hands

^ Andr^ was the younger brother of Guy de Laval. He relin-
quished the post of Admiral in 1439, and was then created
Marshal of France.



256 BLUEBEARD

of Duke Jean V., and thereby secure payment for it
Great as may have been the Marshal's anger, how-
ever, the blow was hardly unexpected by him. There
are indications that he had apprehended some coup
de main as the inevitable result of his determination
to sell his property, and of his disregard of the
royal prohibition in the matter. And apart from
the pecuniary considerations which weighed with
him, there were other things that gave him cause for
anxiety. Evidence of his misdeeds existed both at
Machecoul and at Champtoc^, and if his enemies
should possess themselves of those casdes that evi-
dence would be found. A presentiment, born of fear,
came upon him, and he destroyed all the evidence
existing at Machecoul, intending to act likewise at
Champtoc6 at the first convenient moment. But
in the interval his relations possessed themselves
of both places, and though they found nothing at
Machecoul, it seems certain that the dread secret
of Champtoc6 became partially known to them.^

Before dealing with that point, however, let us see
what it was that Gilles had done at Machecoul to
destroy all traces of his crimes there. The little
town or dourgy which had become the capital of his
barony of Rais, and which nowadays counts some
4,000 inhabitants, may be reached by rail from
Nantes in rather more than an hour. It Stands in a
fertile plain called the Valine des Chaumes, and when
it has been traversed one finds before one a bridge,

^ Evidence of Poitou and Henri Griart in both the Ecclesiastical
and the Secular Proceedings.



GILLES DE RAIS 257

spanning the river Falleron, by the side of which
rise the ruins of the castle where Gilles was born.
In his time Machecoul town was fortified, and had
a citadel, apart from the stronghold where he re-
sided at certain seasons of the year. In the region
around the castle are to be found the ruins of more
than one old abbey, together with the remains of
a celebrated forest, through which dolmens and
menhirs are scattered. At the end of the sixteenth
century this forest became one of the haunts of
the notorious Guillery, an outlawed captain of
• Leaguers,' who, refusing to lay down his arms after
Henri IV. had been generally recognised as King
of France, betook himself to the greenwood with a
company of * merry men * (or, as the French more
appropriately put it, ntauvais garfons\ playing,
indeed, much the part of a Robin Hood and making
a Sherwood of Machecoul forest. Various ballads
about Guillery are still known to the peasants of La
Loire-Inf6rieure and La Vendue ; and very popular
and wide-spread is one beginning :

* II ^tait un petit hoinme
Qui s'appelait Guillery

Carabi,
II monta sur un arbre
Pour voir ses chiens couri'

Carabi,

Toto, Carabo !
Marchand Caraban,
Compare Guillery,
Te lairas-tu mouri' P*.^

1 This song or ballad has gone all over France. The present
writer has even heard it sung by his little nephews in Savoy.

17



258 BLUEBEARD

But there is another, a horrible ballad, reeking of
witchcraft and diablerie, a fit ballad indeed for such
a forest as Machecoul, where the werewolf prowled,
and where the Wild Huntsman^ and his crew made
night hideous with their frantic galloping even in
our times. In this ballad, Guillery, mounted on a
horse with the skin of a toad, is attended by witches
and werewolves, polecats, and gnomes, wills-o*-the-
wisp, carrion crows, and red spectre-hounds. He
rides in their midst brandishing a sword of ice, eager
to do battle with the Saracens, but the deceptive
vision of foemen ever flees from him, and, carried
along by fate, he gallops round and round, exhausted
and desperate, vainly calling for death, until the
dawn at last rises, and he and his frozen crew sink
into hell to roast there. Each verse of the ballad is
followed by the burden :

' Entendez-vous la sarabande ?
Oh ! c'est la Chasse-Gallery
Ici vont passer en bande
Et la garache^ et Valouby !'»

^ The Wild Huntsman (the * Wilde Jager' of Germany, the

* Heme the Hunter ' of England) figured at Fontainebleau as
*Le Grand Veneur/ and was known in Normandy as the

* Mesgnie Hellequin. ' In Berry he and his crew became * La Chasse
k Ribaut ' (or * Rigaud ') ; in some parts of Central France they
were called ' La Chasse k Bodet '; in Franche Comt^ they took
the names of * La Chasse d'Oliferne ' and * La Chasse du Roi
H^rode *; then, in Poitou and La Vendue one finds ' La Chasse
Gallery/ and in various parts of Brittany * La Chasse Arthur '
and ' Le Chariot de David.' Elsewhere the midnight hunt, at the
sound of which the devout peasant anxiously crossed himself, has
been associated with St Hubert.

^ Witch. ^ Ravenous woI£



GILLES DE RAIS 259

And t^ moral of it all is :

* Pour passer ces nuits bUiDches,
Gallery, mes enfants,
Chassait tous les dimanches,
£t battait les paysans.'

From this it will be seen that the ballad scarcely
applies to the historical Guillery;^ its purpose is
rather to portray the fate of the selfish lords of olden
time, who, for oppressing their vassals, were con-
demned to eternal damnation. And although there
is nothing in the ballad (which is known in varying
forms throughout La Vendue and Poitou) really
connecting it with Gilles de Rais, it certainly sug-
gests him with its train of loathsome creatures and
its undercurrent of sorcery and horror. Gilles,
indeed, made the nights of Machecoul hideous
beyond compare.

Of his castle — a once formidable pile built in the
fourteenth, dismantled in the seventeenth, and finally
destroyed by fire at the end of the eighteenth
century, when it was held in turn by the Vend^ans
and the Republicans — there still remain some
picturesque ruins, a broken tower which oscillates in
the gale, a few low halls, some scraps of winding
stairways, and a decapitated keep, over which the
ivy of centuries has clambered. And here the sight
of the Lady's Oratory, whose window and balcony

^ Guilleiy defied the laws for about ten years. At last, how-
ever, the authorities assembled a force of from 4,000 to 5,000
men, with whom they surrounded the forest Guillery vainly
endeavoured to slip through the cordon ; he was caught, tried,
and broken on the wheel.

17 — 2



26o BLUEBEARD

appear above the river, immediately suggests Per-
rault's * Bluebeard/ and Sister Anne's despairing
scrutiny of the horizon, where she could only see the
dust of the sunbeams scattering and the grass
a-greening. The oratory itself hangs within the
keep, suspended, as it were, in mid-air, and a very
long ladder is needed to reach it In 1885 the
chapel was still in a fair state of preservation, and on
the keystone of the vaulted roof was an escutcheon
bearing the arms of Sainte-Croix of Machecoul.^
But the ruins, generally, which in 1845 still bore
signs of great architectural magnificence,^ elaborate
sculpture work adorning the doors and windows,
now grow smaller every day, the stones being re-
moved by the peasantry for building purposes. It
has been suggested that excavations should be made
with the view of clearing the underground store-
places and dungeons, where, according to local
tradition, Gilles de Rais secreted some of his
treasures ; but if any relics of his time should ever
be found there, it is far more likely that they would
be the bones of some of the forgotten victims of his
abominable orgies and his hideous sacrifices to
Beelzebub.

At the time when the Marshal feared the designs
of his relations, he despatched to Machecoul his
cousin Gilles de Sill6, and one of his most trusty

^ * Le Barbe-Bleue de la L^gende et de FHistoire,' by Charles
Lemire. Paris, 1886, 8vo., p. 9.

' * Les Seigneurs de Rais,' by Mourain de Sourdeval. Tours,
1845, ^^^'



fi



GILLES DE RAIS 261

servants, a certain Robin Romulart (called occasion-
ally Petit Robin), with orders to destroy all traces of
his cruel crimes. These two men therefore repaired
to a tower in the castle-yard and removed from the
cellars the remains of no fewer than forty children,^
burnt them, and threw the ashes into the moats and
the river. And, it seems almost incredible, some
part of this ghastly business was witnessed by two
women ; for Sill6, when subsequently relating it to
Poitou, the valet, and Henri Griart, the chamberlain,
complained of the treachery of Messire Roger de
Bricqueville, who had brought the Dame de Jarville
and Thomin d'Araguin to look at him and Robin
through a slit in the door while they were removing
the bones, and this although he well knew upon
what work they were engaged ! ^

Who were the Dame de Jarville and Thomin
d*Araguin ? We do not know. Abb6 Bossard
opines that if they were mothers they must have
been as horrified and as alarmed by the sight they
witnessed as was the wife of Perrault s Bluebeard
when she found herself in the forbidden room, in the
presence of her murdered predecessors. Perhaps
they did not clearly understand what they saw ; per-
haps terror sealed their lips. At all events there is
nothing to show that they spoke a word to anybody
of the gruesome work which Sill6 and Petit Robin

^ Both Bossard and the Bibliophile Jacob say eighty; but the
Latin word is quadraginta in the evidence of Poitou, and again in
that of Henri Griart

^ Evidence of Poitou and Henri Griart



262 BLUEBEARD

were performing. And remembering the character
of Bricqueville — ^an egregious Har, as will presently be
shown — It is perhaps allowable to suspect that these
women were creatures of easy virtue, degraded
members of their sex, such as the Marshal s retainers
kept about them.

When Poitou and Henri Griart were subsequently
asked if they knew at what date these victims of
Machecoul had been put to death, they replied that
these particular crimes had taken place prior to their
entry into the Marshal's service,^ and they imputed
them to the Marshal, Sill6 and Bricqueville conjointly.
Indeed, one gathers from all the evidence on the
subject that the bones had been lying in the tower
for several years. But there was more to come.
Gilles was at Tiffauges, with his alchemists and his
necromancers, when he heard that his relations had
seized Machecoul and Champtoc^. Some little time
elapsed before he could get together a sufficient force
to drive them out ; but Jean V. (desirous of com-
pleting his contract) sent him some men, and Gilles
then advanced on Machecoul and besieged it The
garrison having surrendered after a brief resistance,
Gilles pressed on to Champtoc6, of which he also
speedily possessed himself, either by arrangement or
by force of arms. From a certain Knight named
Charles du Leonne or Leone, who appears to have
held the place for Ren6 de La Suze, two of the

^ In 1440 Henriet had been six years with the Marshal.
Machecoul must have been taken by Rend de La Suze or Andrd
de Loh^c late in 1437, and the bones were burnt about three
weeks before that occurrence.



1



GILLES DE RAIS 263

MarshsLl's servants, Poitou and Griart, learnt that
Ren6, on seizing the castle some three months pre-
viously, had found the dead bodies of two young
boys in the bottom part of a tower. They — Poitou
and Griart — protested ignorance of the matter,
when they were questioned respecting it by the
Knight ; indeed, they suggested that it was some
abominable slander invented by Messire de La
Suze. But they doubtless reported what they had
been told to their master. The latter must then
have resolved on immediate action. Whatever
Ren6 de La Suze, whatever Charles du Leonne,
might already know, they must learn nothing more.
The former, who had simply placed a small garrison
in Champtoc6, was now, we suspect, again with
Richemont, his patron; and family considerations
may have kept him from bruiting the affair abroad.
On the other hand, Charles du Leonne may have
been bribed. At all events neither of these men
ever acquainted any of the authorities of Nantes with
the gruesome discovery of the two bodies. Like the
Dame de JarvilleandThomin d'Araguin, they lapsed
into silence.

Champtoc6, it will be remembered, had come to
Gilles from his grandfather, Jean de Craon. Great
as its pile of ruins may be, it was the smallest of the
Marshals four chief fortresses.^ Situated on a

^ The others were Tifiauges, Pouzauges, and Machecoul.
Champtoc^ is in the modem department of Maine-et-Loire. It
must not be confounded with Champtoceaux, which is lower
down the Loire on the left bank. The ruins are the property of
M. de Bonrepos, of the Chiteau du Boisseau.



264 BLUEBEARD

rocky platform, overlooking the right bank of the
Loire, midway between Varades and St Georges, its
chief entrance was on the village side, where the
four pillars on which the drawbridge rested may still
be seen. At the present time access is obtained by
crossing the dry moat. There was an outer rampart
with eight large round towers, fantastic fragments of
which now loom above the river A postern afforded
admittance on the side where a large pond or viuier^
which is above the river level, washed the castle
walls ; and some underground galleries with portions
of stairways leading now to the defensive works,
now to the residential part of the castle, and now to
its court of honour, may still be easily explored.

A certain Tiphaine or Tryphine de Champtoc6,
curiously called ' the Eel ' — perhaps because she
eluded many covetous suitors — brought this castle
and the smaller one of Ingrandes, which is some
three miles lower down the Loire, as dower on her
marriage with Maurice I. of Craon, very early in
the twelfth century. In the course of time, Angers
being less than twenty miles away, and its university
rising to great celebrity, some of the culture which
that institution diffused reached Champtoc6, whose
lords gradually acquired a library of books, a small
one doubtless, for the art of printing was yet un-
known, and books were very costly and precious
things. In any case, Gilles de Rais himself declared
that on his grandfather's death he had come into the
possession of a library, in which may well have
figured the Valerius Maximus, the Ovid, and the



^



GILLES DE RAIS 265

St. Augustine, to which reference has been made
previously. And if one account may be believed,
he discovered among Jean de Craon s books * a Latin
work on the life and manners of the Csesars of Rome,
by a learned historian, who was named Suetonius,
which book was ornamented with pictures, extremely
well painted, in which were to be seen the excesses
of those pagan Emperors.' In that history Gilles
read how * Tiberius, Caracalla (an absurd mistake ;
Caligula is intended), and other Caesars, took a
singular pleasure in putting children to martyrdom.*^
Adopting the view that Gilles made the above
statement to Pierre de THdpital, Seneschal of
Rennes and President of the Breton Parliament,^
the perusal of Suetonius after his grandfather's death
would be the origin of his evil-doing. But he had
been brought up by Jean de Craon, had lived with
him in his boyhood, and may thus have read the
work in question even before he was a man ; par-
ticularly if it be true that his grandfather made little
attempt to control his actions. Moreover, in the
proceedings against him, Poitou, his valet, declared

^ * Curiosit^s de THistoire de France : II* S^rie : Propbs
C^lfebres,' by P. L. Jacob, Bibliophile (Paul Lacroix). Paris,
1858, i6ino., p. 94. In this work M. Lacroix relates the
Marshars trial from a ' circumstantial ' transcript of the evidence
in the Civil Proceedings communicated to him. Not having the
Ecclesiastical Proceedings in detail before him at the same time,
he not unnaturally fell into several errors. Nevertheless, his
narrative has some value. It may be added that Abb^ Bossard
virtually confirms the mention of the ' Suetonius.'

^ The reader should remember that the Breton 'Parl^ment'
was a judicial and not a political institution. See p. 139, note i.



266 BLUEBEARD

he had heard it said that the Marshal's misdeeds
dated back to 1426 or thereabouts — that is» to a time
when Jean de Craon was still alive, Poitou was not
then in the service of Gilles de Rais, but may well
have had his information from his fellow-accomplices,
Gilles de Si\\6 or Roger de Bricqueville, who had been
his master's associate and dme damn^e ever since he
had been able * to ride a horse and do service,'^
Moreover, there are passages in Poitou's evidence
and in one of Gilles' confessions which indicate that
Jean de Craon became personally acquainted with
his grandson's villainous nature, and, after a first
moment of horror, hushed up the matter to prevent
a scandal.

In any case, the victims of Champtoc6 were as
numerous as those of Machecoul. On the night
which followed the surrender of his brother Rent's
retainers, Gilles assembled his most trusty hench-
men and servants — that is, Bricqueville and Silld,
Hicquet de Br^mont, the governor of his pages,
Henri Griart, Poitou and Robin Romulart. Some
of these men were already acquainted with the
Marshal's secret, nevertheless he called on all of
them to swear that they would never reveal what
they were about to witness. According to Abb^
Bossard, this oath was taken in the name of God ;
but Lacroix asserts that the confederates swore with
their hands resting on a book of magic and a talis-

^ Pardon granted by Charles VII. to Roger de Bricqueville.
French National Archives, Register JJ, 177. Printed by R. de
Maulde in Bossard, Lc.



GILLES DE RAIS 267

man enclosed in a black velvet case, which may
mean that Gilles made his abettors swear by the
Devil as well as by the Deity. Indeed, this is not
at all unlikely when one remembers that Gilles was
more or less a Manichee, ever struggling between
conflicting ideas as to which might be the more
powerful — the Spirit of Good or the Spirit of Evil.

When the oath had been administered, the
dreadful business previously accomplished at
Machecoul was repeated. Rais led his company to
one of the towers of Champtoc6 — a lonely tower, it
appears — and told them that in its depths were
the remains of numerous children, which remains
must be immediately removed, for on the morrow
it would be necessary for him to hand the castle
over to the officers of the Duke of Brittany. The
ghastly work began amid the silence of the night.
Gilles had doubtless brought a considerable force
with him to Champtoc6, including, perhaps, the
men lent by Jean V. ; and it was necessary that
none save his immediate retainers should witness
the obliteration of his crimes. The remains of his
victims were lying, it appears, in a subterranean
dungeon, or kind of well, beneath a ground-floor
chamber of the tower ; and Poitou and Robin were
lowered into the dark vault by the aid of a long rope.
They there found themselves among * corpses and
decayed bones,* a circumstance which shows that
some of the victims had been killed of recent years,
and that others had met their fate long previously.
Many of them had been cut to pieces. There were



268 BLUEBEARD

limbs and heads and trunks rotting amidst the damp-
ness ; and the stench was abominable.

Horrified, as they might well be, Poitou and
Robin nevertheless made all haste to gather the
fragments together. A large sack was lowered to
them, and, whenever they had filled it, was drawn
up again by Hicquet de Bremont and Henri Griart,
who emptied the contents upon the stone flags
beside them. Poitou and Griart could not tell
afterwards the exact number of the heads or skulls
that were found ; but there were either thirty-six or
forty-six. Griart, however, was of opinion that
more bodies than heads were discovered. In any
case, all the remains were those of children — with
few exceptions, little boys.

While all this was going on, Gilles de Rais — and
probably Bricqueville — remained watching Br6mont
and Griart in the chamber of the tower above the
oubliette. Sill6, for his part, was keeping watch out-
side. At last one part of the abominable business
was completed. Everything that Poitou and Robin
could find was gathered together in the ground- floor
chamber of the tower. Then the Marshal pointed
to three large chests, and gave orders for all the
bones and fragments to be packed in them. He
was obeyed, and the chests, having been stoutly
corded, were before daybreak carried to a bark
which was waiting beside the willows that fringed
the Loire.^

^ This bark was, of course, one of those which had brought
Rais and his company to Champtoc^.



GILLES DE RAIS 269

This being done, if Gilles tarried a single moment
at Champtocd, it was only in order to place it in the
possession of certain officers of Jean V. On the
morrow or the next day he departed by water with
his servants and the proofs of his villainy, passing
on his way, as Abb6 Bossard points out, many of
the bourgs and villages where fathers and mothers
were sorrowing for their lost children. When
Nantes was reached the three great chests were put
ashore, not, however, on the city side, but on the left
bank of the river, and thence they were carted to
Machecoul to be placed, on their arrival, in the
Marshal's room. And a huge fire having been
lighted in the great chimney-place, some days were
spent in burning the remains of the murdered
children. Gilles himself, Henri Griart, Poitou, and
Silld, were present, together with a certain Andr6
Buchet or Buschet, and Jean Rossignol,^ both of the
latter belonging to the Marshal's chantry. On sub-
sequent occasions it was often Rossignol who burnt
the bodies of his patron's victims. And whilst the
traces of these abominable crimes were disappearing
in the flames, Gilles de Rais, we are told, struck his
breast, shed copious tears, and cried to God for
mercy. At last, having become more composed, he
gave orders for Mass to be sung {messe en musigue)
for the repose of the souls of those whom he had so
foully slaughtered !

^ See anUf p. 184. Buchet's name is given in some books as
Brichet, which is an error. Though he may not have been fully
ordained, he was certainly a clerk.



270 BLUEBEARD

Yet his crimes continued until the time of his
arrest. The principal precaution that he took in his
last years was to burn his victims soon , after he
had put them to death. Occasionally two or three
bodies would hang for a few days in a cell or cabinet
adjoining his room, or he would for a short time pre-
serve a head to pray over it ; but the remains were
no longer flung, promiscuously, into some under-
ground dungeon to rot away there in course of time.
And — horrible to relate — while at some times he
wept and chanted the * De Profundis ' over his vic-
tims, at others, when he took his bracquemart — a
broad-bladed sabre, which he particularly employed
as a sacrificial weapon — to cut off his victims' heads
and amputate their limbs, he cried to them in a
frenzied transport, *Go! go and pray to God for
me r This did not prevent him, however, from
gouging out their eyes, tearing out their hearts,
cutting off their hair, amputating a foot or a hand to
serve as an offering for the Devil.

It is certain that these crimes went on for years.
All the writers on Gilles de Rais agree that he had
practised them since 1432, and, indeed, he himself
acknowledged that much. But, as we have indicated
in some measure already, we incline to the view ex-
pressed by his servants Poitou and Griart, that he had
been a monster of infamy for many years previously,
and was one already in the days when he fought
by the side of Joan of Arc. In that case a certain
estimate of the number of his victims — given, it is
alleged, by himself— an estimate of one hundred and



GILLES DE RAIS 271

twenty (stx-ving'^s) every year^for a term of fully seven
years (1432 — 39-40) would be considerably exceeded.
But we doubt those figures. It is true that the
murders of Machecoul and Champtoc6 were but a
fraction of those committed by him. The castle of
Tiffauges, the mansion of La Suze, the houses where
he sojourned at Angers and Vannes, even the castle
of Josselin, where he was the guest of the Duke of
Brittany — indeed, almost all his dwelling-places — had
their horrors, sworn to by his servants, and freely
confessed by himself. Thus, whether his victims
were a hundred more or a hundred less, he was
indeed the Exterminating Beast, as Michelet has
written.

But it will seem strange to some readers that he
should have enjoyed impunity so long, particularly as
so many were in his secret, for after going through
the evidence we find at least sixteen of his servants
and retainers aiding and abetting him at various
times. Their silence undoubtedly arose from their
fears. On the one hand, if they should denounce
their master, and he should hear of it, they would
have the shortest of shrifts. They knew his nature
and trembled before him. Poitou had been origin-
ally an intended victim, and had only escaped death
at the intercession of Bricqueville or Sill6, and on
promising blind obedience. One page, who sur-
prised certain secrets, to a knowledge of which he

^ Paul Lacroix, /.r., p. 95. We do not find any confirmation
of this in Bossard or in any part of the eiridence we have seen ;
it seems more likely that Gilles' victims were from 200 to 300
in number.



272 BLUEBEARD

had not been admitted, was at once cast into the
moat of Machecoul. There had been an accident, it
was said ; he had fallen from the battlements. Again,
some of the Marshal's henchmen were bound to him
by such bloody ties that they could not reasonably
anticipate any mercy if the law should lay its hand
upon them. One man, Henri Griart, the chamber-
lain, afterwards asserted that on his return from the
expedition to Champtoc6 he had thought of com-
mitting suicide, but had been deterred from it by
anxiety for his soul, self-destruction being a crime
which left no opportunity for penance afterwards.
He can hardly have been anxious to meet his God.
Indeed, however horrible might be the life of the
chief retainers of Gilles de Rais, all of them must
have shrunk from the thought of death and of the
torments of the hell which must await them. Ah !
it was better to tarry awhile on earth, even if they
must continue to serve their master and keep silent
respecting his misdeeds.

Besides, the Baron de Rais was a most high,
powerful and magnificent lord, the associate of
princes, a Marshal of France and Lieutenant-General
of Brittany. Would Duke Jean V., would his
Chancellor, Jean de Malestroit, would his Grand
Seneschal, Pierre de THdpital, or any other of his
Council, give credit to an abominably scandalous
charge preferred by a mere vilain or a mere
bourgeois against the premier Baron of the duchy ?
Even such women as the Dame de Jarville and
Thomin d'Araguin might have been whipped for



GILLES DE RAIS 273

their pains had they gone to some State Officer with
the tale of what they had seen at Machecoul. Reni
de La Suze would probably have secured a hearing
had he spoken of his discovery at Champtoci. But
the thought of the family honour must have kept
him silent And thus Gilles continued to lead a life
of crime, occasionally apprehensive of discovery, yet
relying on his name, rank, and power to insure him
complete impunity — in this world, at all events.

Nevertheless, there were murmurs, increasing
murmurs from the vox populi, as child after child
disappeared from the region lying between the ocean
on one side, and Angers, Vannes and La Rochelle
on the others. A frightful mysterious drama was in
progress in that region. After the sorrow and
anxiety of earlier years came consternation and
terror. Some unknown and accursed monster, who
was never seen, but whose presence could be
divined, now in one direction, now in another, was
devastating, depopulating the country. Boys, and
girls, children often of very tender years, were
constantly disappearing, not for a day, or for a
week, or for a month, but for ever! And not a
trace of them remained. What had become of them,
whither had they gone ? Were they dead ? They
had been seen on such or such a spot, in such a
field, in such a street, at one or another hour of the
day or evening, and then had utterly vanished !

At first the superstitions of the age suggested an
explanation. The malignant fairies, the gnomes,
had carried off the missing children. And those

18



274 BLUEBEARD

who doubted the existence of fairyland remembered
that the rivers were swift, the ponds deep, the woods
dangerous, peopled with wolf and boar. Some mis-
adventure must have befallen one or another child ;
perhaps he had slipped into some stream and had been
drowned, or, in exploring a forest, had encountered
some ravenous beast By degrees, however, another
idea took possession of the fathers and mothers who
were left childless. It must have been noticed, as a
coincidence, that whenever the Baron of Rais passed
some boy or girl disappeared. Moreover, some of
his retainers, such as Gilles de Sill6, Hicquet de
Brimont, Poitou, Prinzay (his herald), and a certain
Spading, called * The Scotch Knight,' frequently
recruited pages for Monseigneur's service ; and the
fact that these p^es were not forthcoming when
their parents subsequently inquired for them must
have confirmed the growing suspicions.

Sill6, one day, when pressed with questions
respecting some boys who had been confided to him,
admitted that they were not with the Marshal. They
had been sent, he said, to the English, as part of the
ransom of his brother Michel de Sill6, who was a
prisoner, and whose release could only be secured by
handing four-and-twenty boys over to the English,
who intended to make soldiers or servants of them.^
This announcement was rumoured around and in-
creased the general alarm. Perhaps English emis-
saries were kidnapping the children, depopulating
the region. However, the terrified peasants dared

^ See ante^ p. 173, note i.



GILLES DE RAIS 275

not raise their voices too loudly ; and still and ever
children disappeared.

We read, in the evidence, of disappearances from
a large number of localities ; and yet the judicial
inquiries which ultimately took place were, for the
most part, limited to certain years and certain
regions. Nantes, Angers, Vannes, Rennes, Josselin ;
Pomic, Bourgneuf, St. Cyr-en-Rais, Machecoul, and
Tiffauges ; St. ]£tienne de Montluc, Port Launay,
Mortagne, Clisson and St. Mesme, La Roche-
Bernard, Pouance, Fresnay, and other cities, towns,
and villages are named ; and in the majority of these
instances a positive connection between the dis-
appearances of the children and the actions of certain
of Gilles* servants is established by the witnesses
and the officers of the law. Again, there were
numerous instances of little beggars disappearing,
poor starving orphans, who were never claimed by
anybody.^ Amidst all his crimes, and even when
he was pressed for money, Gilles practised charity
on a large scale ; and whenever beggars and tramps
found themselves in the vicinity of Machecoul or
Tiffauges, they invariably applied there for relief.
But it happened, again and again, that the child who
went to the castle for bread never left it alive.

In addition to his male accomplices, Gilles em-

^ To avoid a multiplicity of references in this part of our work,
it may be said that every statement given above is based on one
or another portion of the evidence and the confessions in the
Ecclesiastical or Secular Proceedings against the Marshal As
a matter of (act, far from exaggeratingi we cannot tell all the truth.

18—2



276 BLUEBEARD

ployed two women to inveigle children to his abodes.
Of one of them, named ^tiennette Blanchu. we do
not know much ; but the other, Perrine Mai tin, has
remained famous, and is still associated with the
memory of Gilles de Rais by the peasantry of
La Loire Infdrieure and La Vendue. Abb6 Bossard
draws a striking portrait of her,^ based on state-
ments made when Gilles was brought to justice.
She belonged to Nantes, and people occasionally
called her * La Peliczonne,'^ but more frequently * La
Meffraye,' a strident name, suggesting a bird of
prey. Perrine had a florid face, and in 1439-40
seemed to be between fifty and sixty years of age.
She wore a gray gown, with a kerchief falling from
her shoulders, a black cape, and a long veil of black
stamin, which often frightened those who saw her
pass. Both her appearance and her actions were
mysterious and inspired anxiety and dread. * She
roamed the country roads and the moors. She
approached the children who were tending cattle, or
who had come out to beg ; she cajoled and caressed
them, her face always half hidden by her veil ; she
prevailed on them to accompany her to the castle of
the Sire de Rais, and they were never seen again.**
One day she passed through St. Etienne de Montluc.
In the evening it was found that a boy between
eight and nine years old, named Jean Brice, had dis-
appeared. A man bore witness, however, that he

^ Bossard, /.r., p. 205 et seq,

^ Perhaps from ' PeliQon,' a furred cloak or pelisse.

' Michelet's ' Histoire de France^' vol. v.



GILLES DE RAIS 277

had seea La Meffraye talking to this child near the
presbytery. Another evening she made her appear-
ance a^Port Launay, and on being questioned as to
the object of her journey, she replied that she was
going to Machecoul. She was leading a good-
looking child by the hand. A few days later, when
she passed that way again, but alone, she was asked
what she had done with the lad, and replied that
she had placed him with * a good master.'

Nantes was often the scene of her vile exploits.
We hear of her taking a child of the parish of
Ste. Croix to Machecoul ; conducting another,
twelve years old, to Gilles' mansion of La Suze ;
kidnapping a third, a fourth, and even beguiling a
young man about twenty, * short and pale of face,*
whose name was never ascertained. She put on a
kindly air when she accosted an intended victim,
spoke soft words to the boy, made him fine promises,
and he went with her along the roads until men
suddenly sprang out of the hedges or the woods,
gagged the astonished child, thrust him into a large
sack or * pocket,* and in this way brought him to
Gilles de Rais.^ The servants at the castle gates
knew nothing. They had seen no lad enter. At
the utmost they were only aware that some of their
fellows had passed in, carrying a burden. And at
times a stealthy entrance was effected by way of
some mysterious postern, where only those who
were in the Marshal's secret kept watch and ward.
Nevertheless, the kidnappers must have been seen

^ Bossard, /.^., pp. 205-207.



^78 BLUEJIJpARD

at times, for rumours arose respecting them. From
the sacks they carried they were called empocAeurs
— a name which came down to our times, and which,
half a century ago, was only spoken with dread by
the peasantry around Nantes, who ranked those
robbers of children with the gnomes, the malignant
sorcerers, and the werewolves.^

Moreover, in spite of all the precautions taken
by Gilles de Rais and his associates, the dreadful
secret leaked out in various manners and directions.
A woman named Jeanne Delit, of the parish of
St. Denis of Nantes, heard, through one of the
Marshal's retainers, that his master caused children
to be taken ' in order that he might put them to
death '; and the same man also told her that he had
seen a certain boy being roasted at the mansion of
La Suze. Again, a rumour arose that the Lord of
Rais was * practising the art and science of Necro-
mancy, and causing a great many children to be put
to death in order to have their blood, with which he
traced all the necessary formulae {caract^res de divine-
meni) for the invocation of the infernal spirits, with
the object of succeeding by their help in the recovery
of great treasure and wealth. '^ A passage in the
evidence subsequently collected shows also how
one day a traveller arrived at St. Jean d'Angely in
Saintonge,^ and, on mentioning that he had come
from Machecoul, saw an expression of fright appear

^ Mourain de Sourdeval, /.r., p. 23.

^ Alain Bouchard's ' Grandes Chroniques,' as cited in Bossard.

' It is now in the department of La Charente Infdrieure.



GILLES DE RAIS 279

on every face around him, whilst his companions
exclaimed :

' From Machecoul ? But dire things are told of
that place. Folk say that little children are eaten
there !'

Now, St. Jean d' Angely is more than eighty miles,
as the crow flies, from Machecoul ; so the gruesome
tale of horror was spreading far around.

Nevertheless Gilles de Rais continued to rely on
impunity. And meantime the rumours — he heard
of them, for on one occasion Henri Griart told him
what was being said — gathered volume week by
week, month by month, year by year. As Abb6
Bossard well puts it, they were destined to become
no longer mere rumours, no longer low sobs or
sorrowful moans, but loud and frantic howls — ulu-
lantium^ to use the vigorous expression of the
draughtsman of the indictment which was at last
preferred against this devil in human form. We all
know how wrong and how cruel was the persecution
of the * poor, old, lame, foul and blear-eyed women ''^
who, in olden time, were said to be witches, the
miserable creatures who were accuse^l of being in
league with Satan, but who often lacked the very
necessaries of life, a circumstance which of itself
ought to have established their innocence, for if they
had sold themselves to the Fiend they would surely
have obtained some return from him. But the
remembrance of a thousand odious persecutions
must not blind one to the guilt of Gilles de Rais. So

^ Reginald Scof 8 ' Discoverie of Witchcraft'



28o BLUEBEARD

far as was possible on his part he did indeed seek to
make a covenant with the evil spirits, and he sacri-
ficed untold victims on the shrine of devil-worship.
As Michelet puts it somewhere, either in his History
or his ' Sorci^re,' after killing for the Devil's sake,
Gilles killed for his own pleasure. There were
three stages in his career of crime. First he fell
into the grasp of abominable corruption, and killed
in order that his sins might not be made known.
Then, on being drawn towards magic, he killed for
sacrificial purposes, urged to it, no doubt, by his
necromancers. Did not even Eustache Blanchet, one
of his chaplains, a priest of Christ, say again and again
to Poitou and Henri Griart : * It is impossible for the
Marshal to succeed in his enterprise unless he offers
the demon the blood and the limbs of children put to
death ?'^ Finally he killed because he experienced an
abominable fiendish ecstasy at the sight of the death
throes, at the spectacle of blood spurting forth when
he had planted his dagger in the throat of some un-
happy victim, even as was described, with ghastly
details, by his retainers. At times he hanged
children from some rafter in his chamber, let them
down, and then hoisted them up again, and, when
tired of that horrible pastime, plunged a long needle
into the victim's neck, and took delight in beholding
the last convulsions. And when the victim's head
was at last cut off, he set it now on his mantel-shelf,
now on one of the posts of his bedstead ! Thus he
became for all time the personification of la bite

^ Poitou's Confession.



GILLES DE RAIS 281

humaine, ravening for blood and slaughter. Yet,
like the Manichean he partly was, suddenly dreading
lest the Spirit of Good should be more powerful than
the Spirit of Evil, he would at certain moments burst
into tears, implore the pardon of Heaven, and devote
large sums to pious foundations and charitable works.
Again, with all solemnity, he vowed to cloister him-
self and do penance for the remainder of his days ;
and at other times, at Machecoul and again at
Bourgneuf-en-Rais, he swore on a fragment of the
true Cross which he possessed that he would go on
pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, alone, on foot,
staff in hand and begging his bread.

But relapses invariably ensued. He returned like
a dog to his vomit. We have his own statements
and those of his retainers that he drank heavily,
draining bowls of hippocras and heady wine, and
that his monstrous orgies were again and again
crowned by utter fiendishness. It is unnecessary to
detail those horrors any further here. Scholars
will find them set down elsewhere. For the purposes
of this work one need only recount the final attempts
which Gilles made to raise the Devil with the help
of a new magician, Francesco Prelati, who came to
him from Italy, and then one may pass to the
comparatively venal act of sacrilege which at last
set justice in motion and brought the monster to
his doom.



VII

1438— 1440

FRANCESCO PRELATI, THE DEVIL-RAISER — THE SPURIOUS
MAID OF ORLEANS — GILLES' LAST DAYS OF SIN,
CRIME AND VIOLENCE.

The MarshaVs Chaplain visits Italy and meets Prelati at Florence
— A Youthful Wizard — The Princes of Hell appear in the Form
of Crows — Barron, a powerful Devil, shows himself as a Young
Man — Blanchet and Prelati journey to France — Fresh Attempts
at Alchemy at Tififauges — Prelati and his Incantations — ^The
Devil again evoked at Ti£OEiuges — ^The Tramp of the Four-
footed Beast on the Castle Roof— Heaven sends a Thunder-
storm to frighten away the Devil — Satan presents Prelati with
Ingots of Gold, then changes into a Huge Green Serpent, and
the Gold vanishes — Prelati beaten by the Devil — The Spurious
Maid of Orleans and Gilles de Rais — The Marshal visits
Charles VII. at Bourges, and throws Barron's Talisman away —
His Penance for this Transgression — Gilles and the Black
Mass — Human Sacrifices for Satan — Flight and Recapture of
Blanchet, the Chaplain— Devilry at Machecoul, Bourgneuf^
Vannes, and Josselin— Sacrilege in the Church of St ^tienne
de Mer Morte — Ferron, a Clerk, is seized by Gilles — Rebellion
and Submission of the Marshal — Constable de Richemont
reconciles him with the Duke of Brittany, whom he visits at
Vannes and Josselin — His Final Crimes.

More than once in the course of this strange, event-
ful history, Eustache Blanchet, one of the chaplains
of Gilles de Rais, has been shown recruiting alche-



GILLES DE RAIS tSj

mists and necromancers for his patron, and the
reader will have seen that there is reason to suspect
this priest of further complicity in the evil deeds of
Machecoul and TifTauges.

According to Blanchet's evidence, however, he
had only a vague idea of the Marshal's actual
crimes — an idea which at last made him anxious
to sever the connection. Seeking an excuse, he
told his patron that urgent private affairs required
his presence in Italy, whither he betook himself some
time in 1438, after a parting conversation with Gilles,
who requested him to seek out some skilful Italian
alchemist or necromancer in the course of his travels.
Such was Blanchet's version of the circumstances
under which he made his journey, but it is far more
probable that he went to Italy by the Marshal's
express orders. In any case, according to his own
statement, he ultimately found himself in the city
of Florence, and at one of its hostelries became
acquainted with a certain Messer Guglielmo, of
Monte- Pulciano, who introduced him to a certain
Niccolo de' Medici, of Florence, a certain Francesco
(probably an ecclesiastic) of the diocese of Castel-
lane, and a certain Prelati, whose Christian name
also was Francesco, and who, it seems, was then
staying in the city with the Bishop of Mondovi —
a town of Piedmont. According to Blanchet he
became acquainted with Prelati on or about Ascen-
sion Day (May .^), 1439; but Prelati himself, speaking
on October 16, 1440, declared that the acquaintance
had begun about two years previously, and every-



284 BLUEBEARD

thing indicates that his was the more accurate of the
two statements.^

Born at Monte Catini, in the Val di Nievole, near
Pistoja, diocese of Lucca, Francesco Prelati, at the
time of meeting Blanchet, was not a priest, as
Michelet and Vallet de Viriville have asserted.
Abb6 Bossard, rightly jealous of his ministry, has
pointed out that, although Prelati had received the
tonsure from the Bishop of Arezzo, he was only a
student for the priesthood, a young clerk. And
here it may be said that the comparative youthful-
ness of the chief characters in the Gilles de Rais
tragedy is one of its most striking features. Gilles
at his death in 1440 was only six-and-thirty years
old ; Sill6, his cousin and accomplice, was of about
the same age ; but Roger de Bricqueville was not
more than five-and-twenty ; while Henri Griart,
otherwise Henriet, was twenty-six ; and Corillaut,
otherwise Poitou, was only twenty-two.^ Moreover,
if Blanchet the priest had already reached the age

^ Some witnesses in the Rais affaire had very bad memories.
They cited impossible dates and forgot the names of people and
places. It is certain that in these respects they were frequently
influenced by fears for their own necks. . Their lapses and their con-
flicting statements in no wise cast doubt upon the guilt of the
Marshal (which guilt he himself freely confessed), but they render
extremely difficult the task of the writer who desires to narrate
events in something like proper chronological order.

^ The age of Bricqueville is taken from the pardon granted to
him by Charles VII., in which it is stated that he was five years
old when the English invaded Normandy (141 5). For Griart*
Corillaut, Blanchet, and Prelati, their statements in evidence at
the trial of their patron have been consulted.



GILLES DE RAIS 285

of forty, Prelati the necromancer was seventeen
years younger ; that is to say, he had just attained his
majority when he met the Marshal's chaplain at
Florence,

In this connection Abb^ Bossard points out that
the alchemist and magician of the Middle Ages is
usually pictured as a decrepit old man with unkempt
hair and beard ; and, indeed, it is thus that many
famous painters have limned him, while we all know
how aged Faust is made to appear on the stage
before his metamorphosis at the hands of Mephis-
topheles. But if there were old and gloomy-looking
wizards, there were also young and handsome ones,
and Prelati belonged to the latter class, which would
seem to have been particularly numerous in Italy.
Although that country was the home of the Papacy,
the centre of the Catholic religion, it probably gave
more necromancers and astrologers to the world
than any other. There were even Popes who
gained the reputation of being wizards. Consider-
able suspicion, for instance, attached to Silvester II.
on account of his nightly study of astronomy. And
though other pontiffs were at pains to put down the
Black Art, some of them detecting magic in every-
thing — John XVI. regarded both Plato and Virgil
as enchanters — the so-called occult sciences thrived
in their dominions and the adjacent States, while
the Manichean heresy, which placed the Prince of
Darkness on a footing of equality with the Deity,
grew apace even under the shadow of St. Peters,
thence spreading to other lands, including France,



\



2%6 BLUEBEARD

■

to the very centre of which it had already penetrated
early in the eleventh century.^ Four hundred years
later, at the time of Gilles de Rais, we still find it
there, despite all the efforts of the Church to extir-
pate it. Scepticism may have been slowly rising at
that time, even although so-called witchcraft was
so prevalent, for the impostures of charlatans were
frequently exposed. Nevertheless, the Black Art
retained its genuine devotees, such as Gilles de
Rais, Giac, the royal favourite, Alen^on, the ieau
Due, and all the other high and mighty lords who
eagerly welcomed the necromancers from across
the Alps, and employed them in the hope of
securing wealth and power by force of magic.

When conviviality had placed Blanchet the priest
on the best of terms with young Francesco Prelati,
who, according to all accounts, dearly loved a pot
of good wine, he spoke with him on the subject of
alchemy and the raising of demons, and learnt that
a short time previously (1437) the young man had
acquired considerable knowledge of magic from a
certain physician of Florence named Giovanni da
Fontanella, who was extremely expert in summoning
the evil spirits. One day, for instance, Fontanella had
taken Prelati to a room at the top of his house and
had there evoked the Princes of Hell, who had
appeared in the shape of five-and-twenty birds, black,
and resembling crows. Unfortunately, these birds
had remained mysteriously silent ; but on another

* * Moines et Papes : Essais de Psychologie Historique,' by
fimfle Gebhart Paris, 1897.



GILLES DE RAIS 287

occasion a very powerful Devil named Barron had
condescended to show himself in the form of a
handsome young man, and Fontanella having intro-
duced Prelati to him, they had entered into a
solemn covenant, Prelati promising Barron that he
would present him with a hen, a pigeon and a dove
each time that he should respond to his call.^

One wonders whether Blanchet and Prelati
laughed together over those apparitions like a
pair of Roman augurs in the absence of the
profane. One thing is certain : the priest regarded
the young clerk as the very man for his patron,
Gilles de Rais, and asked him if he would go to
France. Prelati consented to do so, the more
readily, it seems, as he had a cousin named Martell
(Martello?) dwelling at Nantes, whom he was very
desirous of seeing. So the priest and the wizard set off
together, journeying leisurely until at last they came
to the little town of St Florent-le-Vieil, on the left
bank of the Loire, midway between Chalonnes and
Champtoceaux. Thence Blanchet wrote to Gilles
de Rais acquainting him with the arrival of the
necromancer who would surely make * Master Ali-
borum ' appear ; and the Marshal at once despatched
Henriet and Poitou with a suitable equipage in order
to bring the travellers to Tiffauges.

They seem to have reached that castle in the
spring of 1439, at which time Gilles had some little
money before him, as is shown by a receipt of his,
acknowledging the payment of fifteen hundred gold

^ Prdati's Evidence : Ecclesiastical Proceedings.



288 BLUEBEARD

saluts on account of the Champtoc^ contract with the
Duke of Brittany,^

The Marshal appears to have received Prelati with
open arms. And here it should be mentioned that
the Italian possessed considerable culture. Like
Gilles himself, he was a remarkably good Latinist^ ;
whilst his skill in the arts of flattery and cajolery
proved to be exceptional. For some reason or
other, soon after his arrival at Tiffauges, it was
decided to carry on the experiments in alchemy in a
house near the church of St Nicholas instead of at
the castle itself.^ This house belonged to an old
woman named Perrota, with whom Rais was on

^ This is the receipt bearing the signature given on p. 252. It
runs as follows :

' We, Gilles, Lord of Rais and Pouzauges, Marshal of France,
acknowledge having received of Jehan Mauleon, treasurer of the
Duke, my {sic) sovereign Lord, the sum of one thousand and five
hundred gold saiuz^ on account of the sum of one hundred thou-
sand crowns which my (sic) said Lord the Duke owes to us, and
is required to complete and pay on account of the contract of
Champtoc^. And this sum of one thousand and five hundred
saluz we hold to be well paid, and have acquitted and do acquit
thereof my said Lord, the said Mauleon, and all others to whom
acquittance may be due, as witness our sign manual set here this
sixth day of May, the year one thousand, four hundred, thirty and

nine.

* Gilles.'

This receipt was formerly in the collection of M. Benjamin
Fillon, and was communicated by him to M. Ren^ de Maulde.
^ * Quod pulchre et ornate verbis latinis loqueretur. *
^ Bossard thinks this was done to avoid a repetition of the
Dauphin's surprise visit (see ante^ p. 243), but there is nothing to
show that the Dauphin had then been at Tiffauges. We do not
think he can have gone there until quite the end of 1439.



GILLES DE RAIS 289

familiar terms ; and it stood quite by itself, on a hill
facing the western side of the castle. Here then,
for some time, in a certain room reserved for him,
Prelati, with the assistance of the Marshal s gold-
smith, Jean Petit, carried on his attempts at
gold-making, often receiving visits of inspection
from his patron, who displayed, indeed, extreme
anxiety concerning the progress of the work.
Blanchet and La Perrota, it seems, were only allowed
to enter the room on one occasion, but at other times,
when the priest chanced to be in an adjoining
chamber, he caught sight (according to his own
account) of certain mysterious practices, such as the
tracing of magic circles, the kindling of bright fires
on which incense and aloes-wood were flung, and
prostrations as if before some invisible divinity. One
day, moreover, while the priest was listening atten-
tively, he heard Prelati repeating in an undertone :
* Satan, Satan, come to our help !' At the same time
(either the door was partially open or Blanchet
looked through a crack or a keyhole) he saw Gilles
and Prelati standing in the room, each with a lighted
candle in his hand. But soon after the invocation,
which was followed by words which the priest did
not catch or understand, a great gust of icy wind
swept down, upon the house striking it with such
exceeding violence that Blanchet was absolutely
terrified. He felt certain that this was some mani-
festation of the wrath of Heaven.

In spite, however, of all their attempts, Prelati
and Gilles did not succeed in making gold in the

19



290 BLUEBEARD

mysterious room at La Perrota's house — a room in
which, it wouldseem, a model of a hand in wax and
one of a foot in iron were subsequently found.^ But
Prelati had now become acquainted with a Breton
doctor who was staying in the town (or village) of
Tiffauges with a certain Geoffroy Lecomte, whose
wife he was treating for some affection of the eyes ;
and one day this doctor showed the young Italian a
mysterious book written *in black ink, partly on
papyrus, partly on parchment, and ornamented with
rubrics/ The work treated of medicine, astrology,
the evocation of spirits and other weird matters, and
Prelati, borrowing it from the doctor, carried it to
Gilles, with the result that a fresh attempt to raise
the Prince of Darkness was made in accordance with
the formulae set forth in this ancient book.

The attempt in question took place late one night
in the summer of 1439. Gilles, Prelati, Blanchet,
Henri Griart and Poitou met in a large hall of the
castle, overlooking the valley of the Crflme. One of
them carried a lighted candle of white wax. A large
quantity of charcoal and incense had been provided,
with an earthen pot in which to kindle the fire, a
lodestone, and several torches and candles. All
being in readiness, Gilles and Prelati traced with
their swords a large circle on the floor of the room,
marking at four points within this circle various
crosses and signs which, according to Poitou, re-
sembled escutcheons. The fire in the pot having
been kindled, a second one was lighted in a comer of

^ Civil Proceedings : Henriet's Confession.



GILLES DE RAIS 291

the room, close to the wall, on which Prelati traced
several more escutcheon-like sigfns, similar to those
in the circle. Then * magnetic powder ' and incense,
myrrh and aloes-wood, were thrown on the glowing
charcoal, and a cloud of aromatic smoke arose, filling
the room with perfume. Finally Prelati gave orders
for the four windows — there was one in each wall, so
that they symbolized, as it were, the points of a cross
— to be opened, and then all was in readiness for the
evocation.

Gilles, however, after cautioning Blanchet, Griart,
and Poitou to speak no word of what they had
witnessed, dismissed them, bidding them repair to
his chamber and there await his coming. Then he
and Prelati entered the magic circle together, the
Italian holding the book he had borrowed and read-
ing a passage which asserted that the demons had
' the power of revealing the whereabouts of hidden
treasure, of teaching philosophy, and of directing
human actions towards success.' Gilles meantime
carried a cedula in which, apart from his soul and
his life, he promised the Fiend whatever he might
desire.

A long series of prayers, protests, promises, and
offerings began. At times standing, at others kneel-
ing, they paid homage to the Spirit of Evil, made
sacrifices to him, read passages of the mysterious
book, and repeated incantations: *I adjure /you,
Barron, Satan, Belial, Beelzebub, in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in the
name of the Virgin Mary and all the Saints, appear

I



292 BLUEBEARD

here in person to speak with us and do our bidding !*^
At last the suppliants turned their eyes towards one
or another of the open windows, and Gilles repeated
the formula of his covenant ; but neither promises,
nor prayers, nor any sacrifice of dove, or pigeon, or
cock prevailed with the Evil One. Nothing appeared
to Gilles, nothing was heard by him in spite of all
his solicitations. But it was different with Blanchet
and Henri Griart, who were waiting for him in his
bedroom. Poitou had fallen asleep there, but the
others, in the midst of their anxious vigil, suddenly
distinguished, on the roof above them, a noisy tramp,
like that of a four-footed beast hurrying towards the
window of the castle postern — that is, in the direction
of the hall where the Marshal had remained with
Prelati. The priest and the chamberlain refrained
from mentioning this circumstance, however, when,
at an early hour in the morning, Gilles returned to
his room in despair at the failure of his efforts.

His own explanation of these repeated failures
was the weakness he displayed in muttering prayers
to the Deity, even amidst the most solemn incanta-
tions addressed to the Fiend. Those prayers, which
were ever escaping him in his torturing doubt as to
who might be the more powerful of the two great
Spirits, angered the Prince of Darkness exceedingly
and made him deaf to every entreaty. Eventually,
Gilles instructed Prelati to make another effort in
his absence, and bade the terrified Poitou attend the
necromancer. This attempt (which recalls a previous

^ Ecclesiastical Proceedings : Prelati's Confession.



GILLES DE RAIS 293

one,^ and may indicate some confusion in the minds of
the witnesses) took place one dark night in a meadow
near the road to Montaigu, some distance below the
castle pond. A circle was traced, a fire was kindled,
and all the customary rites were performed ; Poitou,
more dead than alive, standing with Prelati in the
circle and holding the Marshal s cedula, on which
the usual formula was written. But all at once a
terrific storm burst forth, the rain poured down
torrentially, and the two devil-raisers were drenched
before they could reach the castle, where, to their
consternation, they found the drawbridge raised in
such wise that they were obliged to betake them-
selves to the village, where Blanchet at that time
was dwelling. He seems to have anticipated their
coming, for we read that he had prepared a large fire
and a bed.

If, however, the Devil failed to appear to Gilles
or Poitou, he more than once honoured Prelati with
a visit when the latter happened to be alone, and
the Italian was always so skilful, so plausible, in his
explanations that the Marshal never doubted his
statements, but invariably attributed his own failures
to the previously-mentioned weakness. One day
when the Evil Spirit appeared to Prelati, the necro-
mancer, on behalf of Gilles, solicited the bestowal of
wealth, and suddenly perceived a large number of
gold ingots in the room. He wished to touch them,
but Satan, who had assumed for the occasion the
form of a handsome young man, forbade it, saying

^ See anU^ p. 252.



294 BLUEBEARD

that the moment had not yet come. Nevertheless,
Prelati carried the good news to his patron, who
eagerly inquired if he might see the gold. The
magician assented, and they repaired to the room
together. But at the very moment when Prelati
opened the door he caught sight of a huge green
serpent, ' in girth as big as a dog.' ' Do not enter !
there is a great serpent !' he cried to the Marshal,
who immediately took to his heels, followed by the
impostor.

After that first moment of fright, however, Gilles
wished to return to the room, and in order to protect
himself from the assault of the Demon he took with
him a crucifix containing a small portion of the real
Cross. At this Prelati remonstrated ; it was not
proper, he said, to use a consecrated- crucifix in such
a matter, and, moreover, the sight of it would so
incense the Devil that the most dreadful things
might happen. The Marshal himself ended by
adopting this view, and put the crucifix away.
When he at last entered the room the serpent had
vanished ; he only found there a few strips of gold-
foil, * whereby,' he said subsequently to his judges,
' I well did recognise the falseness of the Evil One.'

On another occasion Prelati. like one of the
Marshal's previous necromancers,^ was badly beaten
by the Devil. Blanchet, who subsequently told the
story, had gone that day to visit some fellow-ecclesi-
astics in the vicinity of Tiffauges, when suddenly a
messenger reached him from the castle with instruc-

^ See ante^ p. 251.
I



GILLES DE RAIS 295

tions that he was to return thither immediately. He
did so, and on entering one of the galleries found the
Marshal in tears. * Ah, I am greatly afraid that my
friend Fran9ois is dead !' said Gilles to Blanchet.
' I heard him shrieking in yonder chamber, and
between his cries I distinguished a noise as of
terrible blows. I dared not enter, but I entreat you
to do so, to ascertain what has happened.'

In making this request Gilles may have had the
idea that Blanchet, being a priest, would incur no
risk at the hands of the Evil Spirit. But the chap-
lain was as terrified as his patron, and at first refused
to do anything. At last, after many entreaties, he
went, not to the door, but to a window of the room
opening into a garden, and called : * Master Fran-
cesco! Master Francesco!* Prelati, however, re-
turned no answer, though Blanchet could hear him
moaning as if with pain. Not daring to carry his
investigations any further, the priest returned to
Gilles and told him what he had heard, whereupon
the other's grief became greater than ever. While
he was sobbing, however, the door was slowly set
ajar, and Prelati appeared, pale, haggard, and scarce
able to walk. With the assistance of his friends,
he eventually managed to reach the Marshal's
chamber, where he related that he had received a
severe beating from the Demon as the result of his
own folly. It appears that on receiving a visit from
Barron he had questioned him respecting the failure
of some recent evocations, and had imprudently ex-
claimed that the demons were mere vilains and had



296 BLUEBEARD

no power whatever; whereupon bi^.Ton ha4 begfun
to thrash him by way of proving tl t his p6wer was
real enough. Like the previous nee* omancer beaten
by the fiend, Prelati was obliged to take to his ibed
as the result of this ferocious assault, and for more
than a week Gilles nursed him with the utmost care
and devotion. According to Blanehet, the adventure
left a deep impression on the mind of the Italian,
who more than once blasphemously remarked that
' the evil spirits were created of a more noble sub-
stance than even the Blessed Virgin Mary.'^

It is now time to turn to a matter connected with
the public life of Gilles de Rais. Three years
previously (1436) a woman named Claude had
appeared in Lorraine, asserting that she was Joan
the Maid,^ and had escaped execution at Rouen.
Joan's brothers, Pierre and Jean du Lys, for some
reason or other, perhaps a desire to enrich them-
selves by practising a fraud — for they had been
neglected since their sister s death — pretended that
they recognised this woman, who, after sojourning
for a time with the Duchess of Luxemburg, recruited
many partisans. She wore masculine garments,

^ Ecclesiastical Proceedings : Blanchet.

^ Late in December, 1901, a prominent London evening
newspaper printed a leaderette gravely suggesting that Joan was
never burnt, and that the woman mentioned above may have
been the real Maid. The question has long ago been threshed
out in France, and whatever ' discoveries ' may be made in the
matter nowadays, among old records and so forth, it is quite
certain that Joan was burnt and that Claude was as much an
impostor as was Arthur Orton.



GILLES DE RAIS 297

carried a sword^Sid rode on horseback like Joan ;
but, on the othe^f4iand, she displayed great freedom
of manner, ds^Kifing; drinking, captivating young
men, and proph^ying bonders to everybody. Re-
pairing to Cologne, she there secured the support of
Duke Ulrich of WHftemberg ; but as she evinced a
desire to dabbltf^ff? magic, she was excommunicated
at the instigatioif of the Inquisition, and thereupon
returned hastily to France. There she captivated a
Knight of Lorraine, named Robert des Armoises,
and became his wife ; and with the help of Jean du
Lys she even secured some pecuniary assistance
from Charles VII. But she soon began to lead a
very riotous life, and being at last separated from her
husband, after presenting him with two sons,^ she
became the mistress of a priest. She is said to have
gone to Rome a little later in order to procure abso-
lution for some cos riservi, and to have fought as a
mercenary for Eugenius IV., who was then at war
with his subjects. At all events, in 1439, when the
disturbances which preceded the Praguerie were rife
in Poitou, Claude des Armoises appeared in that
r^ion ; and Gilles de Rais, it is said, placed her at
the head of a company oi gens (Tamus^ giving her as
lieutenant one of his retainers, a certain Jean de
Siquenville, who is described as a Gascon squire^
though the name would seem to be a Norman one ;

^ According to one of the modem theories, the descendant of
one of these sons was the Man with the Iron Mask ! Do Bob-
gohe/s romance 00 the sobfect wiH be iiuniliar to man^ novel-



298 BLUEBEARD

and it is certain that Roger de Bricqueville intro-
duced many Normans to the Marshal's service. In
this connection one may mention that about this
time — the spring and summer of 1439 — Bricqueville
disappears from the scene so far as the personal
doings of Rais are concerned, though his presence
at Tiffauges or Machecoul at a later date appears
probable. Bossard declares that Bricqueville fled,
like Sill6, at the time of the Marshal's arrest
(September, 1440); Bricqueville himself, when suing
Charles VII. for pardon, asserts that he had
quitted the service of Gilles in 1435 in consequence
of the horrid suspicions he had formed with regard
to his patron's crimes. In this respect Bricque-
ville lied, for he himself had been an accomplice in
several misdeeds. But from some allusions in the
documents we think he may have been absent for a
time on military service, with Siquenville and the
spurious Maid, particularly as his name does not
appear in connection with any incident at Tiffauges
in the summer of 1439.

From the manner in which Vallet de Viriville
writes^ of Gilles de Rais and Claude des Armoises, it
might be inferred that the Marshal employed this
woman and Siquenville against the royal authority,
first in some expedition against Le Mans, and
secondly in an attempt on La Rochelle ; but in what-
ever enterprise Gilles made use of the spurious
Maid, it is certain it was for and not against
the royal cause. It appears, indeed, that Claude

* * Histoire de Charles VII.,* vol. ii., p. 369.



GILLES DE RAIS 299

des Armoises repaired to Orleans in July, and
again in September, 1439, and was received there
with great honour.^ About the same period, also,
Gilles de Rais quitted Tiflfauges and betook himself
to Bourges to see the King, which course he would
not have taken had he been a rebel. Before making
the journey in question (which is mentioned in the
evidence given at his trial), he may have already
dismissed the spurious Maid, as was stated in a
previous chapter of this work ; or perhaps that dis-
missal, ascribed to the un worthiness of Claude des
Armoises, was the outcome of the interview which
Gilles had at Bourges with Charles VI I.^ All we
know, however, of the purpose of his journey is that
he had some important business in hand,^ concerning
the issue of which he was so extremely anxious that
on quitting Tiflfauges he recommended his aflfairs to
Prelati, and begged him to let him know as soon as
possible the result of his invocations.

A short time afterwards Prelati sent him, by
messenger — either Poitou or a certain Denis Gas-
card (the evidence on the point is conflicting) — a

» Vallet de Viriville, Lc.

* On the subject of the False Maid see Quicherat*s * Proems de
Jeanne d'Arc,' vol. v., p. 321 et seq, ; * Une Fausse Jeanne d*Arc,'
by A. Lecoy de la Marche ; * Revue des Questions Historiques,'
187 1 ; and Wallon, vol. iL, p. 308 et seq,^ and Appendix xxiii.
(References given by Bossard.)

'In certain letters of remission granted to Siquenville it is said
that Gilles wished to undertake an enterprise against Le Mans,
and perhaps it was about this matter that he sought an interview
with the King. See Quicherat, /.^, vol v., p. 333.



300 BLUEBEARD

letter informing him that everything was progress-
ing favourably, that the Devil had again appeared,
and had given him some black powder, with instruc-
tions to send it to the Marshal, who was to place it
in a little silver box and carry it hanging from his
neck both day and night, for it was a very precious
talisman, and, if the said instructions were obeyed,
would bring him great advantages. The Marshal
did as he was told, carrying the powder in a box for
some considerable time ; but his affairs at Bourges
did not prosper, and at last, in a fit of impatience,
he divested himself of the talisman, one account
saying that he flung it into a well in the court of the
house of Messire Jacques Coeur,^ and another show-,
ing that it was brought back to Brittany and given
by Poitou to Prelati, who left it in his room at a
house at Machecoul, where it was found after the
arrest of the Marshal and his accomplices.^ The
explanation probably is that the little silver box, on
being thrown away, did not fall into the well, but
was picked up by Poitou, who subsequently returned
it to the Italian.

In any case, the latter was extremely displeased.
He told Gilles, on his return home, that he had

^ Lacroix, following his transcript, calls the powder * something
of the colour of silver,' and adds ' in a purse of hlaclc silk, which
was enclosed in a silver-gilt box.'

^ This could not have been the famous historic mansion whidi
Coeur only began to build in 1443. Some previous residence must
be referred to. If the incident really occurred, it is possible that
Gilles went to the celebrated financier to borrow money of him,
and, having failed to do so, threw the box away in disgust



GILLES DE RAIS 301

flung away his happiness and virtually lost himself ;
that Barron must be greatly angered against him ;
and that in order to appease the great demon he
must humble himself and give food and drink to
three poor men at each of the three great festivals of
the year. Indeed, as confessed by Gilles himself,
he did perform that act of penance on All Saints'
Day, 1439, when he personally washed the feet of
three poor men, and served them with food and
drink. But he added that he did it only on the
occasion specified.

This brings one to the oft-repeated charge that
Gilles had the Black Mass sung in honour of
Satan, a charge suggested by the indictment against
him, which asserts that for five years he caused
' pretended solemnities to be celebrated in honour
of the evil spirits.' Abb^ Bossard thinks that he
at least caused the Black Mass to be sung on the
particular day when he fed the three poor men ; but
the present writer finds no confirmation of this
supposition in the evidence. The assumption is
simply based on the aforesaid words in the indict-
ment, which contains numerous errors of fact From
all that is known of the character of Gilles, it seems
certain that he never caused the Black Mass to be
celebrated. With his fantastic ideas of the powers
of good and evil, he would have regarded such an
action as irretrievable. Amidst his most frantic
paroxysms of crime he always remained anxious
to save his soul. Directly he had ceased evoking
the Devil he prayed to the Deity for pardon ; and



s



302 BLUEBEARD

Prelati had to tell him, again and again, that he
would never gain Satan to his cause unless he
renounced his attachment to the Church and his
chantry. Some members of the latter were certainly
his accomplices in abominable turpitude and crime ;
but even they would have recoiled from the idea of
celebrating the ritual in honour of Satan. Had there
been any evidence on the subject, Ahh6 Bossard
would assuredly have dealt with it at length. The
present writer has waded through many pages of
medieval Latin, but has found no evidence whatever
confirming the vague allegation in the indictment
Thus the so-called Black Mass and all its imaginary
attributes may be left to M. Huysmans and his fellow-
novelists, from whom one does not expect anything
approaching historical accuracy.

But if that particular charge remains unproven,
how many are confirmed by the evidence ! Gilles
recoiled from no act of wickedness and villainy when
he thought he might subsequently atone for it by
penance. One can picture him thinking that if the
Devil gave him the great wealth he desired he would
devote a large part of it to pious foundations. One
cannot say exactly what was done in the matter of
that Foundation of the Holy Innocents for which
Jean Caseau and Jean de Recouin, the notaries of
Orleans, drew up a deed of confirmation ;^ but it is
at least certain that the Marshals extravagance in
other respects prevented him from carrying the deed
into effect. Champtoci, which he had intended to

^ See anfe^ pp. 199, 200.



GILLES DE RAIS 303

assign to the Foundation, was sold by him to the
Duke of Brittany, and when he died little was left
of those revenues of the barony of Rais that he had
also meant to bestow on the great religious work
which, in his estimation, would secure him an exalted
place in heaven. It is probable that the Foundation
of the Holy Innocents subsisted precariously until
the Marshal s death, and perished in the great cUbdcle
afterwards. But one also reads of almshouses estab-
lished or enlarged by him and of hospices provided
for the accommodation of passing wayfarers, and
therein one can detect traces of the penitential
moods which came upon him at times, most usually
when he was wandering through the country around
Machecoul or Tiffauges. Torn by remorse, he then
gesticulated frantically and muttered incoherent words
in such wise that those who saw him wondered if he
were mad. But at night, when he had returned to
his castle and supped copiously, devouring spiced
meats and draining beaker after beaker of strong
wine, he became once more la bSte humaine, the
modern Minotaur, the vampire eager for villainy and
blood.

One day when his servants, Henri Griart and
Poitou, entered his room at Tiffauges, they found
him holding the hand, heart and eyes of a little child
whom a short time previously he had put to death in
their presence. He wrapped the offerings for Satan of
which he had thus possessed himself in a white linen
cloth, and placed them in a bowl on the shelf of his
chimney. Then he told his servants to lock the






304 BLUEBEARD

door of the room and allow nobody to enter. That
same night, hiding the parcel in one of his flowing
sleeves, he carried it to Prelati's apartment. He
and the Italian then proceeded to the room where
they had first evoked the Fiend, and repeated the
usual ceremonies, offering the eyes, heart, and hand
of the innocent and foully murdered child. But
the Evil Spirit did not appear, and Gilles went off in
great disappointment with yet one more crime upon
his conscience. When he was gone, Prelati took the
offerings, wrapped them in another cloth, and stole
out of the castle, crossing the yards in the direction
of the chapel of St. Vincent. And at the foot of the
chapel wall, in consecrated ground, he buried the
offerings which Barron had disdained.

It has been shown that Blanchet the priest,
according to his own account, had endeavoured to
sever his connection with Gilles in the course of
1438. Whatever doubt there may be on that point,
he certainly did try to free himself early in November
the following year. By that time he had probably
arrived at the opinion that the day of punishment was
not far distant. We know that he was superstitiously
inclined. He had been frightened by the blast of
wind which had swept down on La Perrota s house,
and by the heavy tramp of the four-footed beast over
the castle roof, and, his own conscience being by no
means clear, he may well have dreaded the ven-
geance of Heaven. Perhaps he really repented of
having abetted his patron in the practice of the Black
Art, knowing, as he had often said to Poitou and



GILLES DE RAIS 305

Henri Griart, that the Marshal would never succeed
in raising the Fiend unless he sacrificed children to
him. Moreover, the murmurs, the complaints rising
from the countryside, must have disturbed him.
Children were still frequendy disappearing, and
before long human as well as Divine justice might
intervene.

On or about All Saints' Day, 1439, a quarrel with
a fellow-retainer, Robin Romulart, gave Blanchet a
pretext for quitting Tiffauges. He repaired to
Mortagne, a little town on the Sevre, some seven or
eight miles distant from the castle of Gilles de Rais,
which can be clearly distinguished beyond the inter-
vening valley. Blanchet dwelt at Mortagne, at an
inn kept by a certain Bouchard Menard, for about
seven weeks, and though Gilles wrote to him making
light of his quarrel with Robin, and urging his return
to Tiffauges, where Prelati's experiments in alchemy
were * progressing marvellously well,' he turned a
deaf ear to the suggestion, particularly as he heard
some horrible reports respecting the Marshal's
doings. It happened in this wise : One evening
Messire Jean Mercier, Castellan of La Roche-sur-
Yon, travelling homeward from Nantes by the
Clisson road, alighted at the inn of Mortagne, and
Blanchet, meeting him at table, asked him what the
news might be at Nantes and Clisson. Messire
Mercier replied that the one great subject of conver-
sation throughout the southern part of Brittany and
Poitou was the frightful conduct imputed to Marshal
de Rais, whom the lower orders openly accused of

20



yA BLUEBEAKD




ta oraer tint be wgjt vnte a
eertam mjrstenooB book v^ tbexr falioocL Hie s&ory
fan that as sooo as ciixs book skooki be fiimhncf, the
mMt pryveifEil fortresses wooLd £fcll before die
Marshal as if bf encfaantincm. and nobody tfaence-
ifMWMA would be able to do him harm. Xatorany
enoi^h, Blanchet was alarmed bjr this cocmmmicatioa«
which showed how widespread were die su^Mcioas
of the artisans and peasantry, and he made up his
mind to return to his former patron no more.

On the very next day, however, he received a
visit from Jean Petit, the Marshal's Parisian gold-
smith, who had been sent expressly to take him
back to TifEuiges. But Blanche^ refusing to listen,
told Petit all that he had heard from Messire
Mercier. ' 1 know not,' he added, ' if these stories
be true, but they are widespread. If they be well
founded, entreat my Lord and Master Francesco,
from me, to renounce the evil courses in which they
commit such great crimes.' Petit went off to deliver
this message, which was perhaps a rather foolish
proceeding on his part, for Gilles, on hearing that
the priest refused to return and that such ominous
rumours were in circulation, flew into a fury with his
messenger, and imprisoned him in the fortress of
St. Etienne-de-Mer-Morte, by way, no doubt, of
keeping his mouth closed.^ Then Gilles once more
turned his attention to Blanchet. The priest had

^ Petit practised alchemy with Prelati, but it does not appear
that he was ever an accomplice in the Marshal's crimes, of which,
until this period, he may have been quite ignorant.



GILLES DE RAIS 307

' a frivolous, indiscreet and evil tongue/ He knew
too much, and, as he would not return, must be put
out of the way. This duty was promptly entrusted
to Gilles de Sill6, Poitou, Griart and another re-
tainer, Jean Lebreton, who arrived one day at the
inn of Mortagne, seized the trembling Blanchet, and
led him in the direction of Montaigu. On reaching
Rocheservi^re, Blanchet realized that he was being
conducted to St. Etienne-de-Mer-Morte, where he
would either be put to death or imprisoned with Jean
Petit. So he refused to go any further, and by dint
of resistance and entreaty prevailed on his custodians
to take him to Machecoul. On the road thither
Poitou, after telling him that if he had gone to St*
Etienne he would certainly have been executed, m
punishment for his loquacity with the goldsmith,,
added that he would have to be very cautious at
Machecoul, for if he gossiped the consequences
might be serious. But Blanchet needed no further
warning ; he knew that he was at the Marshal's
mercy, and thus he held his tongue until the time of
the judicial proceedings.

He then supplied some information indicating that
there was perhaps an element of truth in the reports
which asserted that Gilles was writing a book on
Magic. One day, said he, about Easter (1440),.
accompanied by another priest, a certain Gilles de
Valois, who like himself belonged to the Marshal s
ecclesiastical household, he went into his patron's
study or writing-room {scripiortum) , and was there
shown a book treating of the ritual of the so-called



3o8 BLUEBEARD

Chapter of Machecoul, the binding of which book
Rais himself was artistically enamelling. Whilst
listening to the Marshal and admiring his work,
Blanchet noticed on the table five or six sheets of
paper which aroused his curiosity, not only because
the writing within the broad margins left on each
sheet was that of Gilles, but because this writing
was red. Here and there on the papers, red
crosses and other signs also appeared.

The priest thereupon remembered what he had
been told about the book written with the blood of
murdered children. It must be added that Henri
Griart subsequently testified that he had once seen
a book in his master's hands, which appeared to be
written with blood or vermilion. Perhaps, however,
the work in question was the one on Medicine and
Magic which Prelati borrowed at Tiflfauges, and
which, we know, was rubricated. Besides, the
colour of blood is not the same as that of vermilion ;
and although the blood of children may be generally
of a lighter hue than that of adults, it is a question
whether it would remain really red for any lengfth
of time. Those who believe that Gilles' book on
Magic was written with blood may argue that the
writing on the sheets seen by Blanchet was quite
recent. Yet it seems unlikely that the Marshal
would have left anything particularly compromising
lying about, particularly as Valois, who accompanied
Blanchet, was not in his secrets.

We do not know what induced Gilles to move
from Tiflfauges to Machecoul early in 1440, but



f



GILLES DE RAIS 309

perhaps this change of residence followed the visit
which the Dauphin is said to have paid to the
former castle,^ and which would thus have taken
place while Blanchet was sojourning at Mortagne.
This is not unlikely. We know that Gilles at one
time sent Blanchet word that Prelati s experiments
in alchemy were progressing marvellously well.
Then, however, nothing more is heard of them ;
and this may be due to the Dauphin's visit, which is
said to have led to the destruction of all the chemical
apparatus.

In any case, Prelati followed Gilles de Rais to
Machecoul, and we find him lodging in the little
town near the castle, and sharing a room with a
certain Lenano or Nani, Marquis Ceva, member
of a Piedmontese house of illustrious descent but
needy circumstances. M. de Maulde^ says that the
Ceve, in Nani s time, had become mere condottiere^
and had endless disputes with the representative of the
Duke of Orleans, who, as Count of Asti, was their
neighbour. Nani, being the youngest of three
brothers, had been left, perhaps, to shift for himself.
The exact origin of his intercourse with Gilles de
Rais is not known ; but Ceva belonged to the
Diocese of Mondovi, and remembering that Prelati
was attached to the Bishop of that see when
Blanchet met him at Florence, it is allowable to
surmise that Nani was an old acquaintance, and had
followed Prelati to France in the hope of making a
fortune there. Gilles de Rais appears to have
^ See antti p. 243. ' Bossard, A^., pp. 229, civ.



3IO BLUEBEARD

treated him in a friendly way and to have given
him some kind of military employment

According to Poitou, the Marshal's valet, Ceva
was always ignorant of his master's secret crimes,
but the intercourse of the Italian Marquis with
Prelati and other matters point to a very different
conclusion. One day, for instance, about the end of
April, 1440, a woman of Pouanc6, Ysabeau Hamelin,
who with her husband had come to dwell at Fresnay
near Machecoul, sent two of her sons, one fifteen
years of age and the other seven, to buy some bread
at Machecoul. They did not return, and, indeed,
she never saw them again. But the very next day,
as she was standing outside her house, two men,
Prelati and Ceva, came up to her. The latter, to
her great astonishment, asked her if she were still
suffering from soreness of the breast. She did not
at first understand how he knew that she had a sore
breast, and she answered that there was nothing the
matter with her. * Yes, truly there is,' the Marquis
replied, and he added that she did not belong to
Machecoul, but came from Pouanc6. Ysabeau, more
and more surprised, inquired how he knew it. * Oh,
I knew it very well,' he answered, and she then
acknowledged that he spoke the truth.

He put further questions to her, ascertained that
her husband had returned to Pouanc6 to seek hire,
and, on noticing a couple of very young children in
the house, inquired if they were hers, and if she
had any others. * Yes, two,' she answered, but she
did not dare to add that they were missing. Then



GILLES DE RAIS 3"

Prelati and the Marquis walked away, and Ysabeau
heard the latter tell his companion that 'two had
gone from her house. '^

She was greatly disturbed, and when she talked
the matter over with her husband they came to the
conclusion that there was some connection between
the disappearance of their boys and the sudden visit
of the Marshal's Italian retainers. It is rather dif-
ficult to account for the visit and for the questions
put to Ysabeau. Perhaps Prelati and Ceva wished
to ascertain what kind of woman she was, and
whether she were likely to raise an outcry respecting
the disappearance of her children. Yet if they were
at all guilty in the matter they must have known
that such a visit might compromise them. All con-
sidered, their object may have been to verify certain
suspicions which they had formed concerning the
fate of the two boys. They had seen them un-
doubtedly — in all probability at the castle — ^and
desired to ascertain if they had returned home.

The house where the Italians lodged at Machecoul
belonged to a certain Clement Rondeau, who after a
time was seized with an illness which seemed likely to
prove fatal. When a priest had administered extreme
unction to the sufferer, the latter's wife, Perrine, gave
vent to such noisy and abundant lamentations that
her relatives, fearing perhaps that she might rob her
husband of his last chance of recovery, made her go
into the room tenanted by Prelati and Ceva. This

^ Civil Proceedings : Deposition of Ysabeau Hamelin. The
French words are : * II en estoit sorti deux de celui hostel'



312 BLUEBEARD

room was at the top of the house and was reached by
a ladder. Evening had set in when Perrine was sent
up there, and the wizard and the Marquis had gone
to the castle, but their pages were having supper in
the room. By-and-by Master Francesco and Nani
came home, and finding Perrine in their quarters, and
believing that she had gone there on some prying
expedition, they abused her savagely, and caught
her, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders,
in order to carry her to the ladder. Prelati even
kicked her in the loins, and she felt certain that she
would have been thrown down the ladder if her
nurse had not fortunately prevented it by catching
hold of her gown.

One day, a short time afterwards, Perrine heard
Ceva telling his friend that he had found him a
handsome Norman page ; and, indeed, a little later
a lad, who said that he belonged to Dieppe and was
of a good family, came and stayed with Prelati for
about a fortnight ; then, however, he disappeared,
and Perrine, wondering what had become of him,
made inquiries of his master, who replied that the
boy had deceived him, and had run away with a
couple of crowns which he had stolen. After this
occurrence Prelati ceased to lodge with Perrine ; and
he and Eustache Blanchet, the priest, took up their
quarters in a lonely little house of bad reputation,
whose owner or tenant, a certain Perrot Cahn (or
Cahu), they turned out of doors. ' It was not a
meet dwelling-place for honourable folk,' we are
told ; nevertheless, Prelati and Blanchet dwelt there,



>



GILLES DE RAIS 313

whilst the Marquis, who kept up daily intercourse
with them, continued to lodge at Perrine's.

But we must now return to Gilles himself.
Throughout these last years of his, amidst his
experiments in alchemy and his attempts to raise
the Fiend, he had been living in the same extrava-
gant style as formerly, still maintaining both an
ecclesiastical and a military household. Why, in-
deed, should he retrench, when in a day or two, a
week, a month at the utmost, either science or the
Devil would enrich him beyond the dreams of
avarice ? The mirage of wealth and power was
always before his eyes. Hope revived after every
disappointment and lured him onward. Meantime,
however, his expenses were very heavy, and again
and again, whatever revenue was yielded him by
his remaining possessions, whatever sums he re-
ceived from the Duke of Brittany on account
of the Champtoc6 contract, he was embarrassed
how to maintain the pride and splendour of earlier
years. His only means of raising money was to sell
more property, and thus he began to part with his
last lordships. Perhaps it was now that he sold
his mansion of La Suze to the Chapter of Nantes ;
for until about this time we find him dwelling there
when he went to the city.^ His biographers
generally assume that he parted with the mansion at
a much earlier date, but if so, he must have reserved
to himself a life-tenancy or something similar.

^ This is shown by frequent passages in the evidence against
him. He still occasionally sojourned at La Sum in i439*



314 BLUEBEARD

In any case, among the last property on which
he raised money was the lordship and fortress of
St. ]£tienne-de-Mer-Morte. The usual account of
the transaction is that he sold this castellany to the
Duke of Brittany, perhaps with some proviso, as in
the case of Champtoc6, which would enable him to
repurchase it within a stipulated period. It seems
certain, however, that he himself placed a certain
Jean Le Ferron in possession of St. ntienne ; and a
document in the procedure against him shows that
he had transferred his rights in the lordship to Jean
Le Perron's brother Geffroi.^ On the other hand,
this Geffroi was treasurer to the Duke of Brittany,*
and there are reasons for thinking that he acted
simply as the Duke's intermediary. One often-
repeated account of the affair is that the Duke
bought St. fitienne of Gilles, and then transferred
it to Le Ferron, and that Gilles, greatly offended
by the transfer, rebelled against it ; but the docu-
ment indicated — one of Gilles' confessions — states
explicitly that St. ifetienne had been transferred to
Geoffroi Le Ferron by Gilles himself.

The matter is of importance, for it led to the
Marshal's downfall, and it is unfortunate that the
exact facts which impelled him to repossess himself
of St. Etienne by violence after he had sold it can-
not be fully ascertained. He is found complaining,

^ De Maulde in Bossard, /.r., p. cxlii.

2 Ibid,^ p. cliv. Perhaps Geffroi Le Ferron had succeeded
Mauleon (see ante^ p. 288) as treasurer, or there may have been
more than one holding that office.



GILLES DE RAIS 315

however, that Jean Le Ferron, whom he had placed
in possession of the castellany, had beaten and
extorted money from his (Gilles') vassals, and thus
the dispute which arose may simply have been
caused by Le Ferron imposing imposts on others
besides the vassals of the particular lordship
which had been sold. But subsequently Gilles
says that he had never been paid for this lord-
ship ; and it must also be mentioned that in one
of his confessions, and in a statement made by
Prelati, there are some allusions to certain designs
on St iStienne, planned by some garrison, of
Palluau or Les Essarts.

The only explanation of this matter which one can
suggest is as follows. The fortress of St. Etienne-
de-Mer-Morte was about seven miles south of
Machecoul, on or near the limits of the barony of Rais.
Palluau and Les Essarts, now in the department of La
Vendue, then belonged to Poitou — that is, to French
and not to Breton territory. Poitou, as we have
frequently mentioned, was at that period in a state
of great unrest, and it is possible, therefore, that
among the semi-bandit nobles of the province there
was some design to seize St. Etienne.^ Prelati stated
in evidence that the Marshal proposed to place men
in ambush to surprise the men from Palluau, and
that he, the necromancer, consulted Barron, his
favourite demon, to ascertain whether the enter-

^ During the spring of 1443, Charles VII., in subjugating the
remnants of La Tr^mouille's league in Poitou, seized both Palluau
and Les Essarts. V. de Viriville, /.^., vol ii., p. 434.



3i8 BLUEBEARD

were on their knees praying, when all at once
Gilles de Rais, bareheaded, and carrying ^jusarme}
burst into the church, followed by his retainers,
helmeted and armed with their swords. The
Marshal hastened to the spot where Perron was
kneeling, and shouted in a terrible voice :

* Ha ! ribault ! Thou hast beaten my men and
practised extortion on them ! Come — come out of
the church, or I will kill thee quite dead T^

Jean Le Perron, on his knees, pale with terror,
could only answer :

* Do with me as you please,'

* Out — out !' cried the Marshal, brandishing his
jusarme ; and many feared that he would despatch
Le Perron even in the church.

But the other begged the Marquis Ceva and Ber-
trand Poulein to intercede for him, and they made
answer * on their lives that no hurt should be done
him if he would leave the church.' He did so, still
trembling, and Rousseau, the Duke of Brittany's
officer, would have followed, but some one of the
Marshal's company signed to him that he would do
better to remain in the church.

Perron was led towards the castle, and when
Gilles again threatened him, he surrendered posses-
sion of it. He and his men, however, were not
allowed to go free, but were shut up in the prison
of the fortress. According to Bossard, Gilles soon

afterwards seized the persons of Geffroi Le Perron,

t

^ A kind of dagger according to De Maulde.
* * Je te tueroy tout mort.'



GILLES DE RAIS 319

Hautreys, and Rousseau,^ and, in order to prevent
any rescue on the part of the Duke of Brittany, he
transferred them beyond the limits of the duchy —
that is, to the castle of Tiffauges, which was really
his wife's property, and was held in fief from the
King of France. It was the Marquis Ceva, we
are told, who, with a strong escort, conducted the
captives to their new prison, whence Gilles at first
obstinately refused to release them.

Duke Jean V. was exasperated. He summoned
the Marshal to set his prisoners free and to restore
St fitienne-de-Mer-Morte, threatening to impose on
him, in the event of disobedience, a fine of fifty
thousand crowns. But Gilles shut himself up in
Machecoul and defied the Duke. The latter there-
upon sent a body of men to St. ntienne and seized
the castle by force, but he could not do the same as
regards Tiffauges, for that would have been carry-
ing war into French territory. In this dilemma he
applied to his brother Artus, Count of Richemont
and Constable of France, whose influence with
Charles VII. was at this time very great indeed.

Richemont, either personally or by deputy, gave
the needful assistance. A body of French troops
marched on Tiffauges, and Rais, alarmed at the turn

^ Rousseau, in his evidence in the Ecclesiastical Proceedings,
does not mention having been arrested at St. l^tienne, but his
arrest may have taken place subsequently (see posiy p. 347). The
account given by Lacroix and others, that Rais arrested Gefifroi
Le Ferron, led him to St. J^tienne, and threatened to strike off
his head outside the castle if Jean Le Ferron did not surrender
it, is based on allegations in the civil indictment, but is contradicted
by the evidence.



320 BLUEBEARD

which events were taking, sent orders for the release
of the prisoners. Perhaps he was induced to take
this course by some communications which passed
between him and Richemont, who in former years
had been his friend, and who, owing to his long
absence from Brittany, knew nothing of the secret
crimes and excesses of his former companion in
arms. Had the Constable been aware of them, had
he heard only of the Marshal's practice of magic and
sorcery, he would certainly have refrained from
befriending him, for he was greatly prejudiced against
the Black Art, and is said to have had more witches
hanged and burnt than any other of his contempo-
raries. But if Artus in that matter shared the
superstitions of his age, and thus perpetrated deeds
from which, with more enlightenment, he would
assuredly have shrunk, he was in other respects a
good-natured man, one who did not forget old ties
and friendships and dangers shared in common. In
the earlier days of his career he had certainly caused
two ignoble royal favourites to be put to death, but
he had done so for the commonweal. Whenever it
became necessary to intercede for some culprit who
had done good service he did not hesitate. He
pleaded for Alen9on, for Dunois, for Blanchefort
Thus when M. Cosneau, the modem authority on
his life, tells us that he reconciled his brother the
Duke of Brittany and Gilles de Rais^ (of whose
crimes he was ignorant), we may well believe it,
for it was an act in keeping with his character.

^ Cosneau, /.r., p. 279.



GILLES DE RAIS 321

M. Cosneau says it was in 1438 that the Duke,
fearing a conspiracy between Gilles and his cousins
of Laval, sent for the Constable, but the date is
evidently an error, for Gilles did not rebel until the
summer of 1440, when he may well have endeavoured
to interest his cousins Guy and Andr^ de Laval in
his cause ; whereas in 1438 he was at daggers drawn
with them on account of the sale of Champtoc6. We
have proof, moreover, that Richemont's good offices
did not go unrewarded. Among the last lordships
transferred by Gilles to Jean V. was that of Bourg-
neuf-en-Rais, and under date August 24, 1440, the
Duke of Brittany presented that lordship to the
Constable.^ Curiously enough, on the previous day
Gilles, as will presently appear, visited Boui^neuf
for the last time, probably in connection with the
transfer of authority.

Abb^ Bossard is at a loss to understand how
Gilles and the Duke could have met on good terms
after the affair of St. l^tienne, but the reconciliation
effected by Richemont explains everything. This
reconciliation probably took place in July ; for we
know that Gilles visited Jean V. first at Vannes and
afterwards at Josselin in the course of that month.
At that time there appears to have been no en-
forcement whatever of the threatened fine of fifty
thousand crowns, assigned as the penalty of the
Marshall rebellion. Indeed, one witness speaks of
him going to Vannes to receive more money from
the Duke, on account, no doubt, of one of their

^ Cosneau, /.^., p. 309.

21



322 BLUEBEARD

numerous contracts. It is certain, however, that he
did not make the journey without sundry mis-
givings. He consulted Prelati to ascertain if he
would incur any danger ; and Prelati, having referred
the matter to Barron,^ received favourable replies on
three separate occasions, at Machecoul, at Vannes,
and at Josselin, for the necromancer accompanied his
patron on the journey to the ducal court.

Yet once again, then, the high and mighty Baron
of Rais was seen traversing Brittany with a pompous
retinue, and again did children disappear, again came
horror and crime. At Vannes, Andr6 Buchet, who
a little later quitted the Marshal's chantry for that
of the Duke, beguiled a boy ten years of age to the
house where Gilles was staying — a hostelry kept by
a certain Lemoyne, and situatea outside the city
walls near 'the episcopal manse commonly called
La Motte.' The house was not convenient, how-
ever, and the child was therefore taken to an
adjoining inn, kept by a certain Boetdan, who had
provided stabling for the Marshal's horses. And
there the boy was murdered, and his body, with g^reat
difficulty, was lowered into a cess-pool.^

But the Marshal went on to Josselin — the historic
castle associated with the Rohans — whither the
Duke of Brittany invited him, and even there, per-
haps under the Duke s very roof, with the connivance
of his chamberlain, Henri Griart, otherwise Henriet.



^ Ecclesiastical Proceedings : Prelati's deposition.
^ Confessions of Gilles and Poitou.



I



GILLES DE RAIS 323

several children were put to death.^ At Josselin, too,
Prelati continued his incantations. One night, when
Gilles wished to know if he were exposed to danger
in the Duke's company, the Italian stole into a
meadow near the castle and evoked * Dyabolus
Barron/ who appeared to him as usual in the shape
of a young man, habited on this occasion ' in violet
silk.' And Barron told Prelati that the Marshal
(who was not present) had nothing whatever to fear.
The stay at Josselin came to an end ; and probably
about the end of July (1440) Gilles and his retainers
returned to the barony of Rais. Fortified by the
assurances of the Prince of Darkness, the Marshal
continued to lead the same evil life as previously.
On August 23 — the eve of St Bartholomew —
we find him at Bourgneuf-en-Rais. Among his
followers were Eustache Blanchet, Henri Griart,
and Poitou. Quarters were given to him at the
Monastery of the Grey Friars, founded by one of the
old Lords of Machecoul, but he supped, we are told, at
the house of GuillaumePlumet, probably an innkeeper.
Among the inhabitants of Bourgneuf was a certain
Rodigo called * of Gu^rande ' who had in his charge
a youth about fifteen years of age named Bernard
Le Camus, who belonged to Brest, but had been

* Gilles' confession. This may seem so extraordinary to some
readers that it is as well to give the monster's statement in his own
words : ' Dixit et confessus fuit dictus reus quod, dum fuit ultimate
apud illustrissimum principem et dominum, dominum ducem
Britanie, in pago ife Jocelin^ Macloviensis diocesis, idem reus
plures pueros per predictum Henrietum sibi ministratos occidi
fecit'

21 — 2



324 BLUEBEARD

confided to Rodigo by his uncle in order that he
might learn French — that language being litde
spoken at that time in the Brest region of Brittany.
On the day of the Marshal's arrival at Bourgneuf
young Bernard Le Camus was seen talking to
Poitou and Eustache Blanchet the priest ; and in the
evening he stole out of his guardian's house and was
never seen there again. Inquiries were made for
him. Rodigo, it seems, spoke to Gilles de Rais
himself, as well as to several of his retainers, and
offered a reward of forty crowns for the recovery of
the lad. All replied that they had not seen him ; but
Poitou and Blanchet promised that if they could
find him they would certainly have him sent home,
adding that he might perhaps have gone to
Tiffauges to be a page there.

As a matter of fact, and as Gilles, Henri Griart,
and Poitou afterwards confessed, Bernard had been
beguiled to the Monastery of the Grey Friars, where
Prelati, apparently, had that night endeavoured to
evoke the Devil, who did not appear, either because
the monastery was a holy place or because the
Marshal happened to be present. At all events,
young Bernard was killed by Griart and Poitou in
obedience to their master s orders ; and in spite of
the outcry made by Rodigo these men contrived to
remove the body to Machecoul, where, like so many
others, it was burnt to ashes in the great fireplace
of the Marshal's room.

Such was the last crime perpetrated by Gilles de
Rais, or by his henchmen, of which we find any



GILLES DE RAIS 325

precise record. He returned to Machecoul, and
was still there when, on the evening of Septem-
ber 13 or the next day, a certain Jean Labb^, a
captain in the service of the Duke of Brittany,
presented himself at the castle gates, with a notary
named Robin Guillaumet, process-server to the
Bishop of Nantes, and a company of men of arms.
Guillaumet was the bearer of a citation, and Labb6
had orders to seize the person of the Marshal and
convey him to Nantes immediately. Justice, lame
though she might be, had come at last.



VIII

I440

THE PRIVILEGES OF THE CHURCH — ^ARREST, TRIAL, AND
EXECUTION OF GILLES, HENRIET, AND FOITOU

The Infringement of Church Privileges brings on the Marshal's
Downfall — Jean de Malestroit, Gilles, and Richemont — Males-
troit's Investigations — Duke Jean V. consents to a Prosecution
— Arrest of Gilles — His Imprisonment at Nantes — His Allied
Letters to Jean V. and Charles VII. — His Wife's Attempts
to procure French Intervention — The Judicial Proceedings —
Gilles declines the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and defies his Judges
— He is excommunicated — His Accomplices testify against him
— Torture is threatened — He confesses his Crimes, privately and
publicly — He expresses Repentance and solicits the Prayers of
all — Last Secular Proceedings — Henriet and Poitou convicted
and sentenced — The Address of the Marshal's Advocate — A
Final Confession — Gilles is condemned to Death — rThe Last
Favours solicited by him — A General Procession and Prayers to
save his Soul — The Execution and Obsequies.

When Gilles de Rais, dagger in hand, entered the
parish church of St. Etienne-de-Mer-Morte and
bade Jean Le Perron rise and follow him under
penalty of death, he gave no heed to the fact that he
was committing an act of sacrilege, infringing one of
the most cherished privileges of the Church. Yet
such was the case, and his offence was aggravated



GILLES DE RAIS 327

by the circumstance that Jean Le Ferron, his
victim, was a clerk and had received the tonsure.
Now, the Church in those days never willingly over-
looked any trespass on its rights. At times, when it
lacked the power to assert its claims, it feigned sub-
mission, but it neither forgot nor forgave, it simply
awaited a favourable moment to take its revenge.
Jean de Malestroit, Chancellor of Brittany, was
also Bishop of Nantes. Gilles de Rais and Jean
Le Ferron both belonged to that diocese, and in
matters ecclesiastical Malestroit had jurisdiction
over them. When, however, the Marshal removed
Le Ferron to Tiffauges, and openly defied his
sovereign, the question of putting down his rebellion
took precedence of all others. Malestroit was the
sworn enemy of Richemont, the Dukes brother;
nevertheless, as Chancellor of the duchy, he was
obliged to join in the application for help which was
made to the Constable, there being no other means
of reducing Gilles to submission. When Richemont
reconciled the Duke and his vassal, the Chancellor
could only stand aloof, feigning perhaps a tacit con-
sent to the arrangements, though at heart he was
in no wise disposed to overlook the Marshals
offences against Holy Church. The Duke might
forget and forgive, that was his affair. Though
Malestroit, as Chancellor of Brittany, might have
advised a different course, he was, in his secular
capacity, bound to submit to his master's decision,
however contrary it might be to his own views.
But as Bishop of Nantes he was differently placed :



328 BLUEBEARD

he owed a duty to the Church, and the nobles of
his diocese must not imagine that they might with
impunity invade the sanctuaries of the Faith, with
armed men, at the hour of the Holy Offices, and
threaten, seize, and imprison churchmen. Thus
Malestroit privately resolved to punish Gilles de
Rais for his infringement of Church privileges.

We know that he was inquiring into the matter
in the month of July, at the very time when the
Marshal was visiting Jean V. at Vannes and Josselin.
But at the very first steps he took he found himself
face to face with something very different from the
offence which he proposed to punish. Ahh6 Bossard
writes on the subject in a manner which leaves the
impression that Malestroit, through the priests of
his diocese, had been acquainted with the popular
rumours for some time. Perhaps that is true, and
perhaps the Bishop had hitherto dismissed the
reports which reached him as being mere idle gossip.
But it seems more likely that when the Marshal
openly defied his sovereign, when the men of arms of
Jean V. advanced on St. Etienne-de-Mer-Morte to
recover possession of the castle there, and those of
Richemont prepared to invest Tiffauges, the people,
no longer fearing Gilles de Rais, now that the Duke
proclaimed him a rebel, raised their voices and spoke
out as they had never dared to speak before. The
Bishop of Nantes, proceeding on a pastoral journey
of inspection, found himself confronted by their com-
plaints, and soon realized that the infringement of
ecclesiastical privileges for which he desired to punish



GILLES DE RAIS 329

the Marshal was a mere bagatelle compared to all
the horrible crimes imputed to him at Nantes, in its
environs, and throughout the barony of Rais.

At the first moment Jean de Malestroit may per-
haps have doubted the accuracy of those dreadful
charges. Nevertheless, it was his duty to investigate
them ; and he may well have been impelled to do so
by inclination. His whole life shows that he never
forgave Artus de Richemont for having arrested and
cast him into prison as a traitor after the fight at
Saint James de Beuvron, when he was accused, on
all sides, of having betrayed the Bretons to the
English, from whom he had received many gifts.
Now, Richemont had just reconciled this man, Gilles
de Rais, to the Duke of Brittany ; and it would be a
great triumph for him, Malestroit, if he should prove
this Gilles to be a murderer, a monster of depravity
and cruelty. The demonstration would recoil on
Richemont himself, who had only just prevailed on
the Duke to grant the Marshal a renewal of favour.

The Chancellor- Bishop never neglected his own
interests ; he was jealous of all rival influence ; but
he was also very shrewd and cautious, to which circum-
stance may be attributed the fact that, in spite of all
attempts to dislodge him, he contrived to retain his
office for more than twenty years. But it is only fair
to say that, whatever personal motives may have
swayed Malestroit when he first began to inquire
into the charges against Gilles de Rais, those motives,
and all considerations attaching to them, disappeared
as his inquiry proceeded Genuine indignation and



330 BLUEBEARD

horror took their place ; there was no long^er any
question of satisfying some old grudge, there was
naught but the claim of Eternal Justice for the
punishment of the evil-doer.

Malestroit s inquiries were conducted secretly by
various ecclesiastical officers, and the first charges
investigated in any detail were those preferred by
inhabitants of Nantes and its environs. A first
letter of the Bishop's, setting forth certain accusa-
tions of vice, murder, heresy, magic, and sacrifices
to the Devil, preferred against Gilles by eight persons
dwelling in or near Nantes, is dated July 30, 1440.
It appears at the head of the record of the Ecclesi-
astical Proceedings, but there is nothing to show to
whom it was addressed.^ In all probability it was
circulated privately among the ecclesiastical authori-
ties of the diocese, for the tim^ had not yet come to
make any public statement which would warn the
Marshal de Rais of what was brewing. Meantime,
Malestroit s investigations continued, and when he
had collected a sufficient amount of evidence, and
had obtained the support of the Vicar-delegate of
the Inquisitor-General,^ he addressed himself to his
master, the Duke. Michelet, after asserting that
Jean V. welcomed the accusation, and was delighted
to be able to deal a blow to a Laval, adds in a foot-
note : * The more particularly, no doubt, as the King
had raised the barony of Laval to a county (1431).

^ It begins : * To all who may see the present Letters, Jean, by
the permission of God,* etc
^ R. de Maulde in Bossard, iv.



GILLES DE RAIS 331

These Lavals, indeed, though they had sprung from
the Montforts, formed quite a French opposition to
them, and ended by handing Brittany over to the
King of France in 1488.'^ Again, according to
Desormeaux, the historian of the Montmorencies,
not only did the Duke of Brittany abandon Gilles,
who was his lieutenant and brother-in-arms, but it
was he who showed the most rigour. And Desor-
meaux adds : ' The Marshal, in the senseless sales
of his lands to the Duke, had stipulated that they
should be restored to him, provided that he refunded
the purchase-money in six years. Was it the fear of
being reimbursed [the Duke had bought the property
for much less than its value], or was it really horror
of the excesses perpetrated by Rais, which aroused
the zeal of Jean V. ?* Further, Mezeray^ declares
that the Duke was well pleased at having an oppor-
tunity to avenge the Marshal's offences towards him-
self, in avenging those which he had offered to God.
But Michelet, Mezeray, and Desormeaux are
contradicted in essential particulars by the facts of
the case. Everything indicates that the Duke at
first shrank from the prosecution. He and his
seneschal, Pierre de FHdpital, took no steps until
everything had been set in motion by the Chancellor-
Bishop. If when the Ecclesiastical Proceedings

^ * Histoire de France,' vol. v. Gilles's cousins of I^val, Guy
and Andr^, were, of course, Montforts ; Laval having passed to
their house by the marriage of its heiress, Anne de Montmorency-
Laval, with Jean de Montfort, Sire de Kergorlay, in 1404. Gilles,
however, belonged to the Montmorency stock.

' ' Abr^g^ de THistoire de France.'



332 BLUEBEARD

had demonstrated the guilt of the Marshal, when the
latter, himself, had confessed his crimes, the Secular
Proceedings were hurried on and swiftly terminated,
it was, as Ahh6 Bossard points out, because the public
clamour was so great, the indignant horror of the
multitude so threatening, that Jean V. feared lest he
should incur universal odium by extending any pro-
tection or leniency to so vile a miscreant.

In the first instance, Jean V. simply assented to
the prosecution, allowing the ecclesiastical authorities
to fight their battle with the Marshal. Indeed, he
could not do otherwise when the Bishop of Nantes
(who was also his Chancellor) laid such serious
accusations before him. But in the leniency with
which Gilles was in the first instance treated, and the
dilatoriness of the secular authorities— -one can detect
a desire on the part of the Duke to avoid carrying
matters too far.

When Jean de Malestroit had obtained his
sovereign's assent to the prosecution, he issued a
second document, dated September 13, and ad-
dressed to all the rectors, curates and chaplains,
notaries and process-servers of his diocese. In
this paper, after reciting the results of his investiga-
tions and the charges brought against Gilles de Rais,
he concluded thus : * For these reasons we will not
hide such monstrous things any longer, nor allow
this heresy ... to grow and spread. Far from that,
we desire to apply a prompt and efificient remedy ;
wherefore we enjoin all and each of you by these
present letters to cite at once and finally . . . before



GILLES DE RAIS 333

us or the Official of our Cathedral church, on
Monday, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Real
Cross, September 19, the aforenamed Gilles, noble
Baron of Rais, who is subject to our authority and
jurisdiction ; and we ourselves, by these letters, do
cite him to appear at our bar on the day named,
to answer for the crimes which weigh upon him.*

Of course, the priests to whom this document was
addressed were not expected to enforce it them-
selves. It was simply drawn up in the usual form
affected by a general citation, and M. de Maulde
believes that it was not really promulgated until
after the arrest of the Marshal on September 14.^

When Gilles de Rais learned that Jean Labb^,
one of the Duke of Brittany's captains, was at the
gates of Machecoul with Robin Guillaumet, 'clerk
and notary public of the Diocese of Nantes,' and a
corApany of armed men, he at first hesitated as to
the course he should pursue. 'Some of his com-
panions/ says Bossard,^ * advised him to resist ; but
he was irresolute. A few days previously two of
his accomplices, Roger de Bricqueville and Gilles de
Sill4 who had long been accustomed to decide
matters for him, and who had divined that a thunder-
bolt was about to fall, had sought escape from it by
hasty flight.^

^ R. de Maulde in Bossard, ill, iv.

' Bossard, pp. 250, 251.

' They may have received some warning. According, however,
to some accounts, Gilles de Sill^ was at Machecoul at the time of
the arrest, but contrived to secrete himself and flee.



334 BLUEBEARD

' Deprired of those who had ususdly directed his

course in moments of dai^er, Gilles^ by reason
of his irresolution and lack of energy, resembled
a disabled ship. It was possible for him to ofier
resistance, long enough to plan flight, at all events ;
but flight would mean an admission of guilt
... But, what had he to fear of justice which
frightens common criminals ? He himself was Aaui
justicier on his domains, and in his own opinion
accountable to himself alone. He had powerful
friends, too ; his name and past were glorious. None
would dare to accuse him or to reveal his crimes.
Besides, who knew those crimes ? Night and silence
have no voice!' Michelet is of much the same
opinion. ' Rais,' he says, ' might have fled, but he
deemed himself too powerful to have anything to
fear, and thus he allowed himself to be taken.' In
any case, apart even from such reliance as he may
have placed in Duke Jean V., his brother-in-arms,
to whom he had lately been reconciled, the Marshal
may well have felt that submission would be the
most politic course, particularly as he had recently
tried rebellion without success. Thus, rejecting the
counsel of those who advised him to resist, and
trusting, no doubt, to the favourable testimony of
his servants, who could not denounce him without
denouncing themselves, he resolved to face his
accusers. He would brave the charges brought
against him ; no judge would hesitate between his
denials and the allegations of base-bom peasants;
and thus every rumour would be extinguished in a




GILLES DE RAIS 335

triumphant acquittal. So he proudly causai the
drawbridge to be lowered, and went in person to meet
Captain Jean Labb6, whom he recognised. * I did
always propose to become a monk/ he said, turning
towards his retainers, as if to reassure them. * And
here comes the abbot [I'abb^] under whom I am to
enlist'

Well pleased with this jest, he then surrendered
himself to the soldiers, and gave orders that horses
should be saddled for himself and his servants.
But two of these, Poitou and Henri Griart, were
immediately arrested. The same fate befell Prelati ;
Blanchet, the priest, was taken in the town ; and it
is possible that the Marquis Ceva and Bertrand
Poulein were likewise apprehended, for we find them
afterwards giving evidence at Nantes, virtually under
compulsion.

While Robin Guillaumet the notary was reading
the Bishop's citation to Gilles de Rais, various
perquisitions were made in the castle, and also
at the lonely house where Prelati and Blanchet
had been dwelling. There, according to Perrine
Rondeau, with whom Prelati had previously lodged,
the soldiers found some fine powder which was said
to be 'the ashes of children/ and a child's little
shirt, covered with blood. Bossard says that some
'powder' was also found in the castle, but this
appears to be an error. As for the various state*
ments that corpses were found there, these are not
corroborated by any evidence, and the writer regards
them as romance.



336 BLUEBEARD

At last all was ready for departure, and Jean
Labb^ and his men took the road to Nantes widi
their prisoners. One may imagine the commotion
in the little town of Machecoul and the stir in all the
villages through which the party passed. The high
and mighty Baron of Rais was no longer travelling
in great pomp with his ecclesiastical and military
households, his train of body servants, his portable
organs, and his sumpter mules. He passed as a
prisoner under the vigilant eye of his custodians.
Yet whatever may have been the comments of
those who saw him, whatever may have been his
secret thoughts, we may be sure that he retained
his wonted proudness of mien, for every account,
every document, shows that throughout the earlier
stages of the proceedings against him he aroused
universal astonishment by his haughty and con-
temptuous manner.

Reaching Nantes the same night, Gilles was
lodged in the Chdteau de la Tour Neuve. One of
the upper rooms, large and well lighted, was there
assigned to him ; the legendary account that he was
placed in a dungeon of the Mercoeur tower, where
the Duke de Mercoeur, the Cardinal de Retz, Fou-
quet the financier, and the Duchess de Berry, were
subsequently imprisoned, being inaccurate. At the
utmost, according to Bossard, who has investigated
the question, Gilles may have spent his last night in
that tower ; but until he was finally condemned he
was allowed comfortable quarters. Condecenti is the
word used in the procedure ; and as those who



GILLES DE RAIS 337

interviewed him are described as going downstairs^
and the Mercoeur tower has no stairs — its one dark,
spacious room resting on the granite soil — it is
evident that Gilles was lodged in another part of
the castle.

After his incarceration, he was allowed, it would
seem, a few days to reflect upon his position ; and
during this respite, according to some historians, he
endeavoured to secure an interview with the Duke
of Brittany. But this favour was denied him.

Meantime, the Bishop of Nantes was selecting
various ecclesiastics to take part in the coming trial
The of5fice of promotor or prosecutor was entrusted
to the parish priest of St. Nicolas, of Nantes, a
certain Guillaume Chapeillon, who had largely
assisted the Bishop in his preliminary investiga-
tions, and was therefore well acquainted with the
many rumours about Gilles and the evidence which
would be available. Chapeillon seems to have been
a man of energy and self-restraint — that is to say,
he conducted the prosecution vigorously, while
never once losing his temper amidst all the prisonqr's
outbursts.

On September 19 Gilles was brought to the great
hall of the Chdteau de la Tour Neuve, where he was
confronted by Malestroit, Chapeillon, and two other
ecclesiastics — Olivier Lesou, parish priest of Bouvron,
and Jean Durand, priest of Blain. Chapeillon at
once preferred against the Marshal certain charges
of heresy, but did not allude to the accusations of
vice and murder which had constituted the most

22






'^



338 BLUEBEARD

important feature of the Bishop's citation. Thus
the prisoner, on being asked whether he accepted
the Bishop's jurisdiction, immediately assented, say-
ing that he was quite ready to prove his innocence
of such charges before any tribunal. Further, he
consented to accept the jurisdiction of the Vice-
Inquisitor, who was thereupon appointed judge-
auxiliary, and Malestroit adjourned the further
proceedings until September 28, when the wit-
nesses for the prosecution and the defence were to
be interrogated.

At that time the Vice- Inquisitor of the Faith for
the Diocese of Nantes was Brother Jean Blouyn, a
Dominican Friar, who, although only about forty
years of age, had held the office since July, 1426,
when he had been appointed to it by Guillaume
M^rici, Grand Inquisitor of France.^ And here it
may be convenient to mention that the principal
assessors of the Ecclesiastical Court chosen to try
the Marshal were Guillaume de Malestroit, Bishop-
designate of Le Mans ; Jean Pr^gent, Bishop of
St. Brieuc ; Denis de la Loh^rie, Bishop of St. Lo ;*
and Jacques de Pentcoetdic, Official of the Cathedral
of Nantes. Robin Guillaumet, public notary, acted
as Clerk of the Court, and four other notaries — ^Jean
Delaunay, Jean Petit, Guillaume Lesn6, and Nicolas
Geraud — took down the evidence of the witnesses,

^ Letters of Appointment. See Bossard, /.r., p. xxxi.

* This is doubtful, the Latin being Laodicensis or Laudicensis.
Abb^ Bossard points out that the Sees of Libge and Laon were
at that time held by other ecclesiastics, and therefore suggests
St. Lo.



GILLES DE RAIS 339

etc. Finally, Pierre de THdpital, Seneschal of
Rennes and President of the Parliament of Brittany,
was present at most of the proceedings, and occa^
sionally played an important part in them, as will
presently appear.

The proceedings having been adjourned from the
19th to the 28th of September, Gilles, it would
appear, spent much of his time in hearing Mass, for
which permission was granted him, one of the priests
of his own household being empowered to officiate,
on the express condition, however, that he should
not confess and absolve the prisoner, or permit him
to communicate. Further, it is said that permission
was granted for the attendance at the Holy Offices
of two of the Marshal's chanters, two choir-boys, and
his organ-player, from which it would follow that
one of his portable organs had been brought from
Machecoul or Tiffauges. It was certainly during
this interval that Gilles, who did not think his life
in danger, decided that he would take orders and
become a Carmelite in penance for his sins. In this
connection various writers quote a letter which he
is said to have addressed to the Duke of Brittany,
a letter offering to give all his property to the poor,
and soliciting permission to retire into a monastery.
It is possible that some such missive was prepared
by him, but, if so, the text must have differed from
that which is quoted, for the phraseology of the
latter is too modem to be accurate.^

Again, it is asserted that Katherine de Thouars,

^ The letter will be found in Lacroix, /.^., p. 48.

22 — 2



340 BLUEBEARD

the Marshal's wife, came to Nantes to intercede for
him with Jean V., but this also is doubtful. Many
years had now elapsed since the boy and girl
marriage of Gilles and Katherine. In the earlier
period'they had been parted by the wars ; then had
come some quarrel, perhaps some dreadful discovery
on Katherine's part, and they had separated never
to meet again. In her husband's campaigning days,
at the time when the English were advancing
through Maine, and seemed likely to enter Anjou,
Katherine is found superintending repairs at
Champtoc6, and placing that castle in a state of
defence. In subsequent years she goes from fortress
to fortress, discharging various duties. At last, in
January and again in May, 1434, she is seen at
Machecoul. At Michaelmas she goes to Tiffauges,
and a little later she appears at Champtoc6. The
final separation of husband and wife dated pro-
bably from the winter of 1434-35, after which time
Katherine dwelt in retirement at Pouzauges, whither
her husband never went.

The writers on Gilles de Rais generally agree
that Katherine detested and despised her husband.
Nevertheless, although it is questionable whether at
the time of his arrest she intervened in his favour
with the Duke of Brittany, it is extremely probable
that she did so with Charles VII. Several historians
say that the Lady of Rais went to see the King, and
some assert that she was supported by her husband's
cousin, Andrd de Laval, Lord of Lohdac, who had
been created a Marshal of France during the pre-



GILLES DE RAIS 341

vious year (1439). In certain royal letters dated
Montauban, January 3, 1443 (N.S.), it is stated that
the Marshal de Rais 'appealed to the King and the
Parliament, but his appeal was rejected ' (stc).^ In
all probability this merely means that the appeal was
not allowed by the judges of Nantes. Nevertheless
there was some effort to secure French intervention,
and it can only have been made by Katherine
on her husband's behalf. She had no affection for
him ; his death would prove a happy release for
her ; but he was accused of the most monstrous
crimes, and the Lady of Rais must have thought of
the family honour. Apart from herself, moreover,
she had to consider the interests of her daughter
Marie.

But the moment was not a propitious one. For
some months past Charles VII. had been contending
with the Praguerie rebellion ; which, if checked, was
by no means over. The King knew that the nobles
required curbing; and this alone may explain his
refusal to help the turbulent Gilles de Rais. More-
over, he may have given little attention to the
matter, he may have been imperfectly informed
respecting the facts, have thought it probable that
Gilles would receive a lesson which would do him
good, without imagining that he would be sentenced
to death and executed. It is asserted that the King
sent a councillor or officer to Nantes to watch the
proceedings and report to him, and perhaps he did

^ M. March^ay's ' Documents relatifs k Pr^gent de Co^tivy.'
The letters refenred to above will be dealt with in our last duster.



342 BLUEBEARD

take that course in response to the entreaties of
Katherine, but this was certainly the only satisfaction
which she then obtained from the French crown.^
She could expect none from Richemont The mere
fact that Rais was accused of magic sufficed to
restrain the Constable from intervening. As for the
Parliament of Paris, a question of jurisdiction would
have arisen even with respect to the Secular Pro-
ceedings against the Marshal, and it could not have
interfered in those of the Ecclesiastical Court.

Jean de Malestroit, as previously mentioned, had
adjourned the proceedings of his tribunal until
September 28. Several persons who had lost their
children were then interrogated by the Bishop of
Nantes and the Vice- Inquisitor. They all belonged
to Nantes and its vicinity, and the result of their
statements, made with every sign of grief and
distress, was a final citation requiring Gilles to
appear before the court on October 8. Early that
day other complainants and witnesses were heard, and
at nine o'clock the court was fully constituted in the
great hall of the Chateau de la Tour Neuve. The
prisoner was then brought in, and Chapeillon,
the prosecutor, recapitulated by word of mouth all
the charges against him, not only those of heresy,
devilry and vice, but the others, such as murder, in

^ Gilles is said to have written to Charles VII., confessing his
guilt, but imploring intervention. His alleged letter will be found
in Lacroix (p. 88), but we do not think it genuine. As the sequel
of this narrative will show, the King intervened two years after
the Marshal's death. He would hardly have done so had he
personally received a confession.



GILLES DE RAIS 343

connection with which this ecclesiastical tribunal had
legally no jurisdiction. Gilles immediately declined
the competence of the court, but was answered that
an appeal by word of mouth and not in writing was
frivolous and of no effect. Eventually, after his
judges had vainly argued with him, it was proposed
to postpone the proceedings for a few days. The Mar-
shal then haughtily replied : 'There is nothing true in
the facts alleged about me, save two things, that I
received baptism and renounced the Devil, his pomps
and his works. I have always been and am still a
true Christian !* Thereupon the prosecutor made a
fresh attempt to secure the prisoner's acknowledg-
ment of the jurisdiction. Offering to take the oath
to speak the truth and avoid all calumny in the
charges which he preferred, he invited Gilles to take
a similar oath with respect to his answers. But the
Marshal haughtily and stubbornly refused ; he stiU
rejected the jurisdiction even when excommunication
was threatened, and thus the only course open to
the court was to adjourn.

Abbd Bossard, a priest of the Catholic Church,
writes in strong approval of what was attempted on
this occasion, and one could hardly expect him to write
otherwise. But judging by the documents, the pro-
ceedings of the court were scarcely lawful. True
ministers of a Church whose besetting fault through
the ages has been to arrogate to itself excessive
powers, Malestroit and his colleagues endeavoured
to exercise jurisdiction in matters in which they
possessed none. They did not altogether gain their



344 BLUEBEARD

point, as the sequel will show. Abb^ Bossard's
account of the affair leaves an erroneous impression
of it, because in his desire to insist on the importance
of the Ecclesiastical Proceedings — although no such
insistence was necessary ; they speak eloquently for
themselves — he narrates them without due r^ard
for those of the secular authorities whom the initia-
tive of the Bishop-Chancellor had at last stirred to
action.

Acting by the orders of Duke Jean V., who was
emboldened, perhaps, by the quiet surrender of Gilles,
Pierre de THdpital had instituted an inquiry of
his own, appointing a certain Jean de Tousche-
ronde to the office of commissary-investigator, and
naming Masters Chateau, Eveillard and Coppegorge
as his assessors. A first complainant had been heard
on September i8 — that is, four days after the arrest
of Gilles. Then four others had testified on Sep-
tember 24, and thirty-two on September 28, 29
and 30. These were followed by twenty more
on October 4, two on October 8, and eight on
October 10. Only on October 11 did Gilles appear
for the first time before L*H6pital, who held his court
at the palace or castle of Le Bouffay.

It was perhaps on this occasion that the Marshal
astonished all Nantes by presenting himself in white
raiment at the bar of justice.^ We are told that he
did not assume this garb in token of innocence, but
as a mark of his repentance for such transgressions

^ There are various accounts of this masquerade on his part,
but the dates given by different writers do not agree.



GILLES DE RAIS 345

as he was willing to acknowledge, and of his inten-
tion to join the order of the Carmelites, in which he
already deemed himself to be a novice. According
to one account, however, although his hose and his
shoes d la poulaine were white, he wore a doublet
of pearl gray silk, embroidered with golden stars,
edged with ermine, and secured at the waist by a
scarlet sash from which hung a dagger^ in a sheath
of scarlet velvet His chapel or round cap was
bordered with ermine — a fur which only the great
feudatories of Brittany were privileged to wear — and
from his neck hung certain orders of dignity or
chivalry with a heavy gold chain to which a reliquary
was attached.^ Gilles, it may be added, was a well-
built man,^ of majestic stature, with an engaging
countenance ;* in his youth, indeed, he had been
handsome and graceful.^ And if the traditional
description of his countenance, to which allusion has
previously been made, be in a measure accurate, his
appearance in his last days must have been very
striking. It is by no means unusual to meet men
with dark hair and fair beards and moustaches, but
Gilles, so tradition asserts, had fair hair with dark
eyebrows and a black moustache and beard ; his
sunken eyes were blue, we are told, his lips thin, and

^ A prisoner of noble birth was often allowed to retain his dagger
until conviction.

* Lacroix, /.^., p. 5a ; Lemire, /.^., pp. 39, 40.
8 D'Argentr^, Du Paz.

* P. F. Velly, C. Villaret, etc., «Histoire de France,* lamo.,
1763, etc, vol. XV.

» Vallet de Viriville, U.



346 BLUEBEARD

his cheeks pale. The chief objection to this tradi-
tional portrait is that in those days, judging by
contemporary drawings, the faces of nobles and
princes were clean-shaven. Perhaps there were
exceptions. The writer must confess that he has
not investigated the matter, and in any case Gilles
de Rais did so many unusual things, that in his
last years he may well have worn a beard without
regard for the fashion followed by others.
* The Marshal, on appearing before L'Hdpital,
immediately requested him to expedite the proceed-
ings, as he was anxious to dedicate himself to the
service of God. It was his intention, said he, to
bestow large gifts on the churches of Nantes, and to
give the greater part of his belongings to the poor, in
order to insure the salvation of his soul. But the
President responded that, if it were right that he
should think of his soul, it was necessary that he
should satisfy the justice of man as well as the justice
of God ; and he bade him listen to the charges which
the Lieutenant of the Procureur of Nantes was about
to prefer against him.

The indictment was then read. It ran, substantially,
as follows :

' Having heard the lamentable complaints of several inhabitants
of Nantes, whose names follow . . . we, Philippe de Livron,
Lieutenant-Assessor of Messire le Procureur of Nantes, have
requested and do request the very noble and very wise Messire
Pierre de I'Hopital, President of Brittany, Seneschal of Rennes, and
Universal Judge throughout the Duchy of Brittany, to complete
{parfaire) the criminal process against the very high and very power-
ful Lord, Gilles, Sire de Rais, Machecoul, and other places, Coun-
cillor of the King our sovereign Lord, and Marshal of France.
Whereas the said Sire de Rais (although by the command of God



GILLES DE RAIS 347

and the law one is forbidden to slay one's neighbour and fellow-
creature, and is commanded to love him as oneself) did never-
theless take or cause to be taken many little children, not only ten
or twenty, but thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, one hundred, two hundred
and more, and, indeed, so many that one can make no positive
declaration of their number . . . , and whereas he did inhumanly
murder and kill them, afterwards burning their bodies to convert
them into ashes ; whereas also, persevering in evil, the said Sire,
although all power comes from God, and every subject owes
obedience to his Prince, whose power is ordained by God ; and
although the said Sire is a vassal and subject of our sovereign
Lord the Duke of Brittany, and had sworn to him the oath of fidelity,
he did nevertheless, without the knowledge or consent of our said
sovereign Lord, assemble men together, and in an evil manner and
by force did take prisoner Jean Le Ferron, a subject of our said
Lord, which Jean Le Ferron was guardian of the castle and fortress
of St. il^tienne de Malemort,^ in the name of Geffroi Le Ferron,
his brother, to whom our said Lord had granted {batill) possession
of the same place^. . . . Whereas, also, the said Sire did force
Jean Le Ferron to surrender to him the said place, by conducting
before the ditches Gefiroi Le Ferron, whom he unduly detained,
and whose head he threatened to cut off if the said place were not
delivered to him f and whereas the said Sire did retake and hold
the Lordship of Malemort in spite of the injunctions of the
Duke and the officers of justice under penalty of payment of the
sum of fifty thousand gold crowns in the case of delay or refusal ;
and whereas in lieu of obeying he did cause the two Le Ferrons



^ Malemort was the older name; it became corrupted into
Mer Morte. It will be noticed that the rebellion of Gilles was
now raked up against him.

^ This point has been previously discussed. Perhaps the above
statement is not to be taken literally. If a lordship and fortress
could not be sold without the express assent of the Duke of
Brittany, it may merely mean that the Duke had given that assent
and confirmed the sale in the case of St. ^tienne and Geffroi Le
Ferron. See De Maulde in Bossard, pp. cv and cxlii.

* This is contradicted by the evidence ; it was Jean Le Ferron
who was taken in the church, led before the castle, and threatened
with death if he did not surrender it Three witnesses speak
positively on this point.



348 BLUEBEARD

to be taken to Tiffauges, outside the duchy, where they were long
detained until delivered by Monseigneur Artus de Richemonti
Constable of France. Whereas, also, the said Sire, in his blind-
ness, did arrest Master Jean Rousseau, sergeant-general of the
Duke, who was sent to carry him the commands and injunctions
of our said Lord ; did take away the dagger of the said Jeao
Rousseau, and did outrage him by other excesses, such as causing
his men to be beaten with their own staves^ ... we conclude that
the said Sire de Rais, homicide in fact and by intention on the
first count, rebel and felon towards his Lord on the second count,
be condemned to undergo corporal punishment, and to pay such
fine as may be fit out of his personal estate ; the estates and lands
which he holds in fief from our said Lord being confiscated and
reunited to the crown of Brittany.*

M. Lacroix, taking the words 'corporal punishment'
in a limited sense, interprets them as meaning that
the prosecution desired to spare the Marshal's life.
He remarks that there was no question of Use-
majesty divine, such as could have rendered a sentence
of death imperative. But Abbd Bossard — rightly, to
our thinking — construes corporal punishment as sig-
nifying the death penalty, that being the form of cor-
poral punishment assigned to the crime of murder.
As for lese-majesU divine, that was not a charge which
a secular tribunal could investigate, but it was fully set
forth in the Ecclesiastical Proceedings.

The Marshal's answer to Philippe de Livron's
indictment was the admission that he had raised an
armed force without the authorisation of the Duke of

^ This seems to indicate that Rousseau was seized by Rais some
time after the St. !^tienne affair. The sergeant-general may have
reported the seizure of the fortress to the Duke and then have
been sent to Gilles with orders for its restitution.



GILLES DE RAIS 349

Brittany ; that he had arrested Jean Le Ferron at
St. Etienne, and sent him to Tiffauges on account of
the evil reports he had spread ; that he had retaken
possession of St Etienne, for which he had never
been paid ; and that he had repeatedly refused to
repair his offences, though he would now be happy to
do as the Duke, his lord, might will and order. But
he stubbornly denied certain excesses with respect
to the Duke's officers and all the crimes on children
which were imputed to him. The Procureur s
Lieutenant then offered to supply proofs of his
charges, and asked the prisoner if he would accept
the testimony of his servants, Henriet and Poitou.
*I received only honest folk in my house and ser-
vice,' answered Gilles ; ' had I known any to be evil,
I should have been the first to lay my hands on
them. I have not to discuss here whether they
are to be witnesses or not'

On this point the writer is inclined to think that
Henriet, Poitou, and others had already been examined
privately. In the Ecclesiastical Proceedings the depo-
sition of Prelati is dated October 1 6 ; those of Poitou,
Griart, and Blanchet bear the date of October 1 7 ;
and those of La Ce va and Poulein that of October 1 9.
But the ecclesiastical indictment of October 13 recites
a large number of facts which can only have been
ascertained by the statements of these men, who had
evidently denounced their patron and master whilst
he was still blustering with his judges.

The Ecclesiastical Court had adjourned on Octo-
ber 8. It met on the nth to take the statements



350 BLUEBEARD

of several more parents who had lost their children ;
and on the 13th Gilles again appeared at its bar.
A formal indictment had now been drafted by
Promoter Chapeillon, and was read in court, first
in Latin and then in French. Of the forty-nine
articles exhibited against the prisoner, the first
fourteen dealt with the competence of the tribunal
Then (art. xv.) came a recital of the crimes
perpetrated on children by the Marshal and his
accomplices, who were named as follows : Gilles
de Sill6, Roger de Bricqueville, Henri Griart (other-
wise Henriet), ^tienne Corillaut (otherwise Poitou),
Andr6 Buschet,^ Jean Rossignol, Robin Romulart,*
a certain Spading, and Hicquet de Br6mont. Next
(art xvi. to art. xxvi.) were marshalled the various
charges of devilry — evocations, compacts and
offerings — Prelati, Antonio of Palema, Sill6 and
Blanchet being designated as accomplices. After-
wards (art. xxvii.) the indictment returned to the
crimes on children, estimating the number of victims
at one hundred and forty or more. Particulars of
the crimes followed, and there were clauses about
the alleged celebration of the Black Mass (art. xxxii.),
the conversations of Gilles with his devil-raisers
and his study of their books (arts, xxxiv. and

^ He had become a chanter of the Duke of Brittany, and it
does not appear that he was ever cited or punished

^ Rossignol and Romulart were now both dead Si\\6 and
Bricqueville had fled. There is no trace of proceedings against
Spading and Br^mont, who had probably disappeared. Griart
and Corillaut were interrogated by the ecclesiastical, but only
tried by the secular, court.



GILLES DE RAIS 351

XXXV.); the victims of Champtoc6 and Machecoul
(art. xxxvi.) ; the help given to Gilles by his
accomplices (art xxxvii.) ; his remorse, his resolu-
tions to amend his life and to do penance (art.
xxxviii.) ; his relapse into evil courses (art. xxxix.) ;
the notoriety of his wicked life (art. xl.). The next
clause charged him with infamy, heresy, idolatry
and apostasy, by virtue of the accusations previously
enunciated. Then came a clause on the sacrilege
committed at St. Etienne-de-Mer-Morte, followed
by fresh summaries of the Marshal's offences and
the affirmation that they were notorious and mani-
fest, and constituted a pernicious example as well
as a danger for the soul of the Marshal himself.
Finally (art. xlviii.), the Promotor set forth that
the accused had rendered himself liable to excom-
munication and all the other penalties edicted
against haruspices, harioliy those who evoked or
conjured forth the evil spirits, their accomplices,
entertainers and defenders — indeed, all who practised
magic and the prohibited arts ; and it was declared
that the Marshal had fallen into heresy, had offended
against the majesty of God, and was therefore guilty
of the crime of t^se-majesti divine; that he had
transgressed the precepts of the Decalogue and the
laws of the Church ; that he had disseminated most
dangerous errors amongst faithful Christians ; and
(art. xlix.) that the crimes, as enormous as they
were shameful, of which he was guilty had been
perpetrated within the jurisdiction of the Bishop of
Nantes. In pursuance of all this, the Promotor



352 BLUEBEARD

appealed to the judges to declare Gilles guilty, to
excommunicate him, and punish and correct him in
accordance with the prescriptions of the law and the
Canons of the Church.

The practice of alchemy was not referred to in
the indictment, and the murders and acts of torture
perpetrated by Gilles were now set forth only by
way of giving a complete account of the Marshal s
misdeeds. The tribunal was not requested to punish
him for those crimes, its only province being to
try him for apostasy, devil-raising, gross vice, and
the violation of the privileges of the Church. But
Gilles, infuriated by some passages of the indict-
ment, refused to answer it ; he repeated that he
had rejected the jurisdiction of the Bishop and the
Vice- Inquisitor, and that he abided by what he had
said.

* Simoniacs ! Ribands f he shouted ; * rather
than answer such ecclesiastics, such judges as you,
I would prefer to be hanged by the neck with
a lace !'

His fury increased with each effort to prevail over
him. At times he denied everything ; more fre-
quently he refused to answer. * I will do nothing for
you as Bishop of Nantes I' he called to Malestroit
at one moment ; whilst at another, in response to
Chapeillon, he haughtily retorted : * Do I not know
the Catholic faith } Those who accuse me know not
who I am ! I am a perfect Christian and good
Catholic. I own that, had I committed the crimes
imputed to me, I should have gone against the



GILLES DE RAIS 353

Catholic faith ; I should have strayed from it ; I
should be straying from it now. . . . But I will not
be chained by any ecclesiastical privilege, and I am
astonished' (here he turned towards Pierre de
THopital, who was present) * that you the President^
[of the Parliament] of Brittany should allow ecclesi-
astical judges to interfere with the crimes imputed
to me, and even suffer me to be accused of such
infamous deeds !'

This might be taken almost for the cry of an
innocent man, of one who felt that he would obtain
no justice from an ecclesiastical tribunal, but would
be treated by the priests before him even as other
priests had treated that heroic Maid of Orlea/is by
whose side he had fought. But unless one is pre-
pared to believe in a great conspiracy between the
ecclesiastical and the civil power, in a wholesale
forgery of documents extending to hundreds of folios*
in the subornation and perjury of scores of com-
plainants and witnesses, in the falsification of three
confessions made by Gilles himself, one is bound to
admit that he was indeed guilty and that his declara-
tions of innocence were mere outbursts of bravado.
As he still refused to submit to the Ecclesiastical
Court, it passed sentence of excommunication upon
him in writing. He signified that he appealed, but
to whom he did not say ; and his protests having
been rejected as frivolous, the proceedings were
again adjourned.

That day was marked by a political event of some
^ Bossard repeatedly says 'chancellor,' a manifest error.

23



354 BLUEBEARD

importance which may perhaps have had some
connection with the Marshal's case. Already in the
month of July, according to Dom Morice, one of the
Breton historians, some treaty arrangements had
been made between the English and Duke Jean V.,
in consequence, it seems, of the rebellious disposition
of a part of the Breton noblesse. This, however, had
not prevented the Duke and his Chancellor from
appealing to France, in the person of its Constable,
to put down the revolt of Gilles de Rais. Now, on
October 13 Jean V. signed, with the Earl of
Somerset, Lieutenant of King Henry VI. in France
and Normandy, a treaty of alliance, the provisions
of which the present writer has failed to ascertain.
Nevertheless the existence of such a treaty is
significant, and if it were known to Charles VIL it
must have confirmed him in any resolution he may
have formed to refrain for the time at all events
from interfering in the case of Gilles de Rais.^

When the latter again appeared before the
Ecclesiastical Court (October 15) a great change
had come over him. To the astonishment of every-
body, he, who had been all defiance, now displayed
the meekness of a lamb, submitted to the jurisdiction
which he had scornfully rejected, and entreated
pardon for his violence. On being interrogated,
however, he denied that he had ever evoked evil

^ M. V. de Viriville calls attention to this matter in his * Histoire
de Charles VII.,' vol. ii., p. 417, note 2. We find that the treaty
was registered and deposited in the English Exchequer, January 26,
1441 (N.S.). See Palgrave's * Antient Kalendars of the Treasury
of the Exchequer/ 1835, vol. ii., p. 190.



^



GILLES DE RAIS 355

spirits or offered sacrifices to them. He had read a
book on the subject, said he, but that was all ; and if
anybody could prove that he had ever resorted to
such infamous practices as were imputed to him, he
was ready to be burnt alive. At last both he and
the Promotor took an oath on the Gospel to speak
the truth, and the chief witnesses were then brought
into court. They were Henri Griart, Poitou,
Blanchet, Prelati, Perrine Martin, otherwise La
Meffraye, and Theophanie or iStiennette Branchu.^
Gilles, on being asked if he desired to question them
himself, declined to do so, saying that he relied on
their truthfulness and that of the clerks of the court
The witnesses were then removed to be interrogated
by the greffiers, in accordance with usage, in another
chamber ; and scarcely had they left the court when
the Marshal, to the amazement of everybody, fell
upon his knees, weeping, and entreating the Bishop
of Nantes and the Vice- Inquisitor to remove the
sentence of excommunication passed upon him
two days previously. As he now showed sub-
mission, his prayer was granted, and the court
adjourned.

It was certainly that sentence of excommunica-
tion which had wrought this great change in the
haughty Baron of Rais. Face to face with the
inevitable, he now trembled for his soul. The

^ These two women had been anrested at an early stage of the
proceedings. There is no record of any statement of theirs with
respect to the decoying of chOdren, which was the chief charge
against them.

23—2



356 BLUEBEARD

times were accomplished, the Spirit of Good proved
to be more powerful than the Spirit of Evil, and he
doubtless felt that, if he were cast out of the Church,
he would suffer eternal damnation.

It is not necessary to analyze here the evidence
of Prelati, Griart, Poitou, and Blanchet, for much of
this narrative has been based on their statements.
It is enough to say that they confirmed each other
on all important points ; differing chiefly when the
memory of one proved better than that of another.
Their statements and others were taken on
October 1 7 and 1 9, and when the court met on the
20th, the more important depositions were read in
public with the Marshal's assent. One may well
believe that those who heard that testimony were
thrilled with horror, for it virtually recapitulated the
prisoner's abominable career, the kidnapping and
assassination of child after child, the monstrous
torture to which he had subjected his victims, his
proposed compacts with the Devil, and the attempts
made by himself or on his behalf to raise the Fiend
with the help of human sacrifices. And yet when
the Marshal was asked if he had anything to urge
against the witnesses and their evidence, he simply
answered * No.'

At this the Promoter rose to point out the gravity
of the prisoner's reply, which showed that the
alleged crimes had really been committed by him.
But it was necessary that the tribunal should be
fully enlightened, said Chapeillon, and he therefore
applied that the prisoner might be subjected to



I



GILLES DE RAIS 357

torture in order to extract a full and satisfactory
confession from him. Malestroit and the Vice-
Inquisitor referred this application to their assessors,
seven of whom were present, and they having pro-
nounced themselves in favour of the Promotor's
request, an order for torture was duly made. It
was to be carried into effect on the morrow ; but in
the morning Gilles urgently entreated a postpone-
ment, offering, indeed, to content his judges in such
a manner that no torture would be necessary. In
accordance with his own desires, Jean Pr^gent,
Bishop of St. Brieuc, and Pierre de THdpital were
designated to receive his confession, one acting for
the ecclesiastical, and the other for the secular,
court. They repaired to the chamber which the
prisoner occupied at two in the afternoon, attended
by their clerks, Jean Petit and Jean Touscheronde.
Yvon de Roscerff, squire of Jean Labb6, the captain
who had arrested Rais, was also present, with Robert
d*Espinay, Robert de la Riviere, Jean de Vennes,
and others, who came as witnesses.

Some readers perhaps may be astonished that the
threat of torture should have led such a man as Gilles
de Rais to confess his crimes. But it must be
remembered that he had led a life of ease, indulgence,
intemperance, and debauchery for several years. He
had long ceased to be the soldier ever in harness
whom no march could fatigue, whom no danger could
alarm. He had become a Tiberius or a Philippe
d'Orl^ans. Machecoul had been his Palais Royal,
Tiffauges his Capreae. By force of habit he could



358 BLUEBEARD

still command, fume, and bluster, but n^ really left of him save a facade of rc^^ ^ which
was destined to crumble at the fir^t ^-^Ht shock.
Moreover, the constant repetition of .P '- of cruelty
must tend to personal cowardice. P^ -who gloats
over the sufferings of others, as v* ^les gloated
over those of his victims, must at ti^^ shrink from
the idea of undergoing such suffering himself.

Yet one must be just even to such a criminal as
Gilles de Rais, and admit that, whatever may appear
on the surface, his confession may not have been
inspired by cowardice, but by the consciousness
that he was doomed, now that his accomplices had
confessed everything. He had braved and re-
sisted his judges as long as he had believed himself
safe ; but at present all was known, so why should
he persevere in his denials ? Moreover, the dread
of being once more excommunicated, if he should
refuse to confess, may have had more influence with
him than that of physical suffering. He had again
become very anxious for his soul, and repentance was
at hand, even if it did not as yet make itself manifest.
It seems, indeed, to have followed rather than pre-
ceded his first statements to Pierre de THdpital and
the Bishop of St. Brieuc.

That semi-private confession in his room at the
Chateau de la Tour Neuve was a kind of general
statement ; he did not enter into any very precise
particulars respecting his crimes. Some feeling of
shame undoubtedly restrained him. But he declared
spontaneously that he had committed sufficient crimes




GILLES DE RAIS 359

to send Vtc \ "n .thgysand men ' to the scaffold. When
thC^tiicfTSia oC,-^j^.*vil-raising was dealt with, Prelati,
the necrol'l icjgijf was brought into the room and
confronted to :^ his former patron. Gilles then
placed it on i >;)rd that the Fiend had never appeared
to him, prob.m > because he had never been willing
to surrender :her his life or his soul ; but both he
and the Italian admitted the offering of some por-
tions of a child's body to the Evil Spirit under
circumstances previously narrated.^ This ques-
tion and others bearing on the same subject having
been elucidated, orders were given for Prelati to be
removed, and the Marshal, then suddenly breaking
down, exclaimed : * Farewell, Fran9ois, my friend.
We shall never more see each other in this world.
I pray God that He may give you good patience
and knowledge ; and rest assured that if you have
good patience and trust in God we shall see each
other again amidst the great joy of Paradise. Pray
God for me, and I will pray to Him for you.' Then
he embraced Prelati, who was led away.

Soon afterwards Pierre de THdpital and the
Bishop of St. Brieuc withdrew to acquaint Male-
stroit and the Vice- Inquisitor with the prisoners
statements. With the latter the ensuing night was
certainly a decisive one. The feelings which had
manifested themselves in his farewell to Prelati
became more pronounced. Thus on the morrow he
confirmed his confession in open court, weeping
abundantly, entering into full particulars, narrating

^ See anie, p. 304.



36o BLUEBEARD

bis crimes and misdeeds at such length ifaat the
Latin transcript of this second confession forms
a document of quite 5,000 words. Those who
heard that abominable tale were at one moment
chilled with horror, and at another profoundly
stirred by the prisoners protestations of repent-
ance, and his appeals that his example might
serve as a dreadful warning. If language, indeed,
can indicate repentance, then assuredly this whilom
cruel monster did repent before he died. In
all his last declarations, moreover, one finds traces
of the ability he possessed. He could speak well
and feelingly, as is shown by the documents, and the
pity of it all is that a man so gifted should have
lapsed into such horror and infamy. A sufficient
recital of his crimes has been made in these pages,
and now, in justice to him, one may transcribe some
of the words he spoke on the occasion of his first
public confession.

* By these admissions,' he said at the outset of his
narrative, ' by the declaration which I desire to make
of the misdeeds of which I am guilty, by the shame
which rises to my face, I hope that I may the more
readily obtain from God forgiveness and the remis-
sion of my sins. I hope that they may be more
readily forgotten by His mercy. My youth was
spent amidst the delights of good cheer. Proceed-
ing as my fancy listed, nothing remained sacred to
me ; and all the evil that I could do I did. Every-
thing that was forbidden, everything that was wrong,
attracted me, and to obtain it there was no means



GILLES DE RAIS 361

that I did not employ, however vile it might be. . . .
Fathers and mothers who hear me, and you friends
and relations of young folk whom you love, I beg
you, keep watch over them. Mould them by
teaching them good principles, good examples, and
healthy doctrines. Nourish their hearts with these,
and above all things fear not to correct their faults,
for, were they reared as I was reared, free to do as
I pleased, they, perchance, might slip likewise into
the same pit.'

In another part of his statement, after narrating
the most abominable crimes, he protested his love
for the Church, on which he relied for salvation.

* Ay, such is the nature of my crimes !* he cried,

* that without the protection of the Church the Devil
would have strangled me, and have borne me, body
and soul, to Hell Y Later, when he finally addressed
the fathers of families who were present, he said :

* Beware, I beg you, of bringing up your children
amidst the delights of life and the fatal pleasures
of idleness ; for the greatest evils arise from the
pleasures of the table and the habit of doing
nothing. . . . Idleness, delicate meats, the frequent
use of mulled wines, are the three causes of my
transgressions and my crimes. O God, my Creator
and beloved Redeemer, I ask Thy mercy and for-
giveness! And you, relatives and friends of the
children whom I did put so cruelly to death, you,
whoever you may be, against whom I have sinned
and to whom I have done injury, whether you be
present or absent, in whatever spot you are, I



362 BLUEBEARD

entreat you, as faithful believers in Jesus Christ, I
entreat you, on my knees and with tears, to grant me
the assistance of your pious prayers.'

When the Marshal's confession was finished,
Promotor Chapeillon arose and applied for the fixing
of a day when judgment should be pronounced.
Gilles himself assented to this course, and then for
the last time the court adjourned until October 25.

Meantime the Civil Proceedings against Henri
Griart and Poitou had been hurried forward by
Pierre de THdpital, and on the 23rd — the day
following the Marshal's public confession — his two
retainers were sentenced to be hanged and burnt
In his own case, directly he had confessed his mis-
deeds the Secular Court had adjourned until the
Ecclesiastical Proceedings should be terminated.
When the latter were resumed on October 25, two
sentences were read, the first being pronounced by
the Bishop of Nantes and the Vice- Inquisitor con-
jointly. After setting forth that Gilles was guilty
of heresy, apostasy, and the evocation of demons, it
excomunicated him afresh, and declared that he
must be punished and corrected according to the
laws and the Holy Canons as a heretic, apostate,
and devil-raiser. The second sentence was that of
the Bishop only : it pronounced the Marshal guilty
of shameful vice, sacrilege, and the violation of the
privileges of the Church, excommunicated him yet
once again, and ordered that he should be punished
for his salvation's sake in accordance with the laws
and the canons.



GILLES DE RAIS 363

When these sentences had been read, Gilles was
asked whether, detesting his errors, evocations, and
other crimes which had severed him from the faith,
he now repented and desired readmission to the
fold. * I never knew what heresy was,' he responded,
* and I knew not that I had committed that crime
when I fell into error. Nevertheless, since accord-
ing to my confessions and other proofs the Church
now tells me that my crimes led me into heresy, I
beg you to restore me to the bosom of our mother,
the Church.'

His request was granted ; excommunication was
withdrawn, and as he begged for a priest to hear his
confession and grant him absolution, Brother Jean
Juvenal, of the Carmelites of Ploermel, was appointed
to that office. But that same evening Gilles was led
from the Chiteau de la Tour Neuve to Le Bouffay,
where the Secular Court had now again met. An
immense concourse of people had assembled on this
occasion, we are told. Gilles appeared at the bar,
garbed in black from head to foot ; and once again
he made a public confession of his crimes. Never-
theless, an advocate named Henri M^chinot, who had
been appointed his curator^ addressed the court on his
behalf, making a speech which nowadays would be
deemed ridiculous, though it was quite in accordance
with the taste of the times. M^chinot, indeed, pic-
tured his client invaded by Pride and other demons,
who 'well armed and resolute had assailed his fortress
and entered it by force, even as the Greeks, coming
forth from the wooden horse, did invade the unhappy



V



364 BLUEBEARD

city of King Priamus/ And the learned gentleman
endeavoured to prove that * Messire de Rais could
not be accounted gfuilty of the excesses committed by
Pride and his band, for a city taken by assault and
held in subjection was innocent of the depravity,
pillaging, and cruelty to which it was subjected
by its tyrants and unjust possessors.'^ Such a
speech, however much it may have been admired by
those who heard it, could not influence the result
L'H6pital consulted his assessors, who were unani-
mously in favour of the death penalty, though a long
discussion ensued as to the form the execution should
take, some members of the court apparently favouring
decapitation on account of the prisoners 'nobility.'
At last, however, an agreement was arrived at, and
the President of the Parliament pronounced sentence.
Gilles was fined fifty thousand crowns for his felony
towards his liege lord, the Duke of Brittany, and
for his other crimes was condemned to be hanged
and burnt. * Cry mercy to God !' added Pierre de
THdpital, *and make ready to die in a good state,
with great repentance for having committed such
crimes. The sentence pronounced upon you will be
executed to-morrow at eleven o'clock. '^

The Marshal replied by thanking God and the
President for notifying to him the hour of his death,
and he added : ' Since Henriet and Poitou, my ser-

^ Several passages of this speech will be found in Lacroix, /.r.,

pp. IIO-II3.

* M. de Maulde's transcript says one o'clock, but the accounts
of the execution say eleven.



GILLES DE RAIS 365

vants, and myself did commit together the monstrous
and frightful crimes for which we are now condemned
to die, may it please you, Monseigneur, that we may
undergo that penalty together and be executed at the
same hour. I am the cause of, and the principal in,
their transgressions ; I may be able to sustain them
in the hour of death, and advise them as to their
salvation. In particular I can set them the example
of dying well. For if it were otherwise, if my servants
should not see me die, peradventure they might fall
into despair. They might imagine that I should
remain unpunished, I who am the cause of their
crimes. Grant me this favour, for I hope by the
grace of our Lord that, after being the cause of the
transgressions which now lead to their death, I may
by my words and example be the cause of their
salvation.'

Pierre de THdpital was touched by this request
and granted it ; further, as a supreme consolation, in
presence of the prisoner's manifest repentance, he
promised him that his body should not be reduced
to ashes, but should be withdrawn from the fire and
interred in whatever church Gilles might select^
The Marshal immediately chose that of the Car-
melites of Nantes ; and then, as a last favour, he
begged the President to prevail on the Bishop of

^ Michelet says that this favour was granted solely on account
of Gilles's noble birth ; but ih^ prach-vcrbaux of the trial distinctly
say that it was the outcome of the prisoner's professions of repent-
ance. At the same time the consideration mentioned by Michelet
must have had weight with the judges, some of whom simply desired
decapitation.



366 BLUEBEARD

Nantes, in order that prior to die execnition there
might be a General Procession to pray God for him
and his accomplices, and fortify them in their hopes of
salvation. This request also was accorded. Then
Gilles was led away to spend in prayer his last nig^
on earth ; and thus ended one of the greatest criminal
trials the world has ever known.

Early on the following morning — it was a
Wednesday — all Nantes, after hearing Mass, turned
into the streets to , join the General Procession.
According to some accounts, Gilles and his servants
came at the end of it, with their custodians. Amidst
prayers and chants and telling of beads, the multi-
tude wended its way over the bridges spanning the
two arms of the Loire which embrace the He
Feydeau ; and before long the procession reached
the Gloriette island, where, on the meadows of
La Madeleine, near the present site of the H6tel
Dieu of Nantes, the three gibbets and pyres had
been prepared. It is possible that the name of
Biesse, which is given to the place of execution
in some accounts, was then a general name
for the islands which impede the course of the
Loire at Nantes.^ An expiatory monument raised
by the Marshals daughter on the spot associated
with his death still existed beside the H6tel Dieu in
1837, so there can be no doubt that it was really
on Gloriette island that Gilles suffered the supreme

^ A part of one of the islands beyond La Gloriette is named
Prairie de Biesse on some modern plans, but this was not the site
of the execution.



GILLES DE RAIS 367

penalty. That view is confirmed, moreover, by a
contemporary account of the execution which is
preserved by the Duke de la Tr^mouille at Serrant^
It is there said that the gibbets were set up in the
meadow just above the bridges. And we learn from
it that the three condemned men went very peni-
tently to their death. While the procession was
advancing, the Marshal prayed to God, the Virgin,
and the saints, and exhorted Henriet and Poitou
with hopeful words. 'There is no sin, however
great it be,* he said to them, * but God in His kind-
ness and fatherly benignity will pardon it, provided
that pardon be asked of Him with great sorrow and
contrition in one's heart.' The confidence which this
unhappy man expressed in salvation and forgiveness
almost astonishes Abb6 Bossard, who regards it as
extraordinary on the part of one who had such
terrible and so many crimes to expiate. * Love
God,' said Rais at one moment to his servants, ' and
feel such regret for your offences that you may not
fear the death of this world, which, indeed, is but a
little departure, without which one may not see God
in His glory.' And again: *We ought really to
desire to quit this world, where there is naught but
wretchedness, in order to seek perdurable glory.
We have sinned, all three of us, but as soon as our
souls shall have left our bodies we shall all see God
in His glory in Paradise. And that you may win
that glory of Heaven, I pray you do not weaken ;

^ This account will be found in the 'Revue des Provinces de
rOucst,' 5« Annde. Nantes, 1857, pp. 177-179.



368 BLUEBEARD

persevere yet a little. There is not long to wait
now ; do not lose that glory which awaits you, and
which will never fail you.'

Griart and Poitou thanked the Marshal for his
good counsel, and assured him that they were well
pleased to meet the death of this world, by reason
of their great confidence in the mercy of God and
their desire to go to Heaven with their master. * But,
we pray you, act yourself,' they added, * even as you
desire us to act for our salvation.'

Monstrelet asserts that the Duke of Brittany
witnessed the execution, but this is doubtful, for
the Serrant MS., which is almost an official account
of the proceedings, would surely have mentioned it,
if it had been true. But if Gilles did not fall on his
knees before the Duke to entreat his prayers, he
certainly seems to have begged those of all the
people present, reminding them that, whatever his
crimes might be, he was still their Christian brother,
and that it was their duty to forgive him for the
love of Christ. Then he particularly commended
his soul to Monseigneur St James and Monseigneur
St. Michael — whom Joan the Martyr also invoked
amid the flames of Rouen — and finally he begged
that he might die the first in order that his servants
might derive courage from his example.

When he had climbed a high stool placed under
the gibbet assigned to him, a rope was passed round
his neck. Then the stool was removed, leaving him
suspended above the pyre, which was quickly lighted.
H is agony was a short one, we are told ; and whilst




GILLES DE RAIS 369

he was yet in the last throes Henri Griart and
Poitou again spoke to him. * Now/ said one of
them, * is the time to be a strong and valiant Knight
for the love of God. Remember the Passion, which
was consummated to redeem us !' But Gilles ex-
pired, the flames rose all around him, scorching the
rope, which broke, in such wise that his body fell upon
the pyre. Before the flames could penetrate it,
however, * certain damoiselles of his house,' says
Monstrelet— or, as Jean Chartier puts it, 'four
or five dames and damoiselles of great estate' —
advanced and removed the body from the flames.
They washed it carefully, and with the assistance of
some nuns, according to D'Argentr6, they placed it
in a shell in order that it might be carried to the
Church of the Carmelites. And there, a little later,
while the ashes of Poitou and Henri Griart were
being scattered to the winds, the clergy celebrated
the pompous obsequies of the most high, most
powerful, and most redoubtable Lord, Gilles de
Montmorency de Laval, Baron of Rais, Count of
Brienne, in his lifetime Chamberlain and Councillor
of King Charles VH., Marshal of France, and
Lieutenant-General of Brittany.



24



IX



WIDOW AND DAUGHTER GILLES DE RAIS AS BLUE-
BEARD — CONCLUSION

Some of the Marshal's Accomplices and their Unknown Fate — Were
they ever punished? — ^The Second Marriage of Katherine de
Thouars and the First Marriage of Marie de Rais — Pr^ent VIL
de Co^tivy — Proposed Appeal to rehabilitate the Marshal —
Repeated Efforts to recover his Property — The Heiress of Rais
loses her Husband, is persecuted by his Brothers, and marries
Andr^ de Laval — Her Loving and Pious Nature — The Expiatory
Monument erected by her — Her Death and Burial at Vitr^ —
Ren^ de La Suze and his Descendants — ^The Barony of Rais
becomes the Duchy of Retz — ^The Alleged Insanity of Gilles de
Rais — The Impression created by his Execution — His Name
becomes one of Terror — His Connection with * Bluebeard ' —
Bluebeard's Castle of La Verrifere — Bluebeard's Skull and
Sword at Machecoul — ^The Lady's Oratory and Sister Anne —
Bluebeard Stories at Tiffauges, Pornic, Ch6m6r6, and Arthon —
Bluebeard as the Wild Huntsman and as a Werewolf — Blue-
beard's Keys at Vitr^ — A *Complainte* of Bluebeard — How
Bluebeard's Beard was changed from Red to Blue — Was Gilles
called Bluebeard before Perrault's Time ? — Conclusion.

The reader, finding that only Henri Griart and
Poitou suffered punishment at the same time as
Gilles de Rais, may wish to know what became of
the others who were prominently associated with
the Marshal's misdeeds. Something can be said of
one of them, Roger de Bricqueville, who escaped



GILLES DE RAIS 371

prosecution, and in May, 1456, obtained letters of
remission from Charles VII. on the pretext that he
had quitted the Marshal's service five years before
the legal proceedings, that he had been very young
at the time of the alleged offences, of which he had
possessed no certain knowledge, and that in other
respects he had been constrained to obey his patron
by feelings of gratitude and fear.^ Subsequent to
the granting of those letters of remission Bricqueville
is found on friendly terms with the deceased Mar-
shal's daughter, Marie, who lavished affection on his
children. Again, it is known that the Marquis
Ceva, who was one of the least compromised in the
horrors of Machecoul and Tiffauges, returned to
Piedmont after the execution at Nantes and married
a certain Lucha, who was still living in 1491, when
she had sundry disputes with the Governor of Asti
respecting some property settled on her by her * late
husband.'^ But nothing positive can be said about
the other actors in the strange, eventful tragedy of
Gilles de Rais. The general impression of all who
have studied the case is that Prelati, Blanchet,
Buschet, La Meffraye and La Branchu were never
punished for their misdeeds. There is no record of
any prosecution against them. Prelati and Blanchet
simply made statements which were used against
their former patron, and that having been done, they
vanished from history to appear in it no more. It
may seem incredible that Prelati, who boasted of his

^ See De Maulde in Bossard, p. cxlv.
* Jbid,^ p. civ, footnote.

24 — 2



372 BLUEBEARD

power to raise the Devil, and who claimed to have
seen him * clad in silken raiment of a violet hue/
should have escaped scot-free ; but if he had been
tried and convicted some record to that effect would
surely have been annexed to th^ procedure in the
Rais case, everything connected with which appears
to have been carefully preserved, in a measure, no
doubt, through the instrumentality of the clergy, who
regarded the trial and punishment of the Marshal as
a glorious triumph for the Church. As for Blanchet
the priest, he may have been protected by his cloth.
Besides, he had taken his precautions, wording his
statements very cleverly, in such wise that he was
able to pose as a victim when, in some matters,
he was really an accomplice. Again, La Meffraye,
the terror of the rural districts, the woman who
roamed the highways and byways seeking children
whom she might decoy, disappears from the scene
to all appearance untried and unpunished. And
Gilles de SiI16, who, like Bricqueville, had escaped,
is heard of no more. One can only surmise that he
betook himself to some distant region where perhaps
he found employment as a soldier of fortune.
Assuredly the impunity which seems to have been
enjoyed by so many of the Marshals accomplices is
one of the strangest features of the case, and would
be calculated to arouse suspicion of some underhand
intrigue, some manufacture of false charges against
the chief prisoner, were it not that he himself re-
peatedly confessed his villainy to his ecclesiastical
and his secular judges. As it is, one caCti only point



GILLES DE RAIS 373

to the absence of all records respecting the fate of
men and women who were deeply implicated in his
crimes, an absence which is the more remarkable as
his case continued to engage attention for many
years, and abundant documents exist concerning the
struggles of his heirs with the Dukes of Brittany, the
intervention of Charles VII. on their behalf, and a
proposed attempt to rehabilitate his memory.

About a year after his death, Katherine, his widow,
became the wife of Jean II. de Venddme, Vidame of
Chartres and Lord of Lassay, with whom it is to be
hoped her life proved happier than it had been with
her first husband. As Tififauges and Pouzauges,
with other lordships, were her property, Gilles had
been unable to sell them. They therefore helped
to enrich her second husband, and were inherited by
the only son that she had by him. But the line of the
Vidames of Chartres became extinct in 1550. The
estates then passed to collateral relatives and suc-
cessors — the Rieux, the Sc6peaux, the Gondis and
the Coss6-Brissacs. Tififauges was inherited in 1 702
by the Jousseaume de la Bretesche family — Marquises
of Couboureau — to which its ruins still belong.

About a year after her mother s second marriage,
and two years after the execution of her father — that
is in October, 1442^ — Marie, heiress of Rais, became
the wife of Pr^gent VII., Lord of Co6tivy, Taille-
bourg and Lesparre, Chamberlain to Charles VII.,

^ The deeds connected with the marriage are dated May 24.
June 14, and September 29. The marriage must have taken place
a few^days after the last contract.



374 BLUEBEARD

Admiral of France, Captain of Rochefort, and
Governor of La Rochelle. The brid^room was
about forty years of age, and the bride, it would seem,
was a girl of fifteen summers.^ Her hand had already
been sought by Pr6gent in her father's lifetime ^ and
subsequently Charles VII. helped on the match, well
pleased to see so energetic a man espouse the heiress
of Rais, and undertake to wrest from the Duke of
Brittany the lordships purchased by him, for much
less than their value, in defiance of the interdict by
which Gilles had been forbidden to sell his estates.

It might be thought that, as her father had died a
death of infamy, Marie would have had some diffi-
culty in securing a husband ; but Co6tivy readily made
her his wife, and even assumed, as provided by the
contract, the name which Gilles had disgraced, and
to which so much odium attached. He became, in-
deed, Sire de Rais ; being generally known by the
style of De Rais de Co^tivy, as indicated by the
inscription on his seal.^ Pregent, who was a very
able man, with a cultivated mind and much literary
taste, held a high position in the royal council.
Moreover, he had helped Richemont to seize La
Tr^mouille, and had taken a prominent part in the

^ Bossard, /.^., p. 371.

^ Vallet de Viriville, /.r., vol. ii., p. 417.

* Anselme de Ste. Marie, etc. : * Histoire G^n^alogique et
Historique,' etc., 1726-33, in fol., vol. viii., article *Co^tivy.'
Anselme errs in saying that the marriage took place in 1441. He
is more correct in associating it with Charles VII.'s enterprise on
Tartas, which took place in June, 1442. One of the marriage
contracts was, indeed, signed in that month. See ' Documents
relatifs k Pregent de Co^tivy,' by M. Paul Marchegay.



GILLES DE RAIS 375

suppression of the Praguerie rebellion. Charles VII.
had great confidence in him, entrusted him with im-
portant offices and difficult missions, and placed in
his charge his second illegitimate daughter by Agnes
Sorel, this girl being brought up at the Castle of
Taillebourg, partly by Marie de Rais.

Doubtless it is to Pr^gent s influence with the King
that one must attribute the earlier royal letters patent
and edicts which were issued with respect to the Rais
property. Jean V. of Brittany died on August 29,
1442, and his son and successor, Francois I., had
not been five months on the ducal throne, when
Charles VII., while resting at Montauban after sub-
jecting several towns and fortresses of Guienne,
sanctioned certain royal letters citing the new Duke
and others before the Parliament. These letters
stated that * Gilles, in his lifetime Lord of Rais and
Marshal of France, did appeal to the King and the
Parliament with respect to his arrest, and the injury
done him, and the sentence pronounced upon him,
wrongly, unduly, and contrary to reason, by our late
brother and cousin, your father (Jean V.), and Master
Pierre de THdpital, calling himself, or being. Presi-
dent of Brittany, and his other officers. But the
said appeal was rejected, and the said Gilles, unduly
and without cause, was condemned and put to death
by the said L'Hdpital, one month later, leaving an
only daughter, now married to Pr6gent, Sire de
Co^tivy, Admiral of France, appointed by royal
authority her curator.' After this preamble it was
signified to Duke Fran9ois that the daughter and the



376 BLUEBEARD

son-in-law, as heirs of Gilles de Rais, and for the pur-
pose of avenging the honour of their name, intended
to prosecute their father's a.^peal, wherefore the King
summoned the Duke before the Parliament Pierre
de THdpital and the other officers who had taken
part in the trial of the Marshal were likewise cited,
and the Duke of Brittany was forbidden to take any
steps against the appellants so long as the appeal
might be in progress.^

On the same occasion were prepared letters patent
for the Presidents and Councillors of the Parliament,
the Bailiffs of Touraine, Anjou, and Maine, the Sen-
eschals of Poitou and Saintonge, and other officers,
who were told that * whereas since the said appeal,
and in hatred and contempt thereof, it is said that
the late Gilles, Lord of Rais, was unduly put to
death and that several other criminal acts {attentats)
were done, now inform yourselves well, diligently
and secretly, respecting the said death and other
deeds, of which a fuller account will be furnished you
in writing if there be need thereof; and summon or
cause to be summoned on the said day or another
one of our said Parliament, all those whom, by
inquiry, public report, or "vehement" presump-
tion, you shall find to be guilty or ** vehemently "
suspected.'

No date is specified for the citations, but a blank
space is left for its insertion, and in the present

^ Discovered by M. Marchegay, among many other Co^tivy
papers, in the Archives of Thouars (Serrant). Original document
on parchment, formerly sealed ; dated Montauban, January 3, 1442
(1443 N.S.).



GILLES DE RAIS 377

writer's opinion this circumstance clearly indicates
that the documents, although duly sealed, were never
put to use. Abbe Bossard's elaborate disquisition on
the point whether any attempt to rehabilitate Gilles
de Rais was ever prosecuted is superfluous. It is
probable that the documents were merely given to
Pr^gent de Co^tivy to be employed by him as
weapons against Duke Fran9ois, in the event of the
latter refusing to restore the deceased Marshal's
property to the heiress of Rais. But in any case
they were never used.

Co^tivy, on inquiry, must have come to the con-
clusion that, whatever he and his wife might desire,
it would be absolutely impossible for them to secure
the rehabilitation of the deceased Marshal. There
is no record whatever of any proceedings in any such
appeal as is mentioned in the royal letters. That
the appeal was never prosecuted is shown, indeed,
by numerous existing documents, with respect to
the measures taken to recover the family property.
Those measures would certainly have been very
different if Pr^gent and his wife had really cited the
Duke of Brittany and his officers before the Parlia-
ment with the object of quashing the conviction of
Gilles de Rais. Understanding, after due inquiry
into the case, the futility of any such attempt, they
renounced it.

This explains why a few months later — April 22,
1443 — Charles VII. bestowed on the new Baron of
Rais all the lands, lordships, castles, revenues, posses-
sions, inheritances, etc., ' which had belonged or ought



378 BLUEBEARD

to have bdoi^ed to the late Gilles, in his lifedme
Lord of Rais ;' which property the King in the first
instance confiscated to himself on account as much
of the crimes and (fences of the deceased Marshal
towards the royal Majesty as on account of the
crimes and offences for which he had been executed,
the property in any case belonging to the King, who,
by virtue of his rights, transferred it to Pr^gent de
Co^tivy. In this instance there was no mention of
wrongful sentence and execution ; on the contrary,
Gilles was held to have committed ' crimes and
offences,' and this shows that the idea of rehabilita-
tion had been abandoned. It had been decided to
adopt another course, and the letters of April, 1 443,
were the royal answer to the confiscation of the
Marshal's property by the Duke of Brittany at the
time when proceedings began before L'Hdpital.
The line taken was that the court of Nantes was
subject to the jurisdiction of the Parliament, that
the Duke was subject to the King, and that the
latter's right of confiscation was superior to that
of Jean V. But the royal commands were not
obeyed by the new Duke of Brittany. In vain, too,
were Champtoc6 and Ingrandes in Anjou confiscated
a few months later from Gilles of Brittany — the
Duke s brother — and adjudged to the husband of
Marie de Rais on the ground that Gilles of Brittany
held them from his father (Jean V.), who had always
conspired with the English, and that he, Gilles of
Brittany, was likewise an adherent of Henry VI.,
and had lately intrigued with him on behalf of his



GILLES DE RAIS 379

brother Duke Fran9ois.^ Again, there appears to
have been very little compliance with other royal
letters issued on January 13, 1445 (N.S. 1446) in
which the King ceased to speak of confiscation for
the misdeeds of GiUes de Rais, and, harking back,
referred to his 'great, valiant and notable services
in our wars and at the sieges of the cities of Orleans
and Lagny and other places.* This time, on the
ground that the Marshal had been led astray and
had embarked on a course of reckless prodigality,
foolishly spending vast sums on alchemy, the King
annulled all contracts passed by him, ordered a general
inquiry with respect to his estate, and cited before
the Parliament all who detained any property which
had ever belonged to him.^ Then in 1450 we find
Rene d'Anjou mixed up in the squabble respecting
Champtoc6 and Ingrandes, and conveying those
lordships to the Duke of Brittany under the pretext
that they had been confiscated to him (Ren6) at the
time of the Marshals trial. Thus the position
became more and more intricate* The semi-
independent rulers of Brittany and Anjou, and
their judges, virtually defied the King of France
and his Parliament

It is impossible to say at what date ended the
many lawsuits instituted with respect to the property
of GiUes de Rais. They certainly lasted very many

^ Cosneau, /.r., p. 378. Letters royal, dated Chinon, August 28,
1443 (* Bibliothfeque Nationale,' Paris), cited by Bossard.

^ Cartulaire de Rais, ' Rev. des Prov. de TOuest,' 1856, p. 180
ei seq.



38o BLUEBEARD

years, but with the help of the royal letters patent
Pr^gent de Co^tivy contrived to effect various com-
promises with the Duke of Brittany, and in June,
1 448, owing to the tatter's non-performance of certain
stipulations, it was arranged that Pr^gent should
enter into full possession of Champtoc6 and Ingrandes
on June 24, 1450. Four days, however, before the
appointed date the husband of the heiress of Rais
was killed at the siege of Cherbourg ; a cannon shot
struck him as he was entering a breach, and he fell
lifeless.^ * It was a great blow and loss for the
King,' says Jean Chartier, 'for he (Pr^gent) was
held among the valiant and famous knights of the
kingdom, very prudent and in the prime of his age,'
He was, indeed, barely forty-eight years old, but
M. Marchegay's researches have shown that his
health was poor, and that his wife, Marie de Rais,
frequently had occasion to nurse him, which she did
with much affection. Pregent reaped great rewards
for his fidelity to Charles VII. in hours of adversity,
and showed, perhaps, undue eagerness for wealth.
It was that which led him to participate in the
persecution of Jacques Coeur — an unfortunate blot
upon his name.

At the moment of his death his wife was at his
castle of Taillebourg, and her brothers-in-law, Chris-
tophe and Olivier de Co^tivy, and Alain, Cardinal
d'Avignon, immediately sought to despoil her.
Olivier wrested letters of administration from the

1 Cartulaire de Rais, * Rev. des Prov. de TOuest,' vol. iii.,
P- 7SS-



GILLES DE RAIS 381

young widow, and arranged to place Pierre II. of
Brittany — who about this time succeeded Duke
Fran9ois — in possession of Champtoce and In-
grandes. The unfortunate woman was imprisoned
and threatened until she gave every necessary
signature. But Charles VII. fortunately came to
her help, and Pierre II., who had invested Champ-
toc6, was compelled to withdraw and indemnify the
victim of the intrigue, who, directly she recovered her
liberty, revoked every deed which had been wrung
from her. Nevertheless, her position remained pre-
carious ; she was surrounded by greedy foes, and in
order to secure adequate protection she resolved to
marry again. She found the best of husbands in
her cousin, Andr6 de Montfort de Laval, Lord of
Loh6ac, Lomoux and Kergorlay, previously Admiral
and now Marshal of France, perhaps the most
exemplary hero of that age. Knighted when only
twelve years old for his boyish valour at La
Gravelle, Andr6 participated in many of the stirring
events of Charles VI I. 's reign. He fought at Jar-
zeau, Patay, Paris, Pontoise and Formigny, was
present at the coronation at Reims, helped to subdue
the Praguerie, and took part in the expedition to Sand-
wich. His whole life was one of courage, rectitude,
and unselfishness, and his wife, Marie de Rais, was
worthy of him. She, the daughter of the cruel and
bestial Gilles, proved indeed an ornament, an honour
to her sex. To quote one of the old historians, it
was as if an angel had sprung from the devil's loins.
Remaining childless, she surrounded herself with



382 BLUEBEARD

the children of others, girls whom she rearedi
educated and married. An account-book kept by
the house-steward of her first husband, and dis-
covered by M. Marchegay, reveals all her goodness
of heart and generosity. Perhaps, as Abb^ Bossard
surmises, in lavishing so much affection on the
young she desired to efface from their memory and
that of others the horrible misdeeds of her unhappy
father.

She marked her dolorous affection for him» and
particularly her anxious solicitude for his soul, by
raising, on the spot where he had been hanged and
partially burnt, an expiatory monument, some por-
tion of which still existed in 1837.^ Originally, it
seems, it was surmounted by a stone cross, and
adorned with a statuette of the Virgin, flanked by
others of St. Gilles and St. Laud. Strangely enough,
as the years rolled by, frequent pilgrimages were
made to this monument. How the legend arose we
do not know ; but miraculous powers were ascribed
to the Virgin in the niche, she became known as the
'Bonne Vierge de Cree-Lait,' *the Milk-giver';
and until the Reign of Terror mothers and nurses
flocked to the spot to pray her for an abundance of

^ It stood, we are told, on the Chauss^e de la Madeleine
(Gloriette island), between the l^cole Ste. Barbe and a private
house, and immediately in front of the Hotel de la Boule d'Or.
A part of the Hotel Dieu now covers the site. A fragment of the
monument is preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Nantes.
Our illustration has been adapted from a rough and badly-printed
lithograph in Verger's • Archives Curieuses de Nantes,' 4to., 1837,
voL i.



.Jtl*-" "


J


Wif^ilat. JM^ku. '^


w


jf^wV ' ^


t




>35^^'Mi^^^HaSB^8^B^^^K^B»





V MOSUMENl F.RRCTRD BY MARIR DF. RAIS.



GILLES DE RAIS 383

milk, in order that they might rear in health and
strength their offspring or their charges. Thus the
expiatory monument of that Gilles de Rais who
murdered so many children was transformed into a
shrine where mothers prayed for the means of
endowing their babes with life and vigour. Perhaps
this is not the least extraordinary circumstance con-
nected with a man in whose record the extraordinary
abounds.

No long span of life was allotted to the gentle,
benevolent and pious heiress of Rais. Her last
years were spent at the castle of Vitr6 — one of the
lordships of her second husband — and she died there
on November i, 1457, when she was probably not
more than thirty-two years of age. Her tomb is
still shown in an apsidal chapel — really the old choir
of the Benedictines — at Notre Dame de Vitr6, where,
not so many years ago, the present writer was assured
by a sacristan that she was *the last wife of the
famous Bluebeard '! A legend attaches also to some
of the old keys of the castle (now a prison), which are
described as those of Bluebeard. Popular tradition,
indeed, has made the gentle Marie one of the alleged
wives of the cruel Gilles, whereas she was his
daughter.

Her husband, Andr^ de Laval, survived her until
i486, when he passed away in his seventy-sixth
year, far richer in glory, we are told, than in lands
and chattels. As Marie had died childless, her
property had gone on her death, in 1457, to her uncle,
Ren6 de La Suze, the only brother of Marshal



384 BLUEBEARD

Gilles. Ren6 in his turn then assumed the style and
title of Baron of Rais, and prosecuted the numerous
lawsuits which Pr^gent de Co^tivy and Andr6 de
Laval had been carrying on for fifteen years already.
It was Ren6 who drew up or inspired the * M^moire
des H^ritiers de Gilles de Rais/ which contains so
much interesting information about the Marshal's
youth, character, and prodigality. When Ren6 died
in 1474, the lawsuits were still being fought, and the
duty of continuing them passed either to the only
child of his marriage with Anne de Champagne,
Jeanne de Rais — married in April, 1446, to Fran9ois
de Chauvigny, Prince of D6ols, Count of Chiteau-
roux, and Viscount of Brosse — or to her son, Andr6
de Chauvigny. The latter died childless in 1520^
and was the last of the posterity of Foulques de
Montmorency- Laval, the husband of the Crazy Jane
of Rais. * God, the Creator,* says old D'Argentr6,
writing in the middle of the sixteenth century,
* became so displeased with this house, which had
been very great, that no children were born to it,
and it died out through dissipation, whence sprang
thousands of lawsuits, which were still lasting in our
life-time.' Finally, that part of the Rais property
which had come from the Craon family reverted to
the latter s heirs. The barony of Rais passed to the
house of Tournemine,^ and, after being transformed
into the Duch^-pairie of Retz (1581), ultimately
became the portion of the Gondis, from whom sprang
another Marshal of France, five successive ' Generals

^ Bossard, /.r., p. 381.



GILLES DE RAIS 385

of the King's Galleys/ and two Cardinals, one of
whom played no inconsiderable part in history.

The historical part of this inquiry need be carried
no further ; but before dealing with Gilles de Rais
from the * Bluebeard ' standpoint, it may be as well
to glance briefly at one question which will probably
have occurred to the reader more than once during
the perusal of our narrative. What was the mental
condition of this man. in whose career so many
strange contradictions are to be found ? The
* M^moire ' of his heirs, prepared or inspired by his
brother Ren6, adduces a variety of evidence to show
that he behaved like a lunatic in many matters, and
suggests indeed that he was absolutely insane. Abb^
Bossard, dealing with this suggestion, dismisses it as
a theory devised in later years to palliate the Mar-
shal's guilt, for if Gilles really had been mad, some
plea to that effect, he thinks, would have been entered
at the time of the trial at Nantes. But in this con-
nection it must be pointed out that the plea of insanity
was in those days, and for some centuries later,
unknown to the French criminal law. One of the
earliest recorded cases in which such a plea was
brought forward was that of the notorious Count de
Horn, who, in 1720, murdered a money-broker in the
Rue Quincampoix, and whose noble relatives made
every effort to save him from a death of infamy, far
less for his own sake than because they feared that
some of the disgrace would fall upon themselves.
But the judges, without entering into the merits of

25



386 BLUEBEARD

the case, rejected such a plea as ridiculous, unknown
in a matter of murder, and, the Regent declining
to interfere, Horn was executed. In England, the
mad Earl Ferrers, who, had he lived in our times,
would have been detained during the Sovereign's
pleasure, was hanged in 1760 for the murder of his
land steward ; for the English statute which nowadays
regulates such cases is barely more than a hundred
years old.^ In France at all events, if the lives of
lunatics charged with capital offences were occasion-
ally spared in olden times, it was by virtue of some
act of mercy on the part of the King or his repre-
sentatives. In the eyes of the law itself mere lunacy
was not an excuse. Thus, it is only natural that the
procedure ag^ainst Gilles de Rais should contain no
trace of any such plea on his behalf. It could not
be alleged in a case of crime such as homicide ; it
was only valid in matters of civil law, when, as in the
case of Gilles and his property, the actions of the
lunatic tended to the wasting of his estate, and the
reducing of himself and his heirs to poverty and
distress.

Thus, Abb^ Bossard*s argument is beside the mark.
If the Marshals family did not try to save him by a
plea of lunacy, it was because no such plea could be
urged in law. Moreover, the concluding act of the
tragedy came so swiftly as to prevent all interposition
in his favour after sentence. On the other hand, it
seems certain that if Gilles was a madman or a lunatic
he was so only in a certain sense. His was the lucid

^ 39 and 40 George IIL, c 94.



GILLES DE RAIS 387

madness of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Commodus,
Caracalla, and Heliogabalus. He had a vain, weak,
credulous, and most unhealthy mind. The folly
which he displayed in his monetary transactions ap-
proached real lunacy. All his passions were violent,
excessive, at times abominably gross. The lack of
early training, as he himself lamented in his last
days, may have been responsible in some measure
for the enormities of his life. But we are
inclined to think that he was born with an abnormal
nature, which no training would have absolutely con-
trolled. Genius, lunacy, and great crime all spring
from the presence of some abnormal element or some
flaw in the brain — such an element or flaw as must
have existed in that of Gilles de Rais. In his case,
if exceptional talent be substituted for genius, they
virtually met and mingled. He became a noxious
agent in the midst of society, and, however much or
however little he may have been responsible for his
misdeeds, the world was in any case well rid of him.
Abb^ Bossard, quoting various historians, points
out that the execution of the Marshal created a
great impression, and undoubtedly it was welcomed
by the lower orders as a sign that the tyrannical
nobility was amenable to justice ; but it is diflicult
to adopt the view that it terrified the nobles and
made them more respectful of the laws. Neither
Charles VH. nor Louis XL, in spite of edict after
edict and example after example, was able to-
implant a law-abiding spirit among the aristocracy.
Nor were their successors more fortunate, as we

25 — 2



388 BLUEBEARD

know by all the 'Grands Jours' of the soxteenth
century, when hundreds after hundreds of capital
sentences were pronounced but never executed,
the noble culprits setting the officers of justice at
defiance,^

It is not surprising that various legends and
traditions of the career of Gilles de Rais should
have survived in La Vendde, Poitou, and Brittany,
particularly the part which now forms the depart-
ment of La Loire Inf6rieure ; and it may be readily
conceded that the Marshal's life supplied every
necessary element for the most horrible of bogie
tales. According to some of the older writers, his
execution was followed by a three days' fast, and a
general whipping of children in order that the latter
might keep his memory green. Yet such a proceed*
ing can hardly have been necessary. It was only
natural that the Marshal's name should survive as
a name of terror ; and one may well believe that
mothers and nurses, throughout the regions asso-
ciated with his crimes, more readily stilled their
children with some threat of his coming than with
any allusion to his contemporary Talbot. Gilles,
indeed, was the genuine Croquemitaine, no monster
of fairy-land or the mythical ages, but an ogre of
real flesh and blood, well and widely known.

The reader who has followed this narrative may
wonder, however, how it is possible to connect him
with Perrault's Bluebeard. He was not married

^ See ' La Noblesse Fran9aise sous Tancienne Monarchie,' by
Charles Louandre. Paris, 1880, 8vo., pp. 385-3^



GILLES DE RAIS 389

seven or eight times, but once only. Trae it is that
he was betrothed to at least two girls before his
marriage with Katherine de Thouars, and that on
each occasion his destined bride died suddenly.
Again, he is traditionally described as having had
fair hair and a black beard, which looked bluish in
the sunlight. Some recollection of his successive
betrothals may have revived at the time of his trial,
and the fate of his fiancees may have been regarded
with suspicion by the ignorant Moreover, it is
only fair to say that Monstrelet, his contemporary,
asserts that several women were among his victims.
Now, Monstrelet can only have borrowed that asser-
tion from common report He was a Bui^undian ;
in all likelihood he never saw Gilles in the flesh ;
and he was certainly far away from the scenes of the
Marshal's crimes. Thus, his information must have
been of the hearsay variety ; and his assertion shows,
therefore, that some folk, at all events, credited
Gilles with the murder of women as well as of
children. As a matter of fact, there were a few
children of the female sex among the Marshal's
victims ; but the procedure does not show that he
ever put women — -plusieurs femmes enceintes, as
Monstrelet has it — to death. Nevertheless, the
popular report alone would be a sufficient basis for
a Bluebeard story, particularly if the traditional
description of Gilles* person were of contemporary
origin. But the present writer has found it only
in modern authors, who refer to it as being the
traditional account, but who neither guarantee its



390 BLUEBEARD

authenticity nor show that it was current pricM'
to the time when Perrault wrote. M. Armand
Gueraud has pointed out that Og6e, the author of the
' Dictionnaire Historique de Bretagne,* while refer-
ring to * the ineffaceable souvenir left by Gilles de
Rais in the rural districts/ does not mention that
he was known as Barbe-Bleue. So far, indeed, as
books are concerned, it is only in modern ones that
this appellation is conferred on the Marshal. It has
been asserted, even, that the very first to give him
the name in print was Edouard Richer, who, in a
work published in 1823,^ described the ruined casde
of La Verri^re or Verri^res, on the banks of the
Erdre near Nantes, as being the 'Chiteau de
Barbe-Bleue.' In another book issued in 1838,*
Richer's statements were repeated ; and when the
present writer as a youth accompanied his father to
the spot nearly forty years later, he found the tradi-
tion well alive.*

Half an hour's row up the Erdre from Nantes
brought one to the hamlet of La Journali^re, where
the first sight that met the eye was a striking tavern-
sign representing a large greenish rock and a feroci-
ous-looking man, beneath whom ran the inscription
* Au Barbe Bleue.' The rock and the ruins were
in a little wood, some distance away, and on reaching
them one found among the fragments of walls the

^ * Voyage pittoresque dans le D^partement de la Loire In-
f^rieure.' Nantes, 1823, 410., p. 17.

2 * La France pittoresque,' etc., by J. Abel Hugo. Paris, 1 838, 4to.

® See * The Original Blue Beard ' in Once a Week^ January 4,
1868.



GILLES DE RAIS 391

remains of a room, carpeted with ivy, and reached by
some steps roughly cut in the rock ; this room being
described as the secret chamber where Bluebeard
had kept the corpses of his murdered wives. And
in the abandoned court of the ruined castle one
found, even as Richer had mentioned in 1823, seven
fine old trees which, according to the peasantry of
the neighbourhood, marked the spots where the
seven victims were buried after their murderer had
been killed.^

It must be admitted that La Verri^re was one of
the estates of Gilles de Rais, though he can only
have stayed there occasionally. Nevertheless, the
Bluebeard stories told in the neighbourhood would
have no particular significance were it not that
others are to be found in the vicinity of many of
the Marshal s castles. Go to Machecoul, and the
peasantry will point to one of the fireplaces hanging
in mid-air, inside the great tower, and call your
attention to a stone which looks like a death s-head
and which they call * Bluebeard's skull.* You will
learn, moreover, that Bluebeard's great two-handed
sword was preserved in the town until the Revolu-
tion, and the balcony of the Lady's Oratory in the
castle keep will be designated as the spot whence
Sister Anne watched for the arrival of the brothers.
As no * Sister Anne ' figured in the career of Gilles
de Rais, this last tradition must have come either

^ The writer cannot remember what trees they were ; but it is
doubtful whether they were more than 200 years old. They were
still there when Bossard wrote in 1886.



392 BLUEBEARD

from Perrault's tale or from the similar one of
uncertain age current in La Vend6e.^

But at Tiffauges also there are various stories
of Bluebeard, as Gilles de Rais is invariably called
there. A staircase in the wall of the keep conducts
to a secret room which Abb^ Bossard visited less
than twenty years ago, and which is said to have
been the spot where the monster killed his victims.
The ascent was perilous in Bossard's time, and
nowadays it may be practicable no longer, for large
portions of the ruins have fallen during recent years.
Nevertheless, the chamber is well remembered ; and
every Teflfalian devoutly believes that the ghosts
of the Marshal's victims, like the spectre of Gilles
himself, still haunt the ruins at night. The curious
echoes in the chemins de ronde of the towers over-
looking the CrClme^ are in like manner associated
with Bluebeard. It was there, folk say, that he often
lodged his intended victims in order that he might
surprise their secrets. According to one of the
local legends, Bluebeard was taken to Nantes and
sentenced there, but his judges decided that he
should be executed on the scene of his crimes. He
was therefore brought back to Tiffauges, and placed
(like Regulus) in a barrel whose sides bristled with
knives and nails. This barrel, which he himself
had previously prepared for his wife, was then set
rolling down the hillside overlooking the Sevre. It
bounded along from rock to rock, and when it

^ See ante, pp. 27-31. * See ante, pp. 233, 234.



GILLES DE RAIS 393

reached the water's edge Bluebeard was already
dead. Formerly, moreover, in the old church of
St. Nicolas of Tiffauges, now transformed into a
carpenter's workshop, the tourist was shown an old
granite tombstone marked, curiously enough, with
seven circles. The vault beneath this stone (which
is now in the Archaeological Museum of Nantes)
was said to have been the last resting-place of
Bluebeard's seven wives.

All the oldest inhabitants of the district — Bossard
interrogated people eighty years of age and upward,
people whose families had belonged to the region for
centuries — remain firm in the belief that Bluebeard
was Gilles de Rais, whom, as we have previously
mentioned, they invariably designate by the former
name. It is the same in other parts of the Marshal's
possessions. The castles of Pomic and Ch^m^rd,
which both belonged to him, have long been ranked
among Bluebeard's castles. Even the ancient
aqueduct (probably of Gallo- Roman origin) which
brings water from the Bonnet spring to Arthon in
the centre of the barony of Rais is said to have been
Bluebeard's work, executed by him in a single night
at the request of a damsel of whom he was
enamoured, and who, before consenting to listen to
him, wished to test his powers. Then, in the
vicinity of the remaining forest-lands of Rais, there
are or were vague traditions of Bluebeard as the
Wild Huntsman or as a werewolf, similar to
Comorre. It has been shown, too, that Gilles
became known as Bluebeard at the other end of



394 BLUEBEARD

Brittany, at Vitr6, where he never lived, but where
his daughter resided from ten to fifteen years after
his death, being subsequendy regarded as one of his
wives, while the keys of the casde where she died
received the name of * Bluebeard's keys.'

Abb^ Bossard quotes an old Breton cantplainte,
given, he says, in one of the works of M.
d'Amdzeuil,^ in which Jean de Malestroit, who
inquired into the crimes of Gilles de Rais, and sat in
judgment on him, is shown conversing with a party
of mournful maidens.

It runs as follows :

The old Man : * Maidens of P16eur, why are you
so silent ? Why do you go no more to festival or
assembly ?'

TAe Maidens: *Ask us why the nightingale is
silent in the thicket, why the loris and the finch no
longer sing their gentle songs.*

The old Man : ' Forgive me, maidens, but I am a
stranger ; I have come from far away, from beyond
the land of Tr^guier and L^on, and I know not
what has caused the sadness on your faces.*

The Maidens : * We are weeping for Gwennola,
the loveliest and best loved of us all !*

The old Man : * What has become of Gwennola
then ? Why do you remain silent ? What is
happening here ?^

The Maidens : * Alas, alas ! the wicked Bluebeard

^ Bossard does not give the title of this book. We have not
found the complainte in any work by D'Am^zeuil which is known
to us.



GILLES DE RAIS 395

has put Gwennola to death, even as he killed all his
wives.'

The old Man, with alarm : * Does Bluebeard live
near here ? Then flee, flee, my children ! The
ravenous wolf is not more terrible than the fierce
Baron. The bear is more gentle than the accursed
Baron of Rats. ^

The Maidens : * To flee is not allowed us. We are
serfs of the barony of Rais, and we belong, body and
soul, to the Sire de Barbe-Bleue*

The old Man : * I will deliver you ! For I am
Messire Jehan de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, and
I have vowed to defend my flock !'

The Maidens : ' Gilles de Laval does not put
faith in God !*

The old Man .• * He shall die a tragic death. By
the living God I swear it !'

Then the complainte ends as follows : * To-day the
maids of Pl^eur sing with all their hearts, and dance
at festivals and pardons. The nightingale fills the
thickets with its tender accents; the loris and the
finch repeat their sweetest songs. All nature has
put on a festive g^rb : Gilles de Laval no longer
lives ! Bluebeard is dead !'

It must be admitted that this complainte is
thoroughly in keeping with the secret inquiries con-
ducted by Jean de Malestroit prior to the trial of
Gilles, yet one may doubt if it be very old and
if it really sprang from the popular imagination.
Adequate criticism is out of the question, as only
a French translation of the Breton original is



396 BLUEBEARD

supplied by Bossard. Nevertheless, objection may
be taken to two words : * bear ' and * serfs/ Wolves
have remained plentiful in Brittany down to our own
times ; but one would hardly expect to find a refer-
ence to bears in a genuine popular ballad of the
regfion. And the word ' serfs * ascribed to the girls
seems suspicious when regarded in the light of what
we know respecting the social state of France,
generally, in the fifteenth century.

Bossard also quotes, this time from Larousse, a
very fantastic story of Gilles and a so-called castle
of Rais, between Elven and Questembert. The
present writer does not believe that any such castle
ever existed, and, indeed, the tale, for which no real
authority is quoted, seems to be a modem concoc-
tion. The Marshal, who appears in it with a red
beard, is shown desperately in love with a beautiful
damsel, Blanche de THermini^re, the betrothed of
the Count de Tr^m^ac. He casts the latter into a
dungeon, and leads the girl to his chapel, where all
is ready for their marriage. But she stubbornly
refuses consent, though he is ready to bestow on her
the finest of jewels and all his castles, forests, fields,
and meadows. At last he offers her his body and
soul, and the damsel, hastily accepting that offer,
changes into a fierce blue devil who declares to
Gilles that he belongs to him. By way of stamping
him with his mark, the fiend changes his red beard
to a blue one, reproaches him for his crimes, notably
for the murder of his seven wives, and tells him that
he will be known as Bluebeard for ever.



GILLES DE RAIS 397

The Assertion that this story is old and was known
to Perrault is unsupported by a shred of evidence.
The present writer infinitely prefers the local tradi-
tions of Tiffauges and Machecoul, long handed down
from father to son, from mother to daughter. It is
only natural that a man like Rais should have
received a nickname ; and thus that of Bluebeard
was perhaps bestowed on him prior to Perrault's
time. One can scarcely go farther than that surmise.
The application of Perrault's tale, only a few years
after it was written, to the legend of Comorre — as
evidenced by the paintings at St. Nicolas de Bieuzy
— shows how difficult it is to come to a positive
conclusion. If the name * Bluebeard ' was derived
from Perrault in the case of Comorre, it may also
have been derived from him in the case of Gilles de
Rais. On the other hand, if either of those men,
the usurper of Domnonia or the monster of Tiffauges,
was called Bluebeard prior to Perrault, and thus
suggested to him a name for his * hero,' the writer
thinks it far more likely that the man in question
was Gilles de Rais ; for Comorre already had a
widely-known nickname, that of the * Milig^et.' At
the same time, whilst allowing for the fact that
both Comorre and Rais were anciently accused of
having put numerous women to death — as shown on
one side by Alain Bouchard and Albert of Morlaix,
and on the other by Monstrelet, all of whom wrote
long before Perrault's days — the actual subject-matter
of his tale may have been suggested to him by any
account of a husband accustomed to kill his wives —



398 BLUEBEARD

perhaps by some passages in the 'Arabian Nights*
or by conversation with the first translator of that
work, Perrault's contemporary, Galland. In any
case, there is nothing in the story of * Barbe-Bleue'
to show that it was based either on the career of
Comorre or on that of Gilles de Rais.

On the other hand it will be found that for a
hundred years or nearly so — if not for a longer
period — these two men have been associated with
the tale by an ever-increasing army of authors as
well as by the vox populi; and at the present time
they are mentioned as possible prototypes of Blue-
beard in virtually every European work of reference
containing an article on the story. That must be
the present writer s excuse, if one be needed, for
having penned this book. In spite of every desire
to supply the reader with information, he cannot tell
him who was the Original Bluebeard, because he
does not know, because nobody knows, because
nobody will ever know. It is a question which
must remain a matter of surmise and opinion only.
The folklorist will have his views on the subject;
the student of history may have others. All that
the writer could do he has done. He has given
an epitome of the stories usually associated with
Perrault's tale, and has recounted the careers of
the two men who in France, at all events, have
been connected so prominently with Barbe-Bleue.
And perhaps the time devoted to the inquiry has not
been wasted, for, quite apart from the Bluebeard
question, the career of Gilles de Rais (which, to the



GILLES DE RAIS 399

best of the writer's knowledge and belief, had never
been told in the English language) was, he thinks,
well worthy of narration, within the limits which he
assigned to himself when he began this book. Of
all the strange careers of which history has preserved
a record, he knows of none stranger than that of the
high, mighty, and millionaire Lord, who fought
beside Joan of Arc, became the great mystery
* showman ' of his times, gave himself up to pro-
digality and vice, sought renewed wealth and power
from the Devil, and fiendishly butchered so many
helpless children, in such wise that he died the
death of a murderer, and left behind him, for all
the ages, a name of horror and infamy.



APPENDIX



A

(Ph:«33)

THE BEAUM ANOIR BLUEBEARD

If it be difficult to account for the origin of the suggestion that
the original Bluebeard may have been a Sire de Beaumanoir, it is
still more difficult to excuse the parrot-like foshion in whidi various
editors of Perrault have repeated this assertion without taking any
trouble to verify it Abb^ Bossard writes on the subject in the
same misleading fashion as his predecessors. Following M. Deulin,
he mentions that the theory originated with Collin de Plancy, whose
opinion, he adds, was adopted by M. Charles Giraud. Then, in
mentioning that the £simily of Gilles de Rais was allied to that of
the Beaumanoirs of Maine, he refers his readers to M. Abel Hugo.
On testing those references, the present writer finds that Collin de
Plancy, in his ' CEuvres Choisies de Perrault, avec les M^moires,'
Paris, 1826, 8vo., mentions, at the outset of the notes which he
adds to the story of ' Bluebeard,' that the original character is said
to have been a Beaumanoir. That is all ; there is nothing further
on the subject in Collin de Plancy's book. On turning to
M. Giraud's 'Contes des Fdes,' Lyons edition, 1865, one finds
in the dedicatory epistle to the Princess Letitia Bonaparte
a strong expression of the opinion that the original Bluebeard
was Gilles de Rais! If, therefore, M. Giraud, in the previous
edition of his work (Paris, 1864), which the present writer has not
seen, inclined to a Beaumanoir theory, he had discarded it a twelve-
month later. But we turn to M. Abel Hugo (* France Pittoresque,*
1838, 4to., vol. ii., p. 165), hoping to find therein something about
the Beaumanoirs of Maine. There is not a word on the subject,



APPENDIX 401

however; there is simply a reference (manifestly borrowed from
Richer) to the ruins of the ChUteau of La Verri^re and the seven
trees planted in commemoration of Bluebeard's wives. On
consulting other parts of M. Hugo's compilation, notably the
descriptions of the departments now replacing the old province of
Maine, nothing is found about the Beaumanoirs and Bluebeard.
Yet the references, mentioned above, have appeared in several
works, successive editors and commentators following one another
without once testing their alleged authorities. It was easy enough
for the present writer to do so, the books, which have been
specified, being in the library of the British Museum.

The Beaumanoir theory resolves itself, therefore, into one single
line in Collin de Plancy. Various genealogical histories and
similar works have been consulted in the hope of discovering some
Beaumanoir to whom the theory might possibly apply, and none
has been found. The whole thing appears then to be a myth, and
the only suggestion one can offer is that, when Collin de Plancy
penned his notes to 'Bluebeard,' he had read somewhere that
Gilles de Rais and a certain Beaumanoir had fought side by side
against the English in Maine (see ante^ pp. 147-150), and that, in
a moment of confusion, he penned the latter instead of the former
name. His blunder, being frequently repeated, created the im-
pression that a Beaumanoir theory really existed.

This is written subject to correction. If anybody knows of a
Beaumanoir whom the name of Bluebeard would fit, the writer will
be delighted to hear of him ; but he has given considerable time
to researches which have yielded no result, and until the contrary
is proved he will continue to surmise that the Beaumanoir theory
was purely and simply one of Collin de Plancy's not infrequent
blunders.

B

(Page 65)
VS AND OTHER LOST CITIES

There are various accounts of the legend of Ys, the favourite
one, perhaps, being that given by £mile Souvestre, who tells us that
the ancient city standing on the shore of the Bay of Douamenez
was defended against the ocean by several powerful dykes, whose

26



402 BLUEBEARD

locks were only opened once a month in order to admit the qmntiti
of sea-water required by the inhabitants for certain purposes. The
principal lock was opened by King Gradlon himself, who always
wore its silver key hanging from his neck, that key being also a
symbol of his royal authority. Gradlon's palace was the manrd
of the world, all marble, cedar wood and gold, whereas other
dwellings were of oak and granite ; and he lived there with his
daughter, called variously A^s or Dahut, a most beautiful but
extremely dissolute woman, who had 'made herself a crown of
her vices, and taken the seven mortal sins as her pages.* Like
Marguerite de Bourgogne, in ' La Tour de Nesle,' the Princess
beguiled young men, or, rather, employed an emissary, a black
attendant, to seek handsome young strangers and bring them to
her masked. Then came the banquet and the orgy ; but after-
wards the masks were tightened by means of secret springs, which
stifled their wearers, whose corpses were carried on horseback by
the Princess's black retainer to the Montagues d'Arr^, and there
cast into a deep pit or chasm, whence, even in our times, lugubrious
sounds were said to proceed, these, according to the shepherds who
heard them, being the moans of Dahut's murdered lovers, who
entreated Christians to pray for their unhappy souls.

Gradlon had again and again promised St Gwennole that he
would punish his daughter, but in spite of her crimes he loved
her too much to do so. At last she stole his silver key, the
emblem of his power, and one night after a wild orgy she opened
the lock and admitted the sea, which threatened the city with
destruction. St Gwennole came to rouse the King, who at once
mounted on horseback, to flee with his officers. Before doing so^
however, he again yielded to fatherly compassion, sent for his
daughter, took her up behind him, and then galloped away. But
the waters rapidly gained upon them, and they were on the point
of being engulfed by a great wave, when all at once a mysterious
voice rang out, calling : * Gradlon, if thou wouldst escape destruc-
tion, cast off the demon behind thee !' The Princess, in her
exceeding terror, felt her strength desert her, her eyes closed,
her hands became icy cold, and she slipped off the horse into the
raging tide. But Gradlon and his officers were able to reach
Quimper, and that city then became the capital of Comouaille.
According to another legend, Dahut or Ahs was transformed into
a mermaid, a kind of Lurlei-siren ever on the watch to beguile the



APPENDIX 403

young men who approached the shore near the spot where the
city of Ys was submerged.^

M. de La Borderie traces the origin of the legend to passages
in Urdistan's early * Life of St. Gwennole,' in which the holy man
is shown addressing homilies to King Gradlon, expatiating on the
sinfulness of the licentious life led by the royal court, reproaching
him for his silken vestments, his magnificent feasts, and his partiality
for the music of flutes, tabors, citherns, and lyres. These passages
gave rise to the opinion that Ys had really been destroyed for its
sins, and there being various traditions of the alleged immorality
of the Princess A^s or Dahut, the greater part of the guilt of
Gradlon's court was gradually ascribed to her, until at last the
legend arose in its comparatively modem form. There are various
indications that a city or town may have existed on the alleged
site of Ys. It cannot be denied that there have been frequent
encroachments of the sea on this part of the Breton coast
Souvestre mentions that a certain Chanoine Moreau, writing in
1586, testified to having seen the remains of ancient walls as well
as several stone trough-like tombs at low-tide. The remains were
supposed to have dated from the fourth or fifth century. More-
over, Cambry, writing in 1836 ('Voyage dans le Finist^re '), mentions
that the fishermen of the bay when casting anchor repeatedly found
fragments of walls under water.

With reference to Gradlon's partiality to music (with which St
Gwennole reproached him), it should be added that on St Cecilia's
Day, prior to the French Revolution, a cup of wine was invariably
raised to the lips of the King's statue above the entrance of the
cathedral of Quimper. Another legend of him is given in a poem by
Marie de France (' Poesies de Marie de France,' published by B. de
Roquefort, 1819, vol i., 'Lai de Graelent Meur'), in which he is
shown as a young and fascinating Prince, who wins the love of a
fiury. But a time comes when she desires to quit him. She takes to
flight, and he follows in pursuit Then, the better to escape him,
she springs across a river with all the lightness of a bird. He is
warned that he will be drowned if he should attempt to follow her ;
nevertheless, he persists, and she, seized with compassion, at last
rescues him from his danger, removes his sodden garments, wraps

^ The libretto of Lalo's opera * Le Roi d'Ys ' b simply modem invention,
and does not follow any of the recognised forms of the legend.
her doak around him, and takes him to her own land. 'And
the folk of the country still do say that Gradlon is yet alive.'
The legend of Ys is not the only one of the kind to be found
in Brittany. Stories of submerged cities and lost lands are favourite
ones with the Celtic races. The Lost Langarrow or Langona of
North Cornwall, destroyed for its vice by God, who raised a stonn
and covered it with sand (see Hunt's ' Popular Romances of the
West of England,' pp. 199, 200), has a Breton counterpart near
the ancient town of Langon (lUe et Vilaine, between Rennes and
Nantes), where a kind of canal, about a mile and a half in length,
is said to occupy the site of a yet earlier city of the same name,
destroyed for its sins. In like way the hamlet of Le Pussoir or
Passoir, near Erquy, on the coast of Les Cotes du Nord, is popularly
supposed to have replaced a Roman city called 'Nasada' or
'Nazado,' also punished for its depravity; and in this instance it
must be admitted that many Gallo-Roman remains have been
found on the spot. Again, the forest of Seissy is said to have
been destroyed by sea and sand because the birds in it persisted
in chattering whilst an old hermit was saying mass in a retreat
which he had sought among the thickets. Directly the holy man
began the celebration, the birds made such an uproar that he was
unable to proceed. At last he cursed them, and then a great
wind immediately arose, the sea rushed upon the shore, and the
forest was swept away. Miles of sandhills mark its site.
The lake of Grandlieu, which belonged to the barony of Gilles
de Rais, was also supposed to mark the spot where an ancient
city, called Herbadilla, stood as late as the sixth century. The
inhabitants, it is said, treated St. Martin of Vertou with great
derision whilst he was sojourning in their midst, and in punish-
ment of their wanton disrespect an abyss suddenly opened, boiling
water bubbled up, and the guilty city was destroyed. Only a man
and a woman, who had given the saint hospitality, were spared,
and she, having looked behind her, in spite of a prohibition to the
contrary, was changed to stone. (Dom Morice, 'Preuves de
I'Histoire de Bretagne,' vol. i., p. 196.) The final episode of this
story is, of course, a reminiscence of the fate which befell Lot's
wife ; the earlier ones suggest volcanic agency, as in the case of
the legend of Lake Issarl^s in Auvergne.
THE MONTFAUCON PORTRAIT OF GILLES DE RAIS
The portrait of Marshal de Rais given in this volume is taken
from Plate LVII. in the third volume (p. 277) of the * Monuments
de la Monarchie Fran9oise,' the well-known compilation of Dom
Bernard Montfaucon, who derived the figure, like many others, from
a beautifully illustrated manuscript work presented to Charles VII.
by Gilles le Bonnier, for many years * Berry King-at-Arms ' and
' First Herald of France ' under that King and his father.
This manuscript work, which at one time was in the collection
of Colbert, was probably prepared some years after the death of
Gilles de Rais ; nevertheless, in a matter affecting the latter, it
would at first sight seem to be a document of value, for Berry,
who in any case inspired it and superintended its preparation, was
certainly well acquainted with the Marshal, whom he must have
seen many times, and whose armorial bearings must have been
familiar to him. Again, Berry was an authority in heraldry,
and one can hardly suppose that he would have tolerated an error
in the heraldic devices borne by the figures illustrating his work.
Nevertheless, we regard the portrait of Rais with some sus-
picion. The plate in Montfaucon bears the inscription 'Gilles
de Laval ' — by which name Rais was often called — and the text,
derived apparently from Berry, expressly tells us that the portrait
is that of the famous Marshal who was executed at Nantes.
Bossard and others regard the figure as authentic, and we are
even told that the armorial bearings on the caparison of the
horse are a blending of those of Montmorency-Laval and Rais.
Such is not the case, however. They are simply the armorial
bearings of Montmorency-LavaL A curious question, therefore,
arises. The father of Gilles de Laval, in order to succeed to the
barony of Rais, renounced for himself and his successors the
arms of Montmorency-Laval, and covenanted with Jane the
Sensible to assume those of her house. How comes it, then, that
his son bears the arms of his ancestors, instead of those of Rais ?
On consulting Anselme's * Histoire G^n^ogique,' it will be
found that the arms of Montmorency were : or on a cross gules,
cantoned with sixteen alertons (eaglets) azure. The bearings of
Montmorency-Laval were the same as those of Montmorenqr
proper, excepting in one respect : the cross, as a distinctive sign,
was charged with five scallop shells. A reference to the Mont-
faucon figure of Gilles will show that these are the arms emblazoned
on the trappings of the Marshal's horse. Gilles sprang, however,
from a junior branch of the house, that founded by Foulques de
Montmorency-Laval, the husband of the Crazy Jane of Rais, and
in the armsjof Foulques, as given in Anselme, there is a brisure,
z, franc quartier de gueuks au lion d^ argent. This lion argent, ac-
cording to Bossard, represents Laval ; but we cannot find that such
a device was ever associated with that lordship. Perhaps Foulques,
who is classed by Anselme under the heading of Chalouyau,
derived it from that Burgundian domain which he inherited from
his mother. His descendants, Guy, otherwise Brumor, and Guy IL,
the father of Gilles de Rais, bore the lion argent in their shields —
that is, until Guy II. entered into his covenant with Jane of Rais,
when his arms became those of the barony : or on a cross sable.
In the Montfaucon figure, however, there is no sign of the lion
argent, to say nothing of any quartering even of the shield of Rais.
We know that when such covenants as that of Guy II. and
Jane the Sensible were agreed upon they were strictly carried out
The Kergorlay Montforts came into possession of the barony of
Laval by the marriage of Jean de Kergorlay with Anne the heiress
in 1404, and, having covenanted to discard the Montfort arms
and to assume those of Laval, they did so. See, for instance, in
Montfaucon the figure of Andr6 de Loh&c, the younger brother
of Guy de Montfort-Laval ; he bears the Montmorency-Laval
arms as stipulated^ — that is, the same arms as those which are
shown in the alleged figure of Gilles de Laval de Rais. This,
again, is a reason for regarding the latter figure as doubtfiiL As
the father of Gilles covenanted to bear the arms of Rais, GQles
himself ought to have borne them. But Montfaucon quite
ignores the Rais escutcheon ; following Berry, he even tells us
that the battle-cry of Rais was ^ Deus adjuvet primum Christ-
ianutn f (* God help the first Christian T) which was, of course, the
cry of the Montmorencys, even as 'God help the second
Christian 1' was that of the house of L^vis.

^ Both he and Pr^ent de Co^tivy, as successive husbands of Marie de Rais,
eventually assumed, or at least quartered, the arms of Rail in their escatcheont,
in accordance with their marriage contracts.
The whole matter is curious ; and we have a suspicion that the
Montfaucon portrait of GiHes — the one authentic representation
of him supposed to exist — really represents his cousin Guy de
Montfort-Laval, elder brother of Andr^ de Lohdac. Briefly, a
scribe or an artist employed in the preparation of Berry's work
may have written * Gilles/ when he ought to have written * Guy ' ;
for the armorial bearings are those to which Guy was entitled,
whereas Gilles can hardly have had any proper right to them. If
our surmise be inaccurate, and the figure be really that of Gilles
de Rais, we can only assume that he, on entering the service of
France, discarded the arms of his Breton barony to bear those of
his Montmorency ancestors, regardless of any agreement into
which his father had entered.

We do not know whether this question has ever been raised
before. We have given the portrait because it is generally
accepted as being that of Gilles de Laval de Rais, but we regard
its authenticity as doubtful. As for the so-called portrait in the
Gallery of the Marshals of France at Versailles, that is an
imaginary modem work, painted by £loi Fdron.
GILLES DE RAIS AND JEAN CHARTIER
Abb^ Bossard's surmise that the ' Jean Chartier ' who accom-
panied Gilles de Rais to Orleans in 1434-5 may have been the
famous chronicler of that name raises some interesting points.
We know comparatively little of Chartier's life ; but it is nowadays
affirmed that the old accounts of it were full of errors. Jean was
formerly said to be a brother of Alain Chartier, the poet, but it
is now held that they were not related. According to Father
Ayroles (' La Vraie Jeanne d'Arc,' vol. iii. : * La Libdratrice '; Paris,
1897, 8vo., pp. 143-6), Jean Chartier was provost of the
monastery of La Garenne in 1430, and three years later held a
similar office at the abbey of Mareuil-en-Brie (vicinity of Paris).
In 1435 ^^ became 'commandeur ' of the abbey, and in 1437 was
raised to the rank of 'grand chantre.' The new edition of
' Larousse ' clings to the view that he was a chanter at St. Denis
in 1445 ; and Father Ayroles says that he was still living in 1474.
The question arises whether Chartier can have absented himsdf
from Mareuil between 1433 and 1435, ^^^ whether his office in
connection with the abbey was merely a titular one. It must be
admitted that a distinctive feature of Chartier's chronicle is his
frequent mention of Gilles de Rais. He gives circumstantial
accounts of Gilles's earlier exploits at Rainefort, Malicorne, and
Le Lude — ^petty affairs in their way, which a chronicler without
special information might well have neglected. Again, his
references to the Marshal in connection with Joan of Arc are
numerous and important ; and he signals the presence of Rais at
Lagny and at Silld-le-Guillaume when other writers leave it to be
inferred that he quitted the service of France after the failure of
the attempt on Paris. Where was it that Chartier found all his
information about Rais ? May he not have acquired it from the
Marshal or some of his retainers ?
In the lists of those who accompanied Gilles de Rais to
Orleans in 1434, found by M. Doinel among the notarial papers
of Jean de Recouin, it will be seen that * Jean Chartier ' lodges
at the Black Head, where the Marshal's men-of-arms, his herald
and some of his captains are likewise accommodated ; and at the
first glance it might seem incongruous for a cleric, a monk, to
consort with those military men. A fitter place for him, it might
seem (particularly as he was a chanter), would have been with the
Marshal's chantry at the sign of the Sword. But, in this connec-
tion, it will be noticed (p. 194, ante) that two other clerics,
Collinet and Le Blond, lodge with a barber and a squire at the
sign of the Furbisher. And, all considered, as Chartier, whatever
his robe, was a chronicler of the wars, it is perhaps only natural
that he should have sought the companionship of the Marshal's
captains. As for the origin of his connection with Rais, it may
be pointed out that the Marshal is known to have sought chanters
with fine voices all over France. There were Normans and
Poitevins in his 'chapelle.' Is it possible, then, that Chartier
may have entered his service for a short time? One can only
offer surmises on such a question; for nothing shows that the
' Jean Chartier ' classed among the Marshal's retainers at Orleans
was really Chartier the chronicler. Nevertheless, as this historic
name occurs in the lists discovered by M. Doinel, it was as well
to point to the possibilities which the mention of it suggests.