Bluebeard Horror
“He lived like a monster, but died like a saint; his nature was incomprehensible - and in the memory of ordinary people, subject to fear, in awe of everything mysterious, he remained under the name of Bluebeard. The image of this contradictory man, who has known everything in his lifetime: luxury and ruin, rise and fall, the triumph of pride and bitter repentance, disbelief and piety, seemed to come out of Shakespeare's pen, and now, through the centuries, his life is seen as mournful tragedy. He lived, disdaining the laws of human morality and even ordinary common sense, not to mention the arguments of reason, all his feelings and deeds are marked with the stamp of duplicity and cruelty; in such tragedies, the denouement is usually almost always accompanied by the mournful sound of the requiem.
Gilles is a hero of his time, the era of the Hundred Years War and the prosperity of the Duke of Berry; moreover, he was even ahead of his time. Warrior and philanthropist, voluptuous and righteous, carefree and earnest to the point of recklessness, fearless and omnipotent companion of Joan of Arc, vicious and innocent, like a baby who sought death and eagerly loved life, thirsty for rapture and tormented by all the torments of conscience, rushing from extreme to extreme and despising peace, he appears before us in the guise of a hero of ancient miniatures, in a camisole and a hat, embroidered with sparkling stones, or in the guise of a wild roaring beast with a mouth stained with blood , - this is how the famous French historian and writer Georges Bordonov wrote about him.
… In 1440, a nobleman from a noble family, the son of Guy de Laval and Marie de Craon, Madame de La Suz, rarely left his gloomy and sad castle, the towers of which still rise near Poitou. At night in one of the tower windows a mystical light suddenly lit up, and from there such eerie and piercing cries were heard that even the wolves in the forest began to howl pitifully. The estate of Gilles de Rais was not in a wooded and mountainous area, but among the stones from which the castle walls rose, mournfully towering in a translucent haze.
In our time, wild carnations do not stop blooming on its walls. The gloomy crypt of the castle still exists today under vaults supported by dilapidated columns; in the middle is a rectangular slab. As you can see, it was once an altar. The dark and sad ivy leaves rustle in the wind that is always on the north wall. It was here, in this unfortunate corner of the castle, that the Marshal of France, Gilles de Rais, was arrested in 1440 …
Gilles de Rais was born around 1404 in the castle of Machcoul, located on the border of Brittany and Anjou. His father, Guy de Laval, died at the end of October 1415; and his mother, Marie de Craon, remarried, entrusting Gilles and his brother Rene de Rais to the care of his grandfather, Jean de Craon, a man of old age. 1420, November 30 - at the age of 17, Gilles de Rais married Catherine de Toire, a marriage that made him one of the richest men in Europe.
In those days, the situation in France was extremely complicated. The British roamed a country that had survived the massacre and plague. Even Orleans was full of invaders who burned villages, leaving behind blood, hunger, disease and devastation. Charles VII, the Dauphin, who was disowned by his parents, started something like a court in the Spy, where he tried to find oblivion in debauchery and drunkenness. But at times he made pitiful forays to beg for some money, and in 1425 Gilles de Rais came to the aid of the puppet king and loaned him huge sums. That was when Saint Joan (Joan of Arc), the savior of France, appeared on the scene.
The king entrusted her to Gilles de Rais, who was always by her side: her friend and protector, he fought side by side, guarding her, until she was wounded under the very walls of Paris. Abbot Bossard confirmed that in guarding Jeanne, Gilles was honest and fair with her. He was already then absorbed in mysticism and, without a doubt, firmly believed in the divine mission of the Holy One, for which he fought so bravely. He saw that she had fulfilled all her promises, and when King Charles was crowned at Reims, Gilles de Rais was promoted to marshal of France, honored to wear the royal coat of arms on his shield.
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1426 - tired of the palace and camp camps, he returned to his castle Tiffauge, where he began to lead a truly royal lifestyle. The detachment of his bodyguards numbered more than 200 people, they were not just soldiers, but knights, captains, nobles, high-ranking pages, each of whom was dressed in brocade and velvet and each had his own retinue. Gilles de Rais's house was open to guests; day and night his tables were bursting with food: he fed not only the guards and employees, but also travelers passing by the castle.
Gilles was an avid bibliophile and kept valuable manuscripts in huge chests. He especially admired the writings of Ovid, Valerius Maximus, and the stories of Suetonius.
It was obvious that even the kingdom's annual income could not provide such a way of life, and over time, estates, meadows, parks and forests were sold until, finally, in 1436, his family, worried about the fate of the inheritance, turned to the king. Charles, who, having learned about the bad rule of Ser Re, forbade him to dispose of all the property.
For a long time, Gilles de Rais was engaged in alchemy and was looking for the philosopher's stone, and now he did it with particular zeal under the guidance of the famous occultist of that time - Gilles de Sillet. Incredible sums were spent, gold and silver were melted in a crucible and a retort - but in vain. He turned to Jean de la Riviere, a sorcerer who arrived from Poitiers, but his spells and spells were useless. A second sorcerer named du Mesnil persuaded Gilles to sign a paper in blood, which said that he vows to give everything the devil requires, including life and soul.
Soon, power over Gilles de Rais was acquired by the Florentine Francesco Prelati, and it was then that a series of terrible murders, blasphemies and other disgusting deeds began, which seemed to be gleaned from the depths of black magic. Satan, Prelati said, must be sweetened with the blood, the blood of children. It is pointless to describe the black masses that took place in the castle; count rape, murder, child abuse. From 1432 to 1440, orgies continued, and children from various parts of the country died in the devil's den.
At the trial, a list was read out with the names of the victims - boys and girls; the list was very long, more than 800 children were killed. Their bodies were burned or dumped into the basements and utility rooms of the castle. Gilles de Rais was ecstatic watching the suffering of his victims, as he himself said: "It gave me the greatest pleasure to enjoy torture, tears, fear, blood." Still, he had nightmares. He often talked about leaving for a monastery, about a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he would go barefoot, begging for alms on the way.
It would be strange if Jacob V, the Duke of Breton, who bought the lands and houses of Gilles de Rais for a pittance, would intervene until he filled his chests and increased his wealth. He deliberately did not pay attention to the rumors, incredible in their monstrosity, circulating among the peasants. But still, there were decent people who acted not for self-interest, but at the behest of conscience. Jean de Maletroix, Bishop of Nantes, an incorruptible most honest prelate, heard of the terrible crimes.
In just a month, he carried out a proper investigation. A detachment of armed soldiers went to Tiffozh, and meanwhile the second detachment surrounded Mashkul, where the marshal was fleeing, trembling with fear. It was pointless to resist, it was impossible to run; On September 14, the sadistic murderer Prelati and those of his assistants who did not leave him at the first sign of danger were arrested, chained and thrown into prison. The church trial lasted 1 month and 8 days; the civil trial lasted 48 hours.
There are no mysteries left in the trial of Gilles de Rais today. The chronicle brought to us in all details what was happening in the rooms of the owner of the castle. There were stories about food with a lot of spices and exciting wines, but next to this, details of various sadistic pleasures, senseless crimes were listed minute by minute. They talked about the bodies pulled out by hooks from the wells into which they had previously been thrown, about the hasty night transportation of chests filled with the bodies of murdered children with their heads separated from the body and "eaten away a pile in the hearth of the Hotel de la Suze with 36 bodies laid on top. The assistant prosecutor found it hard to believe in all this: "Just think about how fat from pieces of burning meat drips onto the coals in the kitchen …". The flame, stirring all the time, was quite strongand it took only a few hours to get rid of many of the bodies.
Suffering from remorse and praying for the mercy of the Lord, the marshal stretched out on the bed and inhaled with great pleasure the terrible smell of burning meat and bones, talking at length about his feelings.
Let's repeat - 800 children died in 7 or 8 years. A good third of the nights of these 7 years, from 1433 to 1440, were devoted to murder, dismemberment and burning; and the days were spent in carriages on a cart of bloody and mutilated bodies in order to hide them, dry and charred, under hay or in secluded places, in getting rid of ash and washing out blood and filth.
… The Church insisted that this matter be within its jurisdiction. This meant that then it was all over for Gilles de Rais. The Bishop of Nantes Jean de Chateauguiron and the supreme seneschal of Brittany, Pierre de l'Hôpital, harassed the duke with demands for the necessary powers. And with great regret, Jacob V finally gave the order to start the trial of the Marshal of France, who disgraced the famous name; he knew well that “the church is the highest court, and condemns the crime, and not the person who committed it,” as the bishop of Nantes himself solemnly proclaimed. And Pierre de l'Hôpital was much more interested in the facts of witchcraft and magic than other, much more terrible crimes.
Housing needed gold. Like Countess Bathory, he could not live the life of an ordinary person, she ruined him.
Thanks to Prelati, the atmosphere of Tiffauge was saturated with magic. He often quarreled with the Marshal, who rebuked him for his impatience and lack of faith. Gilles listened to several masses every day. The Norman woman, who came to tell him fortune on cards, said that he would never succeed until "he distracts his soul from his prayers and his chapel." Gilles procured more and more right hands, hearts and strands of hair for the devil.
The difficulties associated with capturing young people were the same for Erzsebet Bathory and Gilles de Rais. The same small villages where everyone knows about everything, even if they only whisper about it; the same gray-clad old women who make up an integral part of the countryside; children running unattended on small, distant farms; the outskirts of villages, where street punks knock ripe plums with stones or sow flax - all this was the same both in Hungary and in France. An old and ugly woman in gray supplied the master with pages. Sometimes the servants, Henri and Poitou, were lured into the castle by some means or other. In particular, children often disappeared on days when alms were given. At such a time, the bridges were lowered, and the servants of the castle distributed alms among the poor: food, some money and clothes. And if they noticed a particularly beautiful person among the children, they took him away with them under the pretext that he didn’t have enough meat and they would take him to the kitchen to give him something else.
But all the tricks that were invented to calm the local residents soon lost their credibility; every year the people were amazed at how many boys disappeared - even with wolves, diseases, killers and swamps.
Gilles de Sillet was spreading rumors that the Breton had imprisoned his brother, Michel de Sillet, and the ransom was demanding 24 of the most handsome boys ever to be found. He sent them from Mashkul, as Gilles said, but 7 times more boys were taken from Tiffauge. Of course, people grieved hearing about this, but, nevertheless, at least some rational explanation was found for the disappearances. In those days, ransom and hostages were a universal disaster. In addition, girls did not disappear from the villages, although they also often played by the water. Not a single shepherdess, even the most inconspicuous shepherdess, disappeared.
They came for Gilles de Rais in mid-September 1440. Under the walls of Mashcul, the captain of the escort, Jean Labbe, and his men demanded that the bridges be lowered for them, because they serve the Duke of Breton. Hearing the name Labbe, Gilles crossed himself, kissed the talisman and said to Gilles de Sillet: "Worthy cousin, this is the moment of turning to the Lord."
Long before that day, his astrologer had predicted that the abbot would announce his death; and that he himself would be a monk at the abbey. The prediction came true. But with the only difference that only his body remained in the crypt of the Nantes Carmelites.
Jean Labbe told the marshal to follow him. Henri and Poitou wanted to accompany the owner. As they drove past villages, curses were heard on both sides of the road.
On October 24, the prisoner was taken to an interrogation room at Buffay Castle. Behind the tapestries were all the tools for the usual interrogation: rack, wedges and ropes. Pierre de l'Hôpital urged him to confess. The testimony of Poitou and Henri was read to him in a low voice. Pale as death, Gilles replied that they were telling the truth, that he actually took the children from their mothers and agreed to 800 murders and three magical attempts to summon the devil.
The evidence of witchcraft and sodomy was so obvious that an ecclesiastical tribunal was appointed under the leadership of the bishop of Nantes, because these crimes were within the jurisdiction of the church. The trial was short-lived.
The results of the preliminary investigation, which were kept secret, were made public. So, crimes against God and man: murder, rape and sodomy. But most terrible of all is "sacrilege, lack of piety, the drafting of devilish spells and other stubborn activity in evoking the devil, magic, alchemy and witchcraft."
In the end, when the bishop advised him to prepare for death, the marshal began to defend himself: the highest military rank of the French crown and the first nobleman, he could appear only before the court of equals and with the permission of the king and duke of Breton.
Jean de Chateauguiron answered him like this: “The court of the church is the highest court and condemns crimes, not the person who committed them. Moreover, the king and duke agree that the judgment must be passed."
The verdict was: “Hang and burn; before the body is dismembered and burned, it must be removed and placed in a coffin in the church of Nantes, chosen by the condemned himself. Henri and Poitou must be burnt separately, and their ashes scattered over the Loire."
The next day, the square was crowded with people. Gilles appeared all in black, under a velvet hood and in a black silk jacket, trimmed with fur of the same color. Calmly and firmly, he repeated that he was speaking only the truth.
On October 26, at 9 am, a procession of priests carrying Holy Communion, accompanied by a crowd praying for three criminals, stopped at all the churches in Nantes. At 12 o'clock, Gilles de Rais, Poitou, and Henri were taken to a meadow on the outskirts of the city. They built three gallows, one higher than the others. There were brushwood and dry branches below.
Slowly reading De Profundis, the convicts were taken to the place of execution. Gilles kissed Poitou and Henri, saying: “There is no such sin that the Lord could not forgive, if the person asking for it actually repents. Death is just a little pain. Then he threw back his hood, kissed the crucifix and began to recite the words of the last prayer. The executioner threw a noose, Gilles climbed with his help to the platform, and the executioner touched the brushwood with a burning torch. The platform sagged, and Gilles de Rais hung; flames licked his body, swinging on a strong rope. After the lingering ringing of the cathedral bells, the crowd watching the redemption scene drew on Dies irae.
The bodies of the servants were burned, their ashes were scattered in the wind. The corpse of the marshal, however, was buried, as expected, on the territory of the Carmelite church, not far from the place of retribution. Thus ended the life of one of the most extraordinary criminals in the history of witchcraft.
N. Nepomniachtchi