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By the time he went to trial, he must have known that his life was forfeit. Judges in the 15th century wanted confessions and punishment, not the truth. Gilles would not have been allowed to go to the gallows and stand before the crowd to make a speech of his innocence. He would have been tortured into confession and then executed.
Jun 2, 2017 · An illustration of Gilles de Rais, Baron de Retz, from L’Histoire de la magie, 1870. Public Domain “I’m still finding things that are cited as fact in all the biographies that turn out to be ...
- Sonya Vatomsky
Apr 3, 2024 · Role In: Hundred Years’ War. Gilles de Rais (born September/October 1404, Champtocé, France—died October 26, 1440, Nantes) was a Breton baron, marshal of France, and man of wealth whose distinguished career ended in a celebrated trial for Satanism, abduction, and child murder. His name was later connected with the story of Bluebeard.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The soldier, nobleman, and multicide Gilles de Rais ranks among the most notorious criminals of the fifteenth century. Executed at Nantes in 1440 for a host of crimes, which apparently included heresy, the invocation of demons, and the murder of an undetermined number of children, he is a figure tailor-made for lasting infamy.
Charge XV of the indictment is explicit - that "for the past fourteen years, every year, every month, every day, every night and every hour... [Gilles] took, killed, cut the throats of many children, boys and girls..." Jean de Malestroit had scoured the region searching for proof that Gilles de Rais was some kind of child-devouring ogre.
Aug 11, 2013 · De l´Hôpital seems to have had grave misgivings about the legality of the proceedings and Gilles´ culpability; not only did he allow the condemned man several unheard-of favours at the end, he also neglected to sign the pages of the transcript that contained Gilles´ confession, as he was obliged by law to do.
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Sep 13, 2020 · Gilles de Rais was innocent. Born 1404. Executed 1440. Exonerated 1992. It is now widely accepted that the trial of Gilles de Rais was a miscarriage of justice. He was a great war hero on the French side; his judges were pro-English and had an interest in blackening his name and, possibly, by association, that of Jehanne d'Arc.
