Chapter V · Gilles’s Trial before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal (continued 2)

And addressing himself to the parents in the crowd, he said:

“O you, who have sons and daughters, I pray you to instruct them in good doctrine in their infancy and their youth, and to lead them with care in the paths of virtue.”

The relief produced on his mind by his confession, casting off the great load he had been carrying, caused his spirits to rise to a contemplation of the situation, which produced a calm, if not a joy, in the assurance that he had made his peace with God and secured a place in Paradise. Apparently stimulated by this feeling, he grew eloquent, and though some of the words may have been put into his mouth by those who reported him, yet one can easily see that he was filled with emotion, and that the thoughts crowded thick upon him because of his belief that in this way his soul had escaped hell fire:

“Judged by the declaration that I have made here, of the faults of which I am culpable, by the shame which appears in my face, I hope to obtain more easily the Grace of God and the remission of my sins. I think they will be easier forgotten in His mercy. My entire youth was passed in the delicacies of the table, I was subject to my caprices, nothing to me was sacred, all the evils that I could do have been accomplished. In this I put all my hope, all my thought, all my care. Everything that was prohibited, everything that was dishonest, attracted me, and in order to obtain it there was no means, however shameful and disgraceful, that I was not ready to employ.”

Addressing himself this time to the public present, he said:

“Fathers and mothers who hear me, and you all, friends, relatives, and guardians of the young whom you love, whoever you may be, I pray you be watchful over them, form for them good manners, set for them a good example, teach them healthy doctrine, nourish them in your hearts, but above all, do not fear to correct their faults, for, as I myself have been, so is it possible for them to become, and so likewise, they may fall into the same abyss.”

As he sat down amidst the silence of that awful hour, a visible shudder ran over the audience; judges and priests, accustomed, one to condemn, the other to console, both hearing these terrible confessions of evil deeds, were visibly affected. Before any word or business could be spoken, Gilles arose again to say another word:

“Whatever may be the perils of my soul, I am still not drowned or lost—I am redeemable, and I believe that the clemencies of God and the suffrages of the holy Church, in which I have always put my hope and my heart, have succoured me with such mercy. To all who hear me, clerks and priests of the Church, I would say: love always our holy Mother Church, revere her, give to her always the greatest respect. If I had not had this reverence and respect for her in my heart and in my affliction, I never would have been able to escape the hands of the demon. The nature of my crimes is such, that without the protection of the Church, the demon would have strangled me and carried me, soul and body, to the depths.”

It is reported that, addressing for a third time the fathers of families, he said:

“Guard you well, I pray you, to lift your infants above the delicacies of life and the fatal sweetness of idleness, for the excesses of appetite and the habits of idleness give rise to the greatest evils. Idleness, the delicacies of the table, the frequent use of wine, drinking, appetite, drunkenness, these things are the causes of my faults and my crimes. O God, my Creator and my well-beloved Redeemer, I ask mercy and pardon! And you, parents and friends of the infants that I have so cruelly put to death, you against whom I have sinned and whom I have so nearly destroyed, present or absent, in whatever place you may be, as Christians and faithfuls of Jesus Christ, I pray you on my knees and with tears, to accord to me, oh, to give to me, the succour and aid of your pious prayers.”

The effect of these words can be better understood than described. Amid the impressive silence of such a spectacle, nothing was to be said. The court adjourned until the next day, Tuesday, October 25th, and the crowd poured silently and sorrowfully into the streets on their way to their homes, each heart filled with the most profound emotions, and each person cherishing the remembrance of the most solemn scene he had ever witnessed and the gravest advice he had ever heard.

The session of the next day was to hear the sentence of the court. It had been reduced to writing, and was read by the clerk, Jacques Pencoetdic, an official of the church of Nantes:

“In the holy name of Christ, we, Jean, Bishop of Nantes, and Brother Jean Blouyn, Bachelor of Holy Scripture of the order of Friars Preachers and the Delegate for the Inquisitor for heresy for the city and diocese of Nantes, in session as attributed, and having nothing before our eyes but God alone, the advice and consent of our Lord Bishop, the Jurisconsuls, the doctors, professors of Holy Scripture here present; after having examined all the depositions of the witnesses in charge called in our own name and in the name of the prosecutor deputised by us, against Gilles de Retz, our subject, and under our jurisdiction, after having reduced to writing and digested the depositions, after having heard his own proper confession made spontaneously in our presence, and after having weighed and considered these and all other reasons which can affect our determination, we pronounce, we decide, we declare, that thou, Gilles de Retz, cited before our tribunal, art shamefully culpable of heresy, apostacy, invocation of demons; that for these crimes, thou hast incurred the sentence of excommunication and all the other punishments determined by right and by law; and, finally, thou oughtest to be punished and corrected according to the will of the law and the exigencies of the holy canons, as an heretic, apostate, and invocator of demons.”

The second sentence was in similar language, concluding, however, as follows:

“Thou, Gilles de Retz, hast shamefully committed crimes with infants of one or the other sex; thou hast committed sacrilege; hast violated the immunities of the Church; by these crimes, thou hast incurred the sentence of excommunication and all other punishments fixed by law; and thou art, by consequence, to be punished and corrected according to thy salvation and the will and exigencies of law and the holy canons.”

All Gilles’s fears returned when he realised that he was to be convicted of heresy and condemned to excommunication. Falling on his knees, tears in his eyes, trembling, he humbly pleaded and begged the judges to lift from his life, now so near ended and so worthless, this excommunication. After consultation together, it was determined by the Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor to grant this prayer, and the decree of excommunication was annulled in the usual form. Gilles was admitted to the administration of the Holy Sacraments, and permission given him to commune with the faithful. Gilles immediately demanded the appointment of a priest to hear him in confession, that he might profess his penitence and receive absolution from his sins, and the Frère Jean Juvenal, a Carmelite of Plouarmel, was designated for that purpose.

So terminated the ecclesiastical trial of Gilles de Retz. It commenced on the 17th of September and lasted one month and eight days. It ended in his conviction of the only crimes of which the ecclesiastical court had jurisdiction, to wit, heresy, apostacy, and invocation of demons. The sentence was excommunication, which, we have seen, was lifted, and the final outcome of this trial was the repentance of Gilles de Retz.

Now we turn to the process instituted by the civil tribunal for the trial of Gilles upon other charges than those of which he was convicted by the ecclesiastical court. The usual close of the sentence of an ecclesiastical court, wherein the accused was charged with other crimes than those with which the court had jurisdiction, would be: “Go in peace, the Church can no longer defend thee, she delivers thee to the secular arm” (bras séculier). But this declaration was not made; it was useless, for it was well known to the judges that the civil court had already been organised and had taken cognisance and jurisdiction of the various crimes of Gilles, such as had been charged and so well proved before the ecclesiastical court.