The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

hurried on. It would have been easy to have captured some of

the accomplices of the wretched man; but the duke, who was informed of

the whole of the proceedings, did not wish to augment the scandal by

increasing the number of the accused. He even forbade researches to be

made in the castles and mansions of the Sire de Retz, fearing lest

proofs of fresh crimes, more mysterious and more horrible than those

already divulged, should come to light.

 

The dismay spread through the country by the revelations already made,

demanded that religion and morality, which had been so grossly

outraged, should be speedily avenged. People wondered at the delay in

pronouncing sentence, and it was loudly proclaimed in Nantes that the

Sire de Retz was rich enough to purchase his life. It is true that

Madame de Retz solicited the king and the duke again to give pardon to

her husband; but the duke, counselled by the bishop, refused to extend

his authority to interfere with the course of justice; and the king,

after having sent one of his councillors to Nantes to investigate the

case, determined not to stir in it.

 

CHAPTER XIII.

 

MARÉCHAL DE RETZ.—III. THE SENTENCE AND EXECUTION.

 

On the 24th October the trial of the Maréchal de Retz was resumed. The

prisoner entered in a Carmelite habit, knelt and prayed in silence

before the examination began. Then he ran his eye over the court, and

the sight of the rack, windlass, and cords made a slight shudder run

through him.

 

“Messire Gilles de Laval,” began the president; “you appear before me

now for the second time to answer to a certain requisition read by M.

le Lieutenant du Procureur de Nantes.”

 

“I shall answer frankly, monseigneur,” said the prisoner calmly; “but

I reserve the right of appeal to the benign intervention of the very

venerated majesty of the King of France, of whom I am, or have been,

chamberlain and marshal, as may be proved by my letters patent duly

enregistered in the parliament at Paris—”

 

“This is no affair of the King of France,” interrupted Pierre de

l’Hospital; “if you were chamberlain and marshal of his Majesty, you

are also vassal of his grace the Duke of Brittany.”

 

“I do not deny it; but, on the contrary, I trust to his Grace of

Brittany to allow me to retire to a convent of Carmelites, there to

repent me of my sins.”

 

“That is as may be; will you confess, or must I send you to the rack?”

 

“Torture me not!” exclaimed Gilles de Retz “I will confess all. Tell

me first, what have Henriet and Pontou said?”

 

“They have confessed. M. le Lieutenant du Procureur shall read you

their allegations.”

 

“Not so,” said the lieutenant, who continued to show favour to the

accused; “I pronounce them false, unless Messire de Retz confirms them

by oath, which God forbid!”

 

Pierre de l’Hospital made a motion of anger to check this scandalous

pleading in favour of the accused, and then nodded to the clerk to

read the evidence.

 

The Sire do Retz, on hearing that his servants had made such explicit

avowals of their acts, remained motionless, as though thunderstruck.

He saw that it was in vain for him to equivocate, and that he would

have to confess all.

 

“What have you to say?” asked the president, when the confessions of

Henriet and Pontou had been read.

 

“Say what befits you, my lord,” interrupted the lieutenant du

procureur, as though to indicate to the accused the line he was to

take: “are not these abominable lies and calumnies trumped up to ruin

you?”

 

“Alas, no!” replied the Sire do Retz; and his face was pale as death:

“Henriet and Pontou have spoken the truth. God has loosened their

tongues.”

 

“My lord! relieve yourself of the burden of your crimes by

acknowledging them at once,” said M. do l’Hospital earnestly.

 

“Messires!” said the prisoner, after a moment’s silence: “it is quite

true that I have robbed mothers of their little ones; and that I have

killed their children, or caused them to be killed, either by cutting

their throats with daggers or knives, or by chopping off their heads

with cleavers; or else I have had their skulls broken by hammers or

sticks; sometimes I had their limbs hewn off one after another; at

other times I have ripped them open, that I might examine their

entrails and hearts; I have occasionally strangled them or put them to

a slow death; and when the children were dead I had their bodies

burned and reduced to ashes.”

 

“When did you begin your execrable practices?” asked Pierre de

l’Hospital, staggered by the frankness of these horrible avowals: “the

evil one must have possessed you.”

 

“It came to me from myself,—no doubt at the instigation of the devil:

but still these acts of cruelty afforded me incomparable delight. The

desire to commit these atrocities came upon me eight years ago. I left

court to go to Chantoncé, that I might claim the property of my

grandfather, deceased. In the library of the castle I found a Latin

book—_Suetonius_, I believe—full of accounts of the cruelties of the

Roman Emperors. I read the charming history of Tiberius, Caracalla,

and other Cæsars, and the pleasure they took in watching the agonies

of tortured children. Thereupon I resolved to imitate and surpass

these same Cæsars, and that very night I began to do so. For some

while I confided my secret to no one, but afterwards I communicated it

to my cousin, Gilles de Sillé, then to Master Roger de Briqueville,

next in succession to Henriet, Pontou, Rossignol, and Robin.” He then

confirmed all the accounts given by his two servants. He confessed to

about one hundred and twenty murders in a single year.

 

“An average of eight hundred in less than seven years!” exclaimed

Pierre de l’Hospital, with a cry of pain: “Ah! messire, you were

possessed! “

 

His confession was too explicit and circumstantial for the Lieutenant

du Procureur to say another word in his defence; but he pleaded that

the case should be made over to the ecclesiastical court, as there

were confessions of invocations of the devil and of witchcraft mixed

up with those of murder. Pierre de l’Hospital saw that the object of

the lieutenant was to gain time for Mme. de Retz to make a fresh

attempt to obtain a pardon; however he was unable to resist, so he

consented that the case should be transferred to the bishop’s court.

 

But the bishop was not a man to let the matter slip, and there and

then a sergeant of the bishop summoned Gilles de Laval, Sire do Retz,

to appear forthwith before the ecclesiastical tribunal. The marshal

was staggered by this unexpected citation, and he did not think of

appealing against it to the president; he merely signed his readiness

to follow, and he was at once conducted into the ecclesiastical court

assembled hurriedly to try him.

 

This new trial lasted only a few hours.

 

The marshal, now thoroughly cowed, made no attempt to defend himself,

but he endeavoured to bribe the bishop into leniency, by promises of

the surrender of all his lands and goods to the Church, and begged to

be allowed to retire into the Carmelite monastery at Nantes.

 

His request was peremptorily refused, and sentence of death was

pronounced against him.

 

On the 25th October, the ecclesiastical court having pronounced

judgment, the sentence was transmitted to the secular court, which had

now no pretext upon which to withhold ratification.

 

There was some hesitation as to the kind of death the marshal was to

suffer. The members of the secular tribunal were not unanimous on this

point. The president put it to the vote, and collected the votes

himself; then he reseated himself, covered his head, and said in a

solemn voice:—

 

“The court, notwithstanding the quality, dignity, and nobility of the

accused, condemns him to be hung and burned. Wherefore I admonish you

who are condemned, to ask pardon of God, and grace to die well, in

great contrition for having committed the said crimes. And the said

sentence shall be carried into execution to-morrow morning between

eleven and twelve o’clock.” A similar sentence was pronounced upon

Henriet and Pontou.

 

On the morrow, October 26th, at nine o’clock in the morning, a general

procession composed of half the people of Nantes, the clergy and the

bishop bearing the blessed Sacrament, left the cathedral and went

round the city visiting each of the principal churches, where masses

were said for the three under sentence.

 

At eleven the prisoners were conducted to the place of execution,

which was in the meadow of Biesse, on the further side of the Loire.

 

Three gibbets had been erected, one higher than the others, and

beneath each was a pile of faggots, tar, and brushwood.

 

It was a glorious, breezy day, not a cloud was to be seen in the blue

heavens; the Loire rolled silently towards the sea its mighty volumes

of turbid water, seeming bright and blue as it reflected the

brilliancy and colour of the sky. The poplars shivered and whitened in

the fresh air with a pleasant rustle, and the willows flickered and

wavered above the stream.

 

A vast crowd had assembled round the gallows; it was with difficulty

that a way was made for the condemned, who came on chanting the _De

profundis_. The spectators of all ages took up the psalm and chanted

it with them, so that the surge of the old Gregorian tone might have

been heard by the duke and the bishop, who had shut themselves up in

the château of Nantes during the hour of execution.

 

After the close of the psalm, which was terminated by the _Requiem

æternam_ instead of the Gloria, the Sire de Retz thanked those who

had conducted him, and then embraced Pontou and Henriet, before

delivering himself of the following address, or rather sermon:—

 

“My very dear friends and servants, be strong and courageous against

the assaults of the devil, and feel great displeasure and contrition

for your ill deeds, without despairing of God’s mercy. Believe with

me, that there is no sin, however great, in the world, which God, in

his grace and loving kindness, will not pardon, when one asks it of

Him with contrition of heart. Remember that the Lord God is always

more ready to receive the sinner than is the sinner to ask of Him

pardon. Moreover, let us very humbly thank Him for his great love to

us in letting us die in full possession of our faculties, and not

cutting us off suddenly in the midst of our misdeeds. Let us conceive

such a love of God, and such repentance, that we shall not fear death,

which is only a little pang, without which we could not see God in his

glory. Besides we must desire to be freed from this world, in which is

only misery, that we may go to everlasting glory. Let us rejoice

rather, for although we have sinned grievously here below, yet we

shall be united in Paradise, our souls being parted from our bodies,

and we shall be together for ever and ever, if only we endure in our

pious and honourable contrition to our last sigh.” [1] Then the

marshal, who was to be executed first, left his companions and placed

himself in the hands of his executioners. He took off his cap, knelt,

kissed a crucifix, and made a pious oration to the crowd much in the

style of his address to his friends Pontou and Henriet.

 

[1. The case of the Sire de Retz is one to