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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
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