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Trial of Gilles De Rais
The true story of the trial of Gilles De Rais, French nobleman of the Middle Ages who was tried for the heinous murders of children and the practice of the Black Arts.
322 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
Georges Bataille
232 books2,534 followersFrench essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.
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December 21, 2019
In wondering if Gilles de Rais is the “most abject criminal of all time,” this text opens with the observation that “crime hides” (13), parallel to Poe’s principle that “thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.” (Please be advised that, for modern purposes, de Rais stands convicted of the abduction, rape, and murder of dozens of minor children; the facts may bear the allegation that his toll runs rather into the hundreds.)
Bataille notes that de Rais is “monstrous,” a “legendary monster” (17) likened and at times equated in the folklore with Bluebeard. (We should note well the etymology of monstrous here, perhaps recalling the significance of it in Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers--Bataille’s subheading for this section ‘Sacred Monster,’ which is totally Genet.) But if de Rais is a warning, against which Evil does he warn? If he is sacred, for whom is he consecrated in the agambenian sense? “As if so excessive a story was unable to have anything but a monster as its protagonist, a being outside common humanity for whom the only appropriate name was one charged with legendary miasmas. Bluebeard could not have been one of our own, only a sacred monster unbound the limits of ordinary life” (19). But, there’s also a sense of “sovereign monstrosity” (20).
One refrain is that de Rais is an ‘energumen,’ One possessed (from Greek energeo, ‘to influence’) (21, 47, 60, 124). For de Rais, “as for barbarians of the past, the goal was breaking bounds; it was a question of living sovereignly” (34); “the privilege of the German warrior was to feel himself above the laws” (id.). Bataille regards the monstrosity however as “childlike” (33): “in the manner of savages” and “as a cannibal”—“more precisely, as one of his Germanic ancestors, unbounded by civilized principles” (id.).
This basic narrative here is as though it were the model for de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom: de Rais’ lineages “number among the noblest, richest, and most influential houses of feudal society” (24). It is most definitely a matter of “libertines inured in vice” (40). His father died at Agincourt; he was raised by his grandfather, a bandit, whose “fortune is considerable”: “Except for the ducal family, his is the richest feudatory in Anjou” (26). Regarding some of the crimes that de Rais and his grandfather committed, “it is possible to imagine the brutalities of the Nazis” (27). He is certainly guided by instrumental reason (with all of the critique that Horkheimer gives of this concept in The Eclipse of Reason) insofar as de Rais “is in agreement with the principle of reason which always, in an act, looks to the end result” (27). At his trial, de Rais noted “the origin of these crimes” as “the bad management he had received in his childhood” (35)—in this prototypical serial killer case, we always already have the cliché of the abused childhood as mitigatory evidence.
Likely these crimes are not gendered, or at least gender is not substantially probative—we have a Hungarian aristocrat, one Erzebeth Bathory” who “yielded to a desire to kill daughters of the lesser nobility” (41). This leads to the quasi-marxist argument that de Rais “represents in a pure state the impulse that tends to subordinate the activity of men to enchantment, to the game of the privileged class” (42). Our monstrous protagonist here is “the very principle of the nobility, what it is in essence, is the refusal to suffer degradation or disgrace – which would be the inevitable effect of work” (id.).
We must recall that de Rais was one of Joan of Arc’s marshals, and had success against the English occupant during the Hundred Years War: “The interest of work is subordinated to its result; the interest of war is nothing but war” (43). (Some think that de Rais was preparing to rescue Joan at Rouen just before her execution (81); his crimes began after she was executed and the war was over.)
Bataille wants to argue that “the tragedy of de Rais […] is the tragedy of feudal society, the tragedy of the nobility” (46). Part of the tragedy, allegedly, is de Rais’ financial ruin, based on extravagant expenditure that caused him to alienate a number of properties (by ‘property,’ we mean castles). After the war was over, de Rais, “for whom the game of war was lost, needed a compensation. He seems to have found it in the game of ostentatious expenditure” (48), the main argument of The Accursed Share:
as well as his castle in Champtoce: 
and the castle of Tiffauges:
After he sold some of these, his relatives interdicted him, obtaining “royal letters of prohibition” against him (52, 97). The scope of the spending, for instance, was 80-100,000 crowns for several visits to Orleans for a festival in honor of Joan in 1435—which may amount to “a billion of our own money” (96). Finding “feudal superiority, insolence, and exploitation essential to the nobility,” Bataille notes that the “impulse that personifies tragedy can be accounted for by one formula: facing headlong into the impossible” (53). In that connection, the weirdest aspect of all this—and the most important for the ancient law—is the conjuring Satan stuff. Many of the children were apparently sacrificed as part of sorcerous rites, and dude retained conjurors and alchemists and whatnot. Part of the alchemy stuff was to fabricate gold, and de Rais was apparently taken in by scammers here; the narrative therefore also prefigures Ben Jonson and Kit Marlowe. (He also prefigures celebrity impersonators to the extent that he retained a fake Joan in 1439 (110). Wtf?)
After the wars ended, de Rais’ expenditures were in part to maintain his own private army, which took to banditry, as he had learned from his grandfather; i.e., we should note very fucking well that the bandit here is not a Robin Hood, but rather a multi-castle owning aristocrat who is addicted to war. The monarch issued “the great ordinance of 1439 following a meeting of the Estates General of Orleans” which ordinance “points to the continual progress, in spite of overwhelming disorder, of administration [!] and law over arbitrariness and violence,” and it is “to put an end to ‘the tremendous excesses and pillages’ that are desolating the realm” and seeks “to substitute a regular army based on discipline and military hierarchy for the bands of brigands commanded by lords” (117). Bataille interestingly regards this ordinance as: “dictated by reason, marks the birth of the modern world, a bourgeois world, where the unrestrained violence of a Gilles de Rais will find no place” (117). This is what Ayn Rand and her objectivist cult will never understand: the want of a public sphere, of a state, is the feudalist world of private arms and indiscriminate violence led by the propertied. The bourgeois order is instituted as a public space, by a state, with its monopolization on legitimate violence, that protects the space necessary for liberal institutions to develop. When I read Rand, all I see de Rais.
The last two-fifths of the text contains the trial documents. Procedurally it’s all very interesting, moving very fast from investigation to indictment to trial to execution. Substantively it seems fairly obvious that the evidence is beyond sufficient to convict, though torture is used (not against the parents of missing children, who all said that they delivered their kids over to the servants of de Rais, and the servants, who explained the rituals and rapes and murders). What is damned curious is that the indictment (168 ff) and depositions (209 ff) and sentences (204 ff) are very concerned about sodomy and heresy and sorcery—but where is murder? It is a bizarre, curious, gross absence.
The ultimate weirdness is that, just prior to their executions, de Rais told his two main servants that “as soon as their souls left their bodies, those who had committed evil together would thereby meet each other again in glory, with God, in paradise” (284). The servants were hanged and burned, whereas de Rais was hanged and then “before the flames could open his body and entrails, it was drawn away and his body placed in a coffin and carried inside the Carmelite church of Nantes, where it was buried” (285). I guess all that murder and rape and whatnot was okay after all.
Bataille notes that de Rais is “monstrous,” a “legendary monster” (17) likened and at times equated in the folklore with Bluebeard. (We should note well the etymology of monstrous here, perhaps recalling the significance of it in Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers--Bataille’s subheading for this section ‘Sacred Monster,’ which is totally Genet.) But if de Rais is a warning, against which Evil does he warn? If he is sacred, for whom is he consecrated in the agambenian sense? “As if so excessive a story was unable to have anything but a monster as its protagonist, a being outside common humanity for whom the only appropriate name was one charged with legendary miasmas. Bluebeard could not have been one of our own, only a sacred monster unbound the limits of ordinary life” (19). But, there’s also a sense of “sovereign monstrosity” (20).
One refrain is that de Rais is an ‘energumen,’ One possessed (from Greek energeo, ‘to influence’) (21, 47, 60, 124). For de Rais, “as for barbarians of the past, the goal was breaking bounds; it was a question of living sovereignly” (34); “the privilege of the German warrior was to feel himself above the laws” (id.). Bataille regards the monstrosity however as “childlike” (33): “in the manner of savages” and “as a cannibal”—“more precisely, as one of his Germanic ancestors, unbounded by civilized principles” (id.).
This basic narrative here is as though it were the model for de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom: de Rais’ lineages “number among the noblest, richest, and most influential houses of feudal society” (24). It is most definitely a matter of “libertines inured in vice” (40). His father died at Agincourt; he was raised by his grandfather, a bandit, whose “fortune is considerable”: “Except for the ducal family, his is the richest feudatory in Anjou” (26). Regarding some of the crimes that de Rais and his grandfather committed, “it is possible to imagine the brutalities of the Nazis” (27). He is certainly guided by instrumental reason (with all of the critique that Horkheimer gives of this concept in The Eclipse of Reason) insofar as de Rais “is in agreement with the principle of reason which always, in an act, looks to the end result” (27). At his trial, de Rais noted “the origin of these crimes” as “the bad management he had received in his childhood” (35)—in this prototypical serial killer case, we always already have the cliché of the abused childhood as mitigatory evidence.
Likely these crimes are not gendered, or at least gender is not substantially probative—we have a Hungarian aristocrat, one Erzebeth Bathory” who “yielded to a desire to kill daughters of the lesser nobility” (41). This leads to the quasi-marxist argument that de Rais “represents in a pure state the impulse that tends to subordinate the activity of men to enchantment, to the game of the privileged class” (42). Our monstrous protagonist here is “the very principle of the nobility, what it is in essence, is the refusal to suffer degradation or disgrace – which would be the inevitable effect of work” (id.).
We must recall that de Rais was one of Joan of Arc’s marshals, and had success against the English occupant during the Hundred Years War: “The interest of work is subordinated to its result; the interest of war is nothing but war” (43). (Some think that de Rais was preparing to rescue Joan at Rouen just before her execution (81); his crimes began after she was executed and the war was over.)
Bataille wants to argue that “the tragedy of de Rais […] is the tragedy of feudal society, the tragedy of the nobility” (46). Part of the tragedy, allegedly, is de Rais’ financial ruin, based on extravagant expenditure that caused him to alienate a number of properties (by ‘property,’ we mean castles). After the war was over, de Rais, “for whom the game of war was lost, needed a compensation. He seems to have found it in the game of ostentatious expenditure” (48), the main argument of The Accursed Share:
In societies different from our own—we ourselves accumulate wealth with a view to continual growth—the principle has prevailed instead to squander or lose wealth, to give it away or destroy it. Accumulated wealth has the same meaning as work; on the other hand, wealth wasted or destroyed in tribal potlaches has the meaning of a game. Accumulated wealth has only a subordinate value; in the eyes of whoever squanders or destroys it, wealth squandered or destroyed has a sovereign value, for it serves nothing else if not this squandering itself, or this fascinating destruction. (48)The properties alienated included the castle of Machecoul:
as well as his castle in Champtoce: and the castle of Tiffauges: After he sold some of these, his relatives interdicted him, obtaining “royal letters of prohibition” against him (52, 97). The scope of the spending, for instance, was 80-100,000 crowns for several visits to Orleans for a festival in honor of Joan in 1435—which may amount to “a billion of our own money” (96). Finding “feudal superiority, insolence, and exploitation essential to the nobility,” Bataille notes that the “impulse that personifies tragedy can be accounted for by one formula: facing headlong into the impossible” (53). In that connection, the weirdest aspect of all this—and the most important for the ancient law—is the conjuring Satan stuff. Many of the children were apparently sacrificed as part of sorcerous rites, and dude retained conjurors and alchemists and whatnot. Part of the alchemy stuff was to fabricate gold, and de Rais was apparently taken in by scammers here; the narrative therefore also prefigures Ben Jonson and Kit Marlowe. (He also prefigures celebrity impersonators to the extent that he retained a fake Joan in 1439 (110). Wtf?)
After the wars ended, de Rais’ expenditures were in part to maintain his own private army, which took to banditry, as he had learned from his grandfather; i.e., we should note very fucking well that the bandit here is not a Robin Hood, but rather a multi-castle owning aristocrat who is addicted to war. The monarch issued “the great ordinance of 1439 following a meeting of the Estates General of Orleans” which ordinance “points to the continual progress, in spite of overwhelming disorder, of administration [!] and law over arbitrariness and violence,” and it is “to put an end to ‘the tremendous excesses and pillages’ that are desolating the realm” and seeks “to substitute a regular army based on discipline and military hierarchy for the bands of brigands commanded by lords” (117). Bataille interestingly regards this ordinance as: “dictated by reason, marks the birth of the modern world, a bourgeois world, where the unrestrained violence of a Gilles de Rais will find no place” (117). This is what Ayn Rand and her objectivist cult will never understand: the want of a public sphere, of a state, is the feudalist world of private arms and indiscriminate violence led by the propertied. The bourgeois order is instituted as a public space, by a state, with its monopolization on legitimate violence, that protects the space necessary for liberal institutions to develop. When I read Rand, all I see de Rais.
The last two-fifths of the text contains the trial documents. Procedurally it’s all very interesting, moving very fast from investigation to indictment to trial to execution. Substantively it seems fairly obvious that the evidence is beyond sufficient to convict, though torture is used (not against the parents of missing children, who all said that they delivered their kids over to the servants of de Rais, and the servants, who explained the rituals and rapes and murders). What is damned curious is that the indictment (168 ff) and depositions (209 ff) and sentences (204 ff) are very concerned about sodomy and heresy and sorcery—but where is murder? It is a bizarre, curious, gross absence.
The ultimate weirdness is that, just prior to their executions, de Rais told his two main servants that “as soon as their souls left their bodies, those who had committed evil together would thereby meet each other again in glory, with God, in paradise” (284). The servants were hanged and burned, whereas de Rais was hanged and then “before the flames could open his body and entrails, it was drawn away and his body placed in a coffin and carried inside the Carmelite church of Nantes, where it was buried” (285). I guess all that murder and rape and whatnot was okay after all.
April 21, 2011
I give up. I give up because I had to take Gravity's Rainbow to work today instead to get a respite from the torture of reading this book, and Gravity's Rainbow is nothing if not an unnatural respite, and I assure you the aforementioned "torture" had nothing to do with Gilles de Rais, one of the most compelling actual torturers of all time, his perversion and bloodthirst outshining the competition even during the very golden age of outlandish torturing! I braced myself (as one needs to do similarly with both Bataille and the juiciest serial killers, typically), but met only Bataille's unfortunate restraint or just...utter failure to present anything but the most tepid, clinical rendering imaginable of a mindbogglingly gullible and stupid beast of a man who first buddied up with Joan of Arc but then actually (or concurrently, as the case may be) raped and gruesomely killed and dismembered HUNDREDS of innocent children. I mean, there it is: goosebumps quiver up even from thinking about Gilles' sending out his charismatic, orgy- and wine-bloated toadies to procure so many of the most beautiful children to the putrid castles to sodomize them, slit their throats, rip them asunder and proudly display their decorative bits about, put pieces of them into jars to use in the invocation of demons, collect their heads in rooms to rank them in cherubic beauty as the flesh started to shrink back from their mouths! HOW COULD BATAILLE SCREW THIS UP??!
I grant he had limited and dull sources and I certainly didn't want him to invent details beyond these court transcriptions, but come ON: allow me the chills this nakedly demands! You are the master of perversion and you glued on your historian cap at the most annoying moment.
To sum up what I think transpired to snuff out the potential glut of enticing depravity: destructive interference. I wouldn't have believed it had I not read this myself, but the wavelengths of the most deranged writer fully offset the tale of one of the most flagitious, flamboyant killer-freaks of all time. Snore fest.
I grant he had limited and dull sources and I certainly didn't want him to invent details beyond these court transcriptions, but come ON: allow me the chills this nakedly demands! You are the master of perversion and you glued on your historian cap at the most annoying moment.
To sum up what I think transpired to snuff out the potential glut of enticing depravity: destructive interference. I wouldn't have believed it had I not read this myself, but the wavelengths of the most deranged writer fully offset the tale of one of the most flagitious, flamboyant killer-freaks of all time. Snore fest.
December 7, 2016
What grips us in Gilles de Rais' death is the compassion. It seems that this criminal moved his audience to compassion; in part by reason of his atrocity, in part by virtue of his nobility and the fact that he was crying.
This observation occurs near the end of Bataille's summation of crimes and trial of the infamous de Rais. Following this is 150 pages of transcripts from the ecclesiastical and secular trials. What Bataille achieves in his Foucauldean burrowing is a 15C world where the devil or at least a diabolical affinity had to be culpable. His own analysis is rather Marxist, looking at the milieu of the gentry with its privilege and the subsequent marginalization of the peasantry. All of this transpired during a time of day incessant warfare between England and France. All of this contributes to a berserker medium of sexual experimentation.
Beyond that, it was largely inexplicable that this man who once fought alongside Joan of Arc would later seek to and succeed in sodomizing and murdering 140 children.
I should note that my subconscious appeared to be maladjusted by this gruesome experience. Be forewarned.
This observation occurs near the end of Bataille's summation of crimes and trial of the infamous de Rais. Following this is 150 pages of transcripts from the ecclesiastical and secular trials. What Bataille achieves in his Foucauldean burrowing is a 15C world where the devil or at least a diabolical affinity had to be culpable. His own analysis is rather Marxist, looking at the milieu of the gentry with its privilege and the subsequent marginalization of the peasantry. All of this transpired during a time of day incessant warfare between England and France. All of this contributes to a berserker medium of sexual experimentation.
Beyond that, it was largely inexplicable that this man who once fought alongside Joan of Arc would later seek to and succeed in sodomizing and murdering 140 children.
I should note that my subconscious appeared to be maladjusted by this gruesome experience. Be forewarned.
January 26, 2017
Gilles de Rais como figura representante de la maldad en su forma más pura y simple es bastante adecuada, como un animal salvaje, corrupto e inocente, formado por sí mismo y su entorno.
Esa era la premisa del libro, una biografía. Fue una lectura clara pero esperaba más considerando la capacidad descriptiva de Bataille y su atracción por lo visceral lo cual es una pena ya que este libro pudo haber sido ataque toxico hacia la mente si se hubiera hecho con esa intención.
Esa era la premisa del libro, una biografía. Fue una lectura clara pero esperaba más considerando la capacidad descriptiva de Bataille y su atracción por lo visceral lo cual es una pena ya que este libro pudo haber sido ataque toxico hacia la mente si se hubiera hecho con esa intención.
October 3, 2019
Un ensayo sobre la vida de este temible monstruo que lamentablemente existió. En muchas ocasiones se le recuerda o compra con barba azul y eso fue lo que me llevó a leer este libro, ya que a mi no se me parecía mucho la historia y realmente no estaba equivocada. Lástima lo que una posición social y el poder pueden alcahuetear, incluso hoy en día, aunque en esta oportunidad tuvo su justo castigo. En cuanto a la narración me costó mucho introducirme en la lectura, tuve que releer algunos párrafos y eso que estaba interesada en el tema, no sé si es un tema de traducción o de origen, pero me parecio pesada, repetitiva en algunos casos y toda la información la contaba como de sopetón. Por cierto el prólogo de Vargas Llosa me lo salté por completo, porque desde el principio me tenía un poco estresada. Así que no fue mi lectura favorita, ni por el personaje ni por la narración pero me hizo salir de dudas.
April 20, 2017
Kind of an early true-crime book, but re-done by the great kink of all kinks, M. Georges Bataille. My friend Stuart (Amok) put this book together and he did an amazing job as a publisher (only another publisher appreciates other publishers). The trial manuscripts read like a combination of a Dennis Cooper novel and a work from a weird part of the brain. Remarkable.
December 4, 2017
How many times can you write the same thing? Apparently, quite a few.
March 27, 2024
gilles de rais son or joan of arc daughter? i am both
October 17, 2019
Georges Bataille nos transmite, con sus conceptos y subjetividades, las razones, virtudes y forma de vida del nefasto personaje glorificado.
Con un léxico mayoritariamente ameno nos va conduciendo por su interpretación de Guilles de Rais, no cayendo en lo mórbido, con algunos prejuzgamientos de su época nos brinda un pantallazo decente de él.
Así como faltó lo mórbido, también las explicaciones del sucesivo misticismo y de la mecánica analítica de los procesos psíquicos del personaje. Si bien indago en revueltas de la mente, se dejo absorber por su lineamiento y no estableció otras posibles vías más allá que anecdóticas.
Quizá un buen principio si se quiero indagar en las sombras y espectros de Guilles de Rais.
Con un léxico mayoritariamente ameno nos va conduciendo por su interpretación de Guilles de Rais, no cayendo en lo mórbido, con algunos prejuzgamientos de su época nos brinda un pantallazo decente de él.
Así como faltó lo mórbido, también las explicaciones del sucesivo misticismo y de la mecánica analítica de los procesos psíquicos del personaje. Si bien indago en revueltas de la mente, se dejo absorber por su lineamiento y no estableció otras posibles vías más allá que anecdóticas.
Quizá un buen principio si se quiero indagar en las sombras y espectros de Guilles de Rais.
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June 12, 2016Il declino di Gilles de Rais mostra aspetti di magnificenza funebre. Si sente l’ossessione della morte: poco per volta, un uomo si chiude nella solitudine del crimine, dell’omosessualità, della tomba; in quel profondo silenzio, i volti che l’ossessionano sono quelli dei bambini morti, che egli profana in un turpe abbraccio. In questo scenario di fortezze – e di tombe – il declino di Gilles de Rais assume l’aspetto d’una allucinazione teatrale. Noi non possiamo giudicare gli stati d’animo di questo mostro. Ma è certamente da quella camera sporca di sangue, nella quale le teste di bambini lo stavano a fissare, che gli capitò di uscire, la mattina presto, per vagare per le strade di Machecoul e di Tiffauges. Una lunga e intollerabile allucinazione potrebbe esprimere qualcosa di più vero, di più sentito? Il personaggio di Gilles de Rais è collegato a questa tragica apparizione. Essa si connette a questo declino in una maniera che, oltre alla tragedia personale di Rais, mette in luce quella d’un mondo al quale si addice un personaggio sanguinario, che, dai Berserkir al signor di Charlus, rivela in ogni caso una crudele ingenuità. Infatti, il mondo feudale non può essere disgiunto dall’eccesso, che è il principio stesso delle guerre. Queste verità dette a proposito di Gilles de Rais hanno precisamente il vantaggio di derivare dall’origine impura della sua vita. La tragedia non può essere che impura: anzi è tanto più vera in quanto è impura. Oltre a ciò non bisogna poi dimenticare un principio che, per quanto misconosciuto, non è per questo meno saldo: e cioé che, senza la nobiltà, senza il rifiuto di calcolare e di riflettere (la qual cosa ne costituisce l’essenza), non ci sarebbe tragedia, ma soltanto riflessione e calcolo. Parlando della tragedia di Gilles de Rais, considerata come tragedia dalla riflessione greve, dalla riflessione che tien conto del mondo che rifiutò la riflessione (che anzi considera tale rifiuto il punto di partenza). Questo va detto parlando di Gilles de Rais, che si distingue da tutti coloro per i quali il crimine è personale. I crimini di Gilles de Rais sono quelli del mondo nel quale egli li commette. È quel mondo a mettere in mostra le gole squarciate. Quel mondo ammetteva quelle crudeli differenze che lasciavano indifese le gole degli umili. In quel mondo andava comunque formandosi il movimento che avrebbe ridotto, se pure lentamente, quelle differenze... Questo lento movimento che, prendendo le mosse da una violenza opposta, avrebbe avuto a sua volta una tragica ruvidezza.
November 3, 2017
Reading Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris recalled to me this book by Georges Bataille, for some reason I couldn't place. Then, as the author got into WW II-era philosphers and surrealists and mentioned Bataille, I figured we were on the same wavelength.
Something about clumsy and lethally confused de Rais speaks to the "banality of evil". This book presenting so much unearthed trial transcripts made this horrible monster real and believable, like the police reports of Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris.
It's also amazing how de Rais caused so much mayhem without getting caught, like so many serial killers. Of course, de Rais had his hired minions who "were just following orders", bringing me back to the Nazis...
Something about clumsy and lethally confused de Rais speaks to the "banality of evil". This book presenting so much unearthed trial transcripts made this horrible monster real and believable, like the police reports of Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris.
It's also amazing how de Rais caused so much mayhem without getting caught, like so many serial killers. Of course, de Rais had his hired minions who "were just following orders", bringing me back to the Nazis...
January 29, 2021
The story of Gilles de Rais is interesting, and Bataille's commentary is good, but his commentary only amounts to a 50-odd page introduction, then followed by a straightforward timeline of events for about 90 pages, and the remaining 130 pages of the contemporary court documents, originally translated by Pierre Klosslowski from Latin to French. In all fairness, the title page states "Documents Presented by Georges Bataille," so Bataille himself didn't particularly think of the book as his own work, and I respect the scholarly gesture of publishing the records. The problem is simply that, unless you're a historian or someone with a deep affection for the long-windedness of medieval ecclesiastic Latin, I cannot fathom why anyone would actually read the court documents, especially when it's immediately following an extensive and more easily readable reconstruction of all the major facts it covers. I like that this exists, but I can't help feeling that it's a bit of a letdown in terms of content.
May 15, 2014
If you are reading this expecting hardcore lurid horror scenes, or to wallow in the perversity and terror of Gilles de Rais' crimes, this is really not the book for that.
However, I did really enjoy it. There's something interesting in how Bataille tries to delve in to the culture and mindset of that era, of how he tries to navigate around Rais' motives and possible madness. There are descriptions of his crimes which are horrific in themselves, but essentially that is not what this book is about. It felt more like a piece that is trying to puzzle out the unfathomable depths that the grand horror Rais' crimes present, that something that massive had to have had some origin or motive.
Bataille and the editors did a pretty good job of giving the book and transcripts a sort dreadful atmosphere, but this is not a book for people who are looking for blood and guts.
However, I did really enjoy it. There's something interesting in how Bataille tries to delve in to the culture and mindset of that era, of how he tries to navigate around Rais' motives and possible madness. There are descriptions of his crimes which are horrific in themselves, but essentially that is not what this book is about. It felt more like a piece that is trying to puzzle out the unfathomable depths that the grand horror Rais' crimes present, that something that massive had to have had some origin or motive.
Bataille and the editors did a pretty good job of giving the book and transcripts a sort dreadful atmosphere, but this is not a book for people who are looking for blood and guts.
Want to read
May 15, 2009This is about the same guy that Cradle of Filth's latest album is about. He used to rape and sodomise little children in the worst possible way (as if there were a best possible) I do wonder about all this gothic stuff sometimes. He also fought as a commander under Joan of Arc; I am a big fan of St Joan obviously - the warrior virgin of Christ - yummy! I am going to see Cradle of Filth play on the 26th. I am looking forward to the support band just as much. Of course Cradle of Filth are famous for their 'Jesus is a c**t' t-shirts. I suppose it is a lot more Christian than most other things and now that that has been said we can all get on with it can't we?
March 16, 2022
Reads like a collection (is it a collection?) of writings on the topic of Gilles de Rais.
It would be convenient to divide the book into four distinct parts, very different from each other and each worth an independent review: The first part consists of a group of essays on the topic of de Rais, the nature of the society he moved in, and his legacy in folklore. The second part is a chronology of the major events in de Rais' life, from his father's adoption into the house of Rais until his execution. The third part contains a few more essays, this time focused more tightly on the history, speculating on the true number of de Rais' victims and covering his heirs and the career of his accomplices after his execution, as well as expounding on Salomon Reinach's theories of de Rais as an innocent victim of a kangaroo court, which may well stand in for more recent similar speculations, and some more writing on the Bluebeard legend. The final and longest part is a translation of the court documents pertaining de Rais' ecclesiastical and secular trials.
The final part may be of great interest to a medievalist but that's not what I'm here for. To me the good stuff is all in the first half of the book. Although thematically and stylistically a mess (and I insist this reads like a collection of essays and articles), Bataille's insights into de Rais, the medieval society that produced him, his legacy in folklore and the psychology of what we may call "de Rais Truthers" is a fantastic read, while the second section, the concise chronology, gives the bare historical facts of the man's life.
The only Bataille I'd read before this was The Story of the Eye and this is far more interesting in my eyes than that lurid fiction.
It would be convenient to divide the book into four distinct parts, very different from each other and each worth an independent review: The first part consists of a group of essays on the topic of de Rais, the nature of the society he moved in, and his legacy in folklore. The second part is a chronology of the major events in de Rais' life, from his father's adoption into the house of Rais until his execution. The third part contains a few more essays, this time focused more tightly on the history, speculating on the true number of de Rais' victims and covering his heirs and the career of his accomplices after his execution, as well as expounding on Salomon Reinach's theories of de Rais as an innocent victim of a kangaroo court, which may well stand in for more recent similar speculations, and some more writing on the Bluebeard legend. The final and longest part is a translation of the court documents pertaining de Rais' ecclesiastical and secular trials.
The final part may be of great interest to a medievalist but that's not what I'm here for. To me the good stuff is all in the first half of the book. Although thematically and stylistically a mess (and I insist this reads like a collection of essays and articles), Bataille's insights into de Rais, the medieval society that produced him, his legacy in folklore and the psychology of what we may call "de Rais Truthers" is a fantastic read, while the second section, the concise chronology, gives the bare historical facts of the man's life.
The only Bataille I'd read before this was The Story of the Eye and this is far more interesting in my eyes than that lurid fiction.
October 21, 2020
I have no idea why, over 20 years ago, I bought this book. Perhaps I thought it would be transgressive - Story of the Eye and all - but it was merely dull.
The first 60ish pages are a bloodless but mildly entertaining history and psychoanalysis of our anti-hero, Gilles de Rais, an exceedingly sadistic and repulsive member of the landed gentry. His idiosyncrasy? A bloodlust for torturing and violating children. His only redeeming trait is that he distinguished himself in the service of Joan de Arc.
So why oh why would he do such horrible things? Daddy died and grandpa ignored him - that old chestnut. His depravity lasted as long as it did because back in the day the rich really were different from you and me, and could get away with murder, literally and figuratively.
Oh, Mr. Bataille also makes much of the fact that he felt really, truly, super-duper bad about all that he did after he was sentenced to death.
But that hardly exempts him from his vicious crimes.
The rest of the book is a detailed historical timeline of Gilles' life followed by transcripts from the trials. In other words, cure for insomnia material. Reading trial transcripts is a special kind of tedium I would engage in only for monetary recompense. It certainly is no way to spend your leisure time.
Suffice to say that Gilles de Rais is the epitome of the "idle hands" admonishment, and the poster boy for guillotining the aristocracy. Eat the rich!
The first 60ish pages are a bloodless but mildly entertaining history and psychoanalysis of our anti-hero, Gilles de Rais, an exceedingly sadistic and repulsive member of the landed gentry. His idiosyncrasy? A bloodlust for torturing and violating children. His only redeeming trait is that he distinguished himself in the service of Joan de Arc.
So why oh why would he do such horrible things? Daddy died and grandpa ignored him - that old chestnut. His depravity lasted as long as it did because back in the day the rich really were different from you and me, and could get away with murder, literally and figuratively.
Oh, Mr. Bataille also makes much of the fact that he felt really, truly, super-duper bad about all that he did after he was sentenced to death.
But that hardly exempts him from his vicious crimes.
The rest of the book is a detailed historical timeline of Gilles' life followed by transcripts from the trials. In other words, cure for insomnia material. Reading trial transcripts is a special kind of tedium I would engage in only for monetary recompense. It certainly is no way to spend your leisure time.
Suffice to say that Gilles de Rais is the epitome of the "idle hands" admonishment, and the poster boy for guillotining the aristocracy. Eat the rich!
March 30, 2021
Me llevé un poco de decepción con el libro, porque quizá esperaba un análisis más exhaustivo de este personaje y la sociedad de su época. El estilo del ensayo no me ha gustado, me ha parecido un poco embarullado, comentando pinceladas de diversos temas pero sin profundizar en ello.
Sí me ha parecido interesante el análisis psicológico que Bataille hace de Gilles de Rais, y cómo su figura se fue mitificando y transformándose en Barba Azul, pero tampoco profundiza en el análisis sociológico que causa esa transición.
Como ya he dicho, me ha resultado decepcionante.
Sí me ha parecido interesante el análisis psicológico que Bataille hace de Gilles de Rais, y cómo su figura se fue mitificando y transformándose en Barba Azul, pero tampoco profundiza en el análisis sociológico que causa esa transición.
Como ya he dicho, me ha resultado decepcionante.
February 15, 2024
1⭐️
Oula.. J’ai pas aimé ce livre, j’ai pas trop compris l’organisation des idées (une intro qui fait 300 pages n’est pas une intro pour moi). Et surtout l’écriture en italique était insupportable, impossible à lire. Malgré cela c’était quand même intéressant d’apprendre l’histoire de cet horrible Gilles. J’ai été surprise que sa condamnation porte plus sur son non respect de la religion et non sur les meurtres qu’il a commis alors que pourtant c’est ça qui est horrible. Certains passages m’ont vraiment dégoutée je ne pouvais pas les lire.
La seule chose que j’ai aimé dans ce livre c’est la relation entre Prelati et Gilles pcq on va pas se le cacher mais là c’est vraiment de l’amour entre eux. Leurs adieux m’ont même rendu triste…
Étonnamment j’ai préféré la dernière partie sur le procès en lui même avec tous les actes, c’est même la partie que j’ai trouvé la plus simple à lire et à comprendre. C’est peut être la juriste en moi qui ressort. C’est ce qui fait que j’ai quand même donné une étoile à ce livre. Je sais que beaucoup disent que c’est une partie faite pour les historiens mais je pense que si on est pas juriste il n’est pas possible de comprendre les phrases et les mots utilisés.
Bref, c’est mon pire livre de l’année pour l’instant.
Oula.. J’ai pas aimé ce livre, j’ai pas trop compris l’organisation des idées (une intro qui fait 300 pages n’est pas une intro pour moi). Et surtout l’écriture en italique était insupportable, impossible à lire. Malgré cela c’était quand même intéressant d’apprendre l’histoire de cet horrible Gilles. J’ai été surprise que sa condamnation porte plus sur son non respect de la religion et non sur les meurtres qu’il a commis alors que pourtant c’est ça qui est horrible. Certains passages m’ont vraiment dégoutée je ne pouvais pas les lire.
La seule chose que j’ai aimé dans ce livre c’est la relation entre Prelati et Gilles pcq on va pas se le cacher mais là c’est vraiment de l’amour entre eux. Leurs adieux m’ont même rendu triste…
Étonnamment j’ai préféré la dernière partie sur le procès en lui même avec tous les actes, c’est même la partie que j’ai trouvé la plus simple à lire et à comprendre. C’est peut être la juriste en moi qui ressort. C’est ce qui fait que j’ai quand même donné une étoile à ce livre. Je sais que beaucoup disent que c’est une partie faite pour les historiens mais je pense que si on est pas juriste il n’est pas possible de comprendre les phrases et les mots utilisés.
Bref, c’est mon pire livre de l’année pour l’instant.
October 15, 2024
While this book does not "read" like a 5-star rating, it´s a griping and fulfulling view of Gilles de Rais, written by a most excentric person - Georges Bataille.
Batailles account is both heavely researched and very biased. It´s clear what Batailled weight high, and what he thought less of. This is not a criticism, but a great tool to difuse his tendensies.
If you had to read only one book about Gilles de Rais, this deffinetly does the job.
Batailles account is both heavely researched and very biased. It´s clear what Batailled weight high, and what he thought less of. This is not a criticism, but a great tool to difuse his tendensies.
If you had to read only one book about Gilles de Rais, this deffinetly does the job.
December 9, 2024
A Gastly disturbing read but interesting but a good read.
This book was certainly interesting, a very hard and difficult read with the subject matter at hand. There are some scenes which are told that are extremely disturbing and are not recommended for the weak or faint of hearted. This true crime book makes the scariest novels of Stephen King or Lovecraft, and makes them look like child's play.
This book was certainly interesting, a very hard and difficult read with the subject matter at hand. There are some scenes which are told that are extremely disturbing and are not recommended for the weak or faint of hearted. This true crime book makes the scariest novels of Stephen King or Lovecraft, and makes them look like child's play.
January 29, 2023
Part history, part character study. Doesn't feel successful at either of them. Most reminiscent of The Part About the Crimes, bizarrely enough. Bataille tries to hint at some of the more interesting aspects of de Rais's personality and relationship to his society but it never really comes together.
February 19, 2023
Amazing series of essays to preface what is an extremely shocking and jarring historical account of an absolutely horrific person and the acts he committed. The only thing stopping this from being five stars is that I would have liked a little more commentary from Bataille, but what he gave was already quite invaluable.
August 17, 2018
Would be more useful to my research in a good translation. This version reads almost as though translated word for word. Some parts are so confused as to be incomprehensible. Damn; suppose I'll have to read it in French.
June 20, 2022
this was v interesting but written like a dickhead. felt like u needed to have a lot of prior knowledge about feudal france in order to follow along with a lot of the history but the timeline was helpful a little at least
August 7, 2024
A bit wordy in the analysis and history section, and tedious in the legal section. But the history of that time, and the character and trial were a key part, involved some major shifts into what became modern Europe.
June 27, 2019
Well slit my throat and come on my belly - this was a horrible book.
March 9, 2020
Este fue uno de esos libros que lees de principio a fin en un instante. Es un recordatorio perturbador de hasta donde puede llegar la naturaleza humana. Muy recomendable
June 19, 2020
How could anyone display more pride or more humility?
April 13, 2021
A fascinating account of one of the most notorious serial killers to ever exist.
Read
June 23, 2023bataille is fantastic. the court documents are by their nature tedious
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