Perversion the Social Relation

132 James Penneycaused to be killed, with whom he committed the vice and sin ofsodomy; and he said and confessed that he had ejaculated spermaticseed in the most culpable fashion on the bellies of the said children,as much after their deaths as during it; on which children sometimeshe and sometimes some of his accomplices inflicted varioustypes and manners of torment; sometimes he severed the head fromthe body with dirks, daggers, and knives, sometimes they struckthem violently on the head with a cudgel or other blunt instruments,sometimes they suspended them with cords from a peg or smallhooks in his room and strangled them; and when they were languishing,he committed the sodomitic vice on them. 8 (190; 243)Clinically and nonchalantly reported, this shocking parade of detailsconcerning the crimes of Gilles de Rais could only have horrified, onewould certainly think, the trial's audience. It is difficult to imagine fivecenturies after the fact the effect of the evocation of the murders on theparents who, during the latter years of Gilles's crimes, had handed overtheir children to his accomplices when the rumors of his strange practiceshad already spread throughout Brittany and the Vendée. Oddly,however, there is no indication in the records of the trial that Gilles'sconfession provoked an outcry among the audience members. In fact,the opposite is the case. Michel Bataille's fictionalized account of thetrial plausibly depicts the audience's reaction to Gilles's confession andaccords with the evidence of the transcripts. "The crowd did not reply,uttered no insult, did not scale the barriers to do harm to Gilles, did notlynch him," he writes. "But rather, in light of the enormity of facts thatcould be appreciated through no known criterion, the crowd fell to itsknees and began, as he asked, to pray for him" (my translation). 9The reader of the trial's documentation is confronted with this nearlyincredible scenario: At the moment of Gilles's in-court confession, themembers of the communities to which the victims belonged calmly, empatheticallylistened to the narration of the crimes, as if in the presence ofa patently evil but wise prophet. The audience serenely received Gilles'smoral exhortations to pay close attention to the rearing of future generationsof children to prevent them from succumbing to the temptationsto which he himself succumbed. While laying blame for the crimes onhis bad upbringing, Gilles "entreated the parents among the auditors toimpart good principles to their children and provide them with the habit