Under the conditions of the adolescence of Gilles de Retz, his education may be better imagined than described. Left at the age of eleven an orphan or a half-orphan, by the death of his father; the remarriage of his mother within a year thereafter; the contest of greater or less gravity over his guardianship, which ended in the success of his maternal grandfather, whose best recommendation for the position seems to have been his love for his grandchildren and his subsequent willingness to indulge them, and also his great desire to get them (especially the elder) married and off his hands, a proceeding which he conducted with such celerity that the young man was engaged three times with all pomp and formality, and finally married by the time he was sixteen years old: this would seem to afford but little time or opportunity to obtain an education, even under the best facilities, however studious and seriously inclined he might have been.
Education did not stand very high in the province of Brittany at this era. There was much excuse, especially for the nobles and barons of Brittany, for their lack of education. The profession of war seems to have been the highest recommendation, and the shortest, as well as the easiest and most agreeable, road to preferment. There is much to be said on the score of patriotism and the needs of the country, for, as will be seen farther on, it was an era of war, and Brittany was in the midst of it. The education in arms was almost inevitable; it had greater attraction for Gilles than books, arts, or sciences; and it appears that his grandfather allowed him to pursue his own wishes and desires without even an attempt at control. Gilles, during his trial, said: “In my youth I was allowed to go always according to my own sweet will.” Nevertheless, he spoke three languages, Latin, French, and Breton, had some knowledge of chemistry, and it seems to be without question that he had a library, so well chosen as to be an object of commendation and attraction to highly educated persons. In the inventory of his effects, taken in 1436 and found among his records, is a receipt of Jean Montclair given to Jean Bouray, for a book a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, described to have been in parchment covered with leather-gilt, with copper clasps and locks of silver-gilt, with a crucifix of white silver on the back.
CHAPTER II
Gilles as a Soldier. 1420–1429
First for John V., Duke of Brittany, against the House of Blois. He Joins the Army of France and is Assigned to Duty with Joan of Arc. Crowning of the King, and Gilles Made Marshal of France.
In the condition of his country at that time, it was but natural that this handsome, impetuous, rich, and powerful baron should take up arms as his profession. France and England were in the midst of the Hundred Years’ War. Brittany, Gilles’s own duchy, had been since the death of John IV. engaged in a civil war over the succession. The family of Montforts (son of a younger son) had gained the victory over the Penthièvres and Blois (daughter of an elder son). Gilles’s father and his family had fought on the side of Blois, but on his defeat they had made their peace with the victorious Duke.
When Gilles was about sixteen years old an incident occurred which renewed the civil war and swept him into its midst. The head of the Blois family, with his mother, the daughter of De Clisson, set a trap for John V. (De Montfort), Duke of Brittany, inviting him, under a flag of truce, to a friendly conference to be held at the castle of Champtoceaux. This conference was only a pretence, the flag of truce was violated, and John V. was entrapped and held prisoner. He was treated with great severity, bound in chains, and cast into a dungeon. This inhuman treatment on the part of the Blois and Penthièvres, being in violation of every principle held sacred by men and soldiers, aroused the indignation of the Bretons to a pitch beyond control. The peculiar interest of this to the present memoir is that, while the ancestral families of Gilles de Rais had always theretofore fought on the side of the Penthièvres and Blois, they now turned to the other side and took up for John V. of Montfort.
Du Guesclin, the uncle, and Brumor, the grandfather, of Gilles de Rais on his father’s side, were now dead; but Jean de Craon, his grandfather on his mother’s side, he who had been so indulgent a guardian, still lived, and on the 23d of February, 1420, a few months before the marriage of Gilles, they repaired to the town of Vannes, attending upon a session of the States-General, convoked in the absence of the Duke by his wife. Part of the ceremony of Gilles and his grandfather was the oath of allegiance for the deliverance of their prince: “We swear upon the cross to employ our bodies and our goods, and to enter into this quarrel for life and for death,”—and they signed it with their proper hands and sealed it with their seals. The war broke out anew. Alain de Rohan was made Lieutenant-General. An army of fifty thousand men volunteered and took the field under him. In the front rank, by the side of his grandfather, at the head of all the vassals of their united baronies, was Gilles de Retz. This army marched against Lamballe which capitulated, Guingamp, the same, and successively Jugon, Chateaulan, Broon, and finally against the château of Champtoceaux in which the Duke was incarcerated. This resisted the assault but was besieged and finally taken, the fortress demolished, and John V. was released and returned to Nantes where he was given a triumphal entry.