Then a wild, wrathful howl broke from the lips of the throng, rang along the Nantes road, and only died away, as the great gates of the Chateau de Bouffay closed on the prisoner.
The whole population of Nantes was in commotion, and it was said that the investigation would be fict.i.tious, that the duke would screen his kinsman, and that the object of general execration would escape with the surrender of some of his lands.
And such would probably have been the event of the trial, had not the Bishop of Nantes and the grand-seneschal taken a very decided course in the matter. They gave the duke no peace till he had yielded to their demand for a thorough investigation and a public trial.
John V. nominated Jean de Toucheronde to collect information, and to take down the charges brought against the marshal. At the same time he was given to understand that the matter was not to be pressed, and that the charges upon which the marshal was to be tried were to be softened down as much as possible.
The commissioner, Jean de Toucheronde, opened the investigation on the 18th September, a.s.sisted only by his clerk, Jean Thomas. The witnesses were introduced either singly, or in groups, if they were relations.
On entering, the witness knelt before the commissioner, kissed the crucifix, and swore with his hand on the Gospels that he would speak the truth, and nothing but the truth: after this he related all the facts referring to the charge, which came under his cognizance, without being interrupted or interrogated.
The first to present herself was Perrine Loessard, living at la Roche-Bernard.
She related, with tears in her eyes, that two years ago, in the month of September, the Sire de Retz had pa.s.sed with all his retinue through la Roche-Bernard, on his way from Vannes, and had lodged with Jean Collin. She lived opposite the house in which the n.o.bleman was staying.
Her child, the finest in the village, a lad aged ten, had attracted the notice of Pontou, and perhaps of the marshal himself, who stood at a window, leaning on his squire"s shoulder.
Pontou spoke to the child, and asked him whether he would like to be a chorister; the boy replied that his ambition was to be a soldier.
"Well, then," said the squire, "I will equip you."
The lad then laid hold of Pontou"s dagger, and expressed his desire to have such a weapon in his belt. Thereupon the mother had ran up and had made him leave hold of the dagger, saying that the boy was doing very well at school, and was getting on with his letters, for he was one day to be a monk. Pontou had dissuaded her from this project, and had proposed to take the child with him to Machecoul, and to educate him to be a soldier. Thereupon he had paid her clown a hundred sols to buy the lad a dress, and had obtained permission to carry him off.
Next day her son had been mounted on a horse purchased for him from Jean Collin, and had left the village in the retinue of the Sire de Retz. The poor mother at parting had gone in tears to the marshal, and had entreated him to be kind to her child. From that time she had been able to obtain no information regarding her son. She had watched the Sire de Retz whenever he had pa.s.sed through La Roche Bernard, but had never observed her child among his pages. She had questioned several of the marshal"s people, but they had laughed at her; the only answer she had obtained was: "Be not afraid. He is either at Machecoul, or else at Tiffauges, or else at p.o.r.nic, or somewhere." Perrine"s story was corroborated by Jean Collin, his wife, and his mother-in-law.
Jean Lemegren and his wife, Alain Dulix, Perrot Duponest, Guillaume Guillon, Guillaume Portayer, Etienne de Monclades, and Jean Lefebure, all inhabitants of S. Etienne de Montluc, deposed that a little child, son of Guillaume Brice of the said parish, having lost his father at the age of nine, lived on alms, and went round the country begging.
This child, named Jamet, had vanished suddenly at midsummer, and nothing was known of what had become of him; but strong suspicions were entertained of his having been carried off by an aged hag who had appeared shortly before in the neighbourhood, and who had vanished along with the child.
On the 27th September, Jean de Toucheronde, a.s.sisted by Nicolas Chateau, notary of the court at Nantes, received the depositions of several inhabitants of Pont-de-Launay, near Bouvron: to wit, Guillaume Fourage and wife; Jeanne, wife of Jean Leflou; and Richarde, wife of Jean Gandeau.
These depositions, though very vague, afforded sufficient cause for suspicion to rest on the marshal. Two years before, a child of twelve, son of Jean Bernard, and another child of the same age, son of Menegue, had gone to Machecoul. The son of Menegue had returned alone in the evening, relating that his companion had asked him to wait for him on the road whilst he begged at the gates of the Sire de Retz. The son of Menegue said that he had waited three hours, but his companion had not returned. The wife of Guillaume Fourage deposed that she had seen the lad at this time with an old hag, who was leading him by the hand towards Machecoul. That same evening this hag pa.s.sed over the bridge of Launay, and the wife of Fourage asked her what had become of little Bernard. The old woman neither stopped nor answered further than by saying he was well provided for. The boy had not been seen since. On the 28th September, the Duke of Brittany joined another commissioner, Jean Couppegorge, and a second notary, Michel Estallure, to Toucheronde and Chateau.
The inhabitants of Machecoul, a little town over which the Sire de Retz exercised supreme power, appeared now to depose against their lord. Andre Barbier, shoemaker, declared that last Easter, a child, son of his neighbour Georges Lebarbier, had disappeared. He was last seen gathering plums behind the hotel Rondeau. This disappearance surprised none in Machecoul, and no one ventured to comment on it.
Andre and his wife were in daily terror of losing their own child.
They had been a pilgrimage to S. Jean d"Angely, and had been asked there whether it was the custom at Machecoul to eat children. On their return they had heard of two children having vanished--the son of Jean Gendron, and that of Alexandre Chatellier. Andre Barbier had made some inquiries about the circ.u.mstances of their disappearance, and had been advised to hold his tongue, and to shut his ears and eyes, unless he were prepared to be thrown into a dungeon by the lord of Machecoul.
"But, bless me!" he had said, "am I to believe that a fairy spirits off and eats our little ones?"
"Believe what you like," was the advice given to him; "but ask no questions." As this conversation had taken place, one of the marshal"s men at arms had pa.s.sed, when all those who had been speaking took to their heels. Andre, who had run with the rest, without knowing exactly why he fled, came upon a man near the church of the Holy Trinity, who was weeping bitterly, and crying out,--"O my G.o.d, wilt Thou not restore to me my little one?" This man had also been robbed of his child.
Licette, wife of Guillaume Sergent, living at La Boneardiere, in the parish of S. Croix de Machecoul, had lost her son two years before, and had not seen him since; she besought the commissioners, with tears in her eyes, to restore him to her.
"I left him," said she, "at home whilst I went into the field with my husband to sow flax. He was a bonny little lad, and he was as good as he was bonny. He had to look after his tiny sister, who was a year and a half old. On my return home, the little girl was found, but she could not tell me what had become of him. Afterwards we found in the marsh a small red woollen cap which had belonged to my poor darling; but it was in vain that we dragged the marsh, nothing was found more, except good evidence that he had not been drowned. A hawker who sold needles and thread pa.s.sed through Machecoul at the time, and told me that an old woman in grey, with a black hood on her head, had bought of him some children"s toys, and had a few moments after pa.s.sed him, leading a little boy by the hand."
Georges Lebarbier, living near the gate of the chatelet de Machecoul, gave an account of the manner in which his son had evanesced. The boy was apprenticed to Jean Pelletier, tailor to Mme. de Retz and to the household of the castle. He seemed to be getting on in his profession, when last year, about S. Barnabas" day, he went to play at ball on the castle green. He never returned from the game.
This youth and his master, Jean Pelletier, had been in the habit of eating and drinking at the castle, and bad always laughed at the ominous stories told by the people.
Guillaume Hilaire and his wife confirmed the statements of Lebarbier.
They also said that they knew of the loss of the sons of Jean Gendron, Jeanne Rouen, and Alexandre Chatellier. The son of Jean Gendron, aged twelve, lived with the said Hilaire and learned of him the trade of skinner. He had been working in the shop for seven or eight years, and was a steady, hardworking lad. One day Messieurs Gilles de Sille and Roger de Briqueville entered the shop to purchase a pair of hunting gloves. They asked if little Gendron might take a message for them to the castle. Hilaire readily consented, and the boy received beforehand the payment for going--a gold angelus, and he started, promising to be back directly. But he had never returned. That evening Hiliare and his wife, observing Gilles de Sille and Roger de Briqueville returning to the castle, ran to them and asked what had become of the apprentice.
They replied that they had no notion of where he was, as they had been absent hunting, but that it was possible he might have been sent to Tiffauges, another castle of De Retz.
Guillaume Hilaire, whose depositions were more grave and explicit than the others, positively a.s.serted that Jean Dujardin, valet to Roger de Briqueville had told him he knew of a cask secreted in the castle, full of children"s corpses. He said that he had often heard people say that children were enticed to the chateau and then murdered, but had treated it as an idle tale. He said, moreover, that the marshal was not accused of having any hand in the murders, but that his servants were supposed to be guilty.
Jean Gendron himself deposed to the loss of his son, and he added that his was not the only child which had vanished mysteriously at Machecoul. He knew of thirty that had disappeared.
Jean Chipholon, elder and junior, Jean Aubin, and Clement Dore, all inhabitants of the parish of Thomage, deposed that they had known a poor man of the same parish, named Mathelin Thomas, who had lost his son, aged twelve, and that he had died of grief in consequence.
Jeanne Rouen, of Machecoul, who for nine years had been in a state of uncertainty whether her son were alive or dead, deposed that the child had been carried off whilst keeping sheep. She had thought that he had been devoured of wolves, but two women of Machecoul, now deceased, had seen Gilles de Sille approach the little shepherd, speak to him, and point to the castle. Shortly after the lad had walked off in that direction. The husband of Jeanne Rouen went to the chateau to inquire after his son, but could obtain no information. When next Gilles de Sille appeared in the town, the disconsolate mother entreated him to restore her child to her. Gilles replied that he knew nothing about him, as he had been to the king at Amboise.
Jeanne, widow of Aymery Hedelin, living at Machecoul, had also lost, eight years before, a little child as he had pursued some b.u.t.terflies into the wood. At the same time four other children had been carried off, those of Gendron, Rouen, and Mace Sorin. She said that the story circulated through the country was, that Gilles de Sille stole children to make them over to the English, in order to obtain the ransom of his brother who was a captive. But she added that this report was traced to the servants of Sille, and that it was propagated by them.
One of the last children to disappear was that of Noel Aise, living in the parish of S. Croix.
A man from Tiffauges had said to her (Jeanne Hedelin) that for one child stolen at Machecoul, there were seven carried away at Tiffauges.
Mace Sorin confirmed the deposition of the widow Hedelin., and repeated the circ.u.mstances connected with the loss of the children of Chatellier, Rouen, Gendron, and Lebarbier.
Perrine Rondeau had entered the castle with the company of Jean Labbe.
She had entered a stable, and had found a heap of ashes and powder, which had a sickly and peculiar smell. At the bottom of a trough she had found a child"s shirt covered with blood.
Several inhabitants of the bourg of Fresnay, to wit, Perrot, Parqueteau, Jean Soreau, Catherine Degrepie, Gilles Garnier, Perrine Viellard, Marguerite Rediern, Marie Carfin, Jeanne Laudais, said that they had heard Guillaume Hamelin, last Easter, lamenting the loss of two children.
Isabeau, wife of Guillaume Hamelin, confirmed these depositions, saving that she had lost them seven years before. She had at that time four children; the eldest aged fifteen, the youngest aged seven, went together to Machecoul to buy some bread, but they did not return. She sat up for them all night and next morning. She heard that another child had been lost, the son of Michaut Bonnel of S. Cire de Retz.
Guillemette, wife of Michaut Bonnel, said that her son had been carried off whilst guarding cows.
Guillaume Rodigo and his wife, living at Bourg-neuf-en-Retz, deposed that on the eve of last S. Bartholomew"s day, the Sire do Retz lodged with Guillaume Plumet in his village.
Pontou, who accompanied the marshal, saw a lad of fifteen, named Bernard Lecanino, servant to Rodigo, standing at the door of his house. The lad could not speak much French, but only bas-Breton.
Pontou beckoned to him and spoke to him in a low tone. That evening, at ten o"clock, Bernard left his master"s house, Rodigo and his wife being absent. The servant maid, who saw him go out, called to him that the supper table was not yet cleared, but he paid no attention to what she said. Rodigo, annoyed at the loss of his servant, asked some of the marshal"s men what had become of him. They replied mockingly that they knew nothing of the little Breton, but that he had probably been sent to Tiffauges to be trained as page to their lord.
Marguerite Sorain, the chambermaid alluded to above, confirmed the statement of Rodigo, adding that Pontou had entered the house and spoken with Bernard. Guillaume Plumet and wife confirmed what Rodigo and Sorain had said.
Thomas Aysee and wife deposed to the loss of their son, aged ten, who had gone to beg at the gate of the castle of Machecoul; and a little girl had seen him drawn by an offer of meat into the chateau.
Jamette, wife of Eustache Drouet of S. Leger, had sent two sons, one aged ten, the other seven, to the castle to obtain alms. They had not been seen since.
On the 2nd October the commissioners sat again, and the charges became graver, and the servants of the marshal became more and more implicated.
The disappearance of thirteen other children was substantiated under circ.u.mstances throwing strong suspicion on the inmates of the castle.
I will not give the details, for they much resemble those of the former depositions. Suffice it to say that before the commissioners closed the inquiry, a herald of the Duke of Brittany in tabard blew three calls on the trumpet, from the steps of the tower of Bouffay, summoning all who had additional charges to bring against the Sire de Retz, to present themselves without delay. As no fresh witnesses arrived, the case was considered to be made out, and the commissioners visited the duke, with the information they had collected, in their hands.
The duke hesitated long as to the steps he should take. Should he judge and sentence a kinsman, the most powerful of his va.s.sals, the bravest of his captains, a councillor of the king, a marshal of France?
Whilst still unsettled in his mind as to the course he should pursue, he received a letter from Gilles de Retz, which produced quite a different effect from that which it had been intended to produce.
"MONSIEUR MY COUSIN AND HONOURED SIRE,--