From time to time, I comment on the rubbishy news service provided by Microsoft as part of its Edge browser, a news service which I might say is slowly getting better. I do usually skip through it of a morning and this morning it turned up an interesting story from the fifteenth century about one of the companions in arms of Joan of Arc. A story which, with a bit of fiddling about, I was able to capture and reproduce below.
But the first question is what was this story doing on my laptop? Who or what was Addison Nugent? What about Ozy Media Inc who seem to have provided the pictures?
So from reference 5 we learn that: 'Addison Nugent is a professional freelance journalist based out of Paris, France. Like so many Americans before her, she fell in love with the French capital at a young age and never left. She graduated from the Sorbonne's Master of the Arts literary research program with honors in 2016, and has since pursued a career in journalism. She has accumulated a diverse portfolio of published work that includes investigative pieces, in-depth profiles, historical deep dives, and tech news. Her work has been featured in such publications as OZY, Vice Motherboard, Atlas Obscura, Dazed Digital and Messy Nessy Chic'.
While from reference 6 we learn that: 'OZY is a media company tailor-made for the Change Generation – people from every corner of the globe who are challenging the status quo and bucking convention. It's a platform to help you see more, be more and do more. Or, as one fan put it, "OZY is what cool people read to be smart and smart people read to be cool." ... Founded by Samir Rao and Carlos Watson, who hail from Michigan and Florida (with a nod to India and Jamaica), OZY's back story is in fact a love story. Carlos' political scientist dad had a love of news so profound that he raised his young son on a rich diet of current events and history-shaping newsmakers. When Carlos and Samir, former colleagues at Goldman Sachs, ran into each other in a Chipotle parking lot, their conversation circled in on a big idea: How could they reimagine the news for a globally minded, discerning and diverse group that they named the Change Generation? People who are edgy and educated, hungry and observant – and tired of being handed the same menu rehashing yesterday's top stories. From a coffee shop in downtown Mountain View, California, Carlos and Samir refined their idea and in 2013 – with the support of investors Laurene Powell Jobs, Mike Moe, Louise Rogers, Dan Rosensweig, Larry Sonsini, David Drummond, Ron Conway and others – OZY became a reality'.
So there. I resist turning up who all these investors are.
PS: I should admit an interest in that I already own at least two full length books about this gentleman and have visited one of his castles, at Talmont St. Hilaire.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/11/joan-of-arc.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/singing-sands.html. A passing notice, not adding much.
Reference 3: Gilles de Raiz ou la Confession imaginaire - Martine Le Coz - 1989.
Reference 4: https://leapsmag.com/author/addison-nugent/.
Reference 5: https://www.ozy.com/. The face of news to come?
The Serial Killer Who Fought Alongside Saint Joan of Arc
As she watched her son ride away on the back of Gilles de Rais’ horse, Peronne Leossart realized she had made a mistake. When Gilles de Montmorency-Laval — the famed Baron de Rais who fought alongside Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans — passed through La Roche-Bernard, France, in September 1438, the young lord was welcomed as a hero.
Naturally, Leossart felt honored when a servant asked whether her 10-year-old son would like to go live with de Rais and become his page. But when her son mounted de Rais’ horse to leave, Leossart was overcome with dread and begged the great lord to give her son back — a request he met with resolute silence.
Leossart would never see her son again. Two years after his departure, the heartbroken mother told a judge that she had heard Gilles de Rais whisper to his servant that her son was “well chosen” and “as beautiful as an angel.” The testimony came as part of de Rais’ trial for the ritualistic murder and torture of scores of children.
Leossart’s ordeal is one of dozens described by 20th-century French critic Georges Bataille in The Trial of Gilles de Rais. The testimonies, transcribed between Sept. 19 and Oct. 22, 1440, detail a horrifying story of corruption, satanism, theatrical opulence and sick delusion.
Before his crimes were uncovered, Gilles de Rais was known as one of the richest and most powerful feudal lords of 15th-century France, commanding an immense fortune rivaled only by monarchies. For his bravery in Orléans, he was awarded the prestigious title of Marshal of France. His prestige, combined with the almost subhuman status of the lower classes in the Middle Ages, made it terrifyingly easy for de Rais to kidnap impoverished children without raising suspicion.
The murders allegedly began in the spring of 1432, first in the fortress at Champtocé and then at the castle in Machecoul, just outside of Nantes. Each night, the marshal sent trusted servants to find and abduct unaccompanied peasant children walking along the roads. Hidden away in secret rooms, de Rais and his depraved court would spend the rest of the night taking part in acts of sexual violence reminiscent of the Marquis de Sade’s. De Rais told the judge that he and his accomplices committed “various types and manners of torment; sometimes they severed the head from the body, sometimes they struck them violently on the head with a cudgel or other blunt instruments.”
The marshal boasted to his valet that he took great pleasure in watching the life leave his victims and always stared them deeply in the eyes as they died. According to original trial documents, Étienne Corrillaut, one of de Rais’ followers, said that the marshal kept a macabre collection of heads on display in his secret rooms and would proudly ask members of his court which heads were the most beautiful, often kissing the head that pleased him most.
The penchant for destruction the marshal displayed carried over to his fortune, which he recklessly squandered on a decadent lifestyle. In 1435, under the instruction of charlatans and purported sorcerers, the desperate de Rais attempted to re-establish his wealth through alchemy and devil worship. From that point, the murders morphed into occultist rituals or Black Masses of human sacrifice; instead of displaying body parts as trophies, the young lord placed them atop an altar.
On May 15, 1440, de Rais and his men kidnapped a cleric from the Church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte after a dispute. During the subsequent investigation prompted by the bishop of Nantes, the marshal’s horrific crimes were discovered. While de Rais was primarily tried, according to Albrecht Classen, co-editor of Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, “because of his dabbling in magic and hiring [of] an alchemist,” he was found guilty of crime and unnatural vice with children, and executed by hanging and burning on Oct. 26, 1440.
Since then, Gilles de Rais has become a mythic figure. His reputation as a serial murderer led folklorists to intertwine the stories of his crimes with those of the French fairy-tale villain Bluebeard. When satanism became popular in late-19th-century Paris, author Joris-Karl Huysmans revived the figure of de Rais as the progenitor of French occultism in his 1891 novel Là-Bas (The Damned).
In the 20th century, some medieval scholars questioned the veracity of the charges against de Rais, with French historian Gilbert Prouteau spearheading a campaign in 1992 to rehabilitate the lord’s image. De Rais, Prouteau claimed, was a war hero who, like Joan of Arc, had fallen victim to character assassination.
The majority of scholars, however, dismiss such claims, pointing to the numerous testimonies and the baron’s own words. “There is no reason to assume that [Gilles de Rais’] trial was trumped up,” Classen maintains. Records, after all, suggest a fair trial, “with clear witness depositions that supported each other,” he says, noting how the accused confessed while “displaying the typically theatrical demeanor of a mass murderer.”
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