Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/501

 GILLES DE RAIS. 485 present to honor and obey the Church, he begged with abundant tears their prayers, and entreated pardon of the parents whose children he had murdered.* On the 25th he was brought up for sentence. After the bishop and inquisitor had duly consulted their assembly of experts, two sentences were read. The first, in the name of both judges, con- demned him as guilty of heretical apostasy and horrid invocation of demons, for which he had incurred excommunication and other penalties of the law, and for which he should be punished accord- ing to the canonical sanctions. The second sentence, rendered by the bishop alone, in the same form, condemned him for unnatural crime, for sacrilege, and for violating the immunities of the Church. In neither sentence was there any punishment indicated. Pie was not pronounced relapsed, and therefore could not be abandoned to the secular arm, and it was apparently deemed superfluous to enjoin on him any penance, as a prosecution had been going on pari passu in the secular court, of which the result was not in doubt. The ecclesiastical court had dropped the accusation of murder, after it had served its purpose in exciting popular odium, and had left it to the civil authorities to which it belonged. In fact, the whole elaborate proceedings were a nullity, except so far as they served as a shield for the civil process, and as a basis for confiscating his estates. f After the reading of the sentences he was asked if he wished reincorporation in the Church. He replied that he had not known what heresy was, nor that he had lapsed into it, but as the Church had declared him guilty, he begged on his knees, with sighs and groans, to be reincorporated. When this ceremony was accom- plished he asked for absolution, which was granted. It shows the deceptive nature of the whole proceedings, and how little the bishop and inquisitor thought of anything but the secret object to be attained, that although Gilles was condemned for heresy, he was absolved without subjection to the indispensable ceremony of abjuration, and his request for a confessor was promptly met by the appointment of Jean Juvenal, a Carmelite of Ploermel-i ___. X Bossard et Maulde, Pr. pp. lx.-lxi.
 * Bossard et Maulde, Pr. pp. xlviii.-lviii. t Ibid. Pr. pp. lxiii.-lxiv.