rls and boys continued to
disappear in the most mysterious manner; and the rumours against the owner
of Champtoce grew so loud and distinct, that the Church was compelled to
interfere. Representations were made by the Bishop of Nantes to the Duke
of Brittany, that it would be a public scandal if the accusations against
the Marechal de Rays were not inquired into. He was arrested accordingly
in his own castle, along with his accomplice Prelati, and thrown into a
dungeon at Nantes to await his trial.

The judges appointed to try him were the Bishop of Nantes Chancellor of
Brittany, the Vicar of the Inquisition in France, and the celebrated
Pierre l'Hopital, the President of the provincial Parliament. The offences
laid to his charge were, sorcery, sodomy, and murder. Gilles, on the first
day of his trial, conducted himself with the utmost insolence. He braved
the judges on the judgment-seat, calling them simoniacs and persons of
impure life, and said he would rather be hanged by the neck like a dog
without trial, than plead either guilty or not guilty before such
contemptible miscreants. But his confidence forsook him as the trial
proceeded, and he was found guilty on the clearest evidence of all the
crimes laid to his charge. It was proved that he took insane pleasure in
stabbing the victims of his lust and in observing the quivering of their
flesh, and the fading lustre of their eyes as they expired. The confession
of Prelati first made the judges acquainted with this horrid madness, and
Gilles himself confirmed it before his death. Nearly a hundred children of
the villagers around his two castles of Champtoce and Machecoue, had been
missed within three years, the greater part, if not all, of whom were
immolated to the lust or the cupidity of this monster. He imagined that he
thus made the devil his friend, and that his recompense would be the
secret of the philosopher's stone.

Gilles and Prelati were both condemned to be burned alive. At the place of
execution they assumed the air of penitence and religion. Gilles tenderly
embraced Prelati, saying, "_Farewell, friend Francis! In this world we
shall never meet again; but let us place our hopes in God; we shall see
each other in Paradise_." Out of consideration for his high rank and
connexions, the punishment of the marshal was so far mitigated, that he
was not burned alive like Prelati. He was first strangled, and then thrown
into the flames: his body, when half consume