MargotK's comments

Well, the article does also reference Salomon Reinach, Fernand Fleuret & Jean-Pierre Bayard, plus Revolutionary pamphleteer Joseph La Vallée. As soon as the trial record was published in translation, there was a definite movement towards doubting the verdict of the trial; certain biographers, notably Bataille and Gabory, were very aware of this & attempted to defend the status quo with attacks on Reinach's credibility. Prouteau was not a researcher, he was a novelist; his case rested very heavily on twentieth century writers.

So, yes, I AM Gilles de Rais' representative on earth, but I'm not the first in line & nor will I be the last.

"Court of Cassation" was the expression used in English language newspapers of 1992. The actual retrial was, admittedly, a publicity stunt. But it was based on proper research, some of it dating back to an earlier attempt at a retrial in the mid-1920s.

I defy anybody to read the translations of the trial documents thoroughly & not notice a) clear evidence of evidence extracted by torture & b) serious contradictions in the evidence. For instance (& noted by Georges Bataille, the most hostile of biographers) a string of missing children at Machecoul when Gilles was living at Tiffauges...