The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-08-07
FALK CLOTHING co.


play excessive. Though his fortune was
immense, his expenditures greatly exceed
ed his income. Foremost In rank among
the mobiles OF his province, he considered
IL necessary to outshlne all rivals
At the same time he took up many fads
that were as costly as they were bizarre.
About the year 1882 he became infatu-
ated with the theater and maintained
out OF his own purse an entire troupe of
actors, who performed on such OCCASIONS
as he pleased at Orleans, at Nantes at
Nannes or at Rennes. He besought the
pope to permit the establishment Of a
priest with the authority OF bishop In
his chateau. This petition was denied;
nevertheless, he maintained a chapel with
all the paraphernalia OF a bishop. Re-
ligious superstition was firmly grounded
IN tho mans characer as will be seen
later on. IL was at about this period that
he became enamored with the science
of chemistry, through the aid of which
he hoped to discover a means Of con-
verting base metals into gold. Success in
the enterprise, he expected, would re-
lieve him OF his financial embarrass-
ments.
With this end In view he brought from
Italy two unfrocked priests, who had
gained fame as alchemists. The more re-
nowned of the pair was one Francois
Prelau. over the credulous and supersti-
tion-haunted mind Of de Retz these clever
charlatans gained complete influence and
doubtless they egged him on TO the crimes
which were to make his name a bywOrd
of horror to generations yet unborn. They
made him believe that they had intimate
relations with the devil, and among the
papers preserved in the archives at Nantes
are a number OF written agreements with
his satanic majesty, signed In their own
blood by GILES and his Ingenious advisers
At length they induced him to think that
he was independent Of all law, human or
divine, and In this notion he was per-
suaded to enter upon Veritable satur-
MALTA of crime.
The clerical falSirs assured him that in
diSpensable ingredients OF the chemical
mixture required were the blood and heart
OF a human being who had never had an
impure thought. 1t was to satisfy this re-
qufrement that regular system OF abduc-
ton was inaugurated, agents being en-
pioyed to steal children IN the neighbour
hood and fetch them to the castle. Those
were days when the disappearance Of
child did not make such a disturbance as
now. There was no police system; robbers
and cut-throats roamed abroad, and there
were wolves in the forests. Nobody was
likely to suspect the first noblemen In Brit
tainy Of such crimes. Thus II Is not SO
very surprising that the business OF kid
mapping and murder should have been car
ried on by de Retz and his associates for
period of eight years.
AS subsequently appeared from the con-
fessions of the guilty men, the children
were killed In every way that Imagination
could suggest. Shut up In walled
rooms, where their appeals for mercy and
cries Of agony could be heard by nobody
save their diabolical captors, they were
subjected to inconceivable fortunes. Some
of them, finally, were torn limb from LIMB
and burned Their entrails were gloatingly
inspected by the fiends-but IL is impossi-
BILE to go further; many of the acts to
which de Retz and his confederates after
wards confessed are wholly indescribable
In print. They merely afford an illustration
of the possibilities Of perversion of the
human moral sense-the conditions under
which a man Is transformed into beast
infinitely more ferocious and pitiless than
any wild animal.
The time came at length when GER
tain rumors induced the bishop of-Nantes
TO set on foot an investigation, which
traced the mysterious abductions to the
chateau OF de Retz. He was arrested, in
September, 1440, and thrown into prison
at Nantes, together with the two priests.
An ecclesiastical court was organized to
try him, charges being preferred on for
ty-one articles Of information. He was
accused OF practicing magic and of other
offenses, including murder. The accused
refused to plead, declaring that the triD-
unal had no jurisdiction in his case. THIS
attitude he steadfastly preserved until a
decree of accommodation was issued
against him. Then he broke down utter
"; for while careless as to the safety OF
mis- body he believed that the decree
would consign his soul to eternal perdi-
ton.
A civil trial followed the prosecutor al
Ieging against the defendant no fewer
than 40 abducttons and murders within
eight years. Conviction and sentence
promptly followed. De Retz confessed,
as did also the two priests. When press
ed for minute details, he said: You tor
ment me needlessly. / have already own
ed to enough crimes to send a thousand
men to the scaffold. Why trouble me
more?' He was condemned to be burned
alive, with two Of his criminal assistants.
These, however, were not the priests,
both of whom escaped punishment
through clerical influence.
De Retz sent three last requests to the
bishop of Nantes. The first OF these was
that the decree Of accommodation is
sued against him might be revoked. The
second was that he might be killed before
being burned; and the third petition was
that his ashes might be gathered and in
TERED in holy ground. All these prayers
were granted. His neck was broken by
hanging in time enough to save him from
the pain of the flames which started to
consume the pyre OF wood beneath his
suspended body. His ashes were buried
in churchyard. while those of his two
assistants, already mentioned, Were
thrown into the Loire.
--Customer-Half crown for making up
this prescription? Why. at the stores they
only charge me eighteenpence.