Gilles de Rais Day 2021

 

Saints & Sinners: or, why I do what I do

Nobody will be surprised to hear that I have a little Gilles de Rais shrine; it would be more surprising if I didn't.

A few days ago I decided that I would add to it by ordering a candle and a canvas from a company that produces icons of saints with the faces of politicians and also does custom orders. I won't give them undeserved publicity, but will make sure that anyone putting their company name into the search engine will find this post. 

Within 24 hours I had a PayPal refund. Quickly followed by this -

I’m afraid we’ve got a bit of a problem with your custom request. Our candles are fun, irreverent and warmly meant - the subjects usually trigger warm and/or happy feelings – if they make us laugh we’re very gung-ho about making them and putting them out, but the immediate association here is one of pure evil.

We sometimes receive requests that we decline and while we hate not to please our customers, we also have to trust our gut. We don’t always get it right, but I’m afraid on this occasion, our call is not to do it. As a result of this decision, I have refunded your order.

Now, I'm not easily offended by ignorance - I'd have died of outrage several Bluebeardery & Copypasta seasons ago if I were. But this sticks in my craw because of a toxic combination of the judgemental and the hypocritical.

Because you can have a Margaret Thatcher icon - crowned, no less. Boris Johnson, also crowned, waving the butcher's apron. You can even have Priti "sink the immigrant boats!" Patel on a cushion. They're proud of that one.

All controversial politicians. You wouldn't look far to find someone insisting that each one has blood on their hands. All acceptable, apparently.

You can't, however, have Gilles de Rais, because somebody did an image search and clicked on the first site they found, probably Wikipedia. They chose to ignore all the recent developments since 1992 (and, in fact, before). They are blissfully and ironically unaware of the 1925 attempt to have Gilles beatified. Well, you may say, they make candles: why should they be following this somewhat arcane controversy? Indeed. I would argue, though, that they should at least make sure they know what they're talking about before they rudely turn down a £70 order.

I get that they thought I was attempting dark humour. But policing your customers' sense of humour isn't really on, either, is it? In fact, when a bespoke service tries to exercise its freedom of speech to censor its customers, for any reason, it never goes well.

I don't take offence on my own behalf. I'll get over feeling hugely disrespected. I don't think it's a great way to run a business, but it's their business, after all. If they want to turn away trade in a fit of misplaced virtue signalling, that's up to them.

(Although how you can jump on a moral high horse when you're making sizeable profits off the backs of all the photographers whose copyright you are merrily violating is beyond me. Every one of their non-custom items is based on an uncredited photograph).

But I am Gilles de Rais' representative on earth, so I have to make some kind of stand. I have spent a decade or more putting out the truth, with some effect, and what is the first impression someone gets when they search his name? "The immediate association here is one of pure evil". This is why I do what I do. This is why I carry on.

Update: It seems I was right; a business that turns away trade for dubious moral reasons isn't going to last long. This company, which I can now name as My Sainted Aunt, went into voluntary liquidation on February 21st 2022, some four months after my run-in with them. If I believed in karma, I'd be impressed with the rapidity. 

When I looked into the matter, it turned out that there is another company that offers a suspiciously similar product and that has been in business since 2016. So My Sainted Aunt - founded in June 2020 - presumably "borrowed" the idea from them. Delightful people.