Summary : A figure of the Hungarian nobility, Countess Elisabeth Báthory owned important estates which she managed with her husband, Ferenc Nádasdy, from the castle of Cachtice – in former royal Hungary, now located in Slovakia – at a time when the Christian nobility fought fiercely against the Ottoman Empire, which had taken over part of Hungary. After the death of her husband, Élisabeth Báthory manages the family estate alone. An independent woman, she is interested in the medical art and takes under her wing Darvulia, a woman healer who is believed to have witchcraft powers. Soon terrible rumors are circulating about the daily life of the castle of Cachtice: the countess would kidnap young girls to torture and murder them. These denunciations are supported by local religious figures, and the countess is finally arrested at home. A trial follows, on the basis of testimonies extracted under torture. What if all these accusations were just the product of a political conspiracy?
- Anne-Perrine Couët – Steinkis
The “bloody countess” has conveyed a fertile imagination since modern times, making Elisabeth Báthory the first great “serial killer” in modern history. In the 18th century, the Hungarian writer László Turóczi brought this legend to life in his Tragica historialater taken up by the French surrealist writer Valentine Penrose in The Bloody Countess. The latter conceives a Gothic novel which equates Báthory with a witch and a vampire woman, who murders young girls to preserve her youth. Cinema and comics have also taken hold of this imagination, with among others Requiem, vampire knight which makes Báthory the wife of Dracula.
- Anne-Perrine Couët – Steinkis
It is the construction of this imaginary that questions, for her first album, the author Anne-Perrine Coüet, who offers a completely different reading – much more realistic – of Báthory’s life. At a time when feminism is once again questioning the figure of the witch who – far from being a creature of the devil, would rather be a woman healer emancipated from male guardianship – Anne-Perrine Coüet makes Countess Báthory a woman power and good manager, who is interested in the art of medicine. The trial of which she was the victim would be the product of a political plot, because the countess intended to support the claims of her cousin Gabriel Báthory, prince of Transylvania against the Habsburg emperor: his accusers would have relied on unfounded rumors which were circulating around Cachtice. The scrapbook’s thesis overlaps with the analysis of some historians, who rightly feel that it is difficult to give too much credence to confessions obtained under torture. While this argument appears justified, there is no definitive evidence that would exonerate or convict Báthory.
- Anne-Perrine Couët – Steinkis
Anne-Perrine Coüet’s pencil drawing, occasionally enhanced with black inking, fleshes out the protagonists of this story. The author mobilizes realistic decorations to reconstruct the interior of the castle of Cachtice – in ruins today – and summons the visual imagination that surrounds Báthory, with these images of spiders and a black plate which represents tortures such as we describe them. The boards thus skilfully navigate between fantasies and reality to reveal the life of a noble woman who undoubtedly possessed, in the eyes of her contemporaries, too much power. A nice surprise this fall.
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Báthory – Anne-Perrine Couët – the comic strip chronicle
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