Books

Ce n'est pas le Guerre

Eric Christiansen

The Return of Martin Guerre Natalie Zemon Davis (Harvard University Press £12.75)

It is a curious story. Martin Guerre was a young Basque farmer living in South- West France with a good-looking wife on a decent property belonging to his father. Then he was caught stealing a little of his father's grain, and suddenly disappeared. That was in 1548. His wife Bertrande and his little son then had to live without him for eight years, until it was rumoured that Martin was back, and staying at a nearby inn.

His sisters went out and welcomed him, and the rest of the village followed suit. His parents were dead, but his wife was there, and soon he was living with her once more and running the family property with some success. He had a daughter by Bertrande, and set up as a dealer.

Then his uncle began to quarrel with him over the way he was managing the property. In the course of the quarrel, he claimed that Martin was not Guerre at all, but an im- poster. Some believed this claim, but not Bertrande, or the other members of the family. However, the uncle eventually managed to bring him to trial by underhand means, and a large number of witnesses were summoned to identify him. Some 40 claimed that the defendant was Martin Guerre and nobody else. About 45 thought he was a rascal named Arnaud du Tilh, alias The Paunch. About 60 were undecided. The prosecution was evidently instigated out of personal enmity, and there was little about the young Martin Guerre which the accused didn't know when questioned; nevertheless he was found guilty of imper- sonation. He appealed to the High Court at Toulouse, and there was a second trial. Closer investigation almost convinced the judges that he had been wrongly condemn- ed. Witnesses were still equally divided on the subject of his identity, but his wife and his closest relations were unanimously in his favour.

Then the real Martin Guerre turned up, minus one leg. He had spent the last 12 years as a servant, a soldier, and a pen- sioner of Spain, and had decided to come home. Sensation in court. At first the im- poster brazened it out; then his supporters lost confidence in him, and finally, most reluctantly, his wife Bertrande. On 12 September 1560 the court sentenced him to death as Arnaud du Tilh. He confessed in public before the village that he had im- personated Guerre and deceived his wife and family, and asked them to forgive him. Then he was hanged, and his body burnt. Bertrande and the real Guerre were reunited, had more children and lived con- nubially ever after. The case became famous, and one of the judges wrote a book about it, considering the various questions it raised in detail. Three still need answer- ing.

Firstly, how did Arnaud du Tilh discover enough about Guerre to attempt the imper- sonation? He never confessed to meeting him, and was by no means his double: he was fatter, and his feet were smaller, apart from other differences.

Secondly, how did he manage to deceive so many people who could not have gained by conniving at the deception? Even a con- firmed non-hoaxer might be hard pressed to produced 40 testimonials that he had been the same man all his life. Thirdly: did the imposter deceive Bertrande, or was she his accomplice?

This book by Natalie Zemon Davis retells the story and attempts to answer these and other questions. She has also collaborated with Carriere and Vigne on the film Le retour de Martin Guerre. She writes as a social historian, knowing enough about the people involved, and others like them at that time and place, to make plausible guesses at how they behaved and at what actually happened, and how far the printed accounts can be relied on.

She suggests that the disappearance of Guerre left a gap in the family and the village which needed to be filled. He left a sort of widow, unable to re-marry or live in her own house. He left a father to die with his property heirless. He left a small son and four unmarried sisters in need of pro- tection. For these people, du Tilh was a godsend: an able, eloquent breadwinner, with eight year's roaming behind him to ac- count for his imperfect resemblance to Guerre. His ready memory for the details of his assumed past was satisfactory, in those circumstances.

Why did he do it? He was a known reprobate, who needed a new identity, a se- cond chance, such as other peasants won by migration or taking up careers; 'some of this went on all the time.' Perhaps he met Guerre; perhaps not. The historian cannot say. He claimed that he had been mistaken for Guerre before the idea of impersonation entered his head. If so, he could have ac- cumulated information about a well-known `lost person' by discreet eavesdropping in the district. Then he had only to start the rumour that Guerre was back; by appear- ing, he confirmed what everyone hoped was true.

Bertrande, Professor Davis claims, 'must have realised the difference.' But du Tilh was a better husband than the old one, who had been impotent for most of their mar- ried life, dissatisfied with his home, and dishonest in the end. She fell in love with du Tilh; she may never have loved Guerre. Furthermore, when it came to her cons- cience, there was a lot of protestantism about in the area, and both she and du Tilh may have been aware that the new religion allowed divorce for desertion, and spared them from revealing their secret in the con- fessional. If she believed that Guerre was really dead, a clandestine substitution was preferable to a remarriage: no new in-laws, no threat to the eldest son's inheritance, no expensive proofs to certify the death of number one.

However, Bertrande never confessed to having known that du Tilh was an im- poster, and the court at Toulouse upheld her honour and integrity against the reproaches of her first husband. Her child by the pseudo-Martin was held to be legitimate, conceived in good faith.

No doubt this obstinacy was also to her advantage. If she had confessed she could have been punished as an accomplice. Here we are in the dark. No amount of well- informed speculation can get to the truth. A long interview with Maigret would no doubt bring it to the surface, but that is the tragedy of modern French historians: they can never live up to Maigret, however hard they try.

Nevertheless, Professor Davis ends her book by claiming that she has 'deciphered' the story of Martin Guerre, and has 'un- covered the true face of the past.' She has done nothing of the sort. She has kept UP an intriguing flow of comment on a series of events that can never be deciphered, because no new evidence is likely to emerge. We still don't know how du Tilh stocked his artificial memory of another man's past, or why so many disinterested villagers took him at face value, or whether Bertrande was an accomplice or a victim. Social history is no substitute for police procedure in mat-

ters of detail like this, and police procedure is not infallible.

Professor Davis, and perhaps many others, appear to believe that no woman could fail to tell the difference between two Sleeping-partners, even after an eight year interval. This seems doubtful; a sexual superstition, if ever there was one. However, the question can be decided by experiment. Perhaps readers of the Spec- tator would care to make it; can they shed light on the matter as a result of past ex- periences? This sort of thing ought to be reduced to statistics as soon as possible. Letters marked with the code-word SEXY Will be set aside for analysis in a spirit of the utmost scientific impartiality.

Absolute confidentiality guaranteed.