The Return of Martin Guerre

Davis describes in this chapter the events that led up to Arnaud’s arrival to Artigat and the circumstances that permitted Arnaud to pass successfully as Martin Guerre. In the days before Arnaud’s arrival to Artigat, twelve years after Martin’s departure, Arnaud stayed at a hostelry in a nearby village. Arnaud spoke to the hotelkeeper affectionately about Bertrande and young Sanxi Guerre, his so-called wife and son, and soon “[t]he words spread to his four sisters, who rushed to the inn, greeted him with delight and went back for Bertrande” (42). Davis supposes that Bertrande was surprised to see him, as he now had a beard, but when he spoke to her of their past, she became convinced. Similarly, “Pierre Guerre looked him over steadily as well and did not believe he was his nephew until he reminisced about their activities together. Finally Pierre embraced him and thanked God for his return” (42). This pattern repeated itself over and over when the new Martin encountered other people in Artigat, and he explained that he had been “serving in the army of the king of France, had spent some months in Spain, and was now eager to be once again in his village with his relatives, his son Sanxi, and especially his wife Bertrande” (43).

For three years, the new Martin and Bertrande lived peacefully in “the invented marriage” (44). Davis asserts that Bertrande must have known that the new Martin was not her husband, and that she entered into the charade knowingly, as “[w]hat Bertrande had with the new Martin was her dream come true, a man she could live with in peace and friendship (to cite sixteenth-century values) and in passion” (44). They had two daughters together, and “one died, but the other, Bernarde, became Sanxi’s little sister” (44).

Davis discusses the marriage in this chapter as well as Arnaud’s seeming true love for Bertrande and her true love for him. Davis also describes the open terms around the tradition of marriage that may have made Bertrande’s self-justifications of bigamy possible: “if they took each other as husband and wife in words of the present, even in the absence of the priest or any witness, exchanged tokens of consent, and especially if they then went on to have intercourse, they were joined in an indissoluble union” (46). Though this tradition perhaps allowed Bertrande to feel she was not breaking any laws, this tradition did not protect their Catholic souls, which is why, Davis claims, “the new Martin and Bertrande de Rols were becoming interested in the new religion” (48) of Protestantism. After 1545, the new marriage laws in Reformed Geneva meant that “marriage was no longer a sacrament” (50) and “a wife abandoned by her husband…could after a year of inquiry obtain from the Consistory a divorce and permission to remarry” (50).

In this chapter, Davis outlines the events that led up to the new Martin’s imprisonment, a situation that eventually led to the trial that exposed Arnaud’s fraudulent life. Though the new Martin seemed to fit in well with his new family life, and he seemed to adapt quickly to his life on the farm, his peaceful existence unraveled when “he tried to take commercial advantage of the properties that Sanxi Guerre had carefully acquired in Artigat and passed on to his heir Martin” (52).

Though Bertrande may have been pleased with her husband’s business acumen, Martin’s uncle Pierre was not impressed with the plan to sell family property, a plan that violated Basque custom. To make matters worse, the new Martin offended Pierre when he “asked Pierre to give him the accounts he had kept after the elder Sanxi’s death” (52), implying that “Pierre was withholding some of the inheritance” (53). Family jokes about the situation persisted until 1558 or 1559, when “the new Martin brought a civil suit against Pierre before the judge of Rieux” (53).

This family upheaval gave Pierre reason to revisit his initial doubts about the new Martin, and “Pierre convinced his wife and sons-in-law of the terrible truth” (54): the new Martin was an imposter. From then on, “Pierre Guerre went about telling everyone that the new Martin was a faker who had tricked him” (54). Some villagers took Pierre’s side, and others took Martin’s side, and for over a year, the family dispute carried on, and there was nothing the consuls of Artigat could do to bring order.

This conflict could have carried on for years but for two important events that took place in the summer and fall of 1559. Firstly, a soldier passing through Artigat claimed to know the real Martin, who had a wooden leg, and “seeing the disputed man, announced to witnesses that he was a deceiver” (56). Secondly, a seignior of a nearby town, Lanoux, accused the new Martin of arson when his farm building burned down, and he had the new Martin imprisoned in Toulouse. According to Davis, “in the course of his complaint—evidently tipped off by Pierre Guerre—he told the judge that the prisoner had ‘usurped the marriage bed of another man’” (57).

At this point, Bertrande and the children again had to move back to live with Bertrande’s mother and her stepfather, Pierre. At this time, Pierre pressured Bertrande to accuse the new Martin of being an imposter. Pierre hunted for information to support his accusation of the new Martin, and it turned out that “[t]he new Martin himself had left clues in the course of his travels” (58). These clues helped Pierre name the new Martin as Arnaud du Tilh. Then, Pierre lied to the judge of Rieux, claiming that Bertrande had sent him, and “he got permission to have a formal inquiry opened about the man calling himself Martin Guerre” (58). The new Martin returned home from prison in January 1560 only to be seized the next morning and taken to prison in Rieux.

Davis points out at the end of this chapter the impact of the lies of Arnaud and Pierre, and their impact specifically on Bertrande. Davis believes that Arnaud was clearly secure in his position as the new Martin and that Bertrande was secure in her position as his wife and mother to their children; Pierre’s accusation upset the balance of these situations, and now Bertrande had to keep her wits about her in case she was revealed to be a bigamist: “The stubborn woman calculated and made her plans. She would go along with the court case against the imposter and hope to lose it…But given all her doubts and the close calls of the past few months, she would also be prepared to win the case” (61).