Guerre

It is a popular dramatic ruse.

I am talking about a plot line in a book, play or film when an absentee character makes a return to their family after many years away and attempts to resume his or her life as though no time has elapsed. The returnee is lovingly and unquestionably accepted back into the fold with everyone just pleased to see that they are safe and sound. This is in spite of the original disappearance being the catalyst for considerable sadness, a sense of abandonment, bereavement, public humiliation and hardship .

Gradually, however,there comes a realisation, from small suspicions and inconsistencies in behaviour or fact that the individual may be a stranger and impersonating the loved one. The motivation for the imposter to risk being unmasked could be criminal through the perpetration of theft or fraud or simply to feel wanted and to salvage a life that may not have been available in their own lives to date.

We have all come across this type of scenario in literature or on the big and small screens.

In 1993 the Hollywood movie machine brought out Sommersby on this same impersonation synopisis and set around the events and aftermath of the American Civil War. Season Nine of The Simpsons saw the School Principal, Seymour Skinner exposed as an imposter upon the return of the real Skinner character to Springfield. In more recent productions even Don Draper in Mad Men used impersonation to get himself into the Advertising business which made him his reputation and fortune.

All of these, on first impression, seemingly far fetched plots are based in fact from 16th Century France involving the fascinating story of a peasant ,Martin Guerre.

There are contemporary accounts of what transpired in the village of Artigat which lies to the South of the regional city of Toulouse in the Languedoc. One such was written by one of the original Trial Judges, Jean de Coras and published in 1565, only nine years after the events played out.

At the very young age of 14 Martin Guerre entered into marriage with Bertrande de Rols, the daughter of a well off, by local standards, artisan family. She is thought to have been only 12 at the time but it was a typically arranged affair attracting a dowry of vineyard lands, monies and chattels including a bed and linen.

The couple, very much a focus of attention in the village felt under pressure. Martin may have been impotent or not even at puberty and behaved very much to form for a teenager showing an affinity for swordplay and acrobatics rather than fatherhood and responsibility. This meant that after 8 years of marriage there was still no offspring. Religious fervour and atheist superstitions, of equal influence in the lives of the rural population surfaced with four Catholic Masses being called and even a claim from Bertrande that Martin had been bewitched so as to be infertile. A first child was conceived shortly after the rituals but Martin felt trapped and overwhelmed.

In 1548, aged 24, he fled Artigat, abandoning his young wife and child. This had catastrophic consequences for Bertrande. Nothwithstanding the gossip and stigma she was, under Catholic Canon Law, prohibited from remarrying without certain proof of her husbands death.It would be a perilous existence for her.

In 1556, a man arrived in the village and presented himself as the missing Martin Guerre.

His first contacts upon arrival had been two former acquaintances who immediately recognised their friend and bore him triumphantly to Bertrande. Whether completely fooled or just resigned and happy to have any man to help and support her after her enforced hardship Bertrande took the new Martin in and they co-habited for the next three years having two children although only one surviving infancy.

This caused jealousy and hatred amongst the wider family and disputes began over the witholding of inheritance monies. The suspicions over the authenticity of the new Martin were assisted by the feuding. Investigations were conducted on a clandestine basis by the non-believers.

A soldier, passing through Artigat, claimed to have known Martin Guerre and remembered him well as having suffered a leg amputation from the war with Spain in 1557. Others expressed their suspicions over the physical height of the man, a lack of athletic prowess so ably shown in his youthful years, his odd pronunciation of certain words and an absence of everyday conversational traits.

Bertrande accepted the new Martin wholly even under constant pressure from her side of the family and what was becoming a convincing body of evidence exposing him as a fraud.

Other witnesses came forward to testify that Guerre was in fact an Arnaud du Tilh, a well known opportunist and reveller from a village only, as the crow flies, twenty five kilometres away from Artigat.

A formal enquiry was called to try to reveal the true identity of the man.

Some 150 testimonies were heard but there was an almost equal split between those convinced that Guerre had returned and those who recognised du Tilh.

The presiding judge was confused but declared that a crime had been committed, specifically  a fraud and the subsequent abuse of Bertrande.

An Appeal was heard at the Parliament of Toulouse where the main recounter of the story, Jean de Coras, officiated.

Du Tilh was most convincing in his portrayal of Guerre, assisted by abilities that many now attribute to an exceptional memory, recall and acting ability. The position of Bertrande could have been difficult given her acceptance into her life and bed of a potential stranger which had set the local tongues wagging.

The final decision under the supervision of Coras was swinging in favour of the couple and they could have looked forward to a blameless return to Artigat had it not been for the very dramatic appearance in the Court of a man hobbling on a wooden leg.

He claimed to be the real  Martin Guerre and recounted a tale of his travels and experiences which rang true.

Du Tilh was sentenced to death by hanging for his heinous deception. Bertrande was spared the same fate because of her gender but there would be no happy ending for her as she had to face a life with the man who had deserted her all of those years ago.