The Case of Martin Guerre: Know Your Part, Play It Well – Part 3/4 (1556-1560)
Although the soldier’s accusation spread to Pierre, the fact was that almost no one else had met the soldier – and in fact, Pierre had only learned this information through hearsay. However, it was shortly thereafter that a local seigneur’s barn burned down, and for some reason, the new Martin was charged with the crime. Martin was thrown into prison, and having him right where he wanted, Pierre pressured the seigneur to complain not only about the barn, but to also claim Martin had “usurped the marriage bed of another man”.
The people of Artigat were torn – they refused to believe that a woman of such high character as Bertrande could lie about something like this, and after all, Martin had become very popular and was considered one of the most upstanding men in the whole village! In the confusion, people began to take sides – but fortunately for Bertrande and the new Martin, all the ‘evidence’ against Martin’s arson was flimsy and easily dismissed, and he was soon released from prison.
Of course, this failed attempt simply made Pierre even more determined, and in 1559, the first fumble was made that finally saw Pierre gain the upper hand: Martin was recognized as someone else. In fact, the first person to call ‘Martin’ out on his falsehood was an innkeeper from a nearby town, recognizing him as a man named Arnaud de Tilh, nicknamed “Pansette”. Although the innkeeper agreed to keep quiet about the incident, someone else in the area also recognized him as Pansette – and, knowing who it was, the new Martin fell out of character and asked the man to take several handkerchiefs to his brother, Jean de Tilh. Despite Pansette’s efforts to keep things quiet, Pierre got word of the incidents and was now able to name his nephew’s imposter: it was Arnaud de Tilh, a man of questionable reputation from Gascony.
With a bit of legal conniving, Pierre initiated another case against Pansette, presenting himself as working on behalf of Bertrande de Rols. Somehow, he managed to have a formal inquiry opened concerning the identity of the man who had claimed to be Martin Guerre for the past three years – and under pressure from both Pierre and her mother, Bertrande was eventually forced to support the charges. He was arrested in the French commune of Rieux in 1560, where the initial stage of the trial was held.
Although Bertrande initially testified that she thought at first that Pansette was her husband Martin, and had only later realized her mistake, it did not take long before some of Pansette’s supporters informed the judge that she was testifying against her will. The judge was not impressed, and decided to call 150 witnesses from the surrounding area. All of the witnesses agreed only on one thing and one thing alone: that in the past, the accused had greeted each of them by name and recalled things about the past that they had done many years before. Some witnesses were members of Arnaud’s family, who swore they knew him as Pansette, while all of Martin Guerre’s sisters were determined that this man was their older brother.
During their independent questioning periods, Bertrande and the accused man each related an identical story – independent of each other – about their intimate lives before Martin Guerre’s disappearance in 1548. Later on in the proceedings, the new Martin even challenged his wife, asking that if she would swear that he was not her true husband, he would gladly and willingly agree to be executed. Instead, Bertrande remained silent.
Thoroughly confused, the judge decided he would simply declare Arnaud de Tilh guilty of fraud and abuse against Bertrande de Rols, leaving the door open for an appeal to the Parliament of Toulouse. Martin’s case was to be tried at the high court…
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Tomorrow: The real Martin returns
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