The Case Of Martin Guerre

Impersonating another with the intent to defraud was seen as a serious crime in sixteenth-century France. Since the proper resources needed to find proof were scarce, the court's decision depended on the accurate and truthful word of witnesses. In this case, the honor and life of a man was at stake. But, what if an individual’s identity could be confirmed without legal documentation? With the proper tests of the defendant’s memory, it would be possible to locate the true Martin Guerre.
There was no fixed penalty for the crime, but when the king’s lawyer and Bertrande de Rols were called, the accused was threatened with more than fines. If convicted, he might be sentenced to physical punishment and even death. In this situation, when the honor
Nor was the judge satisfied with the testimony, he wanted to learn more about this enigmatic peasant woman from Artigat, the reputation of the other witnesses and the identity of the prisoner. One hundred and fifty people came to Rieux to testify before the trial was through. Forty-five people or more said that the prisoner was Arnaud du Tilh alias Pansette, or at least not Martin Guerre, since they had eaten and drunk with one or the other of them since childhood. About thirty to forty people said that the defendant was surely Martin Guerre; they had known him since the cradle. Those witnesses who have known Martin Guerre before he left Artigat stretched their memories twelve years back. Some witnesses maintained that Martin had been taller, thinner, and darker than the accused, had a flatter nose, a projecting lower lip, and a scar on his eyebrow which was nowhere to be seen on this
mother to a son, working on establishing a new footing with her mother-in-law, loses Martin without a trace. This was a catastrophe. For the Guerre’s from the Basque country, here was yet another scandal to live down. Martin’s parents died without news of their son. The elder Sanxi finally forgave him, leaving a testament naming Martin as heir both to the property in Hendaye and the lands in Artigat. For the time being, Pierre Guerre would be the administrator of the considerable properties of his late brother and the guardian of Martin’s unmarried sisters. At some point in those years Pierre Guerre made an effort to salvage the relationship between the Guerres and the Rols and to help Martin’s abandoned wife. Now a widow with daughters of his own, he married Bertrande’s widowed mother. Bertrande’s mother would have brought whatever money or goods her husband had left her in the event that she remarried; Pierre would have made promises to support Bertrande and her son Sanxi; and they would have decided how to share any newly acquired goods. The neighboring house in which the old and young landlord had lived was presumably leased for short terms – no one would have trusted the young Bertrande to maintain it under the circumstances – and Pierre took over the headship of a household of mostly females on his own