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The Return of Martin Guerre

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Review

“A fascinating reconstruction of a famous incident of impostorship and love in sixteenth-century rural France. Davis delicately deploys historical fact to suggest what is singular about the modern individual.”―Todd Gitlin, The Nation“Natalie Zemon Davis…has scoured the legal and notarial records of south-western France to recreate for the reader not merely a highly entertaining story but a vivid picture of the world which fashioned its principal characters. Her observations on property rights, inheritance, customs, family relationships and the mechanisms of the law are welded together by a rare blend of historical craft and imagination… Professor Davis’s ability to combine lively narrative, wit, historical reflection and psychological analysis will ensure for this book a wide audience. It is truly captivating story with which to pass a rainy weekend; it is also a brilliantly professional reconstruction of the rural world of sixteenth-century France, which will both stimulate and inform for many years to come.”―David Parker, Times Literary Supplement“In her intelligent and subtle analysis, the story gives an inside view of an otherwise little-known world, the private lives of peasants… Natalie Davis has also collaborated on an excellent film of the story (produced in France) as well as writing this book… One can only admire Natalie Davis for the major work of historical reconstruction she has performed without any kind of ideological bias… About Martin Guerre, I would say, without hesitation, the movie was great, but Natalie Davis’s book is even greater.”―Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, New York Review of Books“Davis combines a veteran researcher’s expertise with a lay reader’s curiosity and an easygoing style. She draws on sophisticated…work in land tenure, legal rights, and demography to reinterpret a ‘prodigious history’ among the French peasantry… Davis’s book combines ingredients essential to good social history―painstaking historical research and a vividly empathetic imagination. The result of this happy combination is that character emerges in context… Davis’s book balances possibility and constraint, character and situation. It puts people back into history but doesn’t take the social and political forces out of it. The universal is there in particular, and it makes you think not only about their choices then, but about ours now.”―Pat Aufderheide, Village Voice“Written in a lively prose style that is accessible without ever being simplistic. The Return of Martin Guerre may be the most vivid, informative and entertaining history writing since Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror…a rich and colorful picture of life, love and justice in 16th-century France.”―Robert C. Cumbow, Seattle Times“The fullest account to date of this extraordinary tale. Davis has constructed a fine piece of social history, a look into the lives of 16th-century peasants who left no records because they could neither read nor write.”―Jean Strouse, Newsweek“A fascinating anecdote, with enough colorful background, psychological complexity, and unsolved mysteries to delight any intelligent audience.”―Kirkus Reviews

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About the Author

Natalie Zemon Davis is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Emerita, Princeton University.

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Product details

Paperback: 162 pages

Publisher: Harvard University Press (1983)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0674766911

ISBN-13: 978-0674766914

Product Dimensions:

6 x 0.5 x 9.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.0 out of 5 stars

66 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#23,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

A fascinating story of deception, identity theft, and vagaries of memory.The time is 16th century. Place: Artigat; a small village in Languedoc, just south of modern-day Toulouse. Martin Guerre is the son of a peasant family who migrated to France from Spain's Basque region. Martin marries Bertrande. But after having a child, 24-year old Martin first steals grain from his own father (a vile act with serious consequences back then) and then runs away from his village for a life of adventure in Spain. His place is soon taken by Arnaud du Tilh, an audacious liar from nearby Sajas, who shows up at Artigat claiming he's the long-gone Martin Guerre.This is of course a story that cannot take place in the era of Facebook and Internet databases. But back then no villager has any photos taken or paintings made. No one actually has a firm description of the original Martin. Even though he is not as tall and thin as the Martin the Original, Martin's four sisters testify that the stocky Arnaud is indeed their lost brother. Go figure.That may be hard to believe but what to make of Bertrande who accepts the fake Martin as her real husband and admits him to her bed to give birth to his children? Can a woman's memory get that frail within such a short period of time? Or did she talk herself into that relationship thinking she can back out of it anytime she wanted by claiming she was deceived? We'll never know.What we know for sure is, Bertrande and the Fake Martin build for themselves a stable and almost exemplary marriage which lasts three years. The honeymoon ends when hubris rears its ugly head. The Fake Martin feels so confident in his new skin that he tries to sue Pierre Guerre (Martin's uncle) over property rights and inheritance. That's when Pierre, who is already suspicious of the Fake Martin's identity, sues Arnaud for identity and property theft, which can be punished by death.At the trial, the Fake Martin defends himself with remarkable vigor thanks to his prodigious memory. He quotes so many correct details about his past relationship with the Artigat residents that some judges start to think he might be the real Martin Guerre. That's when the real Martin, who has lost a leg in a battle while serving the Spanish King, shows up at the doorsteps of the courthouse in Toulouse and declares himself.At the end, Arnaud cannot maintain the facade to the bitter end and is forced to get down on his knees and admit his crime. After a public hanging, his body is burned to erase his memory for eternity.What's fascinating to me is the seriousness with which a 16th century French court approached the lawsuit. The judges listened to hundreds of witnesses and tried every method they could think of to trip the Fake Martin and force him to reveal himself. If you're one of those who think that modern monogamy is an invention of the Victorian era, it's instructive to read that in 16th century France, the punishment for adultery was death. The mad courage of an impostor to take on a whole village and the mental energy he brings to the job at hand at the risk of death is nothing short of fascinating. No wonder the story was made into a movie, starring the lantern-jawed Gerard Depardieu.As I was reading this story I was amazed at the professional discipline with which the lawyers and judges of the time have handled this case. Reputations were on the line since the French judges were already an autonomous body of professionals back then with careers to build and images to protect. They were in competition with one another for glory and cash. That much is certain. But they were also struggling with the technical details such as interrogating the suspects, recording testimonies, deciding on how to use one testimony against another, sifting out motivations and contributing factors, thinking and weighing all the different possibilities, etc., all the while trying to stay within the bounds of the law. The author lifts the dusty covers of an opaque past and treats us to an illuminating look at what perhaps Max Weber would've called the "bureaucratization" of the judiciary process.Another reason why I was enamored by this book is the way it portrays in rich detail the unnerving frailty of human memory; the way our memories are bent out of shape for a long list of reasons. Memory is identity. If we can't trust our memories, how can we trust our identities? How can we trust a court testimony or a simple recollection when not one, not two, but FOUR sisters bear false testimony about the way their very own brother looked, walked, and spoke? Can such a thing happen in our own society today? I hesitate to say "no".A great and easy read. A page turner and a thriller that you can finish in a single day. Highly recommended.

The story of Martin Guerre is a conundrum that's inexplicable. How could a husband and wife not know each other? How could an imposter who did not have a Basque accent fool his in-laws and the rest of the village? Davis does an interesting but only okay job with the evidence, projecting onto the motivations of Ms. Guerre without any evidence very modern values that just don't seem plausible for her society.

This is not a new work. Far from it. It is an infinitely beautiful work, and beautiful book. However do not confuse the beauty of the work, the research, the import with the underlying cruelty and harshness of this every day life. Alas, some things never change.

I enjoyed reading it. Very clever situation. Watched the movie as well. Slightly different, of course. I liked the book better.

Love the way this book is written. The information is given in a beautiful way.

Natalie Davis's Return of Martin Guerre is quite possibly the most fun you'll have reading a work of history. Davis has a good grasp of how to tell a story, and she constructs her tale like a detective mystery, complete with dramatic irony, suspense, and a twist ending.The Return of Martin Guerre concerns the Guerre family, a 16th-century clan who lived in Artigat, a village near Toulouse in the south of France. Young Martin marries Bertrande, the daughter of another Artigat family, and the young pair are incapable for years of having children. Turns out Martin is impotent, and the family believes he is under a spell. After years of marriage with no offspring, Martin is miraculously cured and he and Bertrande have a child. Shortly thereafter, Martin steals from his father and flees the village.And then no one sees hide nor hair of Martin for eight years. Bertrande refuses to take another man and lives with Martin's uncle, who has married her mother. The whole village is surprised when, after eight years, Martin returns--shorter, stockier, lighter-skinned and with smaller feet. But he knows everything that Martin should and so the people welcome him home and Bertrande returns to married life with "the new Martin."More years pass and, when Martin tries to retake control of his family's finances, his uncle takes him to trial as an imposter. The rest of the book is a dramatic court case. Is this the real Martin? Why does he look so different, and if he's an impostor, how did he know what he did when he showed up? Why hasn't anyone questioned him before? The courtroom drama builds in tension like the most modern of thrillers, and the dramatic showdown between "Martin" and a late arrival to the case is shocking.That's what I loved about the book--Davis knows how to tell a story, and tell it well. And the book is short, easily read within a few hours (if you're a slow reader, like myself) or 45 minutes (like some of my friends).Unfortunately, I have to disagree with most of the conclusions Davis draws from the story. She clearly views Bertrande as some kind of proto-feminist hero, "self-fashioning" her own life, collaborating with a liar against her family by choosing to take in a man she knew to be an impostor. But none of the evidence Davis examines back up her conclusions. The judge whose book she uses as a source believed Bertrande totally innocent of complicity with the impostor, as did everyone else back then. And while it was interesting to view the events of Martin Guerre's life against the backdrop of the Protestant Reformation, then taking Europe by storm, it's quite a stretch to break the imposture case down along those lines.The flaws of Davis's book are not unique--they're common to all "microhistory," histories that try to build on tiny events that, by their very nature, often lack detailed, complete evidence, and often important evidence at that. But in the end, Davis's book is so well-written and enjoyable I'm willing to forgive it its faults and enjoy it for what it is--a rousing medieval tale with a healthy dose of speculation.Recommended.

fun read

very slow & too many details absolutely not necessary, but research the author made is commendable.

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